fiat justitia ruat caelum

mors vincit omnia | task xvii | open

“H-Hey!”

In terms of being served a slice of humble pie, Naomi currently felt like she’d been hit in the face with a whole dish; why did Suzuka keep having to be right about things?

But that wasn’t why she had yelled. Besides, she thought to herself as she power-walked over to the litigant, what was gonna happen next would be even more embarrassing…

She paused when Suzuka began to speak, taking the chance to gather her thoughts. The other girl wasn’t calling them all idiots, which she’d honestly been preparing herself for. Then again, she’d also been preparing to bring up the fact that a certain someone hadn’t been above enjoying their brief, innocent time in the game if that did happen.

And it wasn’t like she’d been expecting Suzuka to outright ditch Hiroshi, either. Even if her life hadn’t been on the line, she didn’t seem like that sort of person…Damn it, it was REALLY frustrating to admit that someone she disliked wasn’t a complete jerk!

With a deep breath, she moved in front of her classmate. Then, looking down at the floor, she inclined her head. Just a little.

“I…I’m…f-first of all, I’m…sorry…Even if you aren’t saying ‘I told you so’, I feel like the world’s biggest idiot for insisting we go in there, o-okay? If you wanna feel all smug about that, you’re pretty damn justified…”

“But - look, Hiroshi didn’t really kill Nomura, we all know it! And there’s gotta be a way for us to prove it, right?! You know about court stuff! There’s gotta be something we can do to make sure that bear doesn’t kill someone else this time! I’ll seriously do whatever you need me to do to help, just…tell me you’ve got an idea at least! P…Please, Suzuka!”

#thedelinquentballerina #in session #ff case v #mors vincit omnia

Naomi’s first shout had made Suzuka mildly anxious, but her approach seemed (contrary to what Suzuka suspected she deserved, at this point) entirely peaceful. From her vantage point on the bench, Suzuka steepled her fingers and fixed her gaze on the other girl’s eyes — or where her eyes would have been, if she hadn’t been inclining her head slightly. Of all the people who she imagined were equally agitated at her, she hadn’t expected Naomi to approach her in the hopes of a conversation, let alone... apologise. Or ask her help.

Slowly, Suzuka blinked, then hurriedly rearranged both her glasses and her expression. This was a stranger experience than the game had been, really. Of course I was right, she nearly said on instinct, but bit her tongue. Then, after a long and contemplative silence, she turned her head and glanced pointedly at the space on the station bench beside her in invitation.

“Apologies are unnecessary. Would you like to join me, Han-shi?”

It wasn’t that she was being civil because Naomi had said sorry — truth be told, she felt like she owed the other girl some apologies of her own, and it was a grudging relief to know that Naomi didn’t hate her. The other girl was too reckless for her liking, and their personalities had seemed to grate against each other from the first day, but Naomi was one of the few among them to have not done anything morally objectionable, and in fact had managed to take enough brave stands throughout their time here to light some spark of reluctant admiration in Suzuka.

Brave stands were what they needed now, Suzuka reckoned. Maybe this was her chance to help Naomi make another.

“I’ll be honest. This... has never been much like court. I’m in over my head. And, to be quite frank, I’ve been absolutely terrified since we arrived here. But this system relies on our terror, and our compliance. So we need to stop that.”

She hadn’t quite intended to pour her heart out to Naomi, but there was no point in pretending that she could destroy the bear with some majestic legal proof when the bear’s entire courtroom was too corrupt to win against. Something bigger needed to be done than that.

“Koda-shi obviously didn’t kill Nomura-shi. Or, if he did, he lacks the culpability to be punished. We should collate as much information as possible for ourselves, but I don’t believe this is a matter of proving anything to our captors anymore. I believe it’s a matter of destroying the system that has been stacked against us all along. Who knows if we can beat it on its own terms — but if we enter the courtroom prepared to expose our captors and this entire situation for what they are, perhaps we can beat it on ours.”

mors vincit omnia | task xvii | open

The helmets hadn’t been a welcome addition to this entirely unwelcome fate they’d (almost) democratically elected to undertake — the suffocating smallness of Bronze Station and the inevitable introduction of yet another train and the revelation that they had been trapped in that game, helpless, had played on her claustrophobia so severely that the helmets had been, perhaps, the last straw.

When they returned to consciousness, Suzuka tore the thing off and dashed.

She made to dash, that was, until Monokuma stopped them firmly in their tracks within the station. If she was being honest, for every second longer that she stood in that encroachingly small room, her focus grew more and more distant from the bear’s words — but then they became hard to ignore, and her thoughts jerked back to the screen that had briefly flashed before them upon the game’s end, and it was with every fibre of her being that she fought resignation.

At this point, Hiroshi being branded a murderer was the cruelest joke she could imagine fate playing on them.

As soon as the announcement finished, Suzuka stalked out of the room first — then, bereft of energy, slumped down on the platform bench outside Bronze Station before taking a step further. She was still starkly aware of the mourning time for Tsubaki she’d been robbed of, but between then and now, they’d only been given another person to pre-emptively mourn.

When the footsteps of another person came into focus, reverberating through the station-floor tiles, Suzuka fixed her steely gaze on the glass dividing the platform and Bronze Station, sounding more drained than anything when she finally spoke. She didn’t turn her head to discern who was behind her; chances were, they were all equally agitated at her for one reason or another, and there was no reason to censor her thoughts from any of them.

