A/N: Just to let you all know, I've been getting better since last I posted. Being sick definitely made me feel rotten for a while, but I've at least been able to make a good deal of progress on this story.
However, I have found myself quite troubled recently, for different reasons than being sick with the Flu. In order to explain where these troubles have been coming from, I'm going to leave an additional Author's Note at the end of this chapter. It's nothing super important, just some stuff I've had on my mind recently that I think would help put me at ease if I spoke about them here.
Well, they'd just found a gun. Specifically, a revolver, underneath a chair in the common room. The finding came at an interesting time, as they'd just started wondering what might've caused the large amount of blood splatter that they'd found. They didn't have any other leads when they found it, and it didn't take a gun expert to deduce that a loaded revolver could grievously wound someone, so it seemed like it might've been exactly what they were looking for.
Naoko carefully took the gun from Kimi and, after making certain that it wouldn't go off in his hand, took a look inside its chamber. There he saw that it was fully loaded, but seemed to have been fired only once. Taking that detail at face value, it seemed like they had indeed found the weapon used on Takeshi. The question that that prompted was…Well, actually, there were still a lot of questions they needed to answer. Naoko just needed to figure out what to start with.
"I guess if this was what was used against Takeshi, then we probably need to figure out who had it," He suggested.
"Well, it wasn't me," Ishi replied. "So, if it wasn't you either, then-"
"Hang on," Kimi interjected. "How the hell do you know you or him didn't have it? We lost our memories!"
"Because, like," Ishi began, "whoever used it probably brought it, like, when the get-together started and stuff."
"You mean they had it on them before we all blacked out?" Mariko asked.
"That's possible, but…" Naoko paused to think for a moment. "They'd have to have gotten it from somewhere. And since we didn't know about it, they must've wanted to keep it hidden from us."
"Well, I already have some ideas myself," Mareo said. "Perhaps it's time we make this discovery known."
They walked back into the distillery and addressed its occupants. Specifically, Yori and Eryu, who were cleaning up around the crime scene, and Bankei, who was waiting patiently off to the side of the room. Naoko didn't brandish the gun in front of them, for fear of inadvertently freaking them out, but still tried to get them to pay attention to him.
"Hey, Yori? Eryu?" he called out to them.
"Did you find something?" Eryu asked.
"Yeah," Naoko replied. "A, uh…a gun."
The two of them looked surprised. "What?!" Eryu exclaimed. "A gun?!"
"Well, yeah," Naoko replied hesitantly, slowly pulling it out to show it to them. "It's a revolver. I looked inside, and it looks like someone fired it."
"We're currently considering the idea that it's what was used to wound Takeshi," Mareo explained.
"Hm…That sounds reasonable," Yori supposed. "We haven't finished here, but thus far, he seems largely uninjured. It seems entirely possible that his blood loss was caused by a single, grievous injury."
"Well, if that's true, it looks like we're gonna have to keep cleaning up this mess until we find it," Eryu said.
"Yeah, have fun with that," Kimi replied. "In the meantime, I think we better start addressing the elephant in the room here."
"What's that?" Eryu asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" Kimi replied, mildly annoyed. "Who the hell's gun is it…and why is it Bankei's?"
Bankei's attention was noticeably piqued. "Excuse me?"
"To be entirely frank, this shouldn't be much of a surprise," Mareo pointed out to her. "While we cannot be certain exactly how you would have obtained it, you would have every reason to keep it hidden from us if you did. Especially since, as we all know, you have that exact sort of sordid reputation by this point in time."
"You make it sound as though I'm well known for concealing firearms," Bankei retorted.
"You murdered five people!" Eryu responded sharply.
"I did not murder them," Bankei argued. "I just gave a couple of them the nudge they needed."
"Nudge?" Ishi responded offendedly. "You lied to them! You made them think things that totally weren't true!"
"That's exactly what lying is, you dullard," Bankei retorted.
"Did you bring the revolver to the get-together?" Naoko asked pointedly. "Yes or no?"
"Why should I admit to anything?" Bankei questioned. "It's not as though I have much chance of providing false testimony. And the more concrete information I provide, the less you'll be able to figure out on your own."
