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

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

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. ]

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[a very apt way to put it, and subaru honestly thinks that fury looks better than the dead look before; he knows what it's like, to be complete put out that way, and it's only because of the people around him reignited him that he could stand again.

and if noah's way is justifiable anger, then that's how it is. at the very least, it's at the imposter and not whoever ended the imposter's life, which subaru thinks is probably better in the end anyway.]

Sure. I'm not like, super knowledgeable about magic and stuff like that, but maybe that'll help me out.

[hand it over... he'll take anything with his visible free hand and just keep it in his lap for him (and natsume) to look at. his bestie can give him a hand here for the basics anyway, he'll probably ask noah about any specifics though.]

They say the less you know about a subject the more open you are to it, right? I don't have any prior knowledge whatsoever to stop me from thinking, "that can't be it"!

[Noah hands it all over, indicating the page where the aforementioned soul-switching spell is, the notes leading up to it, and the fake handwriting...]

I only ever saw the spell used properly once, in passing. It's a long story... And I... I didn't go looking for any magic circles when I was... s-sitting by the pool that day.

[He did however wander around uselessly a bit with a broken smoke detector from fucking April, so there's that.]

[buddy... subaru'll probably look around it more in general, because

while he didn't get the Best best look at the circle, some of the runes are more familiar than others, and this is all very cool honestly. he's always enamored by natsume's magic (especially now that it's like, Real fantasy magic and not the magic of smiles as much as subaru loves that too) so this is next level. even considering the circumstances.]

I don't blame you~. It's rough, seeing someone important to you like that.

[and while the words themselves sound flippant in choice, there's a sincerely understanding tone to it.]

Rumi-chan's place in all this is kinda weird, since it seems like "Clamor-san" wasn't Clamor-san for a while before this all happened... So it's not like they'd even need the ritual done a second time, especially if we go on the thought of them just using Clamor-san for his extra time. Rumi-chan was a third year, with really good grades... He wouldn't have any issue graduating.

[... hmmmm... subaru tilts his head.]

Unleeeeesss... and this'll make you mad, probably... they were using Clamor-san to get to Rumi-chan in the first place?

[he's honestly just throwing out motives for faker-san now to fit everything together he's got not a Clue on this end of things]

...

[Internal screaming commences. Outwardly, Noah's fists clench, and that's about as much as he lets his anger show.]

It's... likely. Yeah. I wouldn't doubt it. I just want to know how this person knew about this spell in the first place. Clamor's... never said no to helping someone, so if this person came to him asking for help... why this spell, though? Idiot...

... Maybe he didn't know it was that spell... this person clearly was planning things out, right? So... all they'd need is to ask for help with something, and search the book while Clamor was distracted...

...fuck.

[Disrespect the late father by saying the fuck-word, why dontcha... But, really, what else is he supposed to say?]

This is a pretty thick spellbook. It's not impossible, but it would take dumb luck or multiple attempts to find this one spell... Either way...

[Noah needs to go out into the hallway and scream, but he stays there instead, still screaming internally.]

...By chance, Noah, did Mr. Clamor...mark anything?

[a thought's occurred to her, and with the bag that she's brought into the common room - because why not do the same as the first time - she takes out the red, burnt ribbon.]

I kept wondering over and over if this was for someone's hair, but...there's a simpler answer, isn't there?

Ah, he... yeah, he usually has a bunch of bookmarks.

[Noah has... no idea that Helena is blind, uh, sorry, he steps aside to motion to the spellbook which is full of various ribbon bookmarks.]

...where did you find that?

( just, whispering- ) noah-kun, she's blind--

...

I'm so fucking sorryyy...

It was left behind in the boys' bathroom, when we found the first body.

[the motion is wasted, but she holds out her hand for him to take it if he wishes.]

It was an odd thing to find in that area - I almost wondered if someone was tying something up, but as a bookmark, then it makes far more sense.

[There's a moment of pause, and then he very reluctantly takes it.]

...Thanks. I... I guess it was burned with the first body?

[The person who they don't even know who it is...]