“That’s it, then. We tried our utmost... and we were manipulated by a system greater than our sum yet again. At the next 'trial’, we may as well attempt what we should have been attempting all along. There’s... nothing left to do but fight once more, is there?”

#ff open #ff task #ff task xvii #in session #ff case v #mors vincit omnia #death ///

fatal-frenzy-deactivated2015102

#in session #proceedings #ff case v #not a trial but i'm putting this under trial tag because it's a pastebin

... || Task 16 || Open

The heated words coming out of Suzuka’s mouth didn’t affect him like they would’ve affected him just some time ago. It seemed like an another time, an another life. He was silent, observing as the weight of his words dawned upon her. He didn’t feel sympathy, but there was a small bang in his chest, echoing through his ribcage and making his breaths slower.

“I don’t… Don’t want anyone to die, either.” His voice was small, filling the silence between Suzuka’s words.

“I don’t know,” he said, truthfully. He didn’t know what Suzuka wanted, truly. Her sharp eyes met his own -big and dull and sad- and he didn’t turn his gaze away, staring back at her.

“And… No. I… I think we will vote. Should vote. Agree to… Ah, to the option more votes. With more votes.”

Ninsei rubbed the back of his neck, some trace of who he had been at the start of this all, yet so unlike what it had signified. It had been a nervous tick, but he didn’t seem nervous: thoughtful, perhaps.

“And… There’s nothing. Nothing to gain here.” Here, where so many of us died, the thought resonating in his sentence. His hand moved from the back of his neck to a half-hearted gesture to his surroundings before returning to his lap. His nail polish was cracked and chipped.

“Spears. Like… He, in the start. I… We, we’re not safe here.” A small shrug of his shoulders, uneasy at the thought how he had seen their instructor die, how he had carried Tsubaki away with bloodied hands. “I think so. ”

“Maybe if I wasn’t here. Someone else… They will have— Would have thought differently. But it’s me.” A pause, again. “Us. And… We’ll have to choose.”

#shslartisticgymnast #in session #ff case v #...

Suzuka’s anger had long boiled over, and had since condensed into a colder frustration. It was possible she would pass the boiling point again — everything seemed possible after that last trial became possible — but for now she was strangely calm, her frustration at this entire situation keeping her grounded. Truth be told, she wasn’t angry at Ninsei, or even particularly frustrated at him. She was still under the impression that she was entirely right, however.

Her steps more muted than usual, Suzuka walked closer to the wall dividing the station from the next. It was entirely probable that the others would vote to enter it, if it came to that; after all, less than a day ago they had nearly voted for her to die, and then voted for Tsubaki instead. She’d never been particularly idealistic about the concept of democracy as it currently existed, but it would be fair to say that her faith therein had hit a record low as of late.

“Of course there’s nothing to gain here. You don’t think I’m aware of that?” Suzuka muttered, the words not without their usual harshness, but somewhat quieter. “Spears, and murder, and... voting. It’s all the same. Half of our classmates died from the choices we made, voting, and every choice we’ve been given has led to someone’s death. ...You’ve seen this, and yet you want to leave it to a vote? ” For once, she didn’t seem to face her conversational partner, or look them starkly in the eye. Whatever Ninsei was doing at this moment, she was gazing intently at the train they were meant to board.

“They’re aware we’ll vote amongst ourselves, of course. The illusion of free will has sustained this game ab origine. Of course we’re not safe here. But if another voice in the sky is kindly urging us to enter that station, I highly doubt we’ll be safe in there either.”

Impassively, Suzuka gazed through the glass into the cramped station and the train that awaited therein, almost hoping that Ninsei would say something to prove her wrong.

[Task 16] Once Upon a Dream (OPEN)

Well, this meeting was going to happen eventually. Best to get it over with now.

“You got any better ideas, then? There’s six of us left now. I don’t think there’s any way we could get out of here on our own. And yeah, it’s not like I didn’t think these instructions are as fishy as hell. But I’d take a shot in the dark any day over waiting for another one of Monobear’s games!”

One of her hands was shaking. She balled it into a fist.

“…Maybe they said this needs to be a unanimous decision. If it was up to me, though, you sure as hell wouldn’t be getting a vote. There’s no time to waste being mad at you…and who knows, I might’ve done the same if I had someone as close to me as the two of you were…but I’m not gonna beg, either. I just don’t know what someone as smart as you thinks we’re gonna achieve otherwise, unless you’ve got some secret plan you’re not sharing…”

“Well, we’ve still got to see what the others have to say. I hope you’ll at least spare us all another big argument if it comes down to only you as a ‘no’.”

#thedelinquentballerina #in session #ff case v #once upon a dream

“...Oh, spare me your understanding,” Suzuka said finally, if a little less sharply than usual. This wasn’t anything resembling forgiveness from Naomi, and what Suzuka was doing now wasn’t intended to be anything resembling an apology, but Naomi was at least right in saying that they shouldn’t waste time. “I should hope you wouldn’t have done the same. It was wrong. Unconscionable. And I would be concerned if you were anything but furious, so there’s no need to be the bigger person here.”

Despite herself, she had to admit that part of her was still a little relieved at Naomi’s reaction. It hadn’t been without harshness, but Suzuka hardly begrudged harsh. The other part of her still expected more harshness.

That still didn’t mean she was going to accept she was wrong on the current facts under dispute, of course. Naomi had said she was capable of being stubborn longer than anyone else — but Suzuka at least considered herself a major player in the running for that title herself. Particularly when it seemed, in her eyes, that doing anything remotely resembling what the announcement had suggested was a high road to hell.

