speaking of against the law - who wants to talk about murders?

[samuraiwomen]

Who: :3
What: Discussing the murders of 9/12 and 9/17
When: 9/18, Evening after all classes and clubs.
Where: The common room of the dorms.
Warnings: Will update...but we're discussing a murder!




[ Some times the next day, Sara starts finding as many people as she can and asking them to please try to be in the dorms this evening. Everything has been chaotic since Clamor's death, and she'd like some clarity.

By sometime after clubs, she's moved Narumi's body out in the common room (perhaps with Akira's help if he was willing), and has started a fire in the fireplace. It's getting chillier at night, and any discussion of a murder mystery plot deserves some ambiance.

She forgot to go get some snacks, but please, feel free to bring some. ]

Comments

Narumi Ito

[samuraiwomen]

Hello everyone, thank you for coming!

[ Sara looks way to chipper to be discussing murder and standing next to a soulless body, but she tries to stay positive in these situations. Even if it was Ventus-san...no. Clamor. ]

Everything's been chaotic, so I'd like to thank everyone again who took the time to discuss what happened. I know yesterday was hard.

[ Now, to gesture to the body next to her. ]

The only thing I managed to find yesterday was when I helped Sou and the nurse when we found this boy. She identified him as Narumi Ito. He's apparently a member of the cult, 3rd year, has seventeen tallies, good grades, and not that many merit points. I'm sure someone else can explain the state he was found, because I didn't see it.[ Always to the point...is there anything else worth mentioning? ]

He's missing his soul...so please treat him kindly.

[notsosou]

[He'd noticed Sara running around gathering people... which definitely means something Big is happening. He's standing in front of the fireplace (because of course he is), on the side nearest Sara and Narumi.]

Guess that's my cue... [You can almost see his little portrait icon light up with dialogue.] There was a bush something heavy had fallen into and a scrape leading towards the pool... in the fourth floor hallway above it I found Narumi, in a black robe, lying face-down in the middle of a scuffed-up magic circle.

[He fidgets with his scarf, looking away to the side.]

Ahaha, I wasn't paying much attention at the time honestly... He wasn't injured but he was barely breathing and getting worse. Thankfully help arrived and we got him to the nurse's office.

[He debates with himself, and then pulls out from his pocket something that catches the light of the fire, holding it up with the thumb and forefinger of a bandaged hand. It's Clamor's monocle.]

But before that, I did find this... near the window directly above the bush. What with the circle looking like something fell and was dragged towards it... safe to say Clamor was there and involved, don't you think?

[unsurely]

[ piles on the info train too

The monocle... Shuichi imagines Noah will probably want that too, but this isn't the time to talk about that. Instead... ]

...Right. I also think it's likely whatever fell from that window... was Clamor-san, or at least his body. He had injuries consistent with a fall when he was found. But... there was nothing else, so it's actually a little difficult to identify the exact cause of death...

[ He looks quickly towards wherever Noah is, as if to apologize for not asking first, but it's probably best if he shares this part himself, so he continues. ]

I also, um, found his spellbook... It was inside a locker with a damaged door at the pool, and the pages seemed consistent with the book having fallen somewhere outside as well. So whoever carried him to the pool must have also gathered that.

[starrypoint]

[...]

I've got a real good memory, so I can fill in some stuff.

[subaru'll remain tucked against natsume's right side on a couch, with only one hand picking at chips, until otherwise noted. it's probably the dour circumstances, but he's not half as bright as he usually is... and for shin's benefit, he doesn't seem half as fired up as yesterday, either.]

There was some blood up there too, but not like, a splatter or anything... More of a line? It didn't look like it had anything to do with the ritual thing they had going on, though, 'cause it was pretty apart... There were candles everywhere, too.

[mermaidcursed]

( nene has nothing to contribute, i just want to establish that she's here, side by side with noah and holding his arm. )

[silentabyss]

[he's dissociating but don't worry everyone he has words, which will be in a toplevel and not here, here is where I just establish that he's sad thanks for coming to my ted talk]

[samuraiwomen]

[ SCREAMS. Let her hug you both! ]

[silentabyss]

[allowed, but noah doesn't respond to it for at least ten seconds before he finally seems to register that he's being hugged, at which point he just kind of flops his head over onto her shoulder]

About Clamor :)

[silentabyss]

[He's got Clamor's spellbook and notebooks in hand and he's kind of... blacked out a bit, but trying his best...]

It looks like... since the start of the semester, someone has been impersonating Clamor.

[He'll go on to explain the mismatched handwriting and show everyone what he means while he's... clearly trying not to break down over the books.]

And... I talked to Clamor, too, when he was... you know. Alive... and some of the things he was saying, when I look back, don't add up to how he normally acts. For example, he didn't seem to know that I didn't learn high school algebra even though he knows how I grew up... [in a cult,] ...and I had to remind him of that. Additionally, when we were talking about test scores, he said his history grades were good, but...

