Emil Vasterstrom

Emil wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought he had seen his eyes flash purple for a moment, there on the blurry reflection on the glass.

...

No, that had to be his imagination. It was his mind playing tricks on him – he had already felt such a strange cocktail of emotions since a couple days ago. Perhaps he was starting to snap. Emil conked his forehead against the window of the entrance. “That doesn’t make me feel any better” he muttered. The thought he was losing his mind was horrifying! No, surely he was just having a bad day.

Another bad day.

It was Wednesday. Two days ago, the new vessel had announced anyone who killed would be allowed out – a similar incentive Jack had used, but this time it had offered something additional: the hints and means to return home. Tempting, but Emil wasn’t really...that interested, he wanted to think. After all, he had the Foundation. He was their agent now. His new life in this world where so many people still existed was just starting, and although he wasn’t happy, he intended to try his best. Maybe he’d even get to climb ranks a little, show what he was made of, prove himself a capable agent!

Thinking about back made him smile a little. Part of the reason he had joined that expedition into the Silent World was because he wanted to prove himself. He had done a good job back then, until he found himself in the Foundation’s hands. Emil knew he had the right skills, all he had to do was to use them! Like he had done at home, with the rest of the crew. The crew...they worked well together. True, there was that one time Mikkel accidentally whacked his leg with a club, but that was just once. The rest of the time they were a pretty good team! They liked him and he liked them. Even though Tuuri was having...a hard time recently, things would have been okay – or at least he had hoped that! 

They were a good team...very unlike this crew. Emil’s smile vanished. An intense disdain flared inside him.

This crew was much larger, and full of all sorts of people, with training and also Foundation training. They even had their own cat! This crew should have been able to face the dangers even better than the crew at home had, but they were behaving like a bunch of amateurs! Killing each other, falling prey to that weird ghost thing, and making little progress about escaping! And he was stuck with them. Why did he have to be with them? Emil was someone who had been well trained and had managed to keep his cool somehow, being with them was starting to grind his gears! Compared to the crew back at home, this bunch was useless!

Emil gasped and stepped away from the window. What was he thinking?! Most of them had more experience than he did, and he liked many of them. Why was he discarding them as useless and stupid? “I really need a break”

-ooooo-

Being trapped into that house was ruining his perception of time, and the greenhouse with the eternal sunlight didn’t help. Everyone’s biological clocks were the only way to keep track of time reliably, but it wasn’t like they could know for sure. What time was it? Was it really Wednesday? Emil looked up at the ceiling windows from where the sunlight entered even though it was already past midnight. It felt...so real. It couldn’t be, but it did. Emil could almost imagine standing outside, in the Silent World, looking up at the sky between the leaves of trees rising high above him. The winter sun was shining, he imagined the sound of the wind rushing through the trees...

...and then the grotesque form of a troll jumping into his sight. Just half a second, but it was enough to snap him out of his daydreaming. Emil rubbed his eyes, taking a deep breath. Since the start of the week he had been seeing flashes of memories and the Silent World. Many of them involved the many kinds of trolls he had seen. Just what his already frayed nerves needed, horrible images of creatures that used to be animals and people!

Still rubbing one eye, Emil left the greenhouse, lumbering through the hallways, intending to return to his room. The renovation room, the arcade, another dining room...lots of rooms that had tidbits of information, but nothing that allowed them to know what to do. Another day in hell mansion, and once he woke up it’d be another day of fearing for his life. Awesome, what an awesome time this mission was being! Being in the Silent World was nowhere this nerve-wracking! Why did he feel so many chills, why did he fear someone was watching him—

“What are you doing up at this hour?”

That accusatory voice was so familiar. He had heard it many times before, both in trials and out of it. Although he still sympathized with her, Rosa Ushiromiya was starting to be so difficult to deal with. Emil had heard at least three arguments with other people. The amount of suspicion and sheer anger that woman had was impressive.

“Can you just leave me alone?” Emil spat, not even bothering to look at her. The bedrooms were on sight, they were right there! But Rosa sounded like she was right outside them. Not wanting to get into a confrontation for daring to not be in his room at midnight or so, Emil went towards a side of the mansion, intending to walk all over the place until he got to the other side. Maybe by then Rosa would have left already.

He didn’t get a moment of reprieve. Rosa, unsatisfied with such a blunt response, followed Emil. “If you have nothing to hide then tell me”

“I was taking a break in the greenhouse. Happy now?”

Apparently not. “The greenhouse where Jack died? What a place to be hanging out at, Emil.” Emil didn’t wonder give a response to that. “Look, I only want to talk. You can do that much, right?”

...fine. As long as it didn’t take long, thought Emil, stopping and finally facing Rosa. As soon as he saw her, he regretted having stopped. She had a self-satisfied smile on her face, like she had caught Emil doing something improper somewhere else and was about to tattle on him. Trying hard to stay calm, Emil made sure to behave like usual. “I was checking the soil. It had all those weird toxic plants two weeks ago, so I wanted to make sure they weren’t popping up again”

“That’s awfully thoughtful of you,” Rosa said pleasantly.

“I guess? I just wanted to help...”

“And couldn’t that have waited until the morning?”

Are you serious?! “I lost track of time, that’s all!” Emil defended himself, raising his voice. “Who turned you into the night patrol?!”

“People have died and I’m fed up about having to go to trials” Rosa seethed. One of her hands started to slowly move towards her hip. The movement didn’t go unnoticed, but Emil didn’t call attention to it. He could feel the sweat starting to form on his forehead, he didn’t like where this was going.

“You were outside of your room too! Why do I have to be the one getting questioned here?”

“I was returning to my room when I saw you – and since you were stalking around, of course I had to go find out what you were doing—“

“Rosa, come on, I wasn’t stalking around! I was walking like normal—why does it have to be my fault? You’re the one who came to bother me!”

“If you weren’t walking around at the wrong time, I wouldn’t have. Didn’t you think of that?” Even though she kept nagging at him so sourly, the hand laid on her hip – the outline of something formed there. It couldn’t be...a gun, could it? Was she going to pull a gun on him?

“Mind your own business.” Emil said, turning around. He had enough of this conversation. He had barely taken three steps when Rosa made him stop again, grabbing him by the shoulder. Emil tensed, like he expected a knife to get lodged into his back, like he expected her to take his rifle...like he expected to get killed right then and there.