“The fact that I lack a better course of action hardly excuses taking the absolute worst course of action,” Suzuka muttered, this time properly acerbic. That was the most directly she was going to admit that she didn’t have a plan, anyway. At the very least, she could cover that fact up with her best-learned skill from the legal field — a veritable barrage of questions. “How likely is it that the voice in that announcement belongs to anyone with our interests in mind? Compared to the likelihood that this is just as much a ruse as anything else done for our ‘benefit’ so far? And yet — you’re proposing we merely follow along? When we could be doing anything at all to resist this new part of the game? What happened to the Han-shi that was willing to fight our captors, hmm?”

She hadn’t directly answered Naomi’s statement on whether another big argument would occur — but with every acidic question, the answer seemed to become increasingly self-explanatory.

... || Task 16 || Open

“And… I’m sorry,” he said, his soft voice drowned out by what Suzuka said, his voice equally silent but less intent.

Ninsei stared at the purple heels as she spoke, the only motion of his being his calm breathing, chest rising and falling. The motion looked laborious, like the only thing keeping him breathing at this point was his own will, inflating and deflating like a balloon.

His first instinct was to backtrack, to agree: he had always been good at that. Agreeing with others. Being pushed aside, he reckoned.

“No I…” A short pause. “…I’ll play.”

“You wanted… Wanted everyone to die. For… Her. And now?.. It… Voice said we’ll get away. Do you want, uh, everyone to die. Again?” He didn’t sound accusing nor sad, slowly looking up to Suzuka’s eyes with the sort of silent bravery Ninsei hadn’t previously showed.

“I’m not… Not afraid of that,” he said, pointing to his head, the square scar etched to his scalp, visible from under his undercut. “I always… Ah, got a new chance, anyway. I… But, ah. We’re not alone here.”

“She was wrong… Murder, she…” Ninsei sighed. His voice was soft like always, even if eerily monotone. “Called still.”

He made a tired gesture with his hand, returning it to rest on top of the other in his lap.

“You can’t choose… Choose what I want. Or, uh. What I think is insulting her.”

#shslartisticgymnast #in session #ff case v #...

Wanted everyone to die. It was as though the words had physical force, striking her in the chest so that her breath could only strain out. The more she’d thought about what she’d done, the more she felt like every inch of her might be fundamentally wrong. Being held accountable was exactly what she needed, of course, and Ninsei had done it well, but that didn’t make the truth any easier to face — nor did it make it any easier for her to stare back into his eyes.

“No. I don’t want everyone to die, and—” She halted before saying anything more, her breath catching in her chest, then repeated the phrase with the same intonations. “—I don’t want everyone to die. And.”

Just silence, then. Whatever she’d been planning to say for herself had fled in favour of something less coherent, a staticky void of thought. Both of her fists hung clenched by her side; somehow they both hung like dead weight and looked tense to their core, what thin muscle she had stretched taut in sinewy lines up her forearms. As the seconds passed, she, too, breathed in, her gaze darting around a single spot of tiled floor beneath her.

When she next spoke, it was the equivalent of verbally dusting herself off, as though she’d never attempted the last few sentences at all.

“...Per contra to what the precedent may suggest, I’m not saying this because I want to kill you all,” she finally said, sounding perfectly as acerbic as her usual self. It seemed like it had taken tangible effort to return to her usual tone of voice, but it didn’t sound like an act now that she was there; there would be time for her to properly deal with the mark the last trial had left when she’d fulfilled Tsubaki’s wish of getting out safely. “You don’t think I want to do anything but survive at this point, do you, Yonai-shi? So, forgive me for being skeptical of the survival value of yet another ‘game’ suggested by the powers that be.”

The harshness of the assertion — air quotes and all — was another step towards feeling like herself, and she finally met the boy’s eyes properly. Ninsei had changed since the first time they’d met, hadn’t he?. They’d all changed, she supposed. There was a sad kind of resolution to most of what he did now, and if she hadn’t been utterly convinced that following the announcement’s instructions would lead to their certain death, she might have been far less keen to argue the point with him.

“If you’re going to bring your claim into the realm of personal autonomy, then... might I remind you that you’re attempting to choose what I want, Yonai-shi. As the announcement said, we’re required to come to a unanimous decision. So if you wish to enter that absurd simulation, so must I.”

... || Task 16 || Open

There was silence.

Ninsei sat on his bed, legs crossed, calloused hands on his knees. His hair was disheveled, his clothes in place only by the virtue of him having so little of them on his body in the first place. His gaze was fixed on his door, awaiting someone open it, something, anything: he desperately wanted attention yet didn’t want to face any of his classmates for it.

They… Even Tsubaki had murdered someone. The way Suzuka had earlier spoken, too— It made his heart hurt, even to think of it. He had been… Rude, to her, too. Haruo, Suzuka. Who else would he hurt next? And not only with words, that time.

He had promised to never to cry, and now he had to promise to never to be angered. The hollowness of his thoughts, that he welcomed with open arms, pressing his knuckles against his forehead. He regretted throwing the headphones on the floor so that they had broken, and the only audible voice now being static accompanied by distant parts of sentences and singing. He fiddled with them and put them over his ears anyway, laying backwards on his bed, kicking his legs away from underneath himself.

There was only static, now, and that was how he fell asleep.

—

The announcement woke him up, audible through the white noise.

