Chapter 3: The Trial

[Exusiai]

"W-Waah!  Someone actually added a fourth note while we were passing them around!"

"I-It's just my opinion, but doesn't it seem like the culprit is mocking us?
I'm sure the person responsible for this didn't pull off this stunt openly, but it's practically a calling card!

According to Satone and Shinka, the two of them, along with Rikka, got notes that said Yuuta would be the target and that Yuuta's note mentioned Rikka instead.
This would naturally make the one that mentions Pierrick to stand out from the rest.
When I checked it, I immediately noticed the writing.
Aside from the difference in semantics, the note is somewhat crinkly and the ink is sort of runny.
At some point, the paper got wet.

The culprit probably delivered those notes to Rikka, Satone, Shinka, and Yuuta before Pierrick was killed.
Everyone's noticed it, right?
While the ones Rikka, Shinka, and Yuuta had used 'will,' the one with Pierrick's name has 'is going to be."
Doesn't 'is going to be' sound more urgent than 'will?'
. . . Th-That may have been the culprit's intention in the first place, though.

"In regards to the extra note, I'm not exactly sure when it could have been written.
While investigating, I saw wet stains on most of the floors of the complex, making it difficult to trace where the culprit went.
The note could have been dropped in water, but if the person responsible was walking around with drenched clothes, then it could have gotten wet from being shoved in a pocket instead.
With that writing style, though, it was probably written in haste."

"A-Actually. . . I don't think the missing lint has to do with the culprit trying to wash their clothes."
For one, it was already mentioned that the washing machine is pretty loud.  I think some of us would have heard it running, even at night.
The culprit probably wouldn't have had much time to run up and down the complex, throw their clothes in the washing machine, and get a new set of clothes before the body announcement went off.
Yuuta and Rikka found Pierrick's body not too long after the gunshots were heard, and at the very least, I didn't notice anyone missing when the body announcement was called."

[King V]

"This witness has been thinking about the gun dilemma for so long, that I accidentally stumbled upon the reason why the notes exist. Because it's part of the gun conspiracy."

"The culprit called witnesses to the southern sewers, away from the murder location, but in the general vicinity, specifically so that the 'gunshots' could be heard. That's the only reaosn why the culprit would want anyone wandering around the crime scene, so that they could find fake evidence to confuse us. The 7 'gunshots' are all a ruse! It's a conspiracy to confuse all of us! We must find the truth behind this gun conspiracy!"

[John Dark Souls]

"Mishy can't see how the said 'gun dilemma' could be so important if important at all. Judging from the way high-schooler couple described the sounds, murder likely transpired in this way: "At the point of laughter, Pierick was likely already dead or at least unable to move freely, culprit proceeded to fire 7 shots while moving away from initial spot they were at, leaving whether shots were fired to mask footsteps or just to prevent anyone from coming over yet aside for now, they proceeded to finish firing the shots and threw the body on the slide and then proceeded to throw the gun to center of the sewer and made their escape. In other words, while guns were used during the execution, they don't really hold much importance to it at all. Although, seeing as how nobody found bullet casings or bullets themselves, only two likely possibilities exist: all the shots were shot towards the grate where stakes were in and both bullets and casings washed off beyond it, or all the 7 shots were in fact blanks and never had bullets to begin with so culprit only had to throw out the ejected bullet cases down the drain."

"Mishy thinks that the 2nd theory fits better, it probably transpired like this: Culprit found the guns in the black market along with empty bullet casing from the test shot witness girl did, then they got an idea that they could make 7 blanks if they freed up 6 more casings, so they took the guns and fired at random spots near manhole and then made blanks out of the ejected casings and refilled the magazines with them. Oh, speaking of which, refilling magazines isn't as hard as witness girl claims it to be, you just have to press on eject button to take magazine out, then push down on the bullets to pull the bullets and the spring pushing them up down, and then through top insert new bullets, in fact, if you do it this way, the newer bullets will be shot first, so it is easy to insert new blanks and have them fire instead of the older real shots in the magazines."

"This is just Mishy's wild assumption, but perhaps culprit wanted to have one of the guns, the one in central sewer to be precise washed off through the grate either but failed to throw it in the right spot. That way, the case could've been even more confusing with 7 gunshots but only one gun that has 3 missing bullets and witness's story about missing gun that is supposed to have 1 bullet missing."

[King V]

"If the culprit had made blanks, we would see evidence of that. It also doesn't matter whether or not blanks exist, the end result is still the same. Why would they bother choosing the gun with a bullet missing specifically?"

"This witness still awaits a plausible explanation."

[The City [EclipseZwolf]]

-Rikka scratches her head and fiddles with her eye-patch-

Rikka: "The secrets of the angelic bullets are hidden from us and I fear I have a demonic confusion to add to the situation! For I have discovered a third gun! Though I believed it unrelated as it was not a pistol! In the sewer tunnels, in the area just south of the Black Market I was able to see a rifle, caught behind a piece of rubble in the water!"