"That's kind of the idea?" Kimi responded, with what could best be described as sarcastic confusion. "We get the info we need, and we solve the case real quick, so we don't have to listen to you do whatever the female equivalent of sucking yourself off is trying to drag the case out, all so you can make yourself seem cool and important."
"Now you're speaking as if I've done that a million times," Bankei replied angrily. "And while I'm obligated to be honest with you, I should note that, as far as I'm concerned, these cases have been the highlights of our time here. After all, what do you all do when you're not investigating, or in trial? I've listened in when I've been able to, and I had Mine provide me with updates for a time, and I must say, hardly anything here seems to match up to the thrilling, life-or-death search for the truth that happens in these cases. The executions that follow them? Well, I would rather do without them, but it's not as though they ruin the whole thing."
"Okay, either you're just copying from me, or I'm agreeing with a sociopath, because I said that things are boring when we're not dealing with a case, and I'm definitely sure you heard me when I did," Kimi pointed out.
"Indeed," Bankei replied. "And, unlike you, I did not feel the need to whinge about a lack of internet access, like some sort of attention-deprived toddler."
"Fucking christ," Kimi swore, "have you been writing down everything that we've been saying?!"
"Someone has been, that's for sure," Mariko mumbled to herself.
"Look, if you're going to be looking for answers, like you're supposed to, then you really shouldn't waste your time here with me. Try somewhere else, why don't you?" Bankei suggested.
Mareo sighed. "If you're going to keep stonewalling, then I suppose that is the most prudent course of action at this time. Well, unless someone here has some sort of trick up their sleeves."
"Not quite, but we do have something interesting here," Yori replied. "We were cleaning up around the body, and found what appears to be the broken remains of a smartphone."
"Really?" Naoko asked. "Whose is it?"
"We're not sure," Eryu replied. "I have mine, and Yori here has hers."
"I have mine as well," Bankei added.
"Hang on a sec," Ishi said, patting herself down vigorously. There didn't look like there were many places her phone could've been, but damn was she committed to being thorough. "Yep. My phone's not on me."
"I assume the rest of us have ours," Mareo said. Mariko and Kimi both replied in the affirmative. It was already known that Naoko had his on him, since he read the file off of it, so through some simple deduction, it could be ascertained that Ishi was, indeed, the odd one out.
"So, if it's Ishi's, then why is it at the crime scene?" Naoko asked. "And why is it broken?"
Ishi looked like she was racking her brain, trying to find an answer, but it didn't seem like she could come up with anything. "Maybe after we all blacked out, somebody, like…Huh. I guess I don't know."
"Well, alright then. Fuck it," Kimi responded. "I'm not waitin' for you to come up with a theory. Let's just go and…figure out where the gun came from, or whatever."
Kimi didn't seem to enjoy moving on, but she still seemed to be in general agreement that trying to get anything definite from Bankei was more trouble than it would probably be worth. They'd have all the time they'd need once the trial started, with any luck, and if she did, indeed, know anything, that would surely come to light with enough deduction, wouldn't it?
In any case, they needed to move on. Mareo and Mariko splintered off to take a look at the area on the other side of the hallway leading into the common room. It was hard to say how much they'd be able to find in either bathrooms, or the coffee room, or even the medical room, but Naoko had a feeling they'd be able to find at least one interesting thing. The latter room, in particular, seemed like a good place to find something useful. But as for him, Kimi and Ishi? Well, some questions were still bothering Naoko, and he wanted to go where he felt like they'd best be answered.
Stepping into the laboratory, he saw that it wasn't all too different to when he last entered it, at least on the surface. "This should be a good place to look for evidence," Naoko said.
"You mean because of, like, all the weird stuff in here, yeah?" Ishi guessed.
"Sort of," Naoko supposed. "I'm mainly interested in figuring out how we might've gotten our memories erased, and I think if there's any way to do that, it's in here."
"You mean with the chemicals and shit, right?" Kimi assumed.
"Yep," Naoko replied. "I remember I wrote down some measurements a couple days ago for the chemicals in this room. They might not be totally accurate now, but they could be a good place to start."