Ninsei removed the headphones and listened, staring at his ceiling as he did. The other unfamiliar: the other suspiciously reminiscent of the cat-inspired mascot.

A virtual reality testing?..

There was nothing else but static in his thoughts, somewhere far away a noise whispering that it was what he must do.

It sounded like a fun game, something morbid in these circumstances. Stand-ins for the passed students? It sounded awful. He had never played a lot of games, being the sporty type, so he didn’t know if he could be of any help in this game of theirs.

He promised to try: not for his own sake, but for everyone else’s. He… He couldn’t deny he didn’t want to go home, though. Maybe this all had been just a virtual game from the start, a fluke, utterly thoroughly fake. It was a comforting thought, one Ninsei couldn’t stop himself from indulging himself in.

Ninsei opened his eyes, standing up from his bed.

—

Slowly, Ninsei made his way towards the Bronze station.

He couldn’t make himself get out of the train. He sat on his bench, staring outside at the station through the clean glass. What if it was just a trap. A false promise.

He willed himself to move, to do anything: his thoughts were static and his limbs unmoving. Someone boarded the train, too, he could tell: footsteps padding against the floor.

“I… I’m going play— Going to play the game.” His voice was a promise and an encouragement to himself all in one, black eyes opening to fix their gaze on one of the six remaining students.

“And…”

And what?

The static of his thoughts was too much, and he fell silent. He had no tears to cry, no anger to shout, and something was carving him empty from the inside out. He held his own hands together, gaze averting to the floor. On his soft features, there were marks of exhaustion, but no trace of any other emotion.

#shslartisticgymnast #in session #ff case v #...

If they had been given time to mourn, Suzuka might have looked disheveled — she might have returned to the station with dark circles under her eyes from a night even more sleepless than usual, or entirely abandoned her beauty regimen, or turned up in uncharacteristically creased clothing, the wardrobe too much effort to open as long as it housed Tsubaki’s spare skeleton shirt.

As it stood, they’d been given no time at all.

Minutes or hours, the time that had passed after the trial was less a stretch of time than an incoherent blur and a series of actions. Open door; remove shoes; lean against wall; slide down; avoid wardrobe; avoid desk; avoid suitcases. Avoid the spare inhaler she kept on her bedside table in case what she thought had been the hypothetical worst-case-scenario came to the worst.

She really was gone now, Suzuka numbly realised. The artifacts of her were impossible to escape.

An energy had begun to build up in her, but not the kind she could discharge by kicking the furniture, or crying, or doing the things that she imagined a person should be doing in this situation. She’d barely cried at all in the trial, she recalled: there must have been tears as Tsubaki pressed their lips together, but she hadn’t quite noticed them until she was gone, and silence had filled the room again.

By the time the announcement came, Suzuka felt as though every muscle threaded through her limbs was shaking of its own accord.

Nothing could have helped her more than something to latch onto and criticise with her usual incisive vigilance, but the words washed over her more than anything. Another station. She’d told Tsubaki she was going to do her proud, implicitly promised to get out and live, because her phone call was the last of her and it couldn’t mean nothing — but her automatic response was that another station didn’t particularly matter. So many of them had died. And she couldn’t help but think that she had passed such a point of no return that her own presence here was barely justified, even if she knew she was meant to think otherwise.

It was only when the unfamiliar voice began to filter over the speakers that she began to feel something like herself again. ‘Virtual reality testing’!. It almost felt like her moral duty to tear this new absurdity apart.

Before the announcement had even formally ended, Suzuka picked herself up from the ground and stormed towards the new station, more focused on the ElectroID map than anything surrounding her. It was a trap — it was obviously a trap! — and it wasn’t a trap she was going to allow any of her classmates to fall victim to, not at their most vulnerable moment and certainly not at hers. By the time she reached the exterior of the station, so cramped that she felt almost vindicated in not wanting to enter it, Ninsei was already sitting on the bench, deep in thought — and had just begun to voice his thoughts on the matter, the exact opposite to what Suzuka hoped.

The resonating clack of her high heels cut abruptly short in the hallway as she stared incredulously at Ninsei’s back, not moving from her spot a few paces behind him to converse with him more conventionally.

“Don’t play the game,” Suzuka said under her breath; she sounded quieter than she had ever sounded while voicing an opinion, but still as sharp as ever, her vowels sharpened like needlepoints. “If that voice is being broadcast here, I highly doubt it belongs to anyone that Tsubaki called — or anyone who wishes to help us at all. Falling to such an obvious ruse would be an insult to her memory.”

[Task 16] Once Upon a Dream (OPEN)

Naomi was leaning against the wall just outside of Bronze Station, arms folded, eyes closed, and head awhirl. As usual, the aftermath of a trial had left her feeling drained and confused on top of everything else this screwed-up place had to offer in the way of emotional rollercoasters. She had planned to stay in her room until the most uncomfortable feelings had passed (that mob in Tsubaki’s execution…was it supposed to represent them?), but the voices on the intercom had changed all that.

Cooperate. Play nicely. Virtual reality testing…to unlock the exit. A day. Unanimous decision to comply.

As soon as she heard footsteps approaching, she opened one eye, then the next. But who it was didn’t matter, as the statement was already out of her mouth.

“I’m doing this. And just so you know, I’m pretty sure I can be stubborn about it a lot longer than anyone else…So what’s your vote?”