-Rikka flails around in disappointment-

Rikka: "But I was unable to reach it! The waters are much to fast for even one such as I to enter the depths. If I had, I would have likely ended up the next sacrifice upon the stakes with Pierrick!"

[King V]

"Finally, something that makes sense. The culprit most likely shot several times with the rifle, and decided to unload several bullets from the pistols to make it seem as though they were engaged in a gunfight with the victim to mask the fact that a rifle had been used instead."

"But this is not enough proof. This witness requires that the rifle be checked and its use be confirmed. Someone go and retrieve this rifle. Drown if you must, but get this evidence to us."

[John Dark Souls]

"Mishy thinks that rifle shouldn't be retrieved. What are you gonna do if it turns out that rifle has full magazine in it? Go back to square one and try to figure out why it has full magazine instead now? Just existence of the rifle near crime scene is enough evidence in Mishy's opinion."

[King V]

"No, we must confirm it. This witness isn't leaving such an important piece of evidence up to chance again."

-RIN points to a random masked person-

"You there! Go get us the rifle! It is an important piece of evidence for this murder!"

[Exusiai]

"Wouldn't we be making assumptions either way—regardless of whether the rifle's magazine is full or not?
If the rifle is missing bullets, then RIN's scenario would be possible and it'd be easier to imagine the culprit's route, but if all the bullets are there, then there's a lot more possibilities!"

"Let's say the rifle is fully stocked with bullets.
I'd imagine that it would be difficult for the culprit to be carrying around two pistols and a rifle, assuming that both of the guns at the crime scene belonged to the culprit.
The culprit shouldn't be able to carry all of those firearms at once, no less fire one of them while carrying the others.
Why would the culprit hoist around a rifle if it would only end up in the water then—especially if there happens to be no missing bullets in its magazine?
If that were the case, then I can imagine two possibilities.

The first is that one of the firearms originally belonged to Pierrick.
Although I saw him carrying a large, dark object late into the evening, we don't know if he had anything else at that time.
Pierrick could have also made a detour to the black market the night before and gotten a rifle or pistol then, but was ambushed on his way back through the sewers. 
After all, there's a large gap of time between when I saw him enter the sewers and when Yuuta heard someone hysterically laughing, providing enough time for either party to do almost anything!

The other option is that the culprit had gone to the black market to retrieve a third firearm after Pierrick was killed.
I find this second scenario less likely since the laugh Yuuta reported occurred just before the seven gunshots.
I don't think anyone confirmed if it really was Pierrick's voice that Yuuta heard then, though.
Isn't it possible that the culprit could have tried to impersonate Pierrick in order for us to leap to assumptions about the time of Pierrick's death?
. . .
Therefore, I think we should check the rifle."

[The City [EclipseZwolf]]

Itriot: "Cessair?"

-Itriot looks over at Cessair questioningly-

Cessair: "I'll accept the argument that the ammunition count in the rifle is relevant to the case and a potential necessity in solving it. You may retrieve the rifle Itriot."

-Itriot nods before rapidly leaving the room. He is gone for roughly a minute before returning, dry, with a soaking wet rifle-

Itriot: "And to answer your questions..."

-Itriot sets the Rifle down on the table for anyone to examine after popping out the magazine. The magazine appears to be missing 7 rounds-

[King V]

"So the gun dilemma has been solved, logic prevails once again!"

-RIN settles down and clears her throat-

"Very well, this witness will tell everyone what they saw. The day before the murder, this witness spent a lot of time trying to construct additional barricades. Keyword "trying", as a very annoying cat-person-thing was there the whole time constantly distracting this witness and meddling with the barricades. This witness would like to think that you have a proper explanation for this, Mishy."

"Regardless, this witness went back to the apartments having not gotten a lot done, and laid down to rest, but couldn't sleep for some reason. During the night, this witness heard several strange noises: the elevator moving about four times to or from the player apartments, then a knock on a door, then the elevator moving five times to or from the player apartments, then 7 loud banging noises, and then the elevator moving once. The amount of time varied heavily between the elevator moving, so this witness isn't sure about when exactly they happened, but the order is very clear."

"This witness also has a theory about what happened, but I will save that for after the cat-person-thing confesses to being an annoying leech."

-RIN glares in Mishy's direction-

[Exusiai]

"Five times. . . doesn't that mean the culprit never used the elevator last night?
To be more precise, in order for the culprit to have used the elevator at any point of the night, it would mean that Pierrick had never taken the elevator down instead or that someone used a bizarre method to jump from the apartments to ground level."

