Turnabout Chessboard: Chapter 3

[ahaha_wav]

[[Previous: Chapter 2 | Next: Final Chapter]]

...The witch's side withdraws from the scene of the Second Twilight. That was a clever trick, but it won't work twice, you see?

I must now prepare for our next skirmish, so there will be another brief recess before the trial resumes.

Comments

[itwasfeyt]

Wh...We.... Oh. Oh....

[Oh dear.]

[wright_idea]

Uh-uggh.

[Right. She's kinda got me there.

Still, Kanon has to be the primary suspect here. After all, he's already been caught manufacturing ONE Twilight. The question is, how could he have pulled this off?]

Could I get a better sense of the layout of the room, for the record?

[ahaha_wav]

Very well. I don't feel like creating another diagram, but hopefully this will satisfy your curiosity:

The room has one door, one window, one closet and one bed. There is other furniture within the room, but I guarantee the rest was not used in any way that would allow someone to hide, escape, or commit murder. It would be tiring to have to declare that every lamp, end table or shelf wasn't a hiding place for a human culprit.

You already have Rudolf and Gumshoe's descriptions of the door. The window opens up to the second floor, but it might still be possible to escape that way, so I'll add this: The window was locked from the inside.

[roofjumping]

So that leaves the closet or the bed as possible hiding spots. I don't really care which one you'd like to tackle first -- I'll leave the theorizing up to you two.

[young_bastard]

The closet would be easier to get into, so let's try that first. The culprit took the body and hid in the closet to make it look like the room was empty!

[ahaha_wav]

Ah, this classic game, where you name all the possible hiding places and I deny them one by one. What a relaxing way to while away the hours. However, I think you've grown past the level of such trifling moves, haven't you? I'll increase the difficulty.

When Rudolf opened the door to the VIP room, there were no humans anywhere inside!

[itwasfeyt]

Maybe we should look at that handprint again....

[Hmm...]

[wright_idea]

[Now that I think about it...]

That handprint on the door... isn't there something sort of... contradictory about it?

[ahaha_wav]

What's contradictory about it, exactly?

[wright_idea]

Well, let's think about this:

You claim that you "cast Kyrie into the abyss." Assuming your claim was true, there wouldn't be much point in inflicting wounds. You could just fling her there whole, and that would be the end of it.

Now let's consider the position of where Kyrie would have been if the Twilight were accurate: She would have been standing at the door, with you inside the room. Assuming she had the rifle, she would have aimed it at you, and shot.

[He mimes the action.]

There's already two problems with this: One, she needs both hands to use the rifle. So why would there be a handprint on the door? But more importantly, if it WERE her blood, then there should be a corresponding handprint on the rifle just by the nature of how you would have to hold it. In other words...

[Desk slam, point.]

That handprint isn't Kyrie's! It's the culprit's!

[ahaha_wav]

W-Well, maybe I toyed with her a bit before erasing her corpse, you see? Besides, if it's the culprit's blood, doesn't that make this an even more suspicious scene? That's proof that the murder happened in this empty room!

[roofjumping]

"That's proof that the murder happened in this empty room"...? That may not necessarily be the case. If it's the culprit's blood, all that it states is that there was a fight here, nothing more.

It's quite possible that the real scene of the murder happened elsewhere.

[young_bastard]

It might not even be real blood at all. It's possible the culprit planted a handprint there specifically to make us think that's where the murder took place.

[ahaha_wav]

Tch... I have no defense. However, you've only forced me back a single step, understand? This is still a crime impossible for humans!

[itwasfeyt]

It has to be possible some other way! If the murder wasn't committed there, then it must've been committed somewhere else without anyone knowing!

[wright_idea]

[Without anybody else... knowing? ...

Wait... could it be? There's a red truth that covers one sort of contingency, but not another...]

Mr. Ushiromiya, I need to confirm: Did you actually see Kyrie physically enter the room?

[old_bastard]

Yes, I'm positive. I was looking right at her as she entered the room.

[wright_idea]

[At least that rules out "Device X" stuff, I guess. Doesn't exactly help, though. Maybe if I go back through his testimony...

...?]

Mr. Ushiromiya, can you tell me the exact moment when you heard the gunshot?

[old_bastard]

It was almost immediately after she went into the room.

[wright_idea]

[Hmm... perhaps I'm looking at this from the wrong perspective. Maybe it's not "how," it's "why."]

Doesn't Kyrie's actions seem sort of... odd to anybody else? She knows where she's predicted to die, yet she charges straight there. Then immediately upon entering, she shoots. But if she recognized what she needed to fire at that quickly, then why bother closing the door at all?

[old_bastard]

...What are you getting at?

[wright_idea]

[Hmm... It's bizarre, and yet...]

What I'm getting at is that the easiest way to derail the witch's prophecy would have been simply to not bother going in the room. But she charged straight there. Her actions are too precise, too contradictory. Either she was just that confident that she was going to resolve the issue herself...

[Deskslam. Point.]

Or she was following a precise set of movements to convince people that she was!

1/2

[ahaha_wav]

[Rudolf opens his mouth to reply--]

That's enough, Rudolf!

[And Rudolf is banished back to the game board before he can say any more.]

2/2

[ahaha_wav]

That's a very interesting theory, Phoenix Wright. If you want to push it any further, you'll face me, not some lowly human!

[young_bastard]

Are you suggesting that wasn't Kyrie...?