#thedelinquentballerina #in session #ff case v #once upon a dream

The announcement and the subsequent update to her ElectroID had come through to Suzuka alone in her room, and their contents hadn’t exactly served to lift her spirits. It was difficult to find any sort of hope in a mandate from the web of forces that surrounded them, however much they claimed to want to help, or be in the process of helping — not when ten had died, and Tsubaki was one of them. Regarding Nomura and Nyanburu’s offers to ‘help’, not being useless was the bare minimum when it came to honouring her memory. Suzuka had already firmly decided that this was some further act of manipulation, but even on the off chance that it wasn’t, it was frankly insulting to extend such a vague and untrustworthy offer of help to them before they could even properly mourn.

Then there was the matter of the new station’s actual size. If someone had asked Suzuka after the trial what could make the situation even worse from here, the next area being a claustrophobia-inducing death trap would have ranked high on her list. If they were trapped in that room for any length of time longer than a few hours...

Cooperate and play nicely. She had well passed that point, hadn’t she?

As she came up to Bronze Station, Suzuka averted her eyes from the ElectroID map to the entrance before her, and... to the person who happened to be standing before it. What was left of her good judgment told her to retreat before this could even begin to become a conversation, but before Suzuka could turn around and leave, Naomi had already voiced her opinion. A likely ab irato opinion she was highly disinclined to agree with, were Suzuka at all in the mood for pointing out logical fallacies, or making words, or doing much else than silently mourning in the solitude of her own company. For once, she sounded more weary than willing to argue, and like she truly wanted to end the conversation.

“Absolutely not. ...I won’t allow you to play any further into the hands of our captors.”

The irony of her saying this didn’t escape her.

fatal-frenzy-deactivated2015102

[Execution 004] Oil on Troubled Waters

#ahahahahahah redux #see you culprit gf....#proceedings #judgments #photographic evidence #shslplaintiff #ff case iv #drowning ///#mob killing ///#mob mentality ////#asphyxiation ///

fatal-frenzy-deactivated2015102

#ahahahahahaha #in session #proceedings #ff case iv

shsl--paranormal--investigator

[Open] - Task 15 - The Last Rose of Summer

It was almost right after the announcement went off that they realized Haruo Minami along with Shizuka Gozen were.. gone. They didn’t approach the train yet, but instead laid back for a bit to think it over. She was one of the people they interacted with the most lately.. it was strange to see her dead. Hell, she was fine this morning, so how could this happen in such a short time?.. Why weren’t they upset? That was probably something they needed to worry about on their own time.

Instead of wasting time, they went ahead and opened the file, looking it over.. Heart failure? Perking up, they noticed Hiroshi and Suzuka near the body and let out a sigh. If they wanted a good look at the body, they needed to work with them, they supposed. Striding over to the body, they weaved in beside the two.

"Don’t mind me, just looking around as well."

Izumi went ahead and rolled up her sleeves and checked other visible areas of skin to see if there were any injuries, before looking back up to Hiroshi.

"Say, have you found anything yet? We might as well work together, eh?" Of course they noticed the note he picked up, but just decided to ask instead of plucking it out of his hand. Wouldn’t that be rude.

Though not too immersed in his thoughts, Hiroshi was still slightly startled as he sensed the presence of someone else enter the area. How long had he been standing there to not realize that people had come and gone? Though at the sound of foreign words, Hiroshi felt his shoulders relax slightly. It could only be one person he knew that would start a conversation with such words that no one here could possibly understand, and that was Suzuka Tsujio. And he being one of the many that didn’t understand the meaning of those words, he understood the context of them… Or at least he guessed he did. Either way, he could say he was a bit relieved that she’d appeared on the scene. Suzuka was someone he felt he could still count on, not to mention he felt her to be a competent comrade in such a situation… But really, he supposed he had to admit, she was a friend to him. Looking over at Suzuka, he exchanged glances with the taller girl, pausing to think as he turned his gaze toward the note in his hand, reading it once more carefully.

"That’s true… But it looks like Minami-san…. And Shizuka Gozen, both wrote this in their final moments. Either the killer took pity on them, or she wrote this in their absence. Though, actually…" He paused as his eyes scrolled down to the bottom of the note, fingering the frayed edges of the torn note. "I feel that an important part of this message has been removed. Forcefully."

As he was about to continue onto his own thoughts about the killing, Hiroshi looked over as Izumi appeared on the scene. Giving them a nod in greeting, he stepped back as they further inspected Haruo’s body. Watching them in silence with a stern expression, Hiroshi’s thoughts wandered to the past… When Haruo hadn’t been just something to investigate for their own survival… Like so many before her, her existence as a person seemed to fade before them. Hiroshi bit his lip at the thought. Really, in all senses it felt like it should disgust him, all the things that had transpired. But at this point, he and everyone else seemed to be beyond a point of return. Where death and murder had become the norm… And as Izumi rose and returned over to him and Suzuka, he wondered the question he’d been thinking about since their arrival that felt like it had taken place far in the past.

"Yeah, we were just talking about that… And, sure. We need all the help we can get… Here, you two should both take a closer look at Haruo’s dying message. It would appear she and Shizuka Gozen wrote a note in their final moments."

Standing in between the two of them, he held out the note for both of them to read, not feeling it within himself to read those words out loud. Those words themselves felt like Haruo and Shizuka’s screams as they both drew their last breath. He didn’t feel like he could do either of them justice in a rendition of his own at all.