There was a bit of a problem with this, though. Naoko had the foresight to not leave the measurements in the lab for anyone to see, and thus had taken it up to his room and stored it there for future usage. Without them, he couldn't really compare what the contents of the room were like before to what they were like at the moment. Not wanting to waste too much time, he gave Ishi his room key and told her where to find it while he used what was available to them in the lab to take new measurements. Ishi agreed, and after Naoko had spent a good deal of time taking those new measurements, she returned, giving him his older measurements to compare them to.
The older measurements were just as Naoko had remembered, and, obviously, there were quite a lot of differences between the old ones and the new ones. That made sense to him, since they'd already used a lot of the different components prior to their investigation. He was thinking he'd probably have to convene with Eryu, Yori, and Mareo to determine what could and could not be accounted for, but as he was comparing the different measurements, something odd stuck out to him that derailed his initial thought process.
"That's…that's not right," Naoko said to himself.
"What's not right?" Ishi asked worriedly.
"Some of the components for the truth serum have been depleted significantly," Naoko answered. He continued his comparison, specifically paying attention to the components of the truth serum, and what he was able to determine only made things stranger. "All the components have been depleted."
"What's weird about that?" Ishi asked, now confused.
"The components for the truth serum are off limits," Naoko explained. "Remember? IMONO told you that itself, didn't it?"
"Well, yeah, sure," Ishi supposed. "So, IMONO made more truth serum?"
"That's what it seems on the surface," Naoko replied. "Still, there's a problem with that. Comparing it to the measurements I made before…IMONO must've made way more than just one dose."
"So, how many times has Bankei been injected with that serum shit recently?" Kimi asked.
"Well, thanks to the efforts of Ishi and Takeshi, she did so at least once," Naoko explained. "Still, the amount IMONO made for that one time is way less than the amount IMONO must've made more recently, according to these new measurements."
"So, I guess that does mean IMONO made a bunch more of the truth serum," Ishi presumed. "Y'know, like, preemptively, or something."
"Maybe," Naoko shrugged. "We might have to revisit that. In the meantime, it seems like everything else is accounted for. I'll show these to the others later."
"Everything's accounted for?" Kimi repeated back to him with obvious skepticism. "Are we not gonna talk about anything else here?"
"I guess we'll have to take some of the stuff in here with us, in case we need it," Naoko supposed. "Like that binder over there."
"What about the safe?" Kimi asked. "You guys found it in here, remember?"
"Oh yeah, that's true," Ishi responded. "But what's that have to do with this?"
"I'm just thinking maybe, juuust maybe," Kimi began, "the gun that we found could have come from there."
"That's…not particularly far-fetched," Naoko supposed. "We haven't been able to get it open, as far as I'm aware, so I guess if someone managed to figure out the combination, they could take whatever we wanted from it, and we'd probably never find out."
"Sure, that sounds like it makes sense," Ishi figured. "So, where is that safe again?"
"It's over there," Kimi replied, pointing over her shoulder at one corner of the room. "It's right by that one drawer. You at least know what I mean by that?"
"Huh?" Ishi responded, confused by Kimi's vague language.
"We, uh…We're not supposed to talk about that out loud," Naoko attempted to tell the two of them in code. Unfortunately, the only one that seemed to even have an inkling of what he was trying to communicate was Ishi.
"The fuck did you just say?" Kimi responded, bemused.
"You know what, I suppose we might as well investigate it," Naoko said, shifting the focus.
They went over to the cabinet containing the safe and took a look inside. Things seemed the same as Naoko remembered, and he took a look to reacquaint himself with the progress they'd made trying to figure out the combination. They hadn't been trying new combinations religiously or anything, but they'd managed to get fairly close to one thousand attempts, which wasn't bad, considering the fact that they only started making attempts about a couple of days ago. Naoko figured if someone managed to figure out the combination, they either got the trial and error to work in their favor, or they got very, very lucky. Naoko decided to enter a couple combinations that seemed like they'd be logical for the former possibility, plus a couple for the latter. Suffice to say, neither worked, and he was locked out.
"Damn," Naoko swore. "I guess it doesn't matter anyways. Even if the gun was taken from here, it's not like we'd be able to tell that easily."
"I guess so. And you guys really think Bankei might've had that gun?" Ishi asked.