That was what was going to happen, he could see that coming. Rosa was going to kill him – why else would she follow him all the way here! She was...she must have had enough of the mansion and its trials, and now was going to make her escape by killing him!

“Emil, you can’t go around at night. People will think you’re planning something. How about you be a good guy and go sleep already, hm?” she said. Emil turned around, stepping back.

There was Rosa. She definitely had her gun in her hand, about to take it out. She seemed relaxed, like she was doing nothing wrong, but her smile...it was nasty, an endless well of barely concealed distrust towards him and everyone. Even though she was barely three feet away, it was as if there was a widening chasm between her and everybody in the group! Someone like her would kill someone.

She would kill. He was a vulnerable target. There was nobody nearby.

Rosa’s hand moved upwards, Emil couldn’t see if she had her gun in her hand or not, all he saw was the movement. All of a sudden, in front of him something flashed in his mind: the image of a troll in a dark hallway, writhing, extending its neck towards him, trying to bite his face off. Rosa? What Rosa?

He didn’t even notice when he moved too. Only when the brief image of that troll vanished, he noticed he had committed a terrible action.

Rosa was kneeling on the floor, bleeding heavily. The front of her torso had a bloodstain, getting bigger with every second, sticky droplets splashing on the floor, creating a sea of crimson that extended. Some of it also dropped from somewhere else: from the blade Emil was holding. Emil blinked, looking down to his dagger, and screamed, dropping it on the floor. “Yaaaaaagh!” He had...he had stabbed someone. He stabbed Rosa!

He had committed murder!

A strained noise got his attention – right! She wasn’t dead yet, it wasn’t too late. “Eeemiiil...!” she moaned, between gritted teeth. She seemed to be in incredible pain, looking at him with both anger and disbelief. Rosa tried to stand up, but she couldn’t, instead she fell on her side, her fingers clutching her bloodstained clothing.

“H-H-Hold on! I’ll get help!”

“Yoooou...!”

Emil ran, running down the hallway towards the bedrooms. Marona! She had healed Date until there wasn’t even a bullet hole, she should be able to fix Rosa right away! And if not her, then Romani. They had to be able to do something! Emil arrived to the bedrooms, which one was Marona sleeping in? He didn’t remember! Oh, right, the plaques! He could...

...would he even get her in time?

Emil came to a stop. If he didn’t get to her in time, and he brought Marona along, then Marona would know he killed Rosa. That’d seal his fate. He’d be executed, just like those three people had been executed so far. He was going to die...!

..

Unless...

No. He couldn’t let himself die. He couldn’t let them catch him. The intense fear, the anxiousness that came from having reacted in a moment of stress and done something he regretted, it all invaded him, until something else came into the mix: that disdain he was starting to feel towards this group he was trapped with. The miasma had overpowered his emotions, bringing those to the forefront. Emil’s stare hardened. He wasn’t going to let them claim his life. He was going to leave this mansion alive, he had to.

One by one, Emil touched the doorknobs of the doors. There. That guaranteed nobody would be able to open their doors.

Emil Vasterstrom decided he was going to make sure nobody found out about Rosa.

-ooooo-

Something about waking up in that mansion was exhausting, but it wasn’t like Date could sleep for the rest of the day. They wouldn’t let him get away with that. Even though he’d have preferred to stay in bed for a while longer, surely someone would come and check on him.

Sissel was there on his cat tower, a peaceful ball of fur. Emil was gone, he probably had woken up before him. Date put a hand on the doorknob and tried to open the door.

It didn’t work. His hand slipped off the doorknob when he turned his hand.

“Date!” came a shout, a familiar voice, followed by three, four soft thuds. That was Emil, no doubt. “Are you okay?”

“Sure am” Date said.

“The house is changing! The door is gone out here! Everything has gotten crazy over here!”

Date frowned. You had to be kidding. It was too early in the morning for this shit. “What do you mean the door is gone?”

“There’s no door, this is a wall!”

Even if the sun was setting down, it’d still be too early for this shit. With a sigh, Date activated the x-ray vision. There were two people on the other side of the door, one had to be Emil. There really was something beyond the door – if Emil was right, it was a wall. You had to be joking! He was trapped? “Well I’m not moving anywhere. The room is just like normal.” So the rooms weren’t moving, it just was the walls. Not that Date could see a thing, trapped in that room.

Good thing there was someone who could.

Waking up Sissel and explaining the situation took no more than a couple minutes, after which Sissel promised he’d find out what was going on. His body went limp, while Sissel’s ghost zapped into the doorknob, and from there to any other viable cores on the other side.

One hour later, Sissel returned. The cat shook his head, stretching. “So? What’s up?” asked Date, sitting on his bunk bed.

“It’s a mess out there” the cat started his report.

He informed how he had managed to travel all throughout the house, finding out the situation. There were new walls. Walls had popped up in hallways and over doors, changing the topology of the house. It wasn’t limited to the changing areas, now the static ones seemed to be getting affected by the changing! What used to be a square of hallways now was one strange shape, like a big chunk had been taken away. The armory was gone. The restoration room was gone. The greenhouse had been gone, but appeared back. A couple other places had suffered that same fate.

Haku had noticed there were some curious notches on the walls, round indentations he could fit his fingers into, but nothing happened when he did. Other than that, the walls seemed to be randomly appearing and disappearing every few hours.

What was curious was that places and hallways kept disappearing. Nothing new had opened. Date laid on his bed, hands behind his head. “So it could be matter of time before the wall in front of the door opens.”

It took until past noon before that wall disappeared and he and Sissel were able to leave. 

-ooooo-

Emil endured the umpteenth flash of a troll. Why did all of his traumatic flashes have to involve those things being about to kill him?! He only could conclude he had been in that specific danger way too many times. They didn’t help at all the growing desire to stay alive no matter what – getting constant reminders of times he had been in danger and survived kept making him jumpy, startling him. He had shouted at Flayn of all people when she dared to talk to him without prior warning, because apparently seeing her come wasn’t enough to realize she had wanted to say a word.

It was night now. A couple people had wondered about where Rosa could be, but everyone just shrugged and figured she was somewhere else in the house. It was a big house, and it was Thursday – not dead body time. Emil had stayed quiet every time Rosa had been brought up, but nobody noticed it.

So far, it was going well. His plan was simple: keep them from finding Rosa until Sunday, and right before the changing rooms went away throw her body inside one of them. That’d keep everyone from finding it, and without finding it, he’d be safe. Even if the body appeared later, any possible evidence around the house would have gone cold by now. He’d win at the trial.

“What’s wrong with me?” Emil muttered, walking through the hallways. He should feel horrified about how he was thinking so nonchalantly, but instead all he could feel was the intense need to stay alive no matter what, even if it involved throwing someone else under the bus to a horrible death. This mansion...what was this place?

The moment he had killed Rosa; he had sealed his fate. All he could do was try his best to stay alive.

“Have you seen Aunt Rosa?”

That was Battler’s question. They had just stumbled upon each other, and Battler’s immediate question was if he had seen Rosa. Emil was aware there had been a fight of some sort last week, but Battler seemed rather concerned now. For the first time in a while, the miasma finally allowed the guilt buried under all those emotions surge. Emil looked away.

“No...I have no idea where she is”

“Why hasn’t anyone seen here the whole day?” Battler bit his lower lip. Familial love seemed to be pushing him forward right now.

“Do you think she may have found a way to escape and did it on her own?”

“...she wouldn’t!” he said, but his tone indicated the opposite. Emil dared to try to have some of a sunnier disposition, but it came across as very fake:

“I’m sure she’s okay. Your aunt seems like a tough woman; she’ll be fine”

That didn’t seem to be very well received, but Battler chose to shut up instead of saying something else.

Together, Emil and Battler walked down the hallway, until they stumbled upon a wall that shouldn’t have been there. “Oh. I keep coming over here” Emil said. Sometimes it was unintentional due to being used to walking through that side of the mansion, other times it was to make sure the walls were fine. Nobody had noticed he had been wandering to this dead end so many times, right? Yeah, why would someone notice?

...what if someone did notice? A tiny doubt surged in Emil. What if someone did notice...what if someone already suspects he did it?

...could he get away with...

He had to. No other choice. He had to live, he wanted to live! Emil Vasterstrom would survive--!

The noise of a vase shattering stopped his thoughts. Emil turned around, expecting to see Battler having dropped a vase, but instead what he found was exactly what he had feared. The dead end wall now laid askew, and Battler was passing through the large triangular space that had opened on the upper corner near the ceiling. “Wait, what happened?” Emil asked, feeling his throat dry up. Battler didn’t listen, he kept climbing, until he disappeared on the other side. Jävlar!

There was no choice. 

Emil climbed the askew dead end wall too.

“AUNT ROSAAAAAA!” Battler’s cry of horror sounded right when Emil got to the top of the wall.

One second later, the sound of a rifle shot echoed throughout the house, but was smothered by the miasma before anyone heard it.

-ooooo-

The body announcement came pretty fast the next morning. It was impossible to miss the two bodies sitting to the table at the dining room.

“She’s been dead for at least a day” determined Romani.

“That’s why nobody saw her at all yesterday?” wondered Flayn. She and Ky were looking around while Romani and Saphir examined the bodies.

“Then we’re going to have to figure out where she was hidden” stated Ky.

There wasn’t really a lot of conversation going on. Romani focused on his work, trying to find out as much as possible from Rosa. It was unfortunate so long had passed – there was a lot of time for the culprit to get rid of clues, he figured. At least the body couldn’t be tampered with.

The cause of death was pretty clear: a stab wound to the front of the torso. The blade had been quite large, causing a lot of damage. “I don’t think this was done with any random kitchen knife”

“So it was from the armory?” Ky asked. That had to be a place to check.

“Possibly. What are you finding, Saphir?”

Saphir didn’t seem very happy about having to do this, he stepped away from Battler with an expression of absolute disgust on his face. “This guy got shot on the back of the head! And the bullet...” he seemed like saying it was nasty and needed preparation, so the doctor finished the report:

“It passed through” Romani concluded. All Saphir did was nod. That had to be quite the strong firearm, then.

“There’s nothing else on Battler”

“Rosa doesn’t have anything on her except this” he said, showing Rosa’s hand. The tips of several of her fingers were covered with dried blood.

Flayn glanced at what Romani was showing. “Why did the killer dip her fingers into blood?”

“She may have done that” Ky noted. While they discussed why Rosa or the killer would put those fingers into blood, Romani frowned, not liking how the bodies were so devoid of useful evidence. Could it be the killer was experienced with murder? They could be facing an expert murderer. This could be quite the challenging trial, with an incredibly intelligent culprit who had calculated every step of the way!

-ooooo-

“Emil!” Yachi jumped back when the vase dropped from Emil’s hands.

“I’m sorry, it slipped!”

“This is the second time you break stuff. First the painting, now this” Giovanni pointed out.

“I’m nervous, okay? I have never been at a crime scene!” And if he was nervous, the clumsiness increased. Was this the incredibly intelligent culprit Romani expected, really?

It was pretty clear this was a crime scene, everyone could see it. All the blood proved it really well. Yachi was writing every single detail with the dedication she was known for, although, judging from the way her hand trembled while writing, she still hadn’t gotten used to writing about this topic in particular.

Some of the blood was still somewhat viscous, but other parts were already dried and flaky. It was all on the floor, almost nothing on the floor. It didn’t seem like there was anything noteworthy except for one small area:

A wide streak of dried blood.

“This looks like someone tried to wipe it or something” Giovanni said. He looked a little green, but he couldn’t show weakness in front of his minions! Emil fluffed up his hair, nervous.

“Couldn’t it be just more blood? There’s no reason to clean only a little part and leave the rest”

“They gave up”

“I don’t think...they would just give up like that?” Yachi said quietly. “They moved the bodies but didn’t get rid of the blood...?”

Giovanni turned away from the blood, instead focusing on the walls. Sure, that had to be checked too! It didn’t involve looking at the blood, at least. The walls and floor showed some strange scuff marks – large and wide, like something hard and big had been dragged all over those places, but it didn’t seem like there was anything around. How weird... “Isn’t this where a wall was?”