As the other two seemed to have finished reading the note, he handed the slip of paper to Izumi as he once again approached the body. Leaning down, he took a look at the ground and area around Haruo before focusing on her other hand, perhaps in the hopes of finding something else in her grasp. He then knelt down and looked up at Haruo’s pale face, her eyes blank and staring forward, unseeing. Even though he knew her to be dead, he couldn’t seem to hold her gaze for more than a second as he stood up once again. Turning away from the other two, Hiroshi scanned the rest of the train car in hopes of finding anything else that looked out of place to him. Once he was satisfied, Hiroshi slowly closed his eyes and took off his jacket, only to open them in surprise as something clattered out of his coat pocket along with the slip of paper given to him by Takumi.

"S-sorry—"

Hiroshi felt his face heat up with embarrassment, he bent over quickly to pick up Alter Buddy’s console along with the note. Though not quickly enough. Standing up straight, his embarrassment thickened as he realized that he hadn’t been wearing his belt like he usually did and probably just flashed the two in attendance his new underwear with an… interesting print on it that he’d gotten from the prize room. He couldn’t say he cared much for Lady Justice, but those boxers were at least comfortable…

Hiroshi coughed in hopes to remedy the current situation he’d gotten himself in, though he doubted that neither of the two of them wouldn’t comment on what had just happened.

#shsl paranormal investigator #shslgood deeds #in session #ff case iv #the last rose of summer

For a moment, Suzuka simply watched Hiroshi and Izumi's investigation, turning over Haruo's note once again. As neutral and unemotive as she looked, it was impossible to shake the frosty haze of panic that had come over her since the body announcement — oddly cold, but not quite detached, and definitely distracting enough to stop her from processing the situation as she might have liked. Even with the note thrust before her, she had barely processed Haruo's words — but she nodded and let Hiroshi pass the note to Izumi anyway.

For a moment, the three of them investigated their respective areas in companionable silence, Suzuka joining Hiroshi in the search through the train car. Neither of them found much, it seemed, and Suzuka found her scrutiny flickering too frequently back to Izumi as they inspected the body. The fruitlessness of the search and the steadily encroaching feeling that she couldn't occupy such a small (if unmoving) train carriage containing a body did nothing to help dispel the haze, though, and she had turned halfway to leave and inspect the platform when Hiroshi's movement caught her eye.

In hindsight, perhaps it wasn't just his movement that was notable. For a moment, the absurdity of seeing that image there almost did dispel the haze.

"What are those?" Suzuka squinted at the distinctive print of the boxers for as long as they remained in view, seemingly impervious to the concept of propriety. She exchanged a glance with Izumi, as though to confirm that they had seen too, but her eyes were drawn back to the ground before her gaze could convey the full force of her judgment. Perhaps what Hiroshi had dropped was more noteworthy than his questionable and inexplicably familiar choice of undergarments. On the ground, if briefly, there had been what seemed to be a note, and what seemed to be something altogether less identifiable. With exactly the same tone, and pointedly towards the objects in question rather than the altogether less useful subject of Hiroshi's boxers, she repeated the question.

"And what are those?"

Hiroshi had gone so far as to speculate that part of the note might be removed, the conspicuous rip had been right there at the end, and— here, now, was another small slip of paper that had remained in Hiroshi's pocket until now. The fact that it might have been an unrelated slip of paper was irrelevant; any efficient investigator would follow up on such blatant evidence, and vocally. Not to mention the second object he had dropped, though that seemed to have less immediate relevance to the case.

"Koda-shi. If you were planning to obscure things from us, you could at least have done it more subtly," Suzuka gazed down imperiously through her glasses, the spaces between her words just as abrupt and stark as the look. If she looked away, it was only to unabashedly gauge Izumi's reaction, who was equally a suspect at this point. Once again, the concept of personal privacy or conversational grace seemed to elude her.

There was a strategy beneath the antagonism, though — if Hiroshi truly had nothing to hide, and the items meant nothing, he would be able to explain himself. And if not, it was better that she had asked directly, as a neutral investigator should. The potential negative impact of her questioning wasn't a factor she had considered, friends or not. With the chain of deaths thus far unbroken, she was beginning to think she had been far too easy on her friends. Feelings of friendship could wait until it was all over. For now, she would place her trust in her own plan.

[Open] - Task 15 - The Last Rose of Summer

Hiroshi blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. The scene before him remained the same as the body discovery announcement went off on the station’s speakers. This couldn’t be right. Haruo Minami? Shizuka Gozen? Dead? Impossible, that couldn’t be the case. There had to be a mistake, she— She had been a trained killer. She couldn’t have gone down so easily… Blinking slowly as once again his surroundings blurred into the back of his mind, Hiroshi approached Haruo’s body, coming to a stop in front of her as he looked the class president’s body over. Cautiously, he reached a hand out and slowly waved his hands before her eyes.

No response.

Pausing for a moment, Hiroshi’s glazed expression showed signs of strain as he bit his lip, this time reaching out to the piece of paper he saw clutched in her hands, along with a familiar looking sword. He attempted to hold down the sword with one hand as he had decided to pry the paper from Haruo’s grip, but as soon as his hand touched Haruo’s, Hiroshi flinched back, as if the black haired girl would spring up at any moment, sprightly as ever and threaten to kill him. But that of course wasn’t going to happen ever again, and Hiroshi couldn’t say that he didn’t breathe a sigh of relief. But with Shizuka Gozen gone… So was Haruo Minami. Ever since the second murder trial and the reveal of the other girl’s alter ego, he hadn’t spoken much with the girl. To be honest, he’d always viewed her as irritating, like an overbearing mother… But in the end, he supposed it was just her doing her job… No. It was because she actually gave a damn about her classmates. He’d always known this… He couldn’t say he ever hated her.