"Well yeah, probably," Kimi shrugged. "Or, at least, it wouldn't surprise me."
"Sure, yeah. In fact, I was just, like, thinking about that," Ishi explained. "If the gun came from here, it'd kinda make sense for her to have had it. I don't know if, like, you guys have been down here a lot a lot these past couple days, but…like she said earlier, she's totally been snooping around here."
"You mean when we're not down here ourselves," Naoko replied.
"Yeah, I guess," Ishi replied. "Mostly, I've just, like, seen her go towards the stairs down to the fourth floor. Ditching the crutches probably helped make it easier, or something, y'know? But, like, one time, I swear I caught her leaving this room."
"Did you ask her about that when it happened?" Naoko asked.
"Totally," Ishi said. "I asked her if, like, she was doing anything dangerous, or sinister, or whatever. Basically just wanted to make sure she wasn't up to no good. She said she wasn't, and…I guess she was telling the truth?"
"When was this?" Naoko asked.
"Two days ago," Ishi replied. "It was kinda late, and I guess you guys were taking a break, 'cause nighttime was rolling around soon."
"That definitely sounds like the perfect time to snoop," Naoko supposed. "If what she said earlier was any indication, she's tried to do a lot of the same investigating that we have, despite intentionally being kept out of the loop."
"Well, if she did anything else that she hasn't told us, I think it's safe to say that she won't want to tell us," Kimi figured. "She'll probably just refuse to answer again."
"You could, like, trick her into lying, so the truth serum gets injected into her," Ishi pointed out. "Seems like it's possible, at least. Me and Takeshi did it."
"Yeah, you did," Naoko recalled. "How'd you get her to slip up, exactly?"
Ishi gave him an odd look, as if she were saying 'You don't want to know'. Naoko figured it wasn't worth asking about twice.
There didn't seem to be much else of note in the room, so Naoko grabbed his measurements, plus the binder detailing the different chemical compounds, and took it with him as he went back into the common room. There, they met up with Mariko and Mareo, who'd just finished their investigation on the other side of the fourth floor. Apparently, the contents of the coffee room and both of the bathrooms were both largely unnoteworthy, but something significant stood out to them in the medical room. Apparently, someone had made a mess of it, with some of its contents having been disturbed as if someone was rummaging through it trying to find something. Naoko took a look at the room in question, and, indeed, it looked like multiple containers and compartments inside the room had been opened up and dug through rather messily.
With that firmly established, there was just the question of where to go next now that the fourth floor investigation looked to be nearing completion. Mareo sought to look further into the physical states of the living, given that that seemed to be a big factor in regards to what happened to them. In order to do that, though, they'd need to meet up with the others again. Fortunately, when they did, it was at a fairly opportune time.
Eryu and Yori had successfully cleaned up the crime scene to the point where they were able to get a good look at what exactly happened to Takeshi. Looking at his body, it didn't seem like there was much wrong with him on the surface, except for one specific point of interest: his right leg. There, they found the towel, normally hanging above the distillery's sink, wrapped tightly around a specific area like a makeshift tourniquet. Slowly and carefully removing the towel…yeah, it definitely looked like he had a bullet wound.
So that suspicion was confirmed. Otherwise, there was the matter of the surrounding area. The molasses tank, for example, definitely had its glass window cracked at some point, causing glass shards and, of course, the molasses held inside to fall onto the long-dead Takeshi. That being said, looking at the window itself closer, Naoko noticed that the window had something of a metal frame, and that part of it appeared to be slightly dented. Specifically, some of the "inner" part, right by where the glass window once was. That seemed like a big clue, alright.
Aside from those points of interest, there wasn't much else they found by clearing the molasses and investigating the surrounding area. The only things that they could make out were more burn marks, and more glass containers burnt beyond recognition. So, they elected to have Mareo examine their wounds a little bit more thoroughly. Looking at everyone, it seemed as though Bankei gained some additional bruises, had a bit of a sore right arm, and might have even been choked (though she politely refused to take her examination any further). On top of all that, Ishi seemed to have what looked like nail marks around her shoulders, and Eryu…well, he wasn't exactly up for providing proof, but he was apparently quite sure that someone had attacked his groin. Naoko supposed that was believable, given how he seemed to avoid speaking about it initially. Kimi, for her part, laughed.
