[Fin] Murder U Too - Endgame

[Kennifer]

"Yes. I know what you're saying, because you keep saying the same damn shit over and over and over again. We're just trying to be thorough here."

[wingedcatgirl]

>search Cookie Monster's bedroom and the kitchen for potential sources of fur [Bow, Haruka, 8+4]
There are a few strands of blue fiber in both places.

[wahoothis]

". . . Kai, you mentioned something about being a househusband, right? Wouldn't that mean you'd be an expert of cleaning up rooms. This may be a stretch, but if you're that skilled of cleaning, you'd have no problem tidying up a crime scene. Especially since there isn't anything that messy such as blood. Could very well be the exact reason why the killer chose to break someone's neck: to not leave a drop of evidence such as blood. And looking at the report, it doesn't exactly give us a timeframe. So what if Cookie went into the kitchen and remained there for a while, while the true killer entered Doug's room. Cookie then left the kitchen, just as the killer was finishing killing Doug. That's why the report says two people left an occupied room, with one leaving before the others. The killer leaves the room, and probably used the vents to hide from potential witnesses. Once it was safe to come out, the killer goes to the bathroom and flushes the gloves to probably get rid of evidence. They leave the bathroom and enter the kitchen. If theories hold up, Cookie Monster's fluff should be there. The killer probably didn't initially believe to frame someone, but seeing the fuzz, they took the chance. And why would Kellensea help a potential killer? Well, the host did mention that there's no penalty to getting the wrong person voted. So she's not at risk of getting herself killed by voting someone wrong. And she doesn't exactly seem like the type of person to put her ego aside. If she believes Cookie Monster did it, she could potentially do something to make her idea come true. I mean, she had no qualms looting a corpse. Framing a potential innocent person to fill her ego doesn't exactly seem too far out there." Ranma would let out a deep sigh and sit down. "I don't know at this point, this is all too irritating. I already know my words aren't going to reach her, she's just going to keep fighting until the sun blows up. So I'm done arguing about this. I rest my opinion, and we already know yours Kellensea, so don't even say it. We're sick of hearing the same argument over and over again. At least I add new ideas, you continue with the same "Kai couldn't have done it, Cookie's the one who done it you stupid morons." Give it a rest now. . ." At this point, Ranma's just ready to get the voting done with.

[artsyGeek]

"Ah yes, more blue strands. That's all we need to vote for Cookie Monster."

"....yeah, that's.. the safest choice I got for now, so...

/vote Cookie Monster

[wahoothis]

". . . Cookie Monster. I swear to god if you were the killer the whole time, you're getting punched. So you better pray to whatever cookie eating god you have that you're not."

/Ranma votes Kai and holds his breath, ready to punch the monster if he's incorrect and Cookie truly is the killer.

[Kennifer]

"The two people leaving the occupied room... the host said one was Doug dying, and the second would've been the killer leaving."

[Florien]

Kellensea is positively shrieking now.

YOU'VE BEEN THOROUGH, ALEXIS! IF THIS WAS BACK HOME, WE WOULD HAVE ALREADY EXECUTED THE DAMN MONSTER, MAYBE KAI TOO, POSSIBLY HARUKA ALSO, AND STRIPPED THE PLACE! AND YOU DARE SAY I'M WRONG TO BRING UP THE FUCKING OBVIOUS THAT ALL OF YOU KEEP IGNORING BECAUSE IT'S "TOO OBVIOUS"? THEN IS IT OKAY FOR RANMA TO CONTINUOUSLY BRING UP THIS BULLSHIT THAT MAYBE THERE'S SOME GRAND FUCKING CONSPIRACY THAT MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL!? WHY DO YOU SEARCH FOR MORE EVIDENCE!? IF THERE'S MORE EVIDENCE, YOU'LL JUST DISMISS IT AND SAY "oh no it couldn't possibly be cookie monster, let's keep fucking LOOKING for more SHIT until WE FIND SOME SHIT THAT IMPLICATES ANYONE ELSE"!

Kellensea draws one of her daggers and slams it into the table. It sticks there, quivering. Then she continues her tirade.

YOU NEED TO FUCKING LOOK AT THE DAMN EVIDENCE, EVERYONE, THEN EVALUATE IT. YOU CAN'T JUST DISMISS EVIDENCE BECAUSE IT DOESN'T SUPPORT THE EXISTENCE OF AN ELABORATE CONSPIRACY TO FRAME SOME RANDOM BLUE BAG! WHY DO YOU INSIST THAT IT CAN'T BE THE OBVIOUS SOLUTION?! BUT NO, YOU CONTORT EVERY BIT OF EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT A VAST FUCKING CONSPIRACY THAT WOULD REQUIRE ALL OF YOU TO BE IN ON IT TOO TO WORK! GET THE FUCK UP AND TAKE SOME FUCKING INITIATIVE, STOP YOUR IDIOTIC WAFFLING!