He’d always known the events of Shinya Zaizen’s death… Hadn’t been Haruo’s fault. It had been Shizuka Gozen’s. And though he couldn’t say he’d gotten to be best friends with either Haruo or Shizuka Gozen. He could say that Haruo didn’t deserve this.

Reaching over once more, this time unflinching, Hiroshi did his best to wrench the note away from Haruo’s already stiffening grip. Holding it up, he inspected it closely, turning it around this way and that.

"…….. Tch."

#shslgood deeds #in session #ff case iv #the last rose of summer

Suzuka hadn't been on the platform when the body announcement had gone off, but she had come quickly enough, the sight past the train's open doors greeting her all the same. It was a familiar sight by now — another body, another unnecessary death, splayed out without dignity or regard for the person (or in this case, she supposed, people) that they had once been. It struck her, suddenly, that the sight of a body was more normal to them now than fresh air, or grass, or the open sky. Normal was a strange thing, she supposed. She was all out of adrenaline rushes by now.

Hiroshi was already inspecting Shizuka's body when she entered the carriage. Neither of them, she reckoned, were in need of exchanging formalities. Her steps were quiet and quick as she crossed the thin stretch of train between them — between her and the body, she reminded herself automatically, features tensing into a frown that she had to consciously smooth out before coming to a stop behind Hiroshi.

"...Bona notabilia," Suzuka raised an eyebrow, staring down pointedly at the sword and the note in Shizuka's grasp. That was the best greeting she could muster, it seemed. "How unexpected. Surely it would be in the killer's interests to remove these things postmortem. If they could." Her gaze followed the note impassively as Hiroshi wrenched it free, almost in the silent expectation that he would rip it in the process — but he didn't, and it was only respect for his personal space that stopped her from peering over his shoulder to read it immediately.

Instead, her gaze wandered down to the sword Shizuka still clutched. Perhaps there was some discernible difference about the sword now that would yield a hint as to how Shizuka died? At the very least, it indicated that Haruo had been Shizuka before her death, and that was enough to make her feel justified in referring to the body as solely the latter. By the time she glanced back to Hiroshi, she estimated, he would have finished reading the note.

"...What are your thoughts, Koda-shi?" Belatedly, Suzuka stared at the note, leaving Hiroshi to interpret whether he should hand it over, read it aloud, or simply summarise. Her question, however, was deliberately left more open-ended than as to the mere note.

autistic-girl-academic

Dev: also I want the ff students to do this Dev: http://lenw130.tumblr.com/post/110485428923 Edlyn: DO A DANCE ROUTINE IN THE WALKWAY BETWEEN GOLD AND ELECTRUM King of Games: OH YEAH King of Games: THE TUNNEL

when you and the team are stuck in electrum station for 13 hours

an attempt was made. sorta (but not at scenery cause lol nah). i apologize to tora cause you can see where i got rushed towards the end and super-sketchy. also i wanna do a couple more poses from that vid with some of the other female students. idk fatal-frenzy au where everyone is friends and does dumb shit like this but tora is still embarrassed and gay.

#fatal frenzy au where tunnel dance team isn't just an au but also real #photographic evidence #shslproselitigant #shslplaintiff #thedelinquentballerina #superduperjanitor #out of session

youskateoryoudie-blog

•́௰•̀ ………

#photographic evidence #out of session #thedelinquentballerina #youskateoryoudie #shslcarto #shslartisticgymnast #superduperjanitor #shslproselitigant #shslplaintiff

video meliora proboque deteriora sequor | task xiii | ninsei/suzuka

#shslartisticgymnast #in session #ff case iv #video meliora proboque deteriora sequor

"shslartisticgymnast:

Ninsei did not reply.

He stood still, his thoughts eerily quiet now. He didn’t look at Suzuka’s face, staring somewhere around the toes of her shoes.

"Ah," he said for a reply, lips moving as if searching for some word and then falling silent again, black eyes almost glassed over in the idle stare of his. He didn’t know if Suzuka could remember the way he had punched the podium, again, and again. It all seemed so distant and far away and he didn’t want to think of it. Perhaps he hadn’t been so loud, and Suzuka still thought well of him, or perhaps—

The gravity of Suzuka’s voice took Ninsei aback and forced him to look up, and once he had looked into Suzuka’s eyes he couldn’t bring himself to gaze away.

"I," he said, using the chance to look away from Suzuka’s eyes when her gaze moved. He moved his hands to press them closer to his body, and then brought them up to his chest, crossing them as if it was an attempt to stay warm. The chill down his spine made him feel uncertain, scared— Angry.

"I don’t know," he said, tone flat, his shoulders shaking with sobs that never came, his eyes void of tears. "I- I think… I thought, not their faults. First. Ah,at first", he paused, "I don’t know. Never… I…" His broken sentences sounded scattered, as fragile as glass, a hidden sharpness beneath the softness of his voice. The look on his face growing more confused with every passing second.

"And.. I never. Never did anything, um. I could— I’m strength. Strong. Could’ve… Stopped?" He glanced up to Suzuka, this time meeting her eyes.

