Post-Trial I Afterparty

[cellpreservation]

[They're down two of their number, and who knows how many more will follow, but for tonight at least... They have a chance to rest.

The school has already been cleaned, leaving no signs of the deaths that occurred on this very day, but that's just as well. After looking around to make sure of that much, Yuta marches into the kitchen and, after a bit of looking around, ends up gathering some snacks: boxed crackers and apple slices that aren't perfectly even in cut but look, he's not the chef of his group, he did his best. These he sets out on some plates in the cafeteria before finding his usual seat to lounge in, eating some apple slices off of a smaller plate he grabbed just for himself.

And then, he waits - to see who trickles in, and who doesn't.

Where is your character in the aftermath?]

Comments

[keyringwitness]

W- Wait, is this...

[Kuro had to be joking, right? There's no way something like this would just pop out of the- wait, Yasu was taking care of a nanny goat after it tumbled from the machine, this wasn't that implausible.]

A message bottle? Like, um, from And Then There Were None?

[copycut]

Bingo! Here— If you don't believe your eyes, [ she encourages, ] why don't you pop it open yourself?

[ There's a lot more words there than Kuro has had time to write herself, after all. ]

[keyringwitness]

[Yasu pops the cork on the message bottle like a bourgeoisie socialite opening champagne on New Year's Eve, eagerly diving in (previous sadness all but forgotten), then-

She recoils, and thought she can't see them, Kuro gets the feeling that her eyes are wide as saucers.]

W- W- What?!

How... how is this possible...

[Without waiting for a response from Kuro, Yasu begins rapidly flipping through the pages and god DAMN that girl can read fast.]

[copycut]

[ That's... an interesting reaction. Kuro leans in such a way that she can see the pages in Yasu's hands—even if the rapid flipping makes it a bit difficult to keep track of where she is in the text. ]

Huh...? What is it?

[keyringwitness]

This... whatever it is...

It's about the mansion where I worked. The island, the people who lived there- everything is correct, it's just... s- seven years in the future, I think?

[yasu has been under the impression the entire time that her world was distinctly nonmagical in the traditional sense what is happening]

[copycut]

Oh...? How interesting. [ peering even harder now ] I guess that just goes to show what we already knew. This place is outside of time, so both you and this bottle can exist here at the same moment.

[keyringwitness]

It's... probably just a story. [Probably.] I mean, you're right, but I can't imagine how...

...

...alright, Rokkenjima does have a lot of similarities to the settings of many different closed-circle mysteries, but I can't think of a single reason why anyone would commit a s- serial murder there.

[copycut]

Not to sound callous, but isn't that exactly why? Like the saying goes: Life imitates art. If Rokkenjima resembles the setting of a closed-circle mystery, then it should create the circumstances necessary to produce one.

[keyringwitness]

[That remark sets gears turning in Yasu's head that will only reach their destination weeks from now.]

I, um, guess so. M- Maybe life is art, if you think about it... no, that just sounds pretentious.