After that, they got each other up to speed on what they knew. Naoko showed the two of them the shovel they'd found, and Eryu was taken aback. He didn't seem to know why it was there, and very soon thereafter, took them to the first floor to check the door to his room, which he claimed to have locked that morning, and had the key to prove it. Despite his own claim, however, the door was clearly unlocked. That was definitely an oddity, but before they could speculate on it for too long…
*Dong, Ding, Dong!*
"I MUST SAY, YOU HAVE ALL EXCEEDED MY EXPECTATIONS. YOU SEEM TO HAVE BEEN ABLE TO PICK YOURSELVES UP AND INVESTIGATE QUITE WELL. I SUPPOSE NOW I SHOULD TELL YOU THAT THERE IS LITTLE ELSE FOR YOU TO FIND AT THIS POINT IN YOUR INVESTIGATION. THIS IS A VERY TRICKY SITUATION FOR YOU, AS WELL AS MYSELF, BUT AT THIS POINT, I BELIEVE YOU HAVE DONE ALL YOU REASONABLY CAN. PLEASE, HEAD TO THE MEETING ROOM ON THE SECOND FLOOR, SO OUR TRIAL CAN BEGIN."
That was quite a surprise, honestly. They hadn't even been able to investigate anywhere other than the fourth floor and one specific part of the first floor, and apparently that was enough. And they were being told that, up front? Weird. Then again, it wasn't like they weren't already in a tough spot.
All that any of them seemed to know was that Takeshi was dead. Some of them were sore, others were bruised, and worst of all, there was a gap in their collective memories. Thus, they were left with many questions. What caused them all to come to harm? What caused them to lose their memories? Why was there a gun found on the same floor as whatever conflict that led to Takeshi's death?
No amount of baseless speculation would bring about a firm answer to any of those questions. Only a trial would.
A/N: Yeah, things really sped up near the end, didn't they? I kinda wanted to wrap it up before too long, since in the last chapter I had to wrap up a trial, it took forever. But, in any case, now that that's done, the next chapter will be exactly what one would expect.
Besides that, though, I should also mention that I've seen that the FF version of this story now has its first review! I was nervous about reading it, I'll admit, but I ended up being quite happy with the feedback, as it was really nice, and even reminded me of my own hopes for the story as a whole. I feel like the premise I'm working with still has a good deal of potential, and I do like what I've done with the characters as they are now. Still, I don't want to get ahead of myself here, especially when I still have my own personal concerns in regards to this story.
I recall having written Author's Notes in the past that basically talk about me being worried about stuff I've ended up not liking in my story, or stuff I think I could've done better on, or even that I might've unknowingly included some sort of element, theme, or even just a piece of dialogue that could easily be interpreted as harmful or offensive in some way. And yeah, those concerns and more have come back in full force as of recently. Obviously, if you've read up to this point, I'm willing to assume you're at least partly aware of all this, since I've shared them over time, but since this fic is quite long at this point, I'm worried not everyone will have read up enough to actually be aware of these concerns of mine (and thus may come to hasty conclusions on my intent with this story), especially since a lot of these concerns I've been having have been in regards to early on in the story, when I was still quite new to this sort of writing, as well as before I really knew what I wanted for this fic as a whole.
In summation, I've been in a bad headspace recently, and I'm not totally sure what to do from here. My current plan is to start updating older chapters. This is something I shied away from doing in the past, since I don't really like retcons, and it might even lead to continuity errors, depending on what's changed. Still, it's something I've seriously considered doing as of recently. That, or I might just continue writing as I have been, working with what I've already created to make a story that makes sense and is cohesive to those that read the whole fic. That seems like it'd be the simplest, and it's what I've sort of been hoping for up until the start of this emotional trough of mine. As much as I've tried to express that my main goal is just to finish the story, it's definitely tempting to go back and redo things. If I do end up going through with my plan to change stuff, though, it'll probably have to be after this arc is wrapped up.
Anyways, ramble over. I'll be sure to upload the next chapter around the usual time. Thanks for reading 70+ chapters of my story thus far!