Kellensea collapses into a chair, exhausted. It sounds like she's done, but then she croaks out just a few more words.

Just... vote. Now. If I'm wrong, you can all fucking gloat your asses off.

She sounds miserable.

[wingedcatgirl]

Votes (7 to convict or skip)
Cookie Monster - Kellensea, Kai, Haruka
Kai - Ranma
Skip - Bakugo

[artsyGeek]

[Haruka walks to Kellensea.]

"...Ma'am? Are you alright? Y.. you wanna talk?"

[She doesn't care that Kellensea basically went "fuck you and you and you" at her. She just wants the gal to get some help - Or at least, some company.]

[Kennifer]

"Shut. The. Fuck. UP. Already! I've SEEN an innocent person die because of so-called obvious evidence, and I had a hand in it! So, Miss Egotistical Adventurer, you'll excuse me if I don't want to make the same mistake again. And by the way? This shit you're doing? Not endearing yourself to ANYONE, so you'd fucking better hope that office you're barricading yourself in is secure."

Alexis pauses to catch her breath and toss her hair out of her face.

"And note I never said you couldn't be right. I never said it couldn't possibly be the Cookie Monster. I just wanted to be DAMN SURE I didn't make the same damned mistake again. Okay? Now you all know a little tidbit from my past. I hope you're fucking happy.

[wahoothis]

". . . Gloat? GLOAT? Why the hell would we WANT to gloat about this?! You're the one whose been on about "awaiting my validation" and acting like you're the goddamn brilliant person in this world who we should grovel at your feet!" Ranma yelled back at her after her own outburst, his rage towards her finally broiling to a point. "This whole time, you've been bragging about how you got this case down to a T, that Cookie Monster is the only one who could have done it. In case you haven't realized, we don't go by the "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality you possess! Maybe had you have been more willing to investigate instead of immediately going "Yep, the monster is the one who did it. You can praise me later," we'd be more understanding. This isn't a game where you win a prize, it's a matter of life and death! Someone died, and you could potentially kill an innocent person just because there's bits of them there." Ranma was steaming, before gripping his fists tight enough to almost open the wounds on his knuckles. "Don't you get it? None of us want to be here. None of us WANTS to do this. We're trying to figure out who killed Doug, an innocent man who didn't deserve to die, and you want us to immediately kill someone because you think it's them. How this whole time you've been gloating that you have experiences and know this crap, and how everyone who doesn't believe you is morons who need to be taught a lesson. Just. . . Just. . . shut up. . ." He lowered his voice, taking a few shaky breaths, just barely managing to keep himself standing. ". . . I'm sorry, alright? You're right, I have no fucking clue what the hell I'm doing. I'm just a random kid who knows fucking martial arts, and that's it! So you could be right. Cookie Monster could be the killer, and I'm just a disgrace to mankind who almost killed an innocent person because he can't let his fucking pride die. I already failed to keep one person alive, I've already failed as a man. . . I just didn't want it to happen again. . ." With those final words, Ranma Saotome just sits down, actually keeping his mouth shut, just holding his head in shame. For the first time, he doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know how to beat this. He's been trying to treat this as another challenge, another obstacle, but now he's questioning whether or not he was doing this because he truly believed Cookie was innocent, or if it was his own pride clouding his vision.

[artsyGeek]

[Haruka looks at Ranma, then at Kellensea. ...shit. Who's the best person to be trusted? On one hand, all the evidence are obviously against Cookie Monster, but... Ranma was right. Kellensea didn't investigated shit.]

"考えて、遥、考えて！ らんまとケレンシーを一度仲良くするための最良の選択肢は何でしょうか?!" (Think, Haruka, think! What might be the best option to make Ranma and Kellensea get along for once?!)

"...くそ。 これは機能しますか？ 私はそれが..." (...fuck. Would this work? I hope it would...)

"Hey!" She shouted at both Ranma and Kel. "May I suggest something for the both of you?"

[Florien]

Oh, I'm... fine. Mostly. Just... tired of idiots and wafflers. This didn't need to go on for hours. I'm going to be right, and they're going to be upset that I was right. As much as I'd love to just vote off Kai and be done with it, out of spite towards them, you understand, and their obsession with finding MORE evidence, MORE evidence, even though we've already found all relevant evidence, I'm sure...

