Take Responsibility.

[transmittable]

Four people were found dead this week. With that many down, it's difficult to ignore the drop in your numbers - you've gone from just under two-thirds to exactly half of your original number in one day. And given the way things tend to work around here, there are going to be even fewer of you left by the time the day is over. Is it wearing you down yet? Even if it is, the investigation period comes and goes, as it always does, and those doors in the center of the second corridor slide open for the sixth time in as many weeks. The fluorescent overhead lights of the operating theater fill the room with light, bright and steady, as soon as the first person walks in; as always, those seats surrounding the podium circle in the center of the room remain unsettlingly unoccupied. Six more have joined the ranks of the deceased this time, their absence glaringly obvious; Nozomi, Krauser, McGillis, Corrin, Rose and Rin have all had their absences acknowledged in the usual way, their greyed-out portraits set atop their black-swathed podiums, observing the proceedings with unseeing eyes. Once everyone has found their place in the circle, the public-address system crackles its way back on; the Transmitter can be heard throughout the room shortly thereafter. "Composed, Sororal, Gracious, and Courageous... They've all been killed. ...You guys know what to do. The number of victims doesn't, uh, change that. Put together your evidence, find whoever's responsible for these deaths. You know what'll happen if you can't. Good luck." Fifteen Patients remain. We'll see how many leave at the end of the day.

Comments

[crywiththesaints]

[Sakura sets down her janky prize machine camera and folds her hands over her podium with a frown.]

I inspected Fareed's body, which was found near Corrin's. The wounds were largely blunt force bruising from a flat object, particularly on his face and assorted parts of his body in front, and the back of his head was fractured; whatever got him hit on two fronts. He also had a bloody knife in his hand; Greed examined the other body in there, but she seemed similarly armed.

One might assume that they killed each other, but I think there's more to this.

[journalname]

[Asgore's form is bowed as he walks in, wrapped up in his cape like it's a blanket around his shoulders. He's quiet for a little bit, not seeming to pay attention to what everyone else is saying.

He is staring at Rin's podium, to his left.]

Rin...fought her attacker. [He says eventually.] A punching bag and the weights were scattered everywhere. I found two lighters among the wreckage.

And there was this. [He places a taser on his podium, shortly followed by the lighters.] It had been fired.

[preciousking]

There always is. [ How annoying. ]

[carnivorously]

It would be an easy trial if they had simply killed each other, but it's this far in, it can't be that simple.

[crywiththesaints]

Fighting with lighters? I suppose when there's an attacker, you use everything you can get your hands on.

[yourpiecenow]

So, somebody here might have marks left by that thing. [makes a kind of. snake fang hand gesture.]

[crywiththesaints]

Quite.

[Sakura draws out some photos of the injuries on McGillis and passes them around. They were taken with the crappy vending-machine camera, but that's all she's got.]

First of all, if Corrin's frying pan killed Fareed from the front, what got him in the back of the head? And secondly, the injuries with the frying pan only bled passively. As if they'd been inflicted after death to throw off investigation.

Greed, did her body look similar?

[crywiththesaints]

Don't tell me you expected this to be simple.

[preciousking]

... No. These things always take too long 'cause they're too complex.

[arebetter]

I handled the greenhouse. Where Rose was. She was uh. Stabbed all the way through by something. No other wounds, but... her eyes were closed, and there were traces of blood on them.

The grass by her body was also flat, like someone had been sitting there for a while, and there were some torn-up flowers nearby. I grabbed one.

[ She shows her I Can't Believe It's Not Queen Anne's Lace to the crowd. ]

[dangerousfool]

[Wheatley talks more serious than usual]

I went into Rin's room, and found a lot of stuff. I have...

[He puts a machete on top of his podium. It has traces of blood]

I have this. It isn't wet, so I suppose it was wiped? And there was also hydrogen peroxide and ammonia near the bathtub. Mixing those together is not a good idea. It'd release poisonous gas.

Rin's key was in her bathroom, too, and I don't think she slept at all last night. And...uh...

...there may have been someone else in that room? There was another pillow and blanket. So that's a possibility. That's all I found.

[ossifragant]

There might be more to it than that, but that's what it seems like. Corrin was holding a frying pan.

[preciousking]

It'd do what? [ To the hydrogen peroxide and ammonia comment ofc. ]

[carnivorously]

If that's the case, were you able to tell what the cause of death was?

[ossifragant]

It did, actually.

There didn't seem to be enough blood from the wound on her throat.

[imaginex]

... Tohsaka-senpai might've been planning on inviting one of the other victims to her room.

[A flat murmur from Sakura's place]

To keep an eye on them. She and Rose-san were close, as with Corrin-san.

[crywiththesaints]

So far, it appears to be the fractured skull. That injury was in the back of the head, while the ones inflicted after death were on the front of the body.

[imaginex]

Was there much blood on Corrin-san herself?

[crywiththesaints]

Which means they were killed and then the scene was set up to make it look like they'd finished each other off.

[carnivorously]

Do you think that Tohsaka had invited one of them over and then when she left her room and didn't return, they went to look for her?

[ossifragant]

There was.

I didn't find any other wounds on her body.

[imaginex]

Mm.

[A shrug]

That, or vice versa. Either way, that would give someone incentive to leave her room on a Thursday night when they know it's dangerous.

[preciousking]

Ah. Right.

A third person might've been there. I found a cigarette on one of the tables. Don't think Corrin was by it, and McGillis was somewhere near the entrance.

[dangerousfool]

A poisonous gas. It'd make an airborne compound that has the capacity to cause death. Not very pleasant. Painful.

Not the kind of thing you'd want happening in your bathroom.

[crywiththesaints]

A cigarette? Interesting. I know Matsuno smokes occasionally, and Kougami as if he needs it to live; does anybody else?