Is it only me, or are these villainous reveals becoming rather tedious? Well, goodbye now, Kaoru.
[The hostess takes a compact out of her purse, and presses a button at the back.
The bottom falls out of Kaoru's chair, and she's falling through a trap door in the floor, falling until, abruptly, the door snaps shut and he has vanished. The room is silent for a full minute, leading to the obvious conclusion that this was his ignominious end.
And then the projector flickers on. A short film is playing. The picture quality is shaky, and the film skips, and there is little sound but for the accompanying music. However, the film is in color, and its star is none other than Kaoru Nagumo.]
The video opens upon a child sitting somewhere in the dark, before a large chest. It's difficult to make out the surroundings in the darkness, but the place looks like some type of spartan, dirty cell. The child sits in the center of the room, blank-faced. The only light in the room is a dim, far-off flickering. The child's movements are practiced, almost ritual, as though whatever the child does is something done a hundred times before. The child is shown applying makeup to their face in careful, practiced moments, and then dressing in a formal, dark-colored kimono. It looks difficult, but the child's fingers don't waver. The child's hair is too short to pull into an up-do, but the child applies a gold clip to their hair.
Finished with that, the child takes out several cups and bowls and a teapot, placing them on the ground. The child goes through a ceremony, pouring the tea and drinking it with delicate, precise movements. Finished, the child puts away the cups, washes the makeup off their face, disrobes. The chest is closed.
Once the child finishes the ceremony, it gradually becomes apparent that the flickering light is increasing. The child opens the chest again. The child applies the makeup and the clip in their hair. The child dresses in their formal robes. In the growing light, the child's face is now visible. There's a contrast, as the child puts on the makeup, as the child is somewhat plain. Even fully dressed, there is something missing in the child's appearance. The robes are ill-fitting, the makeup not fully transforming the face, the hair blunt and badly cut. The child's face is similar to Kaoru Nagumo, perhaps, but with none of the beauty or elegance. However, the child's movements are perfect as the child once again goes through the motions of the tea ceremony.
Again, the child disrobes. The flickering light is now bright, and it becomes evident there are loud, angry voices outside the spartan cell in which the child sits. This time, as the child does not pause to apply too much makeup; their hand trembles as they dress. As they pour the tea, the walls around the child burst into flame, and shadowed human figures enter the room. The child knocks the tea to the floor and begins to run, barefoot, from the cell out into the darkness. The clip falls from the child's hair into the dirt, the kimono comes undone as he runs.
The shadowed figures give chase as the child runs through dark woods. Hands and dark branches alike reach out to grab him, his feet bleed as they are torn apart by rocks and undergrowth. Finally, he seems to emerge, dirty and bloodied, but free for a moment from whoever was chasing him.
He arrives in a clearing at the sight of an incredibly beautiful house. Outside is a well-kept garden, and the child tries to run inside, but is stopped by a pane of glass between him and the garden. In the pane of glass, the child can see a woman. She is tall and incredibly beautiful, with her hair done up in an ornate style, her kimono pale pink silk with an intricate blossom design. This, then, must be Kaoru Nagumo, though she looks even more lovely than ever, and her smile is pure love and benevolence.
Behind the child, the sound of angry voices and the crackle of flame grows ever louder. Desperately, the child presses his hands against the glass, tears running down his cheeks, begging for the woman's mercy. She kneels, gazing back upon him with deep kindness, and then steps back, and turns around, as if to leave.
The child hammers against the glass and finds it gone. He crawls in and grabs at her skirts, clinging at them tightly. The silk grows grimy in his hands and begins to tear, but the child does not let go, weeping.
The woman, still, reaches up into her long dark hair, and removed the clip that holds it in place. The clip falls to the ground as the hair cascades down her back. With delicate, precise movements, the woman reaches into her hair and parts it.
Behind her hair is a second face. It looks somewhat like the face of the child grown old, and somewhat like the face of the woman turned male, but it is deeply twisted with cruelty and malevolence. The face sneers back down at the child, and the tendrils of his hair wrap around the child's body. The child screams and struggles, but the hair pulls him to the jaws of the twisted face, which proceeds to devour him whole.
[Light from the projector dances against the wall before. The video ends. The Hostess pushes a button on her compact and the screen rolls back up into the wall. Without another word, the Hostess stands and walks out the smoking room doors.
The drawing room doors are now unlocked. You are free to go.]
[ That was terrible. Not as gross as Kanaya's or Touko's, but terrifying and full of despair. The trial has been so draining and awful. Sonia gives a silent sob and turns away when it's over. ]
You know, for the longest time I was convinced this game was testing our morals and the only way to really win was to have a week go by without any murders.
Scratch that. I'm starting to think the real purpose of this game is for us to find the mastermind and that the incentives are just a distraction from that. We kill them, maybe the game will end. Or at least we can stop them from forcing someone to kill.
Or perhaps it's still testing our morals and we must spare the Mastermind in order to Truly Win.
[This is spoken in the most obviously sarcastic tone Susan has used to date.]
...I would wager that you're correct. They must have brought in enough potential murderers to ensure that there would be one willing to kill every week.
In that case, I totally know who the mastermind is and I've been sparing them for the past seven weeks. Can the game be over now?
They can erase our memories and basically know everything about us. It wouldn't be hard at all for them to figure out exactly which buttons to push to get any of us to kill. And they can just pick new people to be their personalized killers every week, so we can't claim that the incentives aren't worth playing for anymore.
Obviously because of your cunning ploy to get away with murder for an incentive you definitely don't want, of course.
[His wry grin quickly fades though as he thinks about her rhetorical question anyway.]
