Take Responsibility.

[andexecutioner]

The door at the northwestern corner of the foyer is open. It's hard to say when it opened, but the fact of the matter is that it seems to have; it leads to a separate hallway that seems to run alongside the dormitories. The hall is long and dimly-lit, but it's illuminated well enough to make it plain that the walls and floor in here are different; they're far less designed to give off an impression of grandeur - if anything, it's claustrophobic back here: the walls are close and darkly-colored, and the entire area is barren until it opens up into the room serving as your destination. The room is circular and high-ceilinged, covered in more of the exposed wood that lines the rest of the building; there aren't any visible lights, however, which is...odd, given how bright the place is. It lends the entire area a sense of unreality; it's easy to distract yourself from it, however, once you notice this place's centerpiece. In the center of the room is a circle of podiums, thirty in total, arranged so that everyone standing at them can see each other. So everyone can look each other in the eyes, if they so choose. The podiums are interlocked - there's no cutting across the center of the circle, and for good reason, it looks like there's a lot of nothing down there where the floor should be - and each is bearing the title of the person who's assigned to stand at it. No names, just adjectives, emblazoned across two brass panels on the very top and the front of each podium. Affixed to the podium itself is a panel with buttons on it, and again, there are thirty in total; next to the buttons are smaller strips of engraved metal to serve as labels, bearing the titles of everyone that's been present in the facility, living or dead. All of the podiums are identical, except for the one intended for Sayaka. The podium that should bear Attentive's title has had a black cloth draped over it, and a copy of Sayaka's profile photo is sitting on top of it, framed and colorless, an image in greyscale. Juri is nowhere to be found in here, but that doesn't mean you're alone down here; the feeling that you're being watched is strong, and he'll wait until you've had time to take in what you're looking at before he addresses you - over the public-address system again, from the sound of it. "Attentive's dead, and somebody's to blame for it - but you guys get to decide whether Rule Seven's carried out or not. It's your job to hold them responsible for what they've done. Good luck in doing it."

Comments

[glaciates]

That vending machine's got all sorts of stuff in it, but it definitely does have some of the same items. I've gotten a couple of repeats.

[Of useless junk he doesn't want, yay!]

[gorira]

So, then, Sayaka and this guy both got this kind of knife from the vending machine...this guy came at her with a knife, and Sayaka used her own to defend herself.

[ Attagirl. ]

[glaciates]

Yeah, that sounds right. There's no way to figure out who would've gotten something like that from the machine though, is there?

[And it's not like anyone's going to confess to having the knife...]

[gorira]

Probably not, though I imagine the bastard would probably still have it on him? And even if he cleaned it, having one would still make him a possible suspect.

[glaciates]

Depends on when... when she died, I guess. If they had enough time to... to clean up, they could've had time to leave the knife in their room or something. There's no way we'd find it then.

[gorira]

Maybe, but it still can't hurt to check. Maybe they want to carry around anyway, for when they get out of here? Or they take it with them as habit, just to defend themselves? You never know.

[glaciates]

Yeah, that's possible. They didn't know what would happen after they killed her. Do you want everyone to empty their pockets?

[gorira]

Please. You're big and strong, so back me up on this, okay?

[glaciates]

[oh my god!!!!]

Um, yeah, sure.

[he is so easily mowed over by tiny cute girls this is almost embarrassing]

[gorira]

[ we in there ]

[losthisflower]

...Including weapons?

[glaciates]

I didn't see anywhere else that knife could've come from. The storage room didn't have anything like that and obviously it's not one of the knives from the kitchen.

[losthisflower]

[...Okay, if we can all just. Let AZ have a moment for that to sink in and promptly kill a bit more of his faith in humanity. Because apparently the machine can spit out knives for them at a moment's notice.]

...There is a machine giving us knives for the pure sake of inflicting harm. [...] I should not be surprised.

[glaciates]

The Adjudicator wants us to play his stupid game, why not make it even easier?

...Though to be honest I'm surprised he didn't leave weapons lying around for us to use. Putting them in the machine seems pointless.

[this is not helping at all but you know what, it feels good to bitch!!]

[losthisflower]

Mais bien sûr. Doing that would be simple. It would be more effective to leave receiving one such weapon up to a chance.

[Look, old men complain about things. It's the natural way.]