liar, liar.

A bit of time had passed since the deaths of the otome gamer and electropop artist, and once again things had grown quiet in Flagfall Manor. Quiet was never good - it meant the Black King was off hatching some sort of far-fetched motive, or planning surprise performances for his robotic son. Instead of wondering if he would gather you all again, you wondered when. 

The loudspeaker crackled to life. Ah, there it is. 

“You all know the drill. Foyer.”

As you all gathered it began to sink in just how few of you there were left. The group had been halved, and if this gathering was going to go where you thought it was going to go, it would soon grow smaller. 

“Good morning. I assume you all know why you’re here, so I’ll get to the point. Today’s motive is special. One of you has been working with me since the start - a traitor or mole, if you will. However, they aren’t exactly as useful anymore. I could just kill them myself, but they haven’t broken any rules. So I decided to make it into a game. The traitor counts as three people. Do you know what that means?”

Was he implying what you thought he was?

“That’s right. If you kill them and get away with it, you win. You get to go home. If you don’t...well, that’s unfortunate.”

And with that, he left. No parting words or anything. 

...

It’s weird how quickly one’s attitude can turn around when faced with certain death. A prime example of this would be the current case of Mathias Amrein’s acceptance of his fate.

There are equal votes for Kokoro Teishi and the Bancho of Ikebukuro. 

"The number is off."

Kouki waited for his opportunity to begin speaking, and quickly end this nonsense. for the fourth time, they had seen someone murdered, and for the fourth time they entered this room. The culprit would be found and dealt with in a speedy fashion, and they would return to their new status quo.

It felt more than a little tedious. Even so, Kouki felt an obligation to solve these murders, lest they somehow go unsolved. He would follow the trend of simple evidence, rather than immediately lay everything on the table. The time to deal with the killer's games would come soon enough. With that in mind, he elaborated on his statement.

"I say that, Kinokyu-kun, because there were actually two bottles missing. Not that the first was very far from its home. We found a bottle in the infirmary, completely empty. The other one was under Kaori-san's bed."

He delivered the second bottle's location with a neutral expression, seemingly unbothered by the fact that a tool of murder was hiding under the bed of someone he was so close to.

Here they were again. Another murder, another trial, another friend gone. Is this place trying to get them abandon all hope? At this rate, it's doing a good job.

The last trial hit him hard, and this one did not fail to meet those expectations. His roommate, a prince, is now dead. His kingdom probably relied on him, and now what will they do? The only think Kakeru can do is give them answers. What happened to Aimé and who could do such a thing.

In response to Kaori --

"Kaorikuma, let's assume that someone here maybe doesn't follow. So can we all agree to explain things very simply?"

For those that were wondering, yes Kakeru was referring to himself. He honestly had no grasp or idea on how this murder happened. What he knows is what was in the King's File. Oh, and one other thing.

These trials were getting repetitive -- Kaori was sure she couldn't be the only one who thought so. They filed in, ran their mouths, and a culprit was found without much issue.

Routine at its finest.

Kaori stood at her podium, hands folded in front of her as her eyes scanned over the other remaining students. The trial room was getting quieter, wasn't it? Even so, she cleared her throat before speaking.

"Well, then. Shall we?"

"Let's start with something easy -- The body. I assume -- or hope, at least -- that everyone is aware that our departed prince was killed through the use of Cyanide. It is most likely that the apothecary replaced the prop poison with it, considering the hastily discarded robes nearby."

Kaori looks back out at the rest of her classmates, glancing around expectantly at each of them.

It’s that time again. The investigations draw to a close as the Black King’s echo over the loudspeakers. 

“You know the drill.” he says, before the speakers die once again.

...

Someone wasn’t moving. 

You wondered if this person had fallen asleep after playing dead, however something in your gut told you something far more sinister had happened. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe you had been in this hellish game for so long you could sense death. Hesitantly, some of you approached a bit closer. And you found that your suspicions were 100% correct. 

After much preparation (or not), the day eventually came. Baby Pawn’s birthday, and although you weren’t sure why a talking pawn needed a birthday party, you had ultimately decided to follow the whims of the Black King. The show went on without a hitch, a surprising fact considering how things in Flagfall Manor typically went. The Black King had even been so nice as to provide monitors for knowing your scene, so those who had less stage time spent most of the time watching the performance from backstage. 

After what felt like seconds or ages (depending on how you viewed such affairs), the death scene arrived. Romeo killed Paris, before bringing him to the tomb. It was time. Romeo gave his monologue, before taking a drink of the poison.

O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.

And with that, Aimé convincingly fell to the ground. 

The play soon came to a close, with the all-too-familiar and tragic end of the young love’s demise. The curtain fell, and the Black King and Baby Pawn applauding. 

Following the announcement of the play, you all had gotten to work (or not!). Whether it was out of actual, genuine love for theatre or fear of what the Black King would do if the performance was bad, the atmosphere of the manor had changed.

As the time motive tended to come around drew closer, you wondered if the king would give you a break this time - 

“Make your way to the foyer.” 

Guess not. Whatever. You made your way as usual, wondering what the King had in store for you this time. Hopefully there wasn’t another roulette wheel. As you filed in, the Black King counted off heads. 

“10...11...OK, that’s everyone. This week’s motive is simple. What year is it?”

