trial 4 afterparty

[exequte]

[Boy, that all sure Just Happened, didn't it? It Sure Hecking Did.

Akane helps drag anyone who needs it out of the theater as best as she, a tiny frail sick girl, can, before heading straight to Hubert's room and retrieving the letter he had told her was there, and then finding a sheet of paper, a pen, and a small knife, writing a short one of her own, and paying Charon to send it to the afterlife.

After this she brings Hubert's letter to the mess hall, as gathering for food after these things seems like the common thread that's bound all of them together.

Akane herself still has a lowgrade fever, and that last trial was not easy on her, but it seems to her like there's more important things to do at the moment.]

Comments

[yesorwoof]

[Makima is nodding along with a smooth face at the largely familiar discussion that Alastor's past experience with Qliphoth and present observations of Delta meshed well enough with Aoi's claims. She's never exactly felt ecstatic about it, but at least acknowledged the reasoning. Then, he says "hurt devils". Makima's smooth face goes entirely still and stays that way. When the time comes, she recites from memory.]

"Swallow poison today. Act like an idiot about it."

If I truly never threatened him, not even when he claimed his flask was spiked, then your reasoning doesn't hold.

[She breaks her piercing gaze. Her hair sways.]

Not that I think it's exactly what he'd do, get rid of a quite valuable supporter. It's just that his letter raises more questions than answers. He needed two people to kill Zack-kun, and yet operating independently of Akane-chan is the one thing he never considered?

[superstylishsquid]

[He tilts his head at the way her face goes still, his tail flicking a few times behind him.]

Never said he'd have tried to get rid of me. But I've been an active investigator, and the one person here who knows the full significance of anything relating to the underworld or the tree. If he'd meant us harm, would've been easy for him to put me in the infirmary for a few days...even repeatedly, if he could make it look like it was someone else's fault. Instead, he's the one who first said we needed to share the information about the Qliphoth with the group.

And I don't see what him thinking of you as a threat or not has to do with anything.

[yesorwoof]

[Quickly, coldly:]

Because I was waiting for him to put a single toe out of line, and he claimed that I was still playing into his hands all along.

[superstylishsquid]

Makes perfect sense to me. You were suspicious of him in the first loop, and he wanted to keep certain things the same.

[yesorwoof]

[She looks from side to side and then sighs.]

It seems that in the end it all comes back to Zack-kun. Do you think that taking matters into their own hand was for the best? Did you know even back then this was the plan...?

[superstylishsquid]

No, I didn't. Aoi didn't let me know he'd killed Zack until it was already over with.

Not sure if taking matters into their own hands there was for the best or not, but...it did give us some interesting information. They had to kill him twice...and it confirmed something I've been suspecting ever since I saw him carry that slot machine around. Zack never lost his powers. He just had his memory rewritten so he didn't know he even had them.