#schtrial

There are... seventeen seats here.

Each seat has a large, laminated card set in front of it on the table.  The card... is of... you?

A gorgeous illustration, done in loving detail. Large and impressive -- facing out towards the rest of the group.  All of them seem to evoke your codename in some way -- CANDY CANE’s is of her designing a special device to help Santa pull his sled, surrounded by candy canes; BULLET’s, a depiction of her designing an animatronic that spits out bullets from its side; OBAMA’s....

....

You forgot someone here was deadass named OBAMA.

....

To... whoever designed this’ credit... that one is just... a girl sat on the steps of the White House, laptop on her lap and a drink beside her.

You’re sure the 44th president is snuck in somewhere.  Somehow.

....

At any rate, you’re all duly represented, and Gambit nudges you all to sit in your appropriate seats.  They’re plush.  Comfortable.

The seating arrangement is circular, and goes as so:

CRISPIN > DUCK > MONGREL > CASSINO > BULLET > JACKAL > DOLLY > PAGALLIACI > CANDY CANE > VALET > CAESAR > OBAMA > TIME > PINCER > TYPE > LOYAL > TROY > CRISPIN

....

And each seat seems to have... a deck of cards to the right, as well.

But that’s a surprise tool that will help us later.

As the vial was first handed to him, the Prince had scoffed.

“Do you offer us poison, Rabbit? This appears to be naught more than Windex.” 

… Still, both Chou and Sarara had downed it without any fuss, as were others; if it would ease this headache, perhaps death or full-on madness would have been worthwhile. Bottoms up.

The results were… more instantaneous than he was expecting. Almost immediately, his headache had faded and the cold sweat that had taken him over the past few days had seemed to vanish, as if from thin air… and in its place, his awareness was drawn to a newfound difficulty breathing. Sucking in a low breath, he reached up gingerly to touch… a dent he hadn’t quite conceptualized in his weakened state in the side of the bridge of his nose.

That… probably wasn’t good. And neither was the chill on his toes, or the draft on his… erm…

Where in the name of every great philosopher were his pants.

A faint memory came to him, one of authority being permitted to do whatever he desired in public. Meaning he… the entire time…. oh. Wordlessly, he pushed his former ‘cape’ from his shoulders in favor of tying it around his waist, hoping to preserve whatever scrap of modesty he had left. 

“……” 

Maybe this could be …. mmmm….  overlooked in light of the Shakespearean-esque tragedy unfolding near the elevator. As much pity as he’d felt for both of them, he faintly remembered their abuses and recalled having said his piece. He was staying firmly out of that one.

[cw: serious unreality episode]

Blank canvas.

That was what one always started with, wasn’t it?

And x-rayed past the layers, the hidden corrections, the undersketch… that was what always lay beneath even a masterpiece.

She’d only been an arm’s length away from Chou, when it happened. One more second, and she could have reached out and…

Ah. That was her arm, wasn’t it?

Oh, Chou was right there.

She’d studied French for a time, hadn’t she? Rococo, Fauvism, Surrealism… she’d always had an interest. And the words being spoken, combined with the half-finished picture she had of the girl before her, fit together to make… something Cubist. Unnatural angles, which together gave a complete perspective of a form.

Chou was the perfect name for a young person like myself, as it’s multifunctional…

We’re all going to die.

It seemed as though the rest of the room had vanished. Just an infinite, white net of identical points. Whatever Michiko and Yuka were saying was beyond the four corners of this frame. There was only… the girl before her, her dearest heart, just a pace or two away.

…How were they alive with their torso bent like that, anyway?

It took two steps for her to close the distance between them. Then, just a moment to sit seiza beside them, the pool of blood coming up to touch her knees like a slow tide. The sight was oddly… out of place, as though she was just sitting by the woman’s bedside, waiting for her to awaken again.

“You can’t die. They can’t kill you. I won’t let it happen. So don’t say farewell, Chou. Chou. Ch— Ch…”

The same words as before, this time in barely a whisper. It was clear they really were addressed to Chou, as though the other woman could listen now. The same full-body convulsion as before was slowly taking her over, her eyes glassy in total lack of recognition of the classmates before her. And then… as though the life was leaving her own body too, she slowly crumpled next to the corpse, her face just inches away from what had been the other woman’s.

A voice that wholly wasn’t her own left her, still quiet as a ghost. For a moment, it almost sounded like Chou’s spirit really had returned.

“Fate isn’t done… Oh… my… god…! I’m empty…!”

The fever had made Sarara truly fearless. At any other time in her life, she might never have accepted the antidote. But, seeing her girlfriend like this... she’d never been more certain that she needed to tell Monomi to lift the fever. If that was what it took for them to talk as the real Sarara and the real Chou, she would stare their death in the face with all the terror her heart could muster.

So, quietly, she chose fear. Fear, and tenderness, too vast for her to name.

Besides — she didn’t really think Chou Nakahara would go down that easily.

