Chapter 3: Hollow Trust and Empty Alibis Part 2

I made my way down to Ceáser's feet, where Liam was sitting, examining the blood covering his shoe.

"My goodness, this is an unprecedented, and disturbing visual." Liam spoke, as I noticed the condition of Ceáser's foot. It was completely and utterly destroyed, as if every bone was broken. It was barely even distinguishable as a foot, causing an involuntary gag to escape me.

"Jesus Christ… how did that happen?" I questioned, genuinely grossed out.

"I would assume that the slab over there is the causation for this unspeakable calamity." Liam pointed out, motioning to a large, broken, stone slab near Ceáser's shackle. We both approached it.

"...It's covered in blood." I said, looking around the area.

"Yes, I had already made a mental note of that prospect. It is why I pointed out the sedimentary slab in the first place." Liam responded, looking at Ceáser's old shackle, "This shackle seems to be in a similar condition as the slab you are holding, Ms. Aka." I looked over, and sure enough, his shackle was also covered in blood, with a dragging trail leading over to his body.

"What could've happened here?" I thought aloud again.

"It seems that some drastic course of action led him down the path to his own demise. That is my hypothesis, at the very least." Liam answered, looking genuinely disheartened at Ceáser's death.

"Either that or this is someone else's doing…" I replied, glancing back at the group of people in this room. After our short conversation, I took a closer look at the shackle, and was surprised to see that it was still locked. As a test, I took the shackle and tried to pull it over to Ceáser's body, but to no avail. In my head, I was trying to rationalize it, but could only think of one possibility.

While I pondered the logistics of the possibility in my head, I returned to the body, to take a look at one more interesting thing of note, coming from Joseph.

"...'Batsu?'" I heard him question, his eyes fixated on the small pieces of paper attached to Ceáser's face.

"Do you perhaps mean the Japanese pronunciation of '罰' perhaps, Mr. Joseph?" Liam asked, slithering his way back next to me and Joseph.

"Oh… Uh...Maybe?" Joseph responded, a bit taken aback by his sudden interest. "What's it mean?"

"It has a variety of very rough English translated meanings, ranging from 'Punish', 'Penalty', and my personal favorite, 'Retribution'." Liam answered, happy to show off his translation skills. I silently took note of the translations, before looking at the paper a bit more closely.

They seemed to be stapled into Ceáser's upper eyebrows, making me wince at the thought. I grabbed one of the papers, and gently pulled it up to see what could be under it… I wasn't ready for the sight I saw.

"JESUS-" I cried, stumbling back, catching Jambo and Liam's attention. They came running over to look at what gave me such an adverse reaction and began harbouring similar responses.

Ceáser's eyes had been slashed open completely, leaving no possibility for him to be able to see. The sight itself was terrifying enough, but the thought that someone among us was capable of doing such a horrendous thing stuck with me even more. Trying to distance myself from the horrific sight in front of me, I backed away, and made my way over to Poppy, who still seemed extremely tense.

"Hey...are you doing okay?" I asked, trying my best to console the frightened girl in front of me. All she gave as a response was a glance in my direction, before returning to staring idly at the ground.

"...Are you hungry?" I questioned, trying to help her out of her sadness. She quietly nodded as a reply. I looked towards everyone else, before taking in a deep breath.

"Does anyone else want to go get something to eat?" I started, getting the attention of almost everyone, "I know the situation is...dire, but we should all at least get something in our systems before we head to 'court'."

"Yeah, you'd like to waste our time like that, wouldn't you, you little-" Akira started, crouched down, inspecting the body, before she was interrupted.

"Well, personally, I am still pretty starved." Joseph spoke, getting up, "Plus, I would like a way to get away from this...crime scene, even if it's for a short while." Others, like Urkstin, Risa, Liam, and Mia, agreed, while the rest stubbornly decided against it.

Those who wanted nourishment followed me to the cafeteria, while the rest stood around trying to make themselves look busy. As I walked, I looked over the things I had jotted down in the notebook, occasionally stopping to show Mia and the rest.

"...What the hell does 'no chain foot' mean?" Mia spoke, questioning my quick thoughts on paper.

"Well, we didn't unlock Ceáser's shackle, but the body was away from the shackle, and out of it. So I wrote that down." I responded, offended by her comments on my note taking.

"In a simplified language that only you understand?" She shot back, sold and fierce.

"Well, learn to read better." I retorted, a bit smarmy from the exhaustion and hunger. We kept reading and talking though.

"Oh, this almost slipped past my cerebrum," Liam started, "The paper given to us by the one speaking through the loudspeaker device had encouraged ourselves to inquire about 'alibis', am I correct?"

"Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what was written." Joseph responded.

"Well, it just occurred to me that without any context on the expiration of the late Ceáser, we cannot proceed with the questioning over the alibis, correct?" Liam's words that made me realize two things.

Firstly, we had no idea when the murder occurred, and secondly, we don't know how Ceáser had died! So without a second thought, I looked up at the ceiling, and shouted.

"HEY ASSHOLE!" My word echoed throughout the halls, catching everyone off guard. We waited patiently for a few seconds before hearing the loudspeaker turn on.

"Is something wrong?" They said, without as much as a hint of smugness behind the question.

"Yeah, something is wrong. How are we supposed to collect alibis without knowing the 'when' and 'how' for the murder?" Mia asked, stealing the words right out of my mouth. The Loudspeaker remained silent for quite a long time, before we finally got a response.

"...Ah, yes. That was my mistake entirely. Allow me to make an announcement to everyone." They responded, sounding a bit caught off guard by the question, "If you could all meet somewhere, say, the cafeteria, I will give out information that you will need in order to collect alibis."

The Loudspeaker then shut off, leaving us in an eerie silence, which was quickly broken by Joseph.

"Well great, at least we know this guy isn't perfect." He jabbed, with his trademark awkward laugh.

"We should get going then. No point wasting time standing around." Mia said and with a click of her heels, she snapped around to continue down the hallway. We all followed closely behind and when we arrived, the sight of our food back in it's rightful place was enough to make us feel happy in this otherwise gloomy environment.

One by one, each of us plated enough food to satisfy our hunger. We sat in silence, eating and waiting for the others to arrive. They all slowly made their way in, some more enthusiastic than others. After we all sat down, we waited for the loudspeaker to come on again, which they did, after a few moments.

"Now that everyone has gathered, I will give out your autopsy report." The Loudspeaker rang out. They audibly took a sharp intake of breath before reading out the report.

None of us were ready for the contents of the 'autopsy report', but I was at least prepared to write down the information.