ID Invaded – 05, 06

「Fallen」

Hondomachi’s Trial

Prosecution: Your honour. I appear in this case on behalf of the victim and my learned friend appears on behalf of the accused. Ladies and gentleman of the jury, thank you for your service and attention. The prosecution would like to take this opportunity to prove that Hondomachi is guilty of unnecessarily provoking Haruka Kazuta into attacking before murdering him. The evidence will show that on the day of the incident in the afternoon, Hondomachi and Matsuoka entered Nahoshi Inami’s house. Matsuoka will tell you that Hondomachi prematurely outed Inami as the gravedigger and fired warning shots to provoke Kazuta into thinking that Inami had been shot – escalating the situation by provoking Kazuta into taking immediate action. In the ensuing fight, Matsuoka was gravely injured with a knife to the back and Hondomachi stabbed Kazuta through the chest. We believe that Hondomachi’s actions were reckless and that she should have discreetly requested further backup and stalling the Gravedigger instead of directly engaging with them, and that she intended to seek a fight and kill someone by actively forgoing this option. Matsuoka can also testify that the accused had a strange obsession with diving into the ID Well – with her only obstacle being the fact she had never killed someone before. While this is nothing conclusive, it should be a chief consideration giving credence to the possibility that the defendant intended to kill and fully knew about what she was doing.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind you of the burden of proof. The prosecution brings this case against the accused. Furthermore, the readers must come to a consensus so that they are sure that Ms Hondomachi is guilty. Nothing less than being sure will suffice. So if you merely suspect or have a hunch that Hondomachi is guilty but are not sure, then you must return verdicts of not guilty. On the other hand, if you are completely sure that she has committed the alleged offences, then you must find her guilty.

Defence: Readership of Random Curiosity, I appear on behalf of the defendant in this trial, Ms Hondomachi. We argue two grounds in response to the appellant with regards to the events that occurred. Firstly, the defendant was a victim of a brutal crime last week where a hole was drilled into her head, damaging her brain. It stands to reason that her situational judgement would be affected, affecting her ability to make collected and rational decisions involving her line of duty. The Perforator has stated that it’s never good when the hole in one’s head hurts – and it can be repeatedly seen that Hondomachi’s hole sporadically bleeds. A medical specialist should be assigned to examine her injury. Secondly, we do not deny the fact that the defendant stabbed the victim. However, we would like to posit that this was merely an act of self-defence. The defendant and Mr Matsuoka were both injured by the victim, who was using knives. The most compelling piece of evidence is that Cognition Particles did not trigger when the defendant stabbed the victim – indicating that she lacked intent to carry out a murder. If the defendant killed in a pure act of self-defence, she ought to be exonerated from all charges.

My lordship, it is for these reasons that I urge you to disallow the appeal. If there are no further questions, that concludes my submissions.

Disclaimer: This segment is written entirely for the purpose of entertainment and I have never received any formal training in the art of mooting.

“Circled”

Speculations about Johnnie Walker

Johnnie Walker makes another appearance. And it’s no coincidence to me that there’s a traitor in the midst of the organisation. I suspect many people will be quick to point their fingers at the director – who seems like anything but a harmless old man at this point in time. Maybe he really is Johnnie Walker, though I reckon that’s probably a red herring. If we’re only considering characters that have at least been mentioned, other suspects include the Challenger, Matsuoka, and the creator of the ID Well itself. No doubt, these serial killers are all messed up. And I’m not trying to seem like I’m sympathetic towards them for the heinous crimes they’ve committed, even if these two episodes have tried to establish this idea that they’re broken and traumatised people on the inside – e.g. making me moved about Inami’s reciprocated love towards Kazuta, and traumatic despair from her mother’s suicide. But if there’s a person running around behind the scenes, inducing targets into episodes of psychopathy that transform them into serial killers, that’s an extremely worrying thing that demands every bit of attention and these specific serial killers might not be entirely at fault.

Which brings me onto my next point. I’m amazed no one is asking this question. How did the organisation manage to figure out that the ID Well was something only serial killers could access? That leads me to three possibilities. The least nefarious one is that they incidentally stumbled across this result. However, this seems extremely unlikely to me. The other two possibilities are that either a serial killer was actively involved in the creation of the ID Well, or the creator of the ID Well was a serial killer – which could explain why they’ve gone missing. It could also lead to a fascinating character arc for Narihisago, to realise that his motivation and desire to induce serial killers into committing suicide might actually be twisted manipulation from the very individual who orchestrated the death of his daughter. So to give in to revenge against the Challenger, or refuse to play into the hands of the person behind everything? I’d like to see him be forced into making a conscious choice here.

Anyway, that was everything I wanted to discuss. Sorry about the delays – I didn’t expect to cover this series but stuff came up for Iskendaris so I will continue to act as caretaker in her stead. As always, thanks for reading my post and see you next week to find out whether Hondomachi finally gets her shot at becoming a brilliant detective!