“I think...it is” Emil said cautiously.

“So everything happened on the other side of the wall that used to be here. The house sucked the wall back”

“Ew...” Emil quietly muttered. Oh, if they found out...

“Guys? What happened to this table?”

Yachi interrupted them before they could continue discussing how the house sucked its walls back to create rooms. She was looking at one of the small tables, just a couple foot away from most of the blood. There was a large hole in it, slanted and jagged.

Emil frowned, unsure what to say. He shouldn’t say anything, but during the first week he identified a gunshot hole in a uniform. If he didn’t identify it now, maybe they’d suspect him...? “It’s a bullet hole” Emil said, surprised by how confident she sounded.

“A bullet hole? Then there’s a bullet in here?” Yachi snaked her index finger into the hole. “Oh, you’re right...!”

Getting it out was the hard part. None of them had something that could be used to bring it out, although Giovanni suggested getting a magnet somewhere. Emil kept denying he had anything – bringing up his knife would be suspicious! Still, he hesitated visibly. When Yachi asked if he was okay, he had to say he had another traumatic memory flash. That stopped the discussion short.

In the end, Giovanni used soup to dislodge the bullet, a small deluge of soup bringing the bullet out. He caught it in a hand, holding the bounty high in the air. “That’s how GIOVANNI POTAGE does it!”

“Nice job” praised Emil. The reward for their hard work was a soupy, sticky handgun bullet. “I hope nobody minds it’s full of soup”

“They shouldn’t mind”

“Were these...scratches always here?” Yachi murmured, rubbing with her fingers a few deep gashes around the bullet hole. “Or did we just make them?”

“With soup?”

Hardly.

-ooooo-

It was as if the killer had made no effort to hide anything. The bodies at the dining room, the stuff at the hallway, and now the mess at the armory. There was barely anything hidden! Whoever the killer was, they had done zero effort to hide anything, it seemed.

“This armory was blocked the whole day yesterday” Gilgamesh stated, touching the frames of the armory door. There wasn’t anything there that hinted anything had been wrong the day before – it was like the armory simply didn’t exist. He remembered there was only a wall there. The same wallpaper than the rest, the same material. That armory just was gone.

“Meaning the killer entered today to do this” said Seteth, surveying the armory. He didn’t even have to explain what ‘this’ was. In the meantime, Hikage was checking the ammo and weapons available, opening the boxes and discarding them aside when he found nothing in them. Why he was doing that, Seteth wasn’t entirely sure. They had some clues right in front of them.

The security system had been obliterated.

Every screen, every control, it had all been destroyed. The screens were busted, the insides of each one could be seen. Barely any had shards of glass on them. Everything that could have been for recording what the cameras had been smashed, pieces of black plastic and electronics spread all over the floor. Even any wires in the system had been torn apart.

In front of the remains of the screens they could see a sledgehammer, obtained most likely from the renovation room. Some of the electronics were caved in, it was pretty likely the sledgehammer had done it. Taking the sledgehammer, Gilgamesh tested how heavy it was. Pretty heavy! Swinging it over and over would leave anyone sore.

“Something’s off about all this” Gilgamesh said. Seteth turned his head towards him.

“What do you mean?”

“Hmph. Think about it.” Apparently whatever it was, Gilgamesh hadn’t been willing to say it yet.

Suddenly, Hikage showed them a handgun, shoving it at them with inquisitive expression. “This one is full of ammo”

“Is it?” Seteth looked at it like he expected it to start firing at any moment.

“That’s what I mean” he opened the barrel, showing how it had six bullets inside. “Nothing else is out of place, just this handgun”

Gilgamesh crossed his arms, staring at the handgun. Huh. That so? “The mongrel that killed her must have had a reason to fill it”

-ooooo-

The renovation room had been another place that hadn’t opened up until just now and, just like the armory, it had obvious evidence up the wazoo.

Hard to miss the ten-feet wide river of dry paint on the floor.

It pretty much spilled all over the entrance part of the room. All sorts of colors mixed together, forming a colorful slop that seeped into the floorboards. It was dry now, but before it must have been impossible to cross without getting your shoes dirty – if the culprit did enter, of course.

There was no doubt they did. “There’s not much lumber left” said Saphir, looking from the entrance in case some sort of trap activated. He didn’t trust at all this room that disappeared for one day for no reason.

Gin chuckled like Saphir had said something very funny or just very obvious. “That’s all you noticed missing?”

“Of course not!” Saphir replied immediately, annoyed. He wasn’t some blind bat! “A lot of wallpaper is gone too!”

Ango adjusted his glasses. Lumber and wallpaper was gone, hm... “I believe I’m starting to catch onto what’s going on”

“You too?” Gin was having some suspicions what was the truth behind the events of the last day, indeed.

“Anyway, paint doesn’t get off your soles that easily. If we examine everyone’s shoes we should be able to pinpoint the killer” He had a point there, Ango had to admit. Washing the paint effectively would be extremely difficult. There had to be even a little bit left. True, by the time the trial started, washed shoes would be dry, but perhaps in the seams, or maybe somewhere in the soles...

“We should search in case we find more clues” said Ango, stepping over the dry paint, and walked towards the items in the back.

-ooooo-

Romani hurried to stop the incinerator. Were they too late? One look into the incinerator said it all:

The incinerator had a lot of ash inside, reaching half capacity. It was pretty clear it had been filled to the brim with something, but now, it was all gone, turned into ashes. What a mess! Romani sighed. “I can’t tell what this was”

“We can be certain any culprit worth their salt would destroy evidence” Subete said.

“Then it was a lot of evidence. This is full of ash”

“We got an axe!” said Emil, lifting it. Indeed, there had been an axe left against the wall. It had clear signs of use!

Subete idly kicked some of the stuff littering the floor: splinters and pieces of wood, lots of it. Small pieces and little twigs of lumber filled the place, like a carpet of sawdust in a workshop. “It’s like an entire tree was destroyed in here. Our culprit had a lot of activity in here recently.

Emil swallowed nervously. Oh, that was so true, this had taken him so long... “Really?

“Of course. Now, look over here” Subete pointed with his foot some of the pieces. Half-buried among the rest of the wooden refuse, he showed some very colorful splinters. All sorts of colors were there – some even seemed to have more than one. “Strange”

“So what do you think it was?”

