derailing | We are the painters of blind faith, we are the children of your rivals

[The door is open a crack - just enough for Ryuunosuke to hear anyone outside, but not enough to invite unwanted guests. He immediately swings open the door when he hears the knock and ushers Tsukiyama inside.]

Oh hey, more jars! How many of those things do you have anyway?

[The question is light though and obviously not important. He shuts and locks the door behind Tsukiyama and moves to sit on the bed. There are a bunch of flowers on the desk and they're grouped into similar colors, but otherwise it looks like Ryuunosuke hasn't been doing much.]

So how are you doing?

I'm all right.

[He'll just be claiming the desk chair, then, setting the jars down and crossing his legs idly as he does so.]

Today has been good; about the same as yesterday, I think, as far as...all of that goes.

[Health-wise and everything.]

Everyone here continues to be ridiculously open about things that I have no business knowing, but I can't really complain about that, now, can I?

That's great! I'm glad to hear it!

[...But onto more serious and more entertaining matters.]

Oh man, so who told you something big this time?

[He leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, looking captivated already. This is so fun.]

Miss Underhill seems rather fond of me, to put it lightly. The latest revelations have involved blaming herself for her mother walking out on the family - that was who was in her motive envelope, her mother. She doesn't want her back, so the chances are low that she'll act on it.

As banal as I've found it, I've ensured that she'll continue to come to me with all of her problems; I'm always here to listen to her, after all.

[The most dismissive gesture, Ryuunosuke; it's obvious that he finds this hilarious as hell.]

I can provide notes for you tomorrow, regarding what I've gotten out of her so far.

Hah! Mom issues, that's a classic. I really can't tell you the number of times I've heard that one.

[His smirk is still pleasant despite the topic of conversation.]

I'd love to see your notes - they're great! I still have the others, though I've taken to keeping them hidden. Duster was in my room last night so I'm glad I did.

[...Oh, wait, hang on--]

Actually, about Allie... Do you know anything about her world? She was showing me some of her fighting style and telling me about different elements and stuff, but it doesn't really add up.

She's mentioned that ability I wrote down before - something about crossing dimensions, but she can only access one other, not any dimension she chooses. I believe there's a war happening between her own dimension and that other one she's mentioned, and it isn't looking promising for either side right now.

...Tell me about her fighting style, however, because I'm curious about your thoughts on it. I have my own, but I want to hear yours first.

I can't really describe it very well, but it's... It's not something you'd use in an actual fight. And this is coming from a guy who's been punched like, once. I don't fight at all and even I can tell that these moves aren't gonna do anything. They're flashy and quick, but they're... I dunno.

[He narrows his eyes as he thinks.]

They couldn't hurt an enemy, I guess? Like there's no punches or kicks aimed to hurt. They're meant for show, I believe. She did mention elements like Fire, Water, Dark... things like that. I'm thinking maybe her world's got some kind of magic or something and she doesn't want to tell me that. She did also start saying something, but I didn't catch it. She seemed kind of embarrassed that she'd slipped up though.

Magic...

[He considers that for a moment; normally he'd be willing to call bullshit, but - ]

...I've fought with Miss Underhill before, actually. She found me in the gym on Monday night and wanted to spar with me, and it was honestly like fighting a friend of mine. She doesn't usually do much close physical combat, she uses projectiles, so she makes...mistakes, when she fights me. She'll try to do high kicks on me and not figure for having her leg grabbed and used as leverage to knock her off-balance, things like that; it's remarkably easy to throw her on the ground once she moves in close.

That's what fighting Miss Underhill was like. She would try to hit me and not figure for her strikes being deflected, I was able to throw her on the floor when she tried to kick me...things like that. But if she's not used to close combat, that...would honestly explain a lot - she did say something about not being trained in a "proper" martial art, now that I think about it.

Yeah, that would make a lot of sense! Because the moves she was showing me were... really weird for fighting. I mean, maybe she just comes from a world where "fighting" is really just "who can pull off the sickest moves in the shortest amount of time" but I didn't really get that feeling from her.

[...But more importantly...]

Was she actually okay in a fight though? I mean besides making mistakes like that - was she actually able to hold her own? I figured she would be given that she's very athletic, but you've actually got experience with that!

She was, yes.

[...]

She could probably fight you off, if that's what you're asking. She actually did catch me in the side, below the ribs with one of her kicks, and it wasn't something I would describe as pleasant.

I figured as much! I try to avoid any situation in which I'll get hit, so I definitely won't be targeting her. I really appreciate the head's up! Man, that would've been unpleasant if I hadn't learned that...

She's more valuable to us alive, anyway, given her inability to remain quiet.

What do you mean?

She's gullible, can't lie to save her life, and has all sorts of horribly useful complexes surrounding needing to save everyone. She'll also believe me when no one else will.

Trust me, there are ways to use her.

Awesome, I'll leave her in your capable hands then!

Have you gotten any more information out of anyone else? I mean obviously the notes are great, but is there anything immediately important? Like say... those motives?

Who do you want to know about?

Oh man, you got info out of multiple people? I guess the best question is who do you think is likely to murder someone next?

I'm concerned about Mr. Finevoice, actually. He seemed to be in a good mood this morning, admittedly, though I don't know if that's because he genuinely recovered from the shock of the motive, or if it's because he's made a decision to act on it and wanted to give us a good time before he tried to kill us all. He strikes me as the sort to be misguidedly noble like that.

He handled the motive badly, however; he seemed to be in shock, I had to walk him back to his room. He's definitely lost someone important, that much is incredibly obvious.

Huh... I haven't spoken with him much, but I'll trust you on that! I guess he'll be one of the first people we should consider whenever the next victim turns up. Anyone else you think could act on it?

