Erika's first instinct is to profit from the confusion to investigate the crimes scenes for a bit. However, without the Detective status she has to walk around the adults and has neither the time nor the means to even identify whether the victims are really dead. She's good, but not THAT good.
Erika does manage, though, to have a conversation with Krauss, Hideyoshi and Rudolf to convince them that the servants are especially suspect. (The point of using the doorchains is to clear the master key holders from suspicion, and who benefits from that, indeed ?) Darn, even without the Detective prerogative she's one smooth talker. She even convinces everybody to hole up in two rooms in the guesthouse (Kanon, Genji, Gohda, Krauss, Rudolf and Jessica in the cousins' bedroom ; Shannon, Kumasawa, Dr Nanjo, Hideyoshi, George and herself in the next room *).
Side note : Rudolf yet again complains that he didn't have time to discuss something really important with Kyrie and Battler. This is turning into a Running Gag by this point...
By the way, Hideyoshi raises an interesting question : why was Gohda the only servant on duty in the mansion that night ? The former explanation was that he's the only one Krauss and Natsuhi trust, but that's bollocks : he's actually the only servant not in the "let's keep Kinzo alive" conspiracy, so I rather think they don't trust him at all. So why ?
But first, let's do some meta-investigation. Battler gracefully confirms that Each of the victims was alone in their respective room when the adults forced their way in ; only Krauss, Hideyoshi, Rudolf and Gohda entered those rooms until Erika checked the rooms ; none of those four adults are the culprit. It is of course impossible to close the door-chains from the outside, and to enter or leave the rooms through any other way than their respective front door.
None of which is really great news for Erika, despite her cheerful mood when she reports her findings to Bernkastel. Her master is obviously irritated, and ponders sending her to oblivion without even waiting for her inevitable failure. Seeing this, Battler takes pity for Erika, and is kind enough to offer her enough tape to seal three rooms, with even the ability to put it into place retroactively. That's no substitute for the Detective status (or even enough to seal all the murder scenes), but it gives her a fighting chance, eh ?
As soon as Battler has stepped out of the room, Erika announces that everything is going Exactly As Planned : the whole thing was an act to trick Battler in giving out the tape at no price whatsoever. Especially considering the rules for the Game Master : sure, he can readjust his scenario as must as he wants after Erika's alterations, but if she can point out a logic error (a mismatch between the "real" and "magic" scenarios), it's even worse than a loss for him : he'll have to spend eternity trying to solve the contradiction.
"You know, I wasn't acting..." Dear gods, Bernkastel, we know you're playing it both ways for your own entertainment, you don't have to repeat it every ten minutes...
Back to the guest house. The reason why Erika had everyone separate into two rooms is that it makes her next trick very easy : she pretends she still has something to ask Krauss, and steps out of one room purposely to go to the other (and spend the night there). She plays up Hideyoshi's paranoia so that he closes the door very quickly, and now she's free to wander through the domain as she wishes without anyone the wiser !
First things first : she seals both of the rooms with tape. And has it confirmed that the "victims" are each in the room they were found in, while Shannon, Kumasawa, Dr Nanjo, Hideyoshi and George are in the next room other. After some prodding, Battler even agrees to say that EVERYONE ELSE besides Erika is in the Cousins' bedroom. That's interesting wording (after EP 3, she's careful about enumerations of people), and seems to favor the witch's side (as Erika is now the only character wandering around), but obviously she's got a plan.
Just as she steps out from the guesthouse, Erika finds a letter proclaiming that Battler's body has disappeared. It wasn't there when she entered, of course. Erika isn't very interested in pursuing the matter of the letter's provenance, as it's actually perfect for her plans : you see, she's retroactively sealed Battler's murder scene just after she examined it. Oh, Crap!. Either Battler loses some face and announces the seals are broken, or he persists in his original scenario, with a high risk of logic error. Ouch.
Erika makes a run for Battler's murder scene. It's still sealed. As Erika enters the room, the whole scene goes into bullet time or something, allowing both debates to adjust their theories on the fly. The guest bedroom is made of a main bedroom and a bathroom. Erika starts by investigating the whole bedroom apart from one place ; she can't find Battler's corpse. (Mate in two moves, both players announce.) Erika then enters the bathroom... and is distracted by the water hose drenching her as she enters. Battler's corpse isn't there either. That leaves the one place in the bedroom she hasn't investigated : the closet. Of course, while she's been busy in the bathroom, a not-really-dead-Battler would have had ample time to leave the room. Battler isn't in the guest room anymore.
But wait ! Erika had sealed the door with the door-chain ! If you're wondering how she had set it after it having been broken down by the adults, well, you'll note that "enough tape to seal one room" doesn't specify how many times one can seal the room with it. She just fixed the doorchain with tape. And is now proclaiming a logic error on Battler's part.
Lambdadelta steps in as referee. She checks with Battler, who to his credit has a counter-scenario : Kyrie might have faked her death, entered the guest room while Erika was in the bathroom, let Battler exit, re-sealed the doorchain, and hid somewhere.
Kyrie can't have helped Battler out of the guest room. Wait, since when can Erika speak the red truth ? She's made no detective proclamation ! How can she be so sure of Kyrie's death ? And then I, the Reader, connect the dots and realize the horrible truth. The monster !
What about Eva ? Rosa ? Maria ? Natsuhi ? Nope, they can't help Battler either. You see, this is the real reason why Erika didn't make the detective proclamation : this way, she had her hands free to make sure those five were really dead. By killing them herself. If you inspect those crime scenes now, you'll find the bloody plastic bags she used to cover her clothes and not sully them with blood.
Erika helpfully confirms that none of the five were initially really dead, and that the whole thing started as a prank against her. Well WHO'S LAUGHING NOW ?
You'll also note that Erika also made sure that the 11 "alive" people couldn't help either. (Dlanor confirