THIRD TRIAL

[despairection]

[Ashley Blair, the SHSL Witch-in-Training, is dead. She's had her life snuffed out, but how and why? It's a murder both mysterious and menacing.

Portraits of Betrayus and Ashley, depicted in monochrome coloring, stand at their podiums. But more importantly, the courtroom this time is an exact and functional replica of the Eggman Factory. If only for the evidence they'll never be able to move...

Will they be able to use this evidence to find the truth? Or will the culprit's confusing conundrum get the best of them?

10 students remain.]



[Let the class trial in the murder of Ashley Blair...begin.]

 

Comments

[superstylishschism]

[He snorts and shakes his head.]

Dead for ten years? That's your secret? I was dead for two-thousand years, trapped in a sword so that I couldn't even choose the fate of my own soul.

You really think I can't understand being stuck between life and death?

[theothersissel]

Oh, poor you. A sword.

[He laughs, his voice on the edge of cracking.]

My fiancee, she...she decided to take her own life because she thought I was dead for good, did you know that? Huh? And after that, I had no one! No one even cared! No one REMEMBERED! And you have the damn right to even compare yourself to me...!

[He shakes. His hands tighten into fists.]

Shut your damn mouth, Alastor, before I go and shut it for you.

[shslancer]

Don't ya dare threaten him, or anyone else here.

[There's steel to that sweet voice. You just pushed a button, Yomiel. Despite it, there's also a calm...like that before a storm.]

There's been 'nuff pain already for everyone here. Ah won't let ya hurt anyone else.

[theothersissel]

[He smiles. It's incredibly fake.]

Well, I'm already going to die, so really, at this point I wouldn't care if you beat me up or not.

Don't worry, though. I'm not going to hurt him.

[green_mario]

Guys!

[That came out louder than he intended.]

Just... please, lets-a stop threatening each other, okay? It's what Monobear wants.

[shslancer]

...You're right, Sir Luigi.

[She tugs her helmet down a little in shame, the air around her nervous again. What is this place doing to her?]

Ah'm...sorry. 'Bout all ya went through...an' that it's come to this.

[superstylishschism]

Tch...you're just determined to think of yourself as alone and unsympathetic, aren't you? At least you had enough freedom to know what happened. Try being an inanimate object locked away in an evil castle.

But, whatever. I tried to offer a hand of friendship to everyone who was left yesterday. You're the one who decided you would obviously be excluded if we knew you died and someone loved you so much it broke her heart.

Maybe you're right, we're not the same. I actually got over myself when I realized the thought of scaring away the first people to try to reach out actually terrified me. You just stuck your head in the sand and refused to see what was right in front of you.

[theothersissel]

I killed people, you know. That Rube Goldberg machine I mentioned? I controlled it with some abilities I gained after my death. I killed a mother of a young child. And everyone that was involved in my "death", I killed.

[He stares at Alastor, his expression cold.]

If I had told you that, yesterday, would you have extended a hand of friendship to me, then? I bet the answer would be "no".

I'm a terrible person. There's no getting around it. I wasn't just hiding the fact I was dead. I was also hiding the fact that my hands are stained red.

No one would trust a murderer.

[shslancer]

Ah've killed so many folks in the wars Ah lost count. Nobody hated me for sayin' that.

[theothersissel]

Yeah, but that's war. These were personal. I murdered innocent people who had no chance to defend themselves.

["just hate me, just hate me, you know you hate me", he almost seems to be saying".]

It felt good, at the time. But that doesn't change the fact that I did it entirely out of spite.

[superstylishschism]

And mine aren't? Do you know what my name means, Yomiel? "Alastor", Greek for "one who avenges." A demons name is its purpose and its nature. I was created as a tool of vengeance, nothing more and nothing less. I've killed people I didn't even know, because they offended my creator.

And did you forget what I said yesterday? The only reason I didn't kill Joe, Silvia, Blue Jr....that's because my boss interrupted right as I was trying to strike the killing blow against Joe. The other two, I nearly crushed because I wasn't even paying attention to them anymore.

My hands are stained with the blood of two-thousand three-hundred years' worth of living as a devil, and you think I'm going to judge you for taking bloody revenge against the people involved in your death?

[theothersissel]

Yes, honestly, I thought you would. You're "redeemed". I'm not. Besides, those people I murdered? In all honesty, they were innocent. I wasn't even murdered. I was killed by a meteor. They just created the situation where I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I even killed a lady who was a young girl I took hostage on the day I died. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I blamed her for my death, too.

[He shakes his head.]

Just tell me you hate me. I know you do. I'm worse than you could ever possibly be.

[superstylishschism]

I'm "redeemed" because I finally got my head out of my ass and realized I didn't have to be where I thought I was stuck. The fact that you expect us to hate you? It means you know what you did was wrong. If you think you deserve it, it means you feel guilty for acting out of spite and anger against people who couldn't have known their actions would lead to your death.

What you've done is no worse than what Tsukumo did. The only real difference is that you succeeded, when all of their would-be victims were lucky enough to notice the danger in time to avoid it. And they weren't even acting out of anger over being killed, they were just jealous.

Do you know what we did when we found out that the supposed accidents were caused by a vengeful spirit? When we had it too weak to keep trying to kill us, had it at our mercy?

[theothersissel]

...

Let me guess. You saved it with some stupid "power of love" speech or whatever.

[He may call it stupid, but he would like a speech like that, deep down...]

Previous should've been plural, oops.

[superstylishschism]

Teamwork, actually.

But the point is, we forgave them. We were the ones it tried to kill, but we didn't hate them for being angry, or even for taking their anger too far. We accepted that they had made mistakes and we reached out to them anyway.

Because that's what decent people do when faced with someone who lashed out because they were hurting. We don't hold it against them and give them more to resent, we try to help them heal.

[theothersissel]

[His mouth twists into a kind of...weirdly regretful expression.]

...

I didn't think that would happen. I just assumed...I just assumed you'd think I'm a monster.

[superstylishschism]

Real monsters don't care if people hate them, they don't even understand why people care who else they hurt.

[He shakes his head.]

You're not a monster, you're just an idiot.

[theothersissel]

[He shrugs, as if he doesn't have a single care in the world.]

Good to know.

[chaoscontrol]

You're wrong. You're hardly the only person here with blood on your hands, you damned fool. And we all had our reasons. Some noble, some not so much. But I meant what I said on Tuesday; anyone who went for this motive is a moron.

[theothersissel]

Like I said, I did this because I knew that eventually, I would get caught. What's happening right now, that's what I want. The motive was just a stupid excuse for what I did, in the end.

I mean, if I succeeded and I survived, I wouldn't have said no, but...well, I'm not exactly going against my fate here, am I?

[chaoscontrol]

If you just waned to die, why didn't you just kill yourself? Save us all the trouble of your sad, pathetic story. Tch. Go to your death quietly.

[theothersissel]

I wanted to leave it up to fate. I was okay with what happened, either way.

But whatever. Reasons, no reasons, I'm the guilty one. That's just how it is.

[chaoscontrol]

What part of "quietly" did you not understand? I don't want to hear any more of your self-pitying bullshit.

[theothersissel]

[He just grins wide.]

Aw, why? Does it bother you?

[chaoscontrol]

Yes. Your pathetic excuses for how much you hate yourself piss me off. If it's you that you loathe, then do something about it. Don't drag others into this. Especially not children. I will never understand people like you.