cyclists | audience: valvatorez

[The note went unanswered for a day. For once, Sol doesn't immediately reply and when Valvatorez finds himself approaching the volcano in the fire region he'll see Sol perched on a rock platform inside, apparently nice and cozy.]

One out of three. Do you feel like it was a victory?

[It's Val's favorite place in this entire universe, so he's glad Sol was willing to meet him here for once.

At least they're both cozy in this sweltering heat.]

It's hard to say that when I know two killers got away. They weren't even corrupted.

That's the real problem with this kind of thing. If the trend of multiple bodies each week continues being a thing, you either have to split the votes or accept someone's gonna get away.

It's also hard to say what's better, catching a corrupted person or catching someone acting on their own.

We have issues even trying to pin down one killer. Splitting the vote doesn't seem plausible when we don't know all of the culprits.

[A small pause.] I appreciate the hints the two of you give.

At least when someone is corrupted, their behavior becomes more erratic. But if they're acting on their own, that's simply how they are.

Sometimes it's a matter of going with your gut feeling and not overthinking it. You guys seem to trip on things like that sometimes because of personal feelings or not fully understanding, and that's okay. But that doesn't mean it's not happening.

[There's a nod though.] We may not get to help as much next time, but we had an extra gift to do so.

It's difficult to separate personal feelings from the evidence we uncover. That's simply the nature of most people, demonic, human, or anything else.

Did someone use an item that allowed you to say more this week? There seems to be several items floating about that change some rules once.

What makes you think that might be an item? Sometimes we're just allowed to be a little more lenient.

[The universe sucks, basically.]

Because it seems everything else is an item of some sort.

It's like I told Shess. The actions of someone else helped the universe decide to cut us some slack. With that, we were able to tell you a little more about what was happening as the trial went on.

Is this one of those other roles?

[A shrug.] Does that part really matter? It's like you said, it's a lot of items floating around by now, so it's hard to say who did what.

I'm just glad whatever it was happened.

I'm also grateful to whatever allowed it.

But I don't think we can rely on that in the future.

I don't think so either...that's the unfortunate part.

So what will you do instead? Have you decided how to proceed for the future?

You said to go with our gut feelings and not overthink it. I can do that easily. [ don't say you're a simpleton so easily. ] We need to look over the bodies and the scenes more closely.

... Can the two of you say when we're missing locations at a certain point? Even without the universe helping us along?

Sometimes. You can always ask after enough time has passed and we can give you an idea even if we can't give you the whole answer. It's instinct that'll help you pick where to go and think about what you're doing.

A lot of you get stuck overthinking stuff because you don't want to believe it's true. Nobody wanted to believe a child killed a sword spirit. Nobody wanted to believe someone would go after Nana or Kazuaki. Nobody wanted to believe a horse was a serial killer. But those are all real.

We need to work with what you give us.

The issue is the Corrupted could be anyone and seems to target oddly. Or maybe it's not so odd and I simply haven't learned enough about everyone yet.

We just need to accept our conclusions as they come instead of writing it off as impossible.

Some of the targets are confusing, but others make sense. The corruption can take over in a few different ways. It isn't always so obviously evil. That's why it's important to make friends here and learn about people. Not just the surface level stuff, but the other stuff deep down.

Don't accept everything right away, but yeah. Never think that things are impossible here. They're more likely than you think.

I'm working on getting to know people. [There's just a lot of people.] The "deep down stuff" is the stuff people don't share so readily.

Like two people struggling to kill Kazuaki. When they aren't corrupted, do you know who killed? Does it show up on your playback?

Maybe not, but it's also not impossible as long as you find a connection. [But oh, we're talking about dead people again. There's a nod.]

We can see everything that happens on Thursday nights when we go backwards and look. We always know the guilty parties and how it was completed.

I see. You can't share that easily though, can you?

[A connection...] I believe most of us are trying to stop the darkness together, but that's probably not deep enough.

No. If we were able to tell you exactly what happened and when, it'd go against how the universe wants things done. Even if we don't agree with the method.

[There's a shake of his head.] That's more like a goal, not a connection.

[Why is the universe so fussy. Is it because it's a little baby.]

Hm... That's how I connected to my comrades at home. What's the difference between the two?

You can share a goal with somebody and not be friends, first of all. Are you friends with every single person you've ever worked with?

[Val, who works with very few people, now that I think about it:]

I'm comrades with all of them.

And how much do you know about all of them outside of work and the goals you share? [Val...]

Week 2, post-execution

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