“These pieces here have what seem to be wallpaper. Doesn’t this print look familiar?”

It did. That wallpaper was the same than the one on the walls of the hallways in the changing areas. Emil simply nodded, gripped by a sudden dread. Looking at Subete, he once again saw the brief flash of a troll, advancing slowly towards him.

No, not a troll, it was Subete, it was Subete! Calm down, Emil! The only thing Subete was getting closer to was to the truth!

...that wasn’t any better! It wasn’t like he could shoot Subete, anyway. Not with Romani there.

“Aaaugh, stop that!” Emil blurted out loudly, chiding himself. Why did that have to be his immediate thought? Why didn’t he think that shooting Subete was wrong, instead of how he couldn’t do that with a witness right there? What was wrong with him?!

A thick silence had descended into the room. Emil, noticing Romani was looking at him with surprise and Subete seemed unimpressed, had to defend himself right away. “I’m sorry, I keep having memory flashes. I’ll go lie down” he excused himself, leaving the incinerator room right away.

Romani stepped away from the incinerator, probably intending to go after Emil, but Subete stopped him. “Let him go. We have other things to deal with”

“I guess you’re right” Romani turned to search around. He didn’t have to look for long, his foot hit something right away. Bending down to take a look, he took from among the wood splinters pieces of blue ceramic. “This is from one of the hallway vases”

“Those vases wouldn’t turn into ashes in the incinerator. Instead, think how those got here”

“The culprit brought them.” To destroy them, most likely. That had to be it. The question was...what was so important about those vase shards? Examining them, there was nothing unusual about them. No blood, no clues...just ceramic.

-ooooo-

He’d get away with it. What a worthless bunch, these amateurs. Emil couldn’t believe he was trapped with them.

...okay, that was uncalled for, he could realize that much. Emil really wondered where the miasma ended and where his thoughts started – or if he’d be even having those thoughts in the first place, if the miasma wasn’t around.

The trial was already underway. They had already talked about the state of the bodies, and were starting to connect the dots. Romani’s work pretty much pointed right away that Rosa had been dead since Wednesday. “But if she was dead, where did the killer hide her?” Crow leaned on his seat. “We checked the entire house and nobody saw anything”

“She may have died in one of the rooms that disappeared” theorized Romani. “In one of the rooms that stayed missing the entire day” That meant only the renovation room and the armory.

“The house may have started moving around because Rosa died in a day that wasn’t Thursday” Sissel said. Not...impossible? It was a weird mansion, alright.

But no, there were some traces that hinted where Rosa had died. “Yachi said there was dried blood on that hallway. Rosa died there, obviously” Saphir said.

“Nobody saw blood. How did the killer hide that blood?” It seemed like Romani was right. They all had peered into that hallway several times, but nobody had seen not even a single drop of blood, fresh or dry. Not even those with spiritual powers of some sort had seen blood in that dead end – not that they had looked too hard. There had been no reason to do that.

“That weird dried blood they found could be Rosa trying to drag herself away.” Nanaka said. That...didn’t seem to fit the evidence? Yachi’s notes didn’t seem to indicate anything had been dragged, not even the body. It was like Rosa had been there all the time, just...invisible at the end of that hallway.

Ango read those notes all over again. “Her fingers had blood, and there’s that streak. She may have dipped her fingers in her own blood to do that”

“So, she did that? Why?” asked Marona.

“It may have been something else, something the killer didn’t want us to see”

“She may have written the killer’s name” Ky guessed. Emil joined his hands, clutching them together with nervousness. That had been exactly right.

By the time Emil had returned to where Rosa was lying, she had written ‘EMIL’ on the floor. The fear he had felt at that time was so intense he froze, mouth wide open like a fish, while Rosa glared at him spitefully. The hate in those eyes...it was like hot coals, that woman looked more like a demon than a human, or even a troll!

Wiping that name was his priority, and he did so with the red bandanna Giovanni had made for him. Oh, Giovanni...I really hope he doesn’t ask to see it. Right now, that bandanna was ashes. Burned into nothing in the incinerator.

“After getting stabbed, she was alive for a while. She bled out” Gilgamesh said.

“And the killer did nothing to help her...” Romani said, disapproving. That ruled out this was an accident. Just in case, though, Gil said it bluntly:

“Only an idiot would think this was an accident. It’s crystal clear the killer mercilessly intended Rosa to die”

Mercilessly...that wasn’t how he was, was it? Emil really wanted to think it wasn’t like he was merciless! True, he did nothing to help Rosa...but...merciless?

Gilgamesh continued, undeterred. “Battler’s death was equally as brutal. We’re dealing with a killer who has no compulsions with killing. Have you mongrels realized why Battler was murdered?”

“It could have been two different people, because...one was a stab and the other was a bullet” Emil hoped to mislead a little, but it was useless.

“No. He died because he found Rosa”

“They did find fresher blood amidst the dried blood. That must be Battler’s” Gin agreed. Marona added:

“There’s also a bullet right there” And unless some shooting shenanigans happened there recently, of course that had to be related to Battler, that was clear. It was decided: Battler died because, somehow, he stumbled upon Rosa first.

“You forget Rosa had a handgun too. She may have been the one to shoot that bullet, and Battler died somewhere else” said Date. He had a point, everyone had to admit. The only thing they knew for certain was that Rosa did not kill Battler – unless she returned as a ghost and did it, which had to be impossible.

“Romani, did you find her gun?” Maroka asked. The doctor shook his head immediately – Rosa did not have her gun on her, he knew that much. “If it had been where the blood was, then they’d have mentioned it already--”

Hikage didn’t let her finish. He could cut this short, he could end it: “I think I found the gun”

“Where?”

“In the armory. It was stashed with the rest, but it’s full of ammo”

“It’s impossible Rosa would leave her handgun anywhere. The culprit must have been the one to take it to the armory” said Ango. Given how Rosa was...well, Rosa, she wouldn’t let go of that gun no matter what. Why did the killer take the gun to the armory, then?