I don't understand this detective stuff much...

It's like a very large puzzle, and we just need to know all the pieces, to figure out where everything should be...

[she trails off, thinking about something.

Everything is where it should be.]

The hard part's knowing where to staaaaart. Like, with the latest and work our way back? Or less than a week ago and try and piece forward...

[subaru flips to the red bookmark, lingering on the fire spells for a beat, before he flips it back to the green one; the one that has the buildings of that incubator spell noah mentioned.]

You think it's possible that the first body was the faker themselves taking care of some loose ends? Clamor-san can use fire magic, and I think magic fire could probably scorch something pretty good... The body only came up after half of it got chomped, so maybe it'd been down there for a while.

[he........ wasn't anywhere near the body and only got second hand info so. and he has no idea how dead bodies work, much less ones that've been in water for however long.]

...It would explain why someone would go to the trouble of putting Mr. Clamor's body in the pool. As if to say, no, this is where you're meant to be.

[she remembers the scent well.]

From all we know, we couldn't tell who that body was. And that would be exactly what they wanted - just in case it came back up. They wouldn't want to be themselves anymore.

Don't... um...

[This is gonna be gross, bear with him. Disclaimer, Noah did not see the burnt body; he tends to keep his nose out of investigating corpses directly.]

Don't corpses... bloat... when they've been in water like that... Would it have floated up because of that, or... because it got eaten...? Did you check to see if it was... you know...

[He's inwardly gagging because, ew.]

Yes, but with the fact that there were rocks in the pockets of the robe, I think our faker wanted to weigh it down. The eating must have ripped them open, and the floating then came later...salt water is very buoyant, I've read. Things want to float in it more easily.

[can a science guy check this? she can only guess.]

[oh interesting salt water facts]

Yeah, but, thinking about it... The other thing that doesn't really match up with the timeframe is how strong the locker rooms and such smell of cleaning stuff, so maybe I'm on the wrong track~.

Then the corpse wasn't old. The faker must have dropped it in recently, and not expected the eating at all.

[she gestures with the hand that's not holding the cane.]

They knew enough to know the pool was very deep, and could conceal a sunken body. They didn't know there was something inside it that might be hungry - most of us did not, before this. Dumping the body and then cleaning....it would take time for it to sink down that low. Long enough, maybe, to clean as much as you could and then run away.

I was asking because, um... I read in a detective novel once, [shut up shuichi is his locker buddy and he wanted to know more about detectives okay,] that corpses... do that. If it was in the water for a couple days, it probably...

[Waves his hand around; what Noah's trying to say is that they can determine how long the body had been in the water prior if corpse bloat is accounted for, which is a disgusting thing that we all have to think about, because the only thing grosser than a burned corpse is a wet burned corpse.]

That's true...I've read books like that as well.

[hmmm.]

Who actually handled the body when it came up? I didn't - I know there was a crowd around it, but I was distracted by other things.

Rika-chan and I were the ones who did... But I don't think it was bloated? Just... burnt all the way through.

Gross. So I guess that's moot, huh?

[hmmmm... mmmmm.]

I guess... we don't really know all that, so we can leave it aside for now and focus on what went down with the fake Clamor-san himself?

[since they have a better picture, and at the very least the connecting factor is the cult activity between the materials found and the robes.

-- oh right he'll, direct the next bit to noah.]

If you're good to listen in on all this, I mean. The person who did it got what was comin' to them, but it's not great that Clamor-san ended up the way he did 'cause of it.

Edited 2021-09-23 02:00 (UTC)

...I'll be fine.

[Like, as fine as he can be about this whole thing.]

I want to know what happened. Otherwise... I'll just be lost and upset forever.

(no subject)

crystallomancy - 2021-09-23 04:26 (UTC) - Expand

[though helena can't see it, obviously, at her words subaru starts to glance aside at natsume-- he catches himself, looking back down at the book]

Wish I could help, but I wasn't anywhere near it either...

[the closest he's gotten to a dead body so far as been narumi and narumi's not dead he's just not Here]

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