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

[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.