[i knew the question was inevitable but i still hate it because how many times i can type this up in different wording]
Keep in mind this is acting on the assumption that Fortune's killer was with Ruin last week, based on Ai's news. I also suspect that Blame Game was used to plant the handprint... which means there may have been an accomplice, but I have no leads on that and we don't even know which crime it was linked to, so I'll disregard it for now.
[anyway.]
Disorder implied that the killer we couldn't catch—Fortune's—was a good actor. If you take that to mean it was someone "helping" with solving Fortune's death...
[he counts off on his fingers.]
You, me, Senri, Connor, Catra, Yu, maybe Mizuki, Luke, and Luna. Those are the ones I'd count as the most active.
We'll strike out the first three.
Connor was Strung Red that week and knew it beforehand, so I doubt he'd have taken the risk of killing someone. [2:] As for Catra, while I wouldn't put killing past her, I don't think our Equivalent Exchange messages so far are her style. [3:] Yu's semi-outed one of his tricks this week in the name of catching Fortune's killer, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. [4:] We know Mizuki's with Beauty, who wasn't a suspect. [5:] Luke has a better alibi than most—he was with Fortune when the offering showed up, suggesting he couldn't have been the one to place it, unless he had an accomplice. [but lbr, is luke really smart enough to pull off a murder.]
That leaves Luna. And when you think about it, did any theory she offer up actually help? From what I recall, everything she suggested was eventually deemed to likely be wrong. Of course, she could just be bad at this, but she was more accurate when it came to the other deaths that week.
She's also one of the people who, when Ambition was summoned, talked about Fortune's killer to her face.
[...]
I also don't believe she was cursed back when she claimed Madoka was with Ruin. She showed no signs of it before the trial—before Estelle started speaking up—and if Sasuke really was the one who targeted Estelle, as Senri's told me, then it makes even less sense that someone randomly decided to curse Luna mid-trial. If nothing else, you'd think they'd pick someone who was actually friends with Madoka.
So, that's one likely lie for her already, on top of her general personality.
As for the last part, she did actually bring it up to me before trial. But I have no idea if she mentioned it to anyone else since I seemed to be the only one not surprised she was claiming that Madoka was a Ruin follower.
[ still. ]
... Ludger told me that Ambition implied to him that it was actually a Ruin follower who killed Fortune, so I think that's the most likely culprit with that and the message.
[ ... ]
Ray, I'm going to tell you something, but it's really important that you don't tell anyone else. It'll probably get me into trouble if too many people know.
Yeah. Someone else does too, but that's because we're working together on it.
My power is All Nighter. The first week I didn't see anything. The second week, I watched two people fight on the ice and then fall through it and into the water. Last week, I saw Fortune fall off the ride.
[ he shrugs. ]
Your guesses on how it happened were pretty accurate. The ride was already running, and then when they reached the top they started to struggle. Fortune fell out of it, and she hit those different parts of it, and eventually she managed to hold onto something but she seemed to have lost her grip and fell the rest of the way.
... Tell me the other person who knows is a certain ally of yours who's concerned about being caught unaware on Thursday night, because they asked me to keep an eye out for other All Nighters for that reason.
That's the one. Both times, the bodies were gone by the time I reached them, so I'm guessing that in order to do anything about it we have to get to where they are right when it's happening. Since I was too far away to really do anything to...
[ anyway, takaomi has had a bad time. ]
But Merriment did basically confirm with me that there's a possibility we could get involved since he was worried about me getting killed, so it's all about us having good timing, I guess.
... I've told them about my suspicions for Luna, as there's a chance she went to Merriment this week. During Yu's meeting, she suggested that she found Merriment's powers appealing, and while it might not mean anything, I wanted to give them a heads-up in case she has All Nighter now.
Sasuke also knows I have a suspect in mind, but not who. We have an agreement that during the trial, he'll use Lie Detection on my signal, if it comes down to that.
This week we're not going to split up, so if we do run into anyone then at least there's a harder chance for them to kill us both off. [ ha ha ] But on Friday I'll let you know if we see anything weird.
We know that there's another Merriment person who does share the ability, but they haven't even spoken to Merriment yet or used the power once. Merriment would have told us if they switched since he's the one who told us to look for them, but with the new rule in place...
[ listen taka is just concerned of how many fuckin people he might accidentally run into ]
Ishikirimaru [there's no point in dancing around his identity, is there] told me the same. I've asked some of my other connections to keep an ear out for any All Nighters, but nothing so far.
ray looks a bit pained for a moment, because none of this is easy to say, but senri's words are running through his mind, and—damn.]
... You told Luke that he tried harder than most, and that goes for you too. [a pause.] And I'm not just ignorantly saying that, either. I won't say something like, "oh, you tried, it's not your fault", because no one ever really believes that themselves.
But... I—back home, I was in a similar situation to this. Constantly knew when someone was going to be killed, said nothing, and did nothing to save them because I told myself I couldn't. In the end, though, that was more of an excuse for being a shitty person.
[...]
Even here, my first thought has always been how to use my ability to defend myself first and foremost. So... although yeah, you have nothing to show for it, so your execution still needs to work, you're thinking about more than most of us. That's pretty awesome. I can see why Senri respects you even when he considers you a giant pain.
[this is literally the only time ray will ever be nice to takaomi's face (and he couldn't even be 100% nice).]
[ he is not entirely sure how to react at first. the news about ray's home life is... it's both surprising and it's not, because something had obviously had to have happened in his world for him to be like. well, this. if anything, he's more surprised that he even said anything about it at all.
takaomi glances away. ]
... well, you seem to be trying to protect others too. [ or, at least, senri ] So you're not doing that bad.
