Hostile Action Trial

[mockmods]

[As you all finish investigating, an electric chime rings out across the PA system.]

I believe that should be sufficient time for you all to prepare. Assistant, please escort everyone to the trial room.

[Penny emerges from the Security office again, head down, and slowly collects everyone; she leads you all to the east side of the common room, to the short hallway between dorms B1 and A2, that’s dead ended through your entire time here. As your group approaches, the wall seamlessly slides up to reveal a hidden doorway. Passing through leads to another short hallway and a small, round room, just big enough to hold all of you. Penny passes her ID over a small pad near the doorway, and it blinks green before the room lurches slightly beneath you; an elevator going down.]

[A short trip down leads you to a larger chamber, with a series of twenty-two podiums set up in a ring; in the center is a column of computer stations with large monitors, behind a set of thick metal beams with occasional faint flashes of energy arcing between them and a constant, low hum.]

Welcome to your first trial, Participants. You will use this time to determine which among your number killed the Legendary Bassist, and send them to justice. Failure to choose the correct culprit will have dire consequences for you all.

[Trial: commence.]

Comments

[scratchitti]

...maybe the mannequins were test runs? Make sure their machine worked as planned?

[mightdoriya]

It's possible. But they'd have to know that a mannequin isn't at all going to behave the same way an actual person would. Then again, maybe actually decapitating him wasn't their intention to start with. [He presses his fingers to his mouth, his eyes focused on his notes.] Someone was bleeding when in contact with the mannequins at some point, we know that much. It makes me wonder if some sort of struggle happened near them.

[scratchitti]

Might be. especially since the killer went to use the first aid kit they were probably hurt in the attack too.

[mightdoriya]

If I were to guess, the gauze was used to mop up a lot of blood. Possibly to stop a wound that was bleeding? And...I guess it was returned to the kit so that it wouldn't be found. If someone showed up with a bloody wound covered in gauze it would have been immediately suspicious.

[scratchitti]

Might be worth checking for wounds at some point then.

[mightdoriya]

[Izuku nods.] It's also worth considering that Yaiba could have been wounded before he was killed. [He lifts his head, looking up to the rest.] I couldn't find any wounds on him other than the near-decapitation, but I also didn't look thoroughly. Did anyone else find any other wounds on him?

[aragona]

I just looked at his head. [That makes sense.] The wound diagram didn't show anything other than the cut to the neck.

[mightdoriya]

Alright. So there's still a possibility someone else was injured, but there was a lot of blood around the body. The blood we've been finding could be from just the body alone.

[scratchitti]

True. Not like we can check blood types or anything like that...

[doppelanger]

Or cut themselves. This is not clean work, what they did -- and so many knives. Easy to slip or miss.

[scratchitti]

Absolutely. Ugh, what an awful way to die...

[He winces. He was more used to death than most but... nothing nearly so graphic]

[doppelanger]

Mm.

[ She has to keep on reminding herself of the fact that Yaiba was half-beast, because it makes it less bad. Abominations are supposed to be cleansed from the earth, and it doesn't matter how old they are, or how seemingly innocent -- Ania Kaminska was years younger than him. But with Tomas and all the copies so far away, her divine mission out of reach, it's somehow harder to keep any of that in mind. ]

They wanted it. But why?

[scratchitti]

The motives the Researcher gave us? But they really didn't seem important enough to KILL someone over.

[doppelanger]

And there were faster ways. We are not here long enough for anyone to be hating him so much, that they have to kill him like this. So I wonder, was that their purpose? Or are they just throwing everything at the first person they saw?