“We also found a sledgehammer in the armory. I believe it’s from that room with the construction tools” said Seteth. That meant the two rooms that had disappeared on Thursday were involved with the murder... “By the time Battler died those rooms must have been back. The killer went to the renovation room, got the sledgehammer, and destroyed—“

“Speaking of that room, can you all show your shoes?” Ango interrupted, it was time to check everyone’s shoes! One by one, everyone showed their shoes. Not a single one was wet, nor had traces of paint. They didn’t even look like they had been washed recently! Ango put his head into a hand, he really thought he’d find some sort of trace on someone’s shoes. “I don’t get it, there should have been paint!”

Of course, everybody wanted to know what he meant. Explaining how the renovation room had a lot of stuff missing, and how there was enough paint spilled for the killer to not have touched it with their shoes, took a while, but once he was done he added: “The killer may be a clumsy person. It didn’t seem to me like they threw the paint intentionally...”

It was like the trial room went silent – or at least that’s how Emil perceived it. What Ango said...no, that couldn’t be enough to point the finger at him! Emil would be fine, there was nothing pointing at him yet, he had to be fine...! Trying not to show how unnerved Ango’s statement had made him, his eyes examined everyone’s faces.

Hikage was looking straight at him. Oh no...he must have been remembering how Emil dropped that powdery makeup back then. He must be suspecting him now! Or...no, right? Calm down, you’ll be fine!

“Emil”

Date had said his name. Emil turned his head slowly, he feared finding an accusatory stare. But no – Date looked serious, but not accusatory. Surely Date didn’t think Emil was the culprit, right? “Sorry, I didn’t catch that” said Emil.

“Romani said you helped Subete and him at the incinerator. They mentioned a jar and a lot of ash”

He definitely had missed he saying that. Looking around, from the couple discussions still going around, it seemed some time had passed while Emil spaced out about them suspecting him because of the spilled paint. Trying his best to look like he didn’t care much about what was going on, Emil informed: “I found an axe, and there also were a lot of splinters on the floor”

“Wooden splinters”

“Yes, of course. What else could it have been?”

“Some of them had more color than the rest” said Subete. “I brought some of them” and he proceeded to show them in a hand. Indeed, those were very colorful splinters. Ango adjusted his glasses, looking at them from afar.

“...so that’s how they did it”

“What?”

“The culprit must have used lumber as a bridge to cross over the paint. That’s why we didn’t find anything on our shoes”

Ky had an opinion about that: “Does that mean a plank full of paint was so important the killer had to go and chop it in the incinerator room?  And then chopped untouched lumber to try to hide those?”

“That’s doubtful” Subete took out more wooden pieces, this time with wallpaper stuck to them. “Unless they also decided to paste wallpaper on the decoys”

“...I’m pretty sure I have seen that wallpaper before” said Nanaka.

“That’s the wallpaper on most of the hallways” realized Romani.

“...n-no way...” Yachi said very quietly. It seemed she had come up with an idea, but hesitated about saying it. Still, they had to hear it, at least to give a rebuttal! “...what if those walls...the reason the rooms disappeared and all...was because someone placed fake w-walls?”

“Fake walls?”

“Yes. They pasted the lumber together, used the wallpapers on them, and once they had no more use for anything they got rid of the fake w-walls?”

“...that may be what the incinerator burned, but there were too many walls to destroy, so they ran out of time” Saphir said. “Were we fooled by fake walls all along?”

“I touched the walls, and they were solid. They can’t have made them thick enough to stand there and not fall down when you pushed them!” Hikage argued, although he had to admit the fake walls theory had some sense to it!

Haku was the one adding more proof to Yachi’s theory, strengthening it until it turned into a theory to be reckoned: “Then it could be those holes I found in those new walls was so the killer could move them easily. If you put your fingers on them, you’d be able to move them”

“And there were marks on the upper parts of the hallway walls in the crime scene. The killer must have left those when taking off the wall they put there”

“So the killer spent the whole Thursday moving walls around?” Mo Xuanyu seemed to find that kind of funny – the thought of someone having to lug their fake walls all over the house just to inconvenience them.

“It still doesn’t make that much sense” said Nanaka, gesturing with her fingers in the air, like she was trying to illustrate her point. “Maybe the hallway had a fake wall in it, but we still didn’t see blood or Rosa from either side. That’s the flaw in your argument”

“She’s right, nobody saw anything – and I’m sure both sides of the wall got checked at some point” Emil pounced on that point, hoping to dissuade them. They had figured out way too much! The fake walls theory Yachi had brought up was right on the mark, he couldn’t let that go unchecked! Still, that only hastened his demise, when someone else realized the trick:

Zabuza crossed his arms, deciding to give them the answer they seemed to have overlooked: “There were two walls, with Rosa and the blood in the middle”

“That makes perfect sense. Riddle solved” Gilgamesh approved.

Ky nodded. “And the reason Battler was killed was because he saw through the trick. His power, it must have nullified whatever made those walls work”

“Are we sure? If he understands something, it works, and there’s not much to understand about walls.” Said Crow “He must have gotten past that trick some other way”

“It doesn’t matter how he did it, what matters is that he did and got killed for it!” said Giovanni.

Marona shrugged. “But at least we know the killer must have had a way to make the fake walls stay in place” she said. Now Emil was certain: Date was looking straight at him. It took him all his courage not to glance at his roommate.

“Okay, let’s think about how the culprit moved!” Sissel proposed. “First, Rosa died, and the killer boxed her body in that hallway. Then they made a lot of walls, and used them to cover doors and create dead ends. They had to close the renovation room and the armory because they couldn’t get rid of the signs they had been there.”

“That’s why those rooms are open now, because the bodies were found” Saphir thought for a moment before adding: “Battler finding his aunt may be what made them leave the bodies in the open. The more people died, the harder it’d be to keep hiding them”

“When did they destroy the security system? Before or after blocking the armory?”

“It must have been before. Rosa’s handgun was there; it’d make no sense for the killer to have that handgun with them the entire day”

Nanaka nodded, satisfied. “Alright. And how didn’t we notice there was a wall pasted on the door? That’d stick out even if you used the same wallpaper. It’d look like part of the wall was uneven”

“Not if you also place those walls on top of the real walls. We wouldn’t notice a new layer unless we...looked at the corners of the walls” said Marona.