"Reviewing what Rikka, RIN, Yuuta, and myself heard and done, this should go here and this should go. . . Ah, it's something like this.
The events of the elevator should have started around 10:45 PM.  This was when I took the elevator down to the third floor.
The second time the elevator was used should have been around. . . 11 PM.
I didn't check what floor it was going to, but I know the elevator didn't stop on the third floor that time.
I think I used the elevator next, not too long after I heard it from the third floor.
I went back to bed after seeing Pierrick enter the sewers, so that's the end of what I witnessed.
According to their words, Rikka probably rushed to the elevator at 3:30 AM, making it the fourth time the elevator was used.
Yuuta then used the elevator about fifteen minutes later.

With that, the elevator was used five times, just like RIN said, so. . . how did the culprit get downstairs?
Unless none of us saw Pierrick on our way to the apartments, the culprit probably never took the elevator up when the rest of us went to the sixth floor.
I saw Pierrick only a few moments after I heard the elevator, so I thought that Pierrick was the second person who took the elevator that night.
If he really was carrying something heavy, then it would be difficult for even him to get to the first floor without using the elevator."

[King V]

"As this witness has previously stated, the elevator was used 11 times in total, with 4 uses before the knock on the door, and 5 uses afterwards. Not all 11 uses have been accounted for, and delusional quartet no.2's usage of the elevator most likely falls into the latter 5."

"This witness would like to implore anyone who did use the elevator to please come forward and share when exactly they did so, so that we can create an accurate time table of when the culprit might've used the elevator."

[The City [EclipseZwolf]]

Yuuta: "I also used the elevator when heading down, so myself and Rikka are two of the uses."

Lloyd: "Perhaps you merely misspoke, but you said 11 uses just now while in your testimony earlier you said 4 prior to the knock, 5 after, then 1 more after the banging sounds. 4+5+1 should equal 10. So the elevator was used 10 times, right? All you know is that those sounds happened while you were in bed, not when specifically. Can you clarify what time frame that was?"

Day: "Indeed. If you got in bed early, some of those elevator trips may have been due to others going to bed. Nanashi, Lloyd, and I all came upstairs together at 10 PM for example."

[John Dark Souls]

Mishy looks lost and confused and in pain but eyes are still wide open staring squarely at the rotating roulette.

"Mishy was... distracting witness girl and meddling with barricades? But... Mishy can't remember anything like that. Why? No, Mishy would... Never do something so bad... Mishy is... Mishy... But... Is there someone else inside Mishy who is not Mishy..? Ugh... Mishy's head hurts... Access to restricted memories denied. Go&%@(&mit, th%&(#%(&omplet%$*(*#tting ou%$(*(@*(%#%, what%#(&%*&#Wll t@$#%e err%$(*#&SKKKS*uses? Whe#%**(@y eve#%(*@ng fr@%#(8?!
Again... The position of the roulette jumped forward without Mishy realizing again! Access to restricted memories denied.
A$aSa$*(#h, I*&G(D*n't*(*#%(*))%up wit%&*&#@s! Ca#%*&@ lea#(*@ave th&@*%ta log%#*&s?!
AGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN!"

Mishy shouts so loudly you could hear his voice echo through whole apartment complex. Mishy falls on his knees and starts bashing head on the floor!

"GET! *sigh* OUT! ow did i OF! come t MISHY'S! this... HEAD!"

And as Mishy shouts the last word and hits head on floor for last time, you swear you hear some strange poof go off from inside Mishy's head as it literally starts smoking with thick black smoke.

"Mishy... Mishy can finally... Remember it all..."


(『tl;dr if you don't want to read useless RP, just skip to here for trial info』)

"While Mishy's body was taken over by Not-Mishy, Mishy? spent whooooole day following around witness girl. Why? Mishy doesn't understand himself. Mishy's head felt completely empty without any thoughts at that time... Or at least, Mishy can't remember up to what Mishy? was thinking at that time... Mishy? lost sight of her multiple times but never failed to find her again within minutes somehow. But then, when the otherwise uneventful day was over, around 9:45pm Mishy? and witness girl arrived at apartment complex. It seemed like they were one of the last to arrive. Mishy? noticed small boy, Lloyd and Days on the way, and then arrived in elevator together with witness girl to apartments floor and then separated from there going to their rooms."

"You don't seem to get it Lloyd. Witness girl said elevator moved total of 11 times. Not 11 times when she was in her room listening. Which means, it includes the 1 time Mishy? and witness girl used the elevator? Why does it matter? Because 4+5+1 does not equal 10! When you use elevator, if you aren't on the same floor, you have to wait for elevator to start moving to your position before you can move again! Which means, when you, Days and small boy went up to your own rooms, you moved elevator 2 times. So two movements equals 1 trip, or in other words, 2=1, which means that 4+5+1 cannot equal 10!