THIRD TRIAL

[whimsicalism]

To the court room. Make it quick, alright? I don't really know about any of you but I don't want to waste more time on a couple of bratty teenagers.

[The Queen still is silent as you descend to the court room. There are ten less of you than when you began. The podiums look empty as you go to them. Even if the podiums are getting empty, though, there is a new jury box near the Alices that is rather full... of ghosts of all the participants of the previous round you've discovered and of your dead compatriots. They don't talk but they're there. Judging. Always judging.

There is someone who doesn't notice this addition, though. Queen Alice.

The Queen is quiet but she's next to the Cat. Her head is bowed to her chest as she seems to sleep quietly. Then as movement she jolts up, smiling vaguely as she nods.]

Yes, a tea party--that's what we...need...

[Her head drops back to her chest as she falls asleep again. The Cat glances at her then back at the crowd with agitation.]

Someone is responsible for Lena and Neku's deaths. Do something about it, will you? Why did you even bring one of those ghosts in with you, anyway?

Comments

catherd

[strictura]

[ Ugh, they haven't made much progress at all after all this time, have they?

Nagisa sighs, crossing his arms. ]

All right... Let's try again to lay out what we know so far and narrow down our theories.

Lena's evil aunt, who may have been trapped in that amulet of hers before, emerged in one way or another this week when people's powers returned. She devised the knife pit trap. There was a struggle in Lena's room, and clay in her feathers -- this may imply that she was fighting her aunt for control of her body, and that her aunt won and set up the trap as planned.

Sakuraba formed a partnership with Queen Alice, presumably with the intention of having her die along with him in order to try to end the game. He was the one who brought the gun.

Both Sakuraba and Lena were shot. It's unclear at what point the gun changed hands, but Sakuraba had bruises on his arms, so he may have been restrained at some point and dropped the gun or had it taken from him. Since he had the power to levitate, the knife trap alone shouldn't have been able to kill him, so the gun would have been needed to do the job.

There was a bloody trail with drag marks and feathers in a zig-zag pattern leading from the pit through the playground to the beach. Presumably Lena was dragged this way after she was shot.

There was a pile of bloody, wet swimsuits at the beach next to the swimsuit rack, and it seems likely that they were used to transport Lena's body from the pit to the water. The only swimsuits that weren't wet and bloody were the extra large suits and the dog suits.

There was almost definitely a third person involved, because no one would have been able to drag Lena's body away if she and Sakuraba had both killed each other already. It also doesn't make sense for Sakuraba to have killed Lena himself if his intention was always to die to take Alice down with him.

The whole area was darker than normal, and according to Allen, Lena's aunt was some kind of shadow sorceress, so there was likely some kind of shadow magic in play, but I'm not familiar enough with magic to know what that might entail or how much it was involved.

[ Takes a breath... ]

We're still missing the most important details in the middle of the sequence of events. What should we look at to narrow things down further?

[golden_king]

She could've used dark magic to darken the area so she'd have the advantage over him in battle.

Though with narrowing things down...we could begin just start looking at people's clothing for stains? There's really nothing more obvious for us to start with otherwise.

Unless someone has a better idea.

[prescience]

If anything, there may be evidence of clay left behind, if someone physically needed to enter the pit, but I find the possibility unlikely.

[golden_king]

It's possible since pieces of clay could be hard to get out depending on where it gets...

[strictura]

I guess the candles could have been extinguished either manually or through magic...

[ Hm, wait. ]

Actually, it would be helpful to know whether "shadow" here just means darkness, or if it's literally the shadows cast by objects in light. If it's the latter, maybe the darkness would have actually stopped her powers instead of strengthening them, since you can't cast a shadow without light.

Unless the light of the amulet on its own was enough...?

[ GOD he just wants to narrow down ONE THING ]

[golden_king]

I think shadow could mean darkness in this case, since I was able to detect dark magic from the amulet.

Though I guess if you want to get technical, that shining from the amulet could've been a "dark light"! Which could've definitely been enough.

[ What We Do In The Shadows: Murder version. ]

[octopups]

[Clearly still shaken over having been declared low-key sus.]

U-um... didn't Lena's journal say something about "Tiffany" in the part that was written by her aunt maybe? Wasn't that the name of that money-eating shark thing?

[strictura]

Right. Using that was one of the potential murder ideas that was listed, but the knife pit was the method she ended up using.

[octopups]

Maybe... she brought the shark too, just in case, and it got out and... dragged her body around, or something...?

[Look there are only so many alive things in this castle that are as small as him.]

[strictura]

...Huh. That... could be possible? We didn't see any evidence of the shark there, though, did we?

[battlestations]

If Tiffany had broken the chain, there wouldn't have been anything left of it, for example...

[octopups]

O-oh... I didn't think of that... [Droops :( ]

[prescience]

If the chain on the amulet was broken, it was likely removed by force. If Lena-san did so, she may have been fighting against that control. If it was our third party, it might have made her unable to fight back without those powers.

Try as I might, I can't explain the trajectory of the blood trail here.

[battlestations]

....Well, the playground did have an incident in it. I can tell you that whoever shot the slide was doing it from a low angle. We could probably eliminate our taller suspects.