“That makes sense too”

Crow grinned a little. “That’s why there were so many pieces on the floor of the incinerator room, and so much ash: the killer had to destroy a lot of walls”

Romani seemed skeptical, though. “No. We’d be talking about at least three dozen feet of walls. The wood and the ashes together wouldn’t be enough”

“Would the killer have enough time to destroy that many fake walls?” asked Date.

“They wouldn’t”

“...there must be a lot of fake walls spread all over the mansion right now, attached to the real walls. There’s no other place to hide them” Subete sounded pretty sure about that, and the way he said it made it seem like it had already been confirmed.

Not that they could check anywhere in the mansion right now – and unless there were fake walls right now there with them, they wouldn’t be able to test that theory. It just made sense, though – hiding a tree in the forest, so to say.

And Emil really, really didn’t like how they were managing to make so many accurate deductions. He really thought they wouldn’t be able to find out his trick! But they did, more accurately than he even thought it’d be! He opened his mouth to say something, but saw Date – now he indeed was looking at him – so instead he shut up. He would dig his own grave if he said something, he was sure of it.

Why did he have to accidentally kill Rosa? Why did he have to shoot Battler? It was...it was the miasma. Yes, that had to be it. The miasma pushed him to do it! Emil kept telling himself that, refusing to realize that was more like a half-truth. The miasma certainly didn’t push him to kill Battler. He had taken that decision in the heat of the moment. The miasma certainly didn’t make him create all those fake walls.

Amidst all that discussion, Gin intervened. “Have you figured out yet why the killer destroyed the surveillance systems?”

“Now that you mention it...that’s a good question. There’s no reason why they had to destroy it” Date admitted. He sounded like he hadn’t considered that until now.

“Rosa’s murder didn’t happen on Thursday; the cameras would have recorded it” Sissel reminded them.

“But then why didn’t the killer...just erase those recordings? You can do that, right?” asked Flayn. Now that she mentioned that...

“Erasing wasn’t an option” said Zabuza. “They must not have been good with that sort of technology, so they destroyed it all--”

“That narrows it all quite a lot” said Date. Undeterred, he proceeded: “We have a lot of hints so far. Someone who can use both blades and firearms, who may be clumsy, and who may not be good with the sort of modern technology we have. Perhaps more important, they also had the means to prop their fake walls without them falling apart when someone inevitably tried to move them or lean on them.

Doesn’t all that sound familiar, Emil?”

It was exactly what he had feared: Date had realized it was him. Date knew it! Emil made a funny noise like a mouse caught in a trap when the cop turned his attention at him. “No, actually, that doesn’t sound familiar at all!”

Yachi looked between Date and Emil. “Date, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying we have reasons to suspect Emil may be the culprit”

“Are you serious? Emil?” Flayn seemed surprised. Not too far away, Haku was frowning, but didn’t seem completely surprised about the accusation.

“It’s what the clues so far lead me to believe”

“Well your deductions are wrong! I didn’t kill anyone” Emil crossed his arms petulantly, even though in the inside he was dreading where this would go. “It’s not what it seems”

“Do you have any arguments? Anything that could prove any of the evidence isn’t tied to you?” Gilgamesh prompted, although judging from his face, he seemed willing to accept Date’s theory.

“...actually...yes, I have something” Emil leaned forward on his seat. “That bullet. I saw it when Giovanni got it out of the hole”

“This one, Rocksteady?” Giovanni held the bullet. It still looked sticky from the soup.

“That one! That’s not a bullet for my rifle!”

Subete tilted his head a little. “He’s not wrong, that’s a handgun bullet”

“I don’t have a handgun. I have a rifle. This is what I’m familiar with the most”

“Let me take a look at it”

“Sure, I guess. Don’t damage it” Giovanni tossed the bullet at Subete, who turned it around in his hands with attention. Everyone waited for him to finish checking it, until he, with a shrug, stated:

“This is a perfectly ordinary bullet. There’s nothing strange about it”

“Couldn’t Emil have used a handgun?” Date pressed. Saphir was the one to reply to that instead of Subete:

“He’s been carrying that rifle all this time, I doubt he’d start using a handgun”

“If you can let me finish I can tell you something else” Subete said rather calmly, turning the bullet around in his fingers. “The fact there’s nothing strange is the important part. It has no blood at all, or even a dent. This bullet did not kill anyone”

Sissel tilted his head. “If it’s not damaged then it didn’t even hit the table?”

“That can’t be true, that has to be the bullet that killed Battler!” insisted Emil, but it was useless: Subete was right. That bullet was a fake he had planted. That defense had been knocked down right away.

“It’s not. How interesting you chose to bring that up as your defense, though. Any particular reason why you chose that bullet?” was Date conducting this interrogation? That made Emil more nervous, like the fact his own roommate was doing it 

Had he dug his own grave? Too late to back down, anyway. Emil made a face of displeasure and waved a hand. “I was there and I saw it, that’s all”

“Emil...I will be frank with you: I have suspected something was up with you for a while already – since the investigation, in fact”

That was like receiving a punch to the gut. He couldn’t mean that! Until the clues stacked up against him, there was no way anyone could have suspected him already! “R-Really?”

“What’s your power, Emil?”

“Ah, that’s right” said Mo Xuanyu “You did mention you had a power you didn’t have before. What was it?”

This...was going to be bad. He had shown his power in the middle of that meeting ages ago, although only Date took part in a demonstration. Emil had banked in that nobody would remember. If he lied about it now, Date would call him out. True, there was a detail about his power he hadn’t told anyone about, but...would that really change anything?

Still, right now, he had to say almost exactly what he had said back then. Emil tried to think back to that meeting, trying to remember his own words. “When I touch something, it...it stays immobile. Only I can move it, otherwise it stays like it’s frozen in time”

Gin laid his chin on his hand. “That’d be great for holding those false walls into place”

“No! I mean...yes? But that’s not what happened”

Date studied Emil for a moment, before asking: “Is that all? Have you forgotten any details?”

“Date, I showed you how it works! Do you need a demonstration again?”

“That power of yours was the key, wasn’t it? Without it, your plan wouldn’t have worked”

“N-No, that’s not it--!”

“You killed Rosa and made false walls to hide your crime. You used your power to hold them in place, and made more walls to mislead us. If we had realized part of the hallway was gone for no reason, there’d be danger of them snooping too much and finding Rosa. Wasn’t that what you thought?”