Honestly, I don't know. I think most of us would be willing to kill for something. When this game started, if they'd threatened me with the lives of my friends and family, I would have done it. Hell, I came pretty damn close the week they held hostages as an incentive - the only things that stopped me were that I wasn't sure if I could get away with it and that my dad would never forgive me if I killed two innocent people for him.
Now though...as cliche as it sounds, I feel like we should be trying to band together, you know? We've all survived this long, we've all worked together to solve murders and to execute people - none of our hands are clean anymore. And we know there's an enemy we can actually fight against among us. That should take priority over anything else, personalized incentives or no.
[A shrug.] But I'm just a regular teenage kid. I know there are people here who could stand to lose a hell of a lot more than I could.
There are only 10 'players' left at this point. Spain notwithstanding, I would be... disappointed to see any of us continue to be so easily manipulated. We've survived nearly two months. We're making progress towards unraveling the true nature of things. Each of us has done our utmost to survive, according to the rules of morality that we can accept, under the circumstances.
We're close to the end. When it does... I hope we aren't short of a dozen.
Nothing says true camaraderie like getting through a bunch of murders alive. Or committing murders, I guess, but I'm still holding out hope for someone to accidentally slip during a trial and shove a pencil up Spain's eye.
When exactly does this game end though, did the Hostess ever say? Does it end when we find the mastermind, or are we going to be forced to keep going until there's only one person left? [He sighs.] I'm trying to keep an optimistic outlook here, but this week's incentive was freaking huge. I don't want to know how they're gonna try and top it.
[ Rapture has no need to feel attachment to Kaoru, and she doesn't, but there's something about this entire trial that's really shined a lot of light on things. Wether she's always known about them or not is only known to her and perhaps will never be known to anyone else. She seems to be between frustrated and bored as she rises from her chair, turns to head out of the room, and spends the rest of the night to herself. ]
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murdermanor2013-11-07 09:26 am
EXECUTION
Is it only me, or are these villainous reveals becoming rather tedious? Well, goodbye now, Kaoru.
[The hostess takes a compact out of her purse, and presses a button at the back.
The bottom falls out of Kaoru's chair, and she's falling through a trap door in the floor, falling until, abruptly, the door snaps shut and he has vanished. The room is silent for a full minute, leading to the obvious conclusion that this was his ignominious end.
And then the projector flickers on. A short film is playing. The picture quality is shaky, and the film skips, and there is little sound but for the accompanying music. However, the film is in color, and its star is none other than Kaoru Nagumo.]
[Light from the projector dances against the wall before. The video ends. The Hostess pushes a button on her compact and the screen rolls back up into the wall. Without another word, the Hostess stands and walks out the smoking room doors.
The drawing room doors are now unlocked. You are free to go.]
no subject
no subject
How much longer is this going to go on?
no subject
[A pause.]
Given that there could be any number of secret psychopaths remaining, I propose we redouble our efforts on the latter.
no subject
[That's sort of optimistic, right?]
no subject
[Poland's just. Drained. Honestly.]
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[Or maybe it will be something like "they're definitely someone still alive"!]
We'll have to wait and see.
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Or something of the sort.
[never too drained for beneath the belt snide remarks.]
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[Regrettably Poland seems to be.]
no subject
You know, for the longest time I was convinced this game was testing our morals and the only way to really win was to have a week go by without any murders.
Scratch that. I'm starting to think the real purpose of this game is for us to find the mastermind and that the incentives are just a distraction from that. We kill them, maybe the game will end. Or at least we can stop them from forcing someone to kill.
no subject
[This is spoken in the most obviously sarcastic tone Susan has used to date.]
...I would wager that you're correct. They must have brought in enough potential murderers to ensure that there would be one willing to kill every week.
no subject
They can erase our memories and basically know everything about us. It wouldn't be hard at all for them to figure out exactly which buttons to push to get any of us to kill. And they can just pick new people to be their personalized killers every week, so we can't claim that the incentives aren't worth playing for anymore.
no subject
[Susan's eyes suddenly flicker about as if realizing what she had just said aloud. ...She really was tired.]
Can it really still be worth it? We're all fed up; you could offer me a small planet to rule, and I'd still say no simply out of spite at this point.
[This seems to be rhetorical more than it is meant to be answered.]
no subject
[His wry grin quickly fades though as he thinks about her rhetorical question anyway.]
Honestly, I don't know. I think most of us would be willing to kill for something. When this game started, if they'd threatened me with the lives of my friends and family, I would have done it. Hell, I came pretty damn close the week they held hostages as an incentive - the only things that stopped me were that I wasn't sure if I could get away with it and that my dad would never forgive me if I killed two innocent people for him.
Now though...as cliche as it sounds, I feel like we should be trying to band together, you know? We've all survived this long, we've all worked together to solve murders and to execute people - none of our hands are clean anymore. And we know there's an enemy we can actually fight against among us. That should take priority over anything else, personalized incentives or no.
[A shrug.] But I'm just a regular teenage kid. I know there are people here who could stand to lose a hell of a lot more than I could.
no subject
There are only 10 'players' left at this point. Spain notwithstanding, I would be... disappointed to see any of us continue to be so easily manipulated. We've survived nearly two months. We're making progress towards unraveling the true nature of things. Each of us has done our utmost to survive, according to the rules of morality that we can accept, under the circumstances.
We're close to the end. When it does... I hope we aren't short of a dozen.
[even spain ugh not that she says it]
no subject
When exactly does this game end though, did the Hostess ever say? Does it end when we find the mastermind, or are we going to be forced to keep going until there's only one person left? [He sighs.] I'm trying to keep an optimistic outlook here, but this week's incentive was freaking huge. I don't want to know how they're gonna try and top it.
no subject