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Keep in mind this is acting on the assumption that Fortune's killer was with Ruin last week, based on Ai's news. I also suspect that Blame Game was used to plant the handprint... which means there may have been an accomplice, but I have no leads on that and we don't even know which crime it was linked to, so I'll disregard it for now.
[anyway.]
Disorder implied that the killer we couldn't catch—Fortune's—was a good actor. If you take that to mean it was someone "helping" with solving Fortune's death...
[he counts off on his fingers.]
You, me, Senri, Connor, Catra, Yu, maybe Mizuki, Luke, and Luna. Those are the ones I'd count as the most active.
We'll strike out the first three.
Connor was Strung Red that week and knew it beforehand, so I doubt he'd have taken the risk of killing someone. [2:] As for Catra, while I wouldn't put killing past her, I don't think our Equivalent Exchange messages so far are her style. [3:] Yu's semi-outed one of his tricks this week in the name of catching Fortune's killer, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. [4:] We know Mizuki's with Beauty, who wasn't a suspect. [5:] Luke has a better alibi than most—he was with Fortune when the offering showed up, suggesting he couldn't have been the one to place it, unless he had an accomplice. [but lbr, is luke really smart enough to pull off a murder.]
That leaves Luna. And when you think about it, did any theory she offer up actually help? From what I recall, everything she suggested was eventually deemed to likely be wrong. Of course, she could just be bad at this, but she was more accurate when it came to the other deaths that week.
She's also one of the people who, when Ambition was summoned, talked about Fortune's killer to her face.
[...]
I also don't believe she was cursed back when she claimed Madoka was with Ruin. She showed no signs of it before the trial—before Estelle started speaking up—and if Sasuke really was the one who targeted Estelle, as Senri's told me, then it makes even less sense that someone randomly decided to curse Luna mid-trial. If nothing else, you'd think they'd pick someone who was actually friends with Madoka.
So, that's one likely lie for her already, on top of her general personality.
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[ still. ]
... Ludger told me that Ambition implied to him that it was actually a Ruin follower who killed Fortune, so I think that's the most likely culprit with that and the message.
[ ... ]
Ray, I'm going to tell you something, but it's really important that you don't tell anyone else. It'll probably get me into trouble if too many people know.
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[whatever it is.]
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My power is All Nighter. The first week I didn't see anything. The second week, I watched two people fight on the ice and then fall through it and into the water. Last week, I saw Fortune fall off the ride.
[ he shrugs. ]
Your guesses on how it happened were pretty accurate. The ride was already running, and then when they reached the top they started to struggle. Fortune fell out of it, and she hit those different parts of it, and eventually she managed to hold onto something but she seemed to have lost her grip and fell the rest of the way.
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[...]
I see.
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[ anyway, takaomi has had a bad time. ]
But Merriment did basically confirm with me that there's a possibility we could get involved since he was worried about me getting killed, so it's all about us having good timing, I guess.
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... I've told them about my suspicions for Luna, as there's a chance she went to Merriment this week. During Yu's meeting, she suggested that she found Merriment's powers appealing, and while it might not mean anything, I wanted to give them a heads-up in case she has All Nighter now.
Sasuke also knows I have a suspect in mind, but not who. We have an agreement that during the trial, he'll use Lie Detection on my signal, if it comes down to that.
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[ binch get your own deity to mooch off of.... ]
This week we're not going to split up, so if we do run into anyone then at least there's a harder chance for them to kill us both off. [ ha ha ] But on Friday I'll let you know if we see anything weird.
We know that there's another Merriment person who does share the ability, but they haven't even spoken to Merriment yet or used the power once. Merriment would have told us if they switched since he's the one who told us to look for them, but with the new rule in place...
[ listen taka is just concerned of how many fuckin people he might accidentally run into ]
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Ishikirimaru [there's no point in dancing around his identity, is there] told me the same. I've asked some of my other connections to keep an ear out for any All Nighters, but nothing so far.
[...]
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[ he pauses ]
Is there anything else?
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ray looks a bit pained for a moment, because none of this is easy to say, but senri's words are running through his mind, and—damn.]
... You told Luke that he tried harder than most, and that goes for you too. [a pause.] And I'm not just ignorantly saying that, either. I won't say something like, "oh, you tried, it's not your fault", because no one ever really believes that themselves.
But... I—back home, I was in a similar situation to this. Constantly knew when someone was going to be killed, said nothing, and did nothing to save them because I told myself I couldn't. In the end, though, that was more of an excuse for being a shitty person.
[...]
Even here, my first thought has always been how to use my ability to defend myself first and foremost. So... although yeah, you have nothing to show for it, so your execution still needs to work, you're thinking about more than most of us. That's pretty awesome. I can see why Senri respects you even when he considers you a giant pain.
[this is literally the only time ray will ever be nice to takaomi's face (and he couldn't even be 100% nice).]
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takaomi glances away. ]
... well, you seem to be trying to protect others too. [ or, at least, senri ] So you're not doing that bad.
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Well, I'm not a sociopath, I guess. That's reserved for Luna or whoever the last Ruin follower was.
[because those equivalent exchange wounds sure were. hm.]
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[ this is why they never talk about murder on fridays. ]
... I'm not any good at this kind of thing. [ this is why he has no friends. ] But thanks.
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We're never going to talk about this again, right?
[ please. he's embarrassed. ]
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