[Noah shames his late father by showing everyone said history grades. Not good, in fact.]

That could've been a lie, but when it's mixed with everything else, I just think that "he" didn't... didn't know. And I've... [his voice shakes, eyes focusing elsewhere,] dealt with doppelgangers before, s-so I don't... I don't think the person we've been talking to is... was Clamor.

[wolfetracks]

( the past few months have been... the worst. but this basically takes the cake, to be honest. he knew clamor was acting different- distant, and he avoided his and lucifer's affections both. contradicted himself. sidney had chalked it up to the stress of the school.

fucking idiot.

if he goes pale, no he doesn't. and he will not be talking about it with anyone any time soon. )

[samuraiwomen]

He...he wasn't real?

[ The smiles she's been trying to keep up drops. Sara lifts a hand, pressing into her forehead. Not real...she feels faint. Noah can't be right, can he? They couldn't all have just been toyed with for someone's pleasure? That would be too cruel. ]

B-but, Noah. Me and Clamor talked! He was so concerned about you, just like normal? He promised to help me with your grades, and he was showing off magic.

[ Noah said he had experience, so Sara really doesn't want to shoot him down. She knows he saw his brother replaced but. She wants him to be wrong. Please, let him be wrong. Let her just mourn a death and move on. Because...if Clamor wasn't Clamor, who did she cry for last night? ]

[silentabyss]

Yeah, I... thought the same thing. But like I said... doppelgangers will do what they can to get in your head. Even if little details are wrong, people don't notice until it's too late. And even if they do, they think maybe the person isn't feeling well, like how I thought Clamor just... forgot for a moment about how I never learnt high school math.

...Harque — no, Dantalion — was that way. It was like Harque had changed just slightly overnight, but in the subtlest ways, and I was too little to connect the dots at the time, what with the memory altering...

[For all he knows, Nene's not real. Maybe Sara's not real. Maybe no one here is who Noah knew a month or two or three ago. The thought makes him ill.]

We have... [he squeezes his eyes shut. Breathes in, breathes out...] We have mages at the school with us, so if something magical happened, it's not out of the question, clearly... I can't believe this is happening to me again, though...

[mermaidcursed]

( oblivious to the thoughts noah's having, nene squeezes noah's arm slightly- she's here. just like she'd want of him if they were to switch places. )

... I don't think most of us are skilled enough, though...

[silentabyss]

...he had to have taught someone the incubator spell. [He'll explain that if asked, but he's grief-processing right now, flipping through the pages to point out the spell in question like anyone will know what that is.] But why would he do something so stupid? No one should know about that spell...

[closewithnewintown]

[looking over his shoulder]

"Incubator?" Like the boxes that hatch eggs? [beat] Did the cultist turn Clamor into an egg?

[silentabyss]

No.

[Normally, Noah might think that's funny, but...]

I don't know why Clamor called it that. The spell was something he worked on when he was back in Seven Tower — his... college, basically. [The one Noah went snooping around through in sort of this weird little past time loop, and uh Clamor doesn't know about that really, so uh! Shhhhhhhhhut up!] It... had the ability to tear the souls from people. And I'm... I'm not sure if it was used or not, but all the notes build up to it...

[samuraiwomen]

I thought he wasn't feeling well...I used to catch him staying so much, I didn't think anything of it.

[ Replaced and the imposter playing with their heads. Sara doesn't know if memory altering is at play, she feels her normal self. No gaps in what she can recall. But how can they know. It's scary. ]

No...you're right. I don't want to...think about it. But I have to. Something like this happened to me once. A women I knew, Reko. She got replaced...but we didn't figure that out until it was too late.

But that imposter killed her! So what happened to Clamor? I..

[ She'll reach out to take his hand, even with Nene still offering her support. Maybe for how strong she tries to act, Sara needs a little reassurance too. ]

[silentabyss]

...he's probably dead, just like what happened with my brother.

[Quietly, Noah holds onto images of revenge in his head, a faceless person dying by his hand. But the tides of murderous rage he normally feels when he thinks about Harque and Dantalion, or Clamor and this unknown person... they're not as strong as they used to be. A cold numbness blossoms in his chest from where the fires of fury once burned strong.]

But then... who killed the person impersonating him? It doesn't make sense... someone must have been targeting Clamor long before this happened, or... someone had the impostor figured out before we did...?

[He lets Sara take his hand, but beyond that, he doesn't move.]

[starrypoint]

[subaru is on one of the couches, tucking himself against natsume's right side in his ever-familiar manner as he picks at his chips with his free hand. he knows the other hates it, but he thinks his friend can let it slide for today.

