【Madder Red】 Murder Trial

[Exusiai]

【Milk】: "Because of a certain incident, all unauthorized network connections outside of this vicinity have been disabled.
Nonetheless, human laws and traditions dictate that a trial is still held for the death of Kihei Minazuki.

For as many rooms that are made public in the Mestar Convention Center, none of them are designated trial rooms.
Between the lack of external communication and the lack of a trial room, you may be wondering how this debacle will be executed.

This is where the investigators come into play.
All performers are able to vote in trial, but members of Division 9 will instead act as the judging authority.
This means that any area where an investigator currently presides in counts as a trial room.

Investigators of Division 9 can be found at the following locations:

‣ Men's Restroom on the second floor of the International Conference Hall【Crime Scene】

‣ Room 301 of the International Conference Hall

‣ Hotel Lobby【East】of Sayara View Hotel"

[King V]

"This trial is entirely unnecessary for one reason. Because the victim has the potential to come back to life. Myself and a few others have already seen a corpse come back to life, what's to say this victim won't also revive at some point? Unless the necromancer comes forward, we cannot move forward with the trial either."

[Exusiai]

Kuroba: "I'm definitely not buying into that.  A corpse is a corpse.
Even if it did come back to life, it's probably just smoke and mirrors!  Unexplained occurrences like magic, no less necromancy, don't exist."

---

Haruya: "If a necromancer does happen to exist, though, then we'd still have to go through with the trial.
There's no guarantees that this necromancer will revive the victim, and in that case, it's better to simply deduce the culprit before something else happens.
I don't see why the progress of this trial is dependent on whether or not a necromancer appears out of thin air or not either."

[Exusiai]

Azu: "Back to the matter at hand, I found that there was only a single drop of blood at the crime scene. 
It doesn't look like it came from the victim, though. . . or at least, there aren't any obvious wounds on the victim that could explain that drop.
Therefore, I think that the blood belongs to the culprit."

---

Piyopichi: "I actually believe that the blood may not belong to the culprit.
In searching the victim's room, I found a note in a trash can that has 'Royal Garden Court' written on it.  There were also some shreds of torn paper in the trash can, but only the first one was legible.
It's a bit of a leap to presume, but I think the victim might have met the culprit here beforehand.
It wouldn't make sense that the culprit and victim took a detour to the men's restroom in the International Conference Hall afterwards, so maybe the culprit dragged the victim to where the body was found after the murder.

The blood could have dripped out of the victim's nose or mouth, which would explain why there's only one drop of blood in that area."

[King V]

"This murder is extremely simple. I bet even Mitty here could come up with a solid theory. Go ahead, Mitty. Explain the shoebox to everyone."

[Exusiai]

Kuronnu: "I'm not sure why I have to make a theory when you also saw the same evidence, Estella, but like she said, it looks like a simple murder.
There were u-shaped marks along the victim’s abdomen from bruising.  Some of the marks are pointing towards the victim's head, but the majority are pointing towards the victim's left side.

While going through some security footage of a hotel, Estella and I found someone carrying a box of some sort into the hotel—only to leave not too long after.
We then went to the victim's room and started rummaging through the shoe boxes.
A-And with the help of some other people checking the victim's room at the time, we found a shoe box that contained a pair of stilettos; one of which has its heel broken off.

I think the stilettos could have been used as the murder weapon and that, to not be associated with it, the culprit ran back to the victim's room before the body was discovered to return it."

[King V]

"Exactly. Thanks Mitty."

"So this leaves us with a few possible ways to determine the culprit. We could fit the shoes onto everyone here and see who best matches the size. I doubt the culprit could very easily kick the victim to death with shoes that are too loose or too tight. Or perhaps we could have everyone drop all of their items and see who has a suitable light source for obscuring the security camera's lights. Less reliable, as the culprit could have tossed their flashlight, but it still works."

"So, who wants to try on some murder weapon shoes?"

[Exusiai]

Kuroba: "I guess I'm the only one volunteering from the 'trial room' at the crime scene."

---

Darumask: "Based on Kuronnu and Estella's description, it seems that either condemning evidence is a tangible object, and both methods require a thorough investigation of every performer present.
In other words, it would require cooperation and organized movement rather than just consent.
It is the only method to narrow down the culprit while relying on one piece of evidence, though."

---

Kuroba: "If that's the case, then we only need to go to whoever has the shoe or wherever it is then.
You didn't happen to move the shoe from the victim's room, right?
It'll be a hassle, but I think we can do it."

[King V]

"Mitty, go get the shoes. Try to avoid the walking corpse on your way there."

[King V]

"Do you have something against putting on shoes, camera girl. Also that other guy to a lesser extent."

*stares at camera girl while judging intensely*

[Exusiai]

Memorin: "No matter how I think about it, I think it's much more suspicious to be willing to wear that shoe.
Both you and Kuronnu are insisting that the pair you're currently flaunting around was used in a murder?
Of course, I'd be uncomfortable with wearing something that's the prime suspect for a murder weapon!"

---

Misc: "Even if we weren't willing to wear those stilettos in a Cinderella scenario, it should have still been possible to roughly determine whether it would fit or not.
My preferred shoe size is larger in comparison to that stiletto, and putting it on would've been been uncomfortable to say the least.
When an obvious answer can be deduced, I don't see the need to go out of my way to possibly hurt my ankle."

[King V]

"Didn't we just establish that this is the best method of finding the culprit. I even asked for opinions instead of threatening everyone."

*Estella casually puts away her gun*

"Well, if you have any better ideas then spill it. Otherwise I think camera girl should be the one who dies here."

[Exusiai]

Gin: "I wouldn't have thought that, at this stage of the trial, there'd be no prime suspect.
Allowing civilians to act as detectives still rubs me the wrong way.  I understand wanting to suppress any news of these recent incidents, but at the very least, they could have invited Division 2 also.

Nao, what's the standard procedure for this outcome?"

---

Nao: "As part of the police task force, we have to abide to the 'Innocent Until Proven Guilty' system; in short, we can't provide a condemning verdict if a prosecuting statement or prime suspect hasn't been presented."

---

Gin: "It's a really inconvenient situation to be in, but in accordance to conduct, I guess that means we can't apprehend anyone for this death.

The trial for the death of Kihei Minazuki has been concluded.
All participants in this trial may return to their prior engagements."