A couple of you hesitantly murmured the answer. Why was he asking this anyways? 

“Interesting. You have a number off. You see, you all aren’t actually incoming Hope’s Peak students. You’ve been students for about a year or so - we’ve just wiped your memories prior to your arrival at Flagfall Manor. If you kill and get away with it, you may obtain all your memories during your time at Hope’s Peak.”

And with that, he left. 

It had been a week since the deaths of Toshiko and Verruct, and the subsequent execution of Niru. A week of absolutely nothing - no motives, no fighting, nothing. The Black King was even lurking around the halls less. You wondered where he went off to when he wasn’t bothering the remaining students. 

When the intercom finally buzzed to life, a feeling of dread went off in your gut. Was it time for another motive? The Black King’s familiar voice surrounded the Manor.

“Please make your way to the amphitheater right away.” 

The... the amphitheater? Well, that was different. Maybe the king wanted to go outside. Maybe he liked the way the sun gleamed against his edgy crown. A bit confused, you made your way to the amphitheater anyways.

Of course, the king was waiting for you. However, the expression on his face was not one of sick anticipation. This was weird.

“Good, that’s everyone. No motive just yet, but there’s something I wanted to talk to you about. I’m sure you all know my son. He runs that odd little shop on the first floor. I don’t understand why he did it, but his eye for business is impressive.”

He was talking about Baby Pawn. The foul-mouthed little chess piece that you all tolerated solely because of materialism. 

“Anyways, it’s his birthday soon. And you all are going to give him the best birthday a chess piece could ever want. Throw a party, whatever it is that kids do these days. One more thing - lately he’s been super into theatre for some reason. So you all are going to put on a play.”

He grabbed a random stack of scripts, tossing one or two at each person. You looked at them, only to find that you were playing Romeo and Juliet. Lovely. 

Niru trembled a bit, keeping a sad smile plastered on their face. They had no objections. They knew what they deserved. Even if they had any kind of doubt, there was no place for it now.

Niru Nanzo would finally get what they wanted.

Niru Nanzo: 7 Henry Mullins: 1 Kakeru Kinokyu: 1  Banchō of Ikebukuro: 1  Ichiko Inuzuka: 1 (defaulted) Aimé Chevalier: 1 (defaulted)

...

Kaori had remained silent for the trial so far, wanting to see what her classmates had figured out on their own... Which, as it stood, was sort of a bit, she guessed, but there was a detail not yet mentioned that she felt very, well... Worth mentioning.

"Excuse me," she started, raising a hand as she attempted to gather everyone's attention.

"While on the topic of Ryuzaki-san, I would like to bring to light the contents of her pockets. She was carrying a friendship bracelet with traces of blood on it. According to Baby Pawn, the only people who received the friendship bracelets were Kinokyu-kun and Teishi-san."

The girl's expression turns serious -- hardened, almost -- and she crosses her arms.

"Don't worry, Nanzo-chan, you're probably just shaken by the whole dead boyfriend thing. Leave the genius work to me this time~!" Kokoro, you're not helping. What Roxanne said sounded good too… or at least, most of it did. Kokoro had had plenty of time to reflect on things, though, and her anger from earlier had shifted gear to become something more akin to moving shit along. Mostly because she would totally get a kick out of directing the flow of things, but also because she was reasonably confident in her chocolate-induced brilliant analysis.

On the other hand, she completely missed the subtle cue to leave the specifics of ‘certain means’ alone and promptly attempted to blurt out her agreement. “Yeah! That stupid note to Verruct-chan, saying all that horrible fake stupid idiot garbage about him?! And of all people to fuckin’ fake it from, it had to be Ba--”

“Bad. It had to be bad! Hahahaha~!~! OKAY, MOVING ON FROM THAT~!~!~!” I didn’t know tildes could be nervous, and neither did Kokoro until approximately right now ago. God. Anyways, after a few seconds of the worst attempt to regain composure following a verbal blunder since the last time I, in real life, attempted to do an oral presentation in class, Kokoro cleared her throat, shook her head, and started off somewhere else.

“For the most part, Kagome-chan, I agree with you~! Considering what Ryuzaki's secret was, it wouldn’t be any surprise. I mean, Verruct-chan was nice, but he was also--” okay, she’s gonna take a second on this one, “--sensitive. Like, the kind of sensitive that someone like Ryuzaki probably had plenty of practice with. ” She made a face, which was definitely not hypocritical coming from Ms. Snuff Films over here.

“But I’ve had some time to think while we were waiting - and let me tell you, those chocolates were REALLY good for the ol’ brainpower. And I was thinking, Verruct-chan’s wounds looked like someone who’s never held a knife in their life inflicted them. They were all messy and uneven, and I'm willing to bet my best ribbon that Ryuzaki herself would have gone one-and-done on it. So, Kagome-chan… what if instead, Ryuzaki was merely compliant in all of this? Wrote the note to incite everything and cleaned up the aftermath~! Making her a loose end that had to be tied up once she’d outlived her usefulness~! And what a shame that other killers didn’t have that idea before~!” And now she’s side-eyeing Soleil again. Holding grudges like that is not healthy.

Niru had been awkwardly standing at their podium, very visibly looking like they could shatter and burst into tears at a moment's notice. They simply nodded as everyone presented their evidence and theories. 

When Toshiko was mentioned...