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For Helena
[The situation at three in the morning is as follows. Dio had gone to bed all at once in the same clothes he wore the whole day, halfway ready to throw out the entire experience as a bad dream. This scheme failed. He couldn't sleep... and he remembered some place out in the mall that had bothered him. And so, he sits down on a chair in there.
One cat sits on top of a palm tree, pawing at the top hat. A second cat is sprawled across his lap, and Dio is petting it. He's gathered some sushi from "Yay!" set out for them. A third cat pads across the floor and nuzzles against Dio's ankles in the process of getting at the food.]
There you go...
One cat sits on top of a palm tree, pawing at the top hat. A second cat is sprawled across his lap, and Dio is petting it. He's gathered some sushi from "Yay!" set out for them. A third cat pads across the floor and nuzzles against Dio's ankles in the process of getting at the food.]
There you go...
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[He had been partway through telekinetically nudging the plate towards the fourth cat, and he is sufficiently surprised that it goes in the other direction, so the cat pounces forward.]
I mean, of course the rules say some bozo could get caught for killing, and executed. And after that, everyone else would still be trapped, so it could happen again. But... I don't know, I never thought about that part. Forget about how none of us have lost our cool and busted out brass knuckles in the first place. Doesn't it seem pret-ty hard to solve a murder here? There's no way to test for drugs, or get fingerprints, or... uh, you get the picture.
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[ Then she falls silent for a moment, considering the second part. ]
You're right though... if we fail the investigation we get 'punished'. Are you assuming punishment is an execution or did that get confirmed? Because if so...
[ Then that's a game seriously skewed in the favor of whoever attempts to kill and she's Not Happy with it. ]
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[He pops open his phone and then starts jabbing his thumb angrily at the screen when that word "executed" doesn't pop up again.] This stupid little... would it be so hard to--? [Finally he's shutting it off and looking at Helena again.]
Okay, look, the prissy little detective boy was going on and on about some killer who gets away with it escapes judgment, and the Life Coach was just all, "no, like, judgment isn't the same thing as execution~! Execution is just one type of judgment!" And on about how getting away with it is the killer getting a nice judgment instead. So doesn't that make it sound a lot like getting away with it means not getting executed?
[He's honestly more worked up about the possibility that he had misunderstood something than the very harsh reality as he had previously understood it.] Look, don't get me wrong, if the punishments aren't ten-year-old speak for death, that's great! It would be nice to not get shot for busting a hole in the wall of this place. Just... [He's giving himself a headache. Strategies about who would die when, Dio knows those like the back of his hand. But this game where he has to think how a corrupted person would react? It's driving him out of his mind.] ...man...
no subject
[ She says this line fairly quietly. His frustrated trailing of is understandable and the box of horror he opened by bringing up the impossibility of a proper investigation doesn't make anything better. Helena wants to escape the world. This does not at all equal to dying. ]
For investigating, we'd have to rely on the detectives and trust them not to be the killer. Ugh.
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Hey, Helena, can I ask you something? I've never actually been to Japan, so this is probably just something that you see all the time on the streets when you stay there long enough, but... is it really hard to get a little pin that ~proves~ you're a law officer? Like a decoration. Not a bar code or anything.
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I've only been in Japan on vacation, but I wouldn't know this to be any different from police badges elsewhere. You could make a counterfeit, but they have security measures that make them hard to replicate accurately and hold up to scrutiny.
[ A pause. ]
I couldn't tell you what qualifies a Japanese one for real though.
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[When she puts it that way, the audacity involved in Akechi presenting it that way is astronomical. He's got to shelve his suspicions that it's some little toy - maybe it's a relic of the analog age. What a blessing that Helena could set him straight before he tried to turn the whole group against Akechi.]
Anyway. The trial "system" is pretty screwed up. Lotta conflict of interest. The killer acting like a detective the way you said, not to mention some guys deciding what happens to the people they already know? I don't think that would fly with HR in a real police department.
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Here's to hoping whoever snaps is sloppy in their panic.
[ She gives a lopsided grin, certainly not too optimistic but unwilling to give in to despair either. ]