"Ah, I… I’m fault, too?" Ninsei swallowed back, squeezing his eyes shut, pretending whatever he felt was going to go away. It did not, wallowing in his gut and flaring up to his throat. He often felt nervous, but this was different.

"Agh, I," he said, fingers clenching around his own arm until he yelped at the pain of his calloused fingers digging into his flesh and the scratch of the bandaids against his raw knuckles. The skin over his arm had faint white marks on it that soon turned red, so hard he had clenched it.

The next time Ninsei looked up, he looked ready to break Suzuka’s fragile composure, thin eyebrows in a frown.

When the silence first descended, it wasn't so unlikely that they were both considering Ninsei's reaction to the trial. Suzuka couldn't make up her mind as to whether it was distant or very, very close — but either way, each person's response was etched distrustfully in her mind, a strained reminder of how pressure moulded people into different versions of themselves. She didn't think worse of him; she saw no reason to unless he proved himself to be a threat.

And as to whether he was a threat? The evidence was still under consideration, but she already knew the judgment she was leaning towards.

"Don't blame yourself," she said abruptly, with so short a pause it almost sounded like trust. People who forgave, people who took too much onto themselves, the people who loved not just justice but decency — perhaps one day she would see what they were capable of. For now, though, she would prefer to be idealistic about Ninsei. Idealism came rarely enough to her.

After she'd said it, Suzuka's brow twitched for a second; that had come across as imperious, probably. She'd always hated when people had told her how to feel. The pause — this time substantial enough to hang — was punctuated with a few quick taps of her shoe this time, the rest of her body tensed with an odd stillness.

"We are all here for our talent, but—" But. Perhaps there was a tactful way to phrase this but, but it neither concerned her nor fell within the scope of her conversational repertoire. "But there is a difference between being talented, famous, successful, persevering, strong — and being able to battle an unseen force who kidnapped us and now keeps us here by force. Absit inuria, Yonai-shi. But don't hold yourself to impossible standards."

The thought hadn't occurred to her, veritable font of pessimism that she was, that implying their whole class was helpless against Monokuma wasn't a better argument to be making. It wasn't exactly the argument she was making, either, although it seemed it from what she had said so far. While it was an impossible standard to hold oneself to, that wasn't necessarily true of people working together, after all.

"When Tsubaki and I first met, via the environmental protection forums, we were both so frustrated," she started without preface, stream of conversation trickling to a slower pace. "Before that, bringing the case a posse ad esse seemed impossible. But together... You're aware of the rest, I'm sure." Again, in what was possibly the most opaque manner of espousing the power of teamwork in the history of all narratives, Suzuka paused. "Working together. Like Akiyama-shi said. That modus operandi may be a little less impossible, hmm?"

[Open] - Task 14 - After the Beep

As soon as he heard the announcement over the station’s intercom system, he knew it wasn’t going to be good news. As he was already in the area, he waited as the others slowly filtered into the area with similar jaded expressions of wariness. Turning to regard the phones, pursing his lips, Hiroshi recalled how it’d only been recently that he’d attempted to use these phones, just as Monokuma had said. He’d slammed the receiver back into place in frustration because, surprise surprise, nothing had happened. However as soon as Monokuma had countered his original thought, the phone began to ring.

"Wh—"

His eyes widened as he stood, watching as the other phones in the area began ringing as well. What the hell was going on? Seeing the others picking up the phones, Hiroshi himself cautiously turned to the phone closest to him and with a tentative motion, picked up the phone. And what he heard…

His eyes widened even more as his breath hitched up in his chest. That voice… It was unmistakable, it was his younger sister’s voice. Feeling his pulse rate go from a resting pace to one akin to if he was being chased, Hiroshi’s grip tightened on the receiver as his other hand went up to catch a handful of his jacket.

"S-Stupid big brother… Help… Help help help. Help me, I’m scared… I can’t find Mom, Dad, or Hiromichi— I, I came home with Gakuto, and everything was a mess… Where are you? Answer your phone darn it!! Please come home… Please… I know you don’t answer your phone a lot, but please please please!! This is important and I—"

She was crying. It wasn’t the usual whining cry he’d heard over and over growing up with the bratty girl, this one truly concerned him. Had something happened? His parents though frequently unavailable due to work, they were always just a phone call away from a short and terse conversation for him. Feeling his blood run cold, Hiroshi swallowed, his breathing a bit shallow as he spoke.

"Musumi— H-hey Musumi, calm down I— I’m right here… Hey, Musumi?!"

No matter how much he yelled into the receiver, he soon came to realize that his sister couldn’t hear him and soon after that realization sunk in, there was a clicking noise. And then, nothing. Muffled silence filled his ears once more.

The call had been disconnected.

Shakily putting the phone back into it’s place, Hiroshi stood wide eyed as he thought over what had just happened. He’d never heard his sister in such a panicked state before. Taking in deep breaths as his mind raced. That… Couldn’t have been real, could it? How could he know that wasn’t just a recording? Even if it was a recording… He could tell the fear in her voice was real. It felt so real and raw that he couldn’t deny that even if it had been just a recording, whatever had happened had been dire.

Gathering himself up, his hands jammed into his pocket as he turned his gaze to his other classmates. Had they all heard something similar? By the looks on their faces, he could tell it had all been personal. So… That bear had tailored each and every call to every single one of them?

"Tch…"

Once again, that bear had them playing right into it’s paws… Biting his lip in utter frustration, he stood there lost in his own thoughts as he watched the others. Knowing the pattern of things… They’d soon have another corpse on their hands.