Kellensea hears Alexis's statement then. She briefly moves, as if to strike Alexis, but then doesn't, and instead slumps back again. Even as Ranma's rage and breakdown washes over her, she just sits, apparently catatonic. Finally, sounding to be on the verge of tears, she spits a few words out.

I am done. with all of you. you're all fucking cowards who aren't ready to be wrong. sure. people died in your pasts. get the fuck over it. people die. but you are, for now, alive. congratulations. you've not lost. I just... I want to finish this. I want to go to sleep. but you hold us here. you hold me here. just vote. be wrong. be right, it doesn't matter anymore.

She doesn't even react to Haruka's new statement, much less respond.

[wahoothis]

Ranma didn't say anything, but he managed to lift his head up to listen to ". . ." Hearing Kellensea's tone, how she still believed she was right like usual but at the same time emotionally vulnerable, he just took a deep breath and stared at the floor. "Way to go Saotome. Can't ever keep your trap shut." He thought to himself, just tired and full of regret and shattered pride.

[Kennifer]

"Fine. Call me a waffler or whatever because I don't want to be responsible for potentially getting another innocent executed horribly. Just because people's lives mean that little to you doesn't mean it's that way for everyone. SOME of us care if we make a mistake like that."

Alexis, looking mentally exhausted, slumps down in a chair and just kinda... face plants onto the table.

[wingedcatgirl]

My, my... it's only day 2 and you're all already falling into such delicious despair!

[wahoothis]

"Just. . . shut up." Ranma's too mentally exhausted to protest the host's comments.

[Florien]

Hey host, if I vote four more times, does that count as enough to execute? Or does this probably nonexistent loophole simply not exist? Failing that, I'm going to go get some food from the office while I wait for people to stop sitting there, waiting for old age to execute the murderer.

Kellensea, not confident at all her terrible idea to end the trial immediately will work, gets up and heads to the office to go do that.

[Caret]

All of the evidence we found points to Cookie Monster, but the evidence almost too good to be true. If this is all a frame up, it's a really good one to say the least, but even then... UGH! I don't want to end up killing an incident because... that's just straight up wrong.

Bow, also looking exhausted, decides to just lay on her bed for a bit.

[wingedcatgirl]

I shake my head, grinning at her audacity despite myself. No, Kellensea. You get one vote. You can change who you're voting for, but you can't simultaneously vote more than once for the same person, or for more than one person.

[Florien]

Kellensea returns from presumably eating in the office, holding an empty can that presumably, if the label is to be believed, contained green beans just a few minutes ago.

One moment. Going to test something important, for my future reference.

Kellensea then drops the can over the ledge on the balcony, and watches it fall.

So, host, question. If I were to drop a body down there, would it stay down there, or would you pull it out to be examined? And if someone was pushed down there, would they die? And how would we know that person had died by falling off the balcony if they had died at all if they were simply dropped? Would we simply have to assume they were dead and hold a trial ourselves, or would we be informed?

At least eating has apparently put her in better spirits, if by "better spirits" what is meant is "openly considering plans to dispose of bodies"

[wingedcatgirl]

I ponder this for several moments. Well... what's down there in the first place is a spoiler~ so I suppose I can't answer that. Suffice to say, if you threw a person down there, they would die, and there would be a trial.

[Florien]

Oh, fuck, wouldn't want any of you to have this. You'd probably do something stupid with it.

Kellensea picks her dagger out of the table, where it had remained dramatically stuck since her recent meltdown, and resheathes it in a holster on one of her several belts.

Now, votes. We're three for execution of the murderer, one for execution of the not-murderer, and one for execution of no one because all the evidence in the world is apparently not enough, because for some people "perfectly straightforward" just means "elaborate conspiracy to make it look perfectly straightforward"... I'm sorry, I'm an adventurer, I check floors, ceilings, and walls, because all of them could be trying to kill me in some way, but this is an absurd amount of caution. Anyway... we just need four more people to fall in line with me, and we can get this over with. Frankly, if we execute the not-murderer, I don't particularly care, but since all of you are weirdly obsessed with getting the right person without getting any wrong people, I would recommend falling in line behind me, whatever your opinion of my person. So... Yes.

The adventurer adjusts her helmet, and then abruptly gets distracted attempting to pick the paint off the table, despite the fact she's wearing gauntlets.

[wahoothis]

And just when Ranma was beginning to think Kellensea was actually being a decent and real person earlier, she immediately goes back to her old ways. ". . .I'm just gonna go now." He says with a tired sigh, walking off to most likely to go punch a wall.

[madface7]

Krabs has been watching the chaos unfold, but silently casts a vote for Kai.