[Hmmm...]

Monsieur Archibald took it poorly. Those soldiers took it poorly...

[...]

Might I ask what you received, Uryuu? Just as a matter of curiosity, not suspicion.

Oh yeah, no problem! Hang on...

[He gets up off the bed and searches through the desk until he finds it. Like the others' motives, it looks like a Monobear case file with a picture of a dark-haired girl suffering from multiple stab wounds and a lot of blood loss. She has dark hair and doesn't look all that remarkable from the picture. There is a very familiar surname there, however.]

That's what I got. I'm really not sure why Monobear picked my sister of all people.

[He looks that over for a moment before kind of looking at Ryuunosuke a bit strangely.]

Your work, or someone else's?

Mine, actually. It's pretty ugly though.

[He looks somewhere between disappointed and irritated.]

She was the first one I found when I went home, so I took her out, then moved onto my parents. But I didn't get a chance to go back and you know. Actually do something interesting with the bodies. To be honest I was pretty distracted by that book - the one you got from that machine here - and I guess I got a little spooked so I left early. Normally I'm much better about that sort of thing. I'm not an easy man to scare, you know!

[SIGH.....]

Maybe the motive in my case was supposed to be "hey, she'll be alive again so you can kill her in a more satisfying way!" but that's not gonna work on me. What's the point in killing someone again? That's dull. You've already seen their reaction to their death once and I doubt that's gonna change.

[...Actually...]

...Do you think the Manager has it out for certain ones among us in particular? The motive last week didn't affect some of us, and this week's isn't going to affect you and I...

[...]

I have to wonder if it's for the sake of keeping us unable to strategize properly, this way we have to focus on who's affected by what and we can't just plan to manipulate any one person until they break.

Oh...! That's a pretty clever idea. It would be pretty boring for him to watch if we just continued to pester one person until they finally reached that point. Doing this will make it interesting for everyone, even if the motives given to us are more or less just for show.

That'd probably make the most sense, wouldn't it? As much as he's interested in causing us to despair, he doesn't want to make this an easy game to win either.

Exactly. I mean, it's possible that it is just coincidence, but...

But on the off chance that it isn't, we're going to have to adapt to everything he's doing. All while making sure we don't look suspicious! Man, this is a lot of work...

[But he still looks kind of excited, so at least there's that!]

Why can't we just let him do the work for us...?

[I mean, we could do all the work, but why should we?]

The motives have been hitting several people at once, haven't they? We'll see if anyone dies by the end of the week - give them a few full days to think about it - and if not, we can always give him a bit of help...but in general, perhaps we might manage to get by just by seeing what the Manager does.

...Of course, there's no guarantee he won't start hitting us eventually, but I think we're resilient enough to handle that.

Oh yeah, of course! Picking off the weakest makes the most sense, especially if they're someone who thinks you're "too nice"!

[Ryuunosuke grins though, looking pretty pleased.]

I don't know if there's really anything Monobear can do to me, at least. He's tried targeting us emotionally, and that's not gonna work on me. I mean I'm an emotional guy and all, but I don't usually form attachments to people, so that sorta thing won't work. I can't really think of anything that would bother me, actually.

...You're less likely to be affected than I am, admittedly. The first week's...

[He trails off briefly before seeming to shake it off.]

This week's wasn't so bad, though - it was actually someone I've never met.

Y-Yeah that... that wasn't good.

[But dwelling on it isn't going to help them.]

Wait, what? Why did you get a motive involving someone you don't know?

It's...

[He pauses for a moment before producing the envelope from his inside suit jacket pocket; it seems he's been carrying both of his motives with him, for whatever reason. He slides it open and checks the contents, verifying that it's the one he wants, before passing it over.

The photograph shows a woman with upswept hair and refined features, wearing an elegant dress, the sort designed for going out somewhere with a dresscode for the evening; she doesn't resemble Tsukiyama at all - she looks decidedly more European than Asian - and the wound diagram shows several stab wounds through the center and lower portions of her back.

Her name has mostly been scratched out, as though someone took a knife to the file, though enough of her surname - VON ROSEWALD - can be seen to make it out; likewise scratched out are the details beside the cause of death, which are the obvious multiple stab wounds. Said details seem to go on for a little while, but clearly Tsukiyama didn't want to look at them.]

She's the mother of someone close to me. I believe she died in front of him; his entire family was slaughtered in their manor, he was the only survivor. The incident devastated him, but I suppose what happened with his mother hit him particularly hard.

I do love him very much, but not enough to act on something like this on his behalf.

[Ryuunosuke examines the file curiously.]

Huh, that's pretty crazy. I guess he's trying to find an angle that will work for you. If you won't react to something about yourself, maybe you'll react about something that happened to someone close to you.

I'd imagine so...I haven't lost anyone that I would care about in that sort of way, and I don't like seeing him suffer.

Oh, I see! If he had no other options then yeah, I can see why that would make sense. Sorta. I mean, he could just lie, right? Fake a crime scene and a death... He's got a lot of technology at his disposal, so he could probably make it look good enough, I think.

Perhaps...I don't know if there's anyone that I would respond like that to.

[...]

In my dream on Sunday night, all of my friends were murdered. I've known them for years, and I didn't feel anything. If anything, I think I may have been the one to orchestrate what happened to them, though I don't understand why...

[He shakes his head.]

I suppose there's still my servants and my father, but...nothing's going to happen to them. I wouldn't find it believable because they can't be touched.

...That was just a dream though, right? I mean, why would you do that?

[It's possible they're "friends" in the way Ryuunosuke has friends, but Tsukiyama seems more well-adjusted than Ryuunosuke.]

But hey, at least your servants and your dad! That's good!

We are the painters of blind faith, we are the children of your rivals

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