A sense of purpose none of her classmates had probably ever seen in Sarara before was present in her walk as she made her way to Chou’s side, downing the antidote in one shot. And then... for a moment she just gazed up very seriously, leaning up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her girlfriend’s ear, then fondly smoothing down the creases in their jacket.

“...Chou. I'm— so glad to see you again! I wanted to wait until... I could be truly certain it was ‘us’ speaking. And, well... I’m not sure whether what you said earlier was due to the despair fever, but I really wanted to talk to you about that.”

It was clear she had something big to say to Chou. Unusually straight to the point, and there was a strange, steely look in her eyes as they met her girlfriend’s. Was it the leftover adrenaline rush from the despair fever, or...? No. This was, without a doubt, the genuine Sarara Orikasa. The resolution in her eyes was different to minutes ago — not full of fearlessness, but something warmer, fixed entirely on Chou in that moment.

“...It’s... alright to be empty. You know that, right, Chou? It hurts, but... it’s not wrong. I promise I understand, because, well...”

A pause. She didn’t seem to want to focus this on herself — rather, her subtle goal seemed to be to give Chou something steady to focus on right now rather than imminent death — so she took another breath and tried again.

“Sometimes, I think, it’s impossible to escape the chains of fate or expectation fast enough. Or... even when you do break free, the damage can’t be undone. But, what we can do is... keep surviving until the very last. You were the one to remind me of that, Chou. We did that, together. And... for as long as you’d like me by your side, we’ll keep searching for a place where we can live the way we want to.”

Despite the urgent firmness of her words, the way she gathered her girlfriend’s hands between her own, strangely unshaking hands was nothing but gentle. So, in fact, was the chaste, tender kiss she then pressed to the gloved hands, eye contact still unfaltering.

“...I don’t wish to invalidate anything you said about yourself, but there’s one statement I truly need to correct. When you said you were nobody’s favourite person? You’re... well, you’re mine. And, more importantly than that, you deserve to fly free. I promise, my dear heart... you already are. Since the first time we spoke — I mean, really spoke — I’ve thought that if anyone could metamorphose beyond their fate, beyond anything, it’s you. But you don’t have to do it alone, Chou. Chou, I...”

Whether or not Sarara stated her love now, she was certain she was radiating it with every gesture. The fact had become impossible to hide. But... now wasn’t the time to selfishly state her emotions, and that really would give this speech the air of a goodbye.

Chou wasn’t going to die. She couldn’t. The very thought broke her heart with its impossibility. And she could profess every single feeling in that heart of hers, that heart that had grown so very large lately thanks to the woman by her side, once they were both somewhere far, far away from here. Right now, getting her girlfriend there was her duty.

“...I’ll... remind you of that every single day, you like, once we get the hell out of here. Ah... pardon my French. Now, my dearest... can I help you try and survive?

She stood there, miserable, as Genta began to speak. She hadn't really expected... a response, necessarily. But god, she hadn't been hoping for one from... well.

Genta or Sarara. Neither of them. She didn't want a response from either in regards to this mess. They thought it best to just... die and get it over with, but no. There needed to be a few more nails in the coffin, so to speak.

Every new thing he said just.. made her break a little bit more. There wasn't any good reply to be made; he was justified, certainly speaking the truth.

Strange, she thought, considering he was normally the devil's advocate. But justified.

And a good part of her could recall the very, very first week they met. God. You know what they say... 'Never meet your heroes'.

In offering part of his sleeve, with the question that followed... that... was really... it.

"...No. No.Th... that's not who I want to spend my last moments as, Sugai-san. I was weak. That much is certain. And I'm sorry anyone had to see me like this."

Weakly, she took the torn portion of his sleeve, nodding in thanks.

Well, despair fever hadn’t changed everything. Masashi still did quite a bit of looking around during investigation, but come the actual trial, he never felt the need to speak up. I mean, he didn’t really care about the outcome, so why should he bring any of the evidence or his theories to the table? That would be counterproductive. Totally.

Still, after listening to people go back and forth, he eventually feels the need to speak up, although it certainly isn’t… helpful.

“Fuck, this is so boring. I thought everyone being all sick with this thing was gonna be a riot, but… fuck me, I guess,” he complains, ending his small (and unnecessary) input with a loud, exaggerated sigh.

And in typical Masashi fashion when it came to trials, he goes quiet again after that intrusion, back to observing and obnoxiously sighing on occasion. Concluding that he wasn’t going to get the entertainment he desired, he readies himself to vote whenever everyone else starts to (excluding that early anonymous vote) and otherwise find ways to distract himself until the trial ends.

He visibly perks up once laughter fills the courtroom, followed by two people wrestling(?) on the floor, followed by blood, followed by a scream and crying. This is what he’d been waiting for! Similar to his neighbor, Michiko, Masashi peers over his podium, grinning as he watches the ensuing chaos.

“I take back everything I said, this is rich! But, uh, hey, hey, who are we gonna vote for? Orikasa? Or Nakahara? Maybe they’ll turn on each other when their skin’s on the line! C’mon, make it interesting! Everybody’s watching, y’know?”