... yesterday was a lot, and he hadn't even gone to class in the end; he hadn't gone to class today either, actually. only yukio would know that though, if he'd gone himself, that both he and amami were out the past two days. they were friends with the shopkeep, it's no surprise they'd be more concerned with that than a few days of missed work.]

I mean, how would anyone figure that out if even you didn't know it at the time? You guys were close an' all, so... Yeah. He could've been targeted though, I guess, but I dunno who'd even have it out for him. Clamor-san was a good guy.

[...]

When he was really him, I mean, on your thoughts of him not being him when he died.

tying it all together

[crystallomancy]

( well, subaru's done good in directing the conversation so far, and natsume'll let him stay close in that overly-familiar way of his—a rare treat, considering he doesn't like physical closeness. he mulls over everything that's been said, working out the best way to go about it, and raises his head. )

To bring everything togeTHER... According to what's been spoken about here thus far and from what Baru-kun's told ME, it seems "Clamor" ( not master, and there's a certain dryness to the name that implies quotations in literature ) was confronted on the fourth floor and fell from that HEIGHT. On the same FLOOR, Narumi Ito-senpai was FOUND, seemingly unharmed but completely unconsCIOUS. Going by what we've discovered with the spellbook and the bookmarked paGES, we can surmise that Ito-senpai also had his soul taken from HIM.

( ...which he doesn't voice as a potential candidate for the monocle, even though it could've been one, being up there with it— )

Outside of a line of blood that was some distance away from the cirCLE, there wasn't any sign of a struggle or a FIGHT... But it's strange, isn't IT? That there was blood THERE, but neither "Clamor" nor Ito-senpai had any injuries on them that would lead them to bleedING.

( he lets that sink for a moment, then moves onto something seemingly completely unrelated: )

Hiyori-kun, Chidouin-san, the nurse wasn't the only person in the infirmary when you learned about Ito-senpai, was SHE?

[notsosou]

No, Rantaro and... the shopkeeper [Help he has no idea what their name is.] were there before us...

[He's not sure he likes where this is going.]

[starrypoint]

[subaru shuts the spellbook still in his lap and plays with the red ribbon idly, nodding as if remembering the same.]

Yeah, yeah! Boss was sleeping... peacefully, and Ama-chan'd gotten woken up by Sasara.

[... who sara is now, by the way. sasara. he glances around for a second before continuing. whereas natsume excels in roundabouts, subaru is better at filling in what the other means]

Uh, the reason Natsume brings it up is 'cause Ama-chan had a new bandage on his right hand... He usually only has his left done up like that.

[wolfetracks]

( hey hi he's been here i haven't been caught up in all things nene again like always pfft what are you talking about. he's a tired dad and widower let him be quiet its fine

anyways.

sidney has not enjoyed any of this. half the time he can't even unclench his jaw enough to speak- not this time. it's not often he gets worked up like this, but... it's clamor.

was clamor.

... he needs to focus. even if they're being lead around by the nose. )

Someone saw something they shouldn't have- and Amami had to act quickly to get as many people out of there the best way he knew how: the void. Is that what you're saying?

[decrypter]

He was protecting someone - several someones - from a greater threat in this world.

[her voice is quiet, but steady. things are falling into greater and greater place now, and what is said - what is seen - will be ultimately important.]

From all I've gathered, if a magic circle is disrupted, it has unfortunate consequences for those within it, which may be why Mr. Ito didn't make it fully. But he's not dead. Neither is our shopkeeping friend.

[pausing, she draws her cane a little closer to herself.]

This person has killed before, and was ready to kill again for their own goals. They were willing to destroy a body so thoroughly it couldn't even be recognized to be mourned properly. To have strength and face this kind of person down, to rescue both the shopkeeper and someone he didn't know when his own life was at stake...it's fortunate, isn't it, that the void was there to flee to.

[crystallomancy]

( natsume's expression doesn't change much, though he sighs a little. )

The both of you are getting a little ahead of yourselves, aren't YOU? Wolfe-san, the evidence is purely circumstanTIAL, but it's a possibiliTY. However, what lead either of you to concluding there was anyone else there aside from Ito-senpai and "Clamor"? And you in particuLAR, Little Bat—what makes you think the little shopkeeper was part of IT? Perhaps they were just tired and went to the nurse's office to REST. It's not that uncommon a napping place; I've been several times mySELF.

( he's chiding a little, yes. )

If you two derived all of that from an injured hand and some blood circumstantially place in a hallway someHOW, then perhaps Saihara-kun has some real competition for "Ultimate Detective" HERE.

( ... )

RegardLESS, it's true that both Amami-kun and the little shopkeeper were in the nurse's office before anyone else arRIVED, that Amami-kun's right hand was inJURED, and that the little shopkeeper was fast aSLEEP.