Emil gulped.

“So you made more walls. The entire Thursday you moved them around to mess with us, but you left a couple on top of doors with evidence. It all went well until Battler found out your trick”

“How would he even do that? I told you that can’t happen”

“That’s what you say, but Battler found a way, didn’t he?” Date said. “I would wager it was with that jar. That’s the only thing that doesn’t fit anywhere else in this case. What did Battler do with that jar?”

“If it’s broken he may have thrown it against the fake wall” said Crow.

“Or maybe he just dropped it on the floor. Did you think of that?” Emil spat, and focused on Date again. “I didn’t do it, no matter what you say!”

“You made one big mistake that made me realize something was wrong”

“What mistake?” asked Mo Xuanyu.

“The door of our bedroom didn’t open up”

“Didn’t your room have that wall all over its door? If you opened it, it’d push against the wall. Of course it wouldn’t open.”

“That’s true. But a wall over the door shouldn’t make the doorknob be completely immobile” said Date, noticing Emil had gone as pale as a non-miasma ghost. “You used your power on the doorknob and that was the real reason why I couldn’t open the door.”

“Why didn’t he just let his false wall stop the door?” Flayn asked. “It’s a wall, it should have stopped the door.

“How about that wouldn’t work? Maybe the objects Emil freezes in place stay there unless you use another object to move them. Am I close, Emil?” Crow guessed.

All Emil could do was look away, starting to panic.

“Mind if we try a demonstration?” Ky requested. Emil shook his head emphatically, there was no way he would accept a demonstration and see that guess proven! They were closing onto him!

“I see, so that’s why you had to immobilize the doorknob. If I had opened the door, it’d push the wall and knock it down. You didn’t think that I’d realize something was wrong with the doorknob”

Emil stood up. “That’s not true! You’re---You’re guessing, that’s just a guess!”

“It’s not a guess, it’s a fact!”

“A mistaken fact!”

“I think Date is right” said Saphir, soon joined by everyone else. Date had made a compelling case with the power – and everything else did point at Emil somewhat. Emil looked around, hoping for a friendly case, but there was none. Everyone was looking at him like they had already decided he was guilty. No, this can’t end here!

“W-Wait!”

“Do you have a rebuttal?” Date asked.

“The bullet!”

That wasn’t exactly what Date had expected. They had already finished talking about that bullet, what did Emil have in mind? “What about that bullet?”

“You said it wasn’t the right one. Then where’s the real bullet? A rifle bullet! Nobody found anything like that anywhere, did you?”

“You tossed it into the incinerator to get rid of it” accused Zabuza, but Romani had something to say about that:

“I checked those ashes and there was no metal in them”

“Would Emil risk taking that bullet into Room 4 where Date is?” Gilgamesh wondered. He thought that was unlikely – in his opinion, the reason Emil locked Date away for half a day was because he feared his roommate would catch onto his crime. There was no way Emil would take a bloody and battered rifle bullet into the room”

“We do know someone did take a bullet out there with non-soup methods” said Nanaka “There were marks all over that hole, weren’t there? For example, someone with a knife trying to get it out—“

“That doesn’t mean anything!” Emil insisted.

“You must have hid that bullet somewhere” she concluded. “Where’s a good place for a bullet? The armory?”

“I checked the armory. There wasn’t any bloody bullet in there” Hikage said.

“Then it was in a place we didn’t check” Flayn concluded. Where else?

Others disagreed, though. Gilgamesh harrumphed, disdainful. “Look at him. He took all sorts of precautions, I doubt he would leave that bloody bullet in any random place, especially since someone already came across the proof of his crime” Battler, he meant. “He must have that bullet in a place where he can keep an eye on it”

“So he has it with him right now? Emil, empty your pockets!” Saphir demanded. Emil was about to comply, but Ango had something to say about it:

“It can’t be that simple. This wouldn’t be the first time we check what’s in our pockets”

“Then where is the bullet?” asked Gin, not bothering to offer a theory.

“It doesn’t exist! Battler was killed with a handgun—“ Emil was about to insist, hoping to turn the tides on his favor, refusing to give up! So what if it was an inconsequential piece of evidence in the tapestry they had all woven against him? He had to try! He didn’t want to die!

Trolls, all of them! The traumatic flashes kept increasing, obfuscating his sight. Sometimes it was the living room and everybody else here, other times he was in a variety of places in the Silent World. All sorts of things attacking, the horrors he had seen and the few times he had almost died. Now he was in another near-death situation, he had to overcome it!

“A handgun wouldn’t cause that much damage to Battler’s head. A rifle like yours would” said Date.

“Is that so?” Emil scoffed. “So what?”

“What if...the best place to keep rifle ammo at is inside a rifle?” Marona proposed, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Emil’s reaction was pretty telling. A hand went to the rifle. “You have to be joking!”

Marona continued: “I mean it. Can we take a look at the ammo in your rifle?”

“I see! He may have hidden the bullet in there! That way, he’d always have it with him, instead of risking someone finding it!” Saphir concluded like he had been the one to come up with the idea.

Approaching slowly, Date extended his hands. “Let us take a look at your rifle. Come on”

It was over.

-ooooo-

There had been no need to check the rifle. They were right – Emil indeed had stashed the bloody bullet inside. That fact had come out when Emil, desperate and knowing he had lost, confessed everything.

He described every step of his plan. He informed how while he placed the walls in the hallway, he saw the last of Rosa’s life leave her. He said how Battler discovered her by making one of the walls fall down. How Emil, in a bout of desperation, aimed the rifle and shot. How he destroyed the security system to ensure nobody would see a recording of him killing Rosa.

His guilt was laid bare, and his sentence was going to come soon.

Right now, they were all discussing who else they would vote for – he had killed two people, therefore two people had to be executed. In the end, he had caused the deaths of three people and himself.

He wasn’t moving, it was like he had used his power on himself. He just sat there, while everyone else continued the discussion without him. He was shell-shocked at his failure, and right now, all he could do was cling onto the very last tenet, the one you used only when you were cornered and had no way to fight back

Stand still and stay silent.

Only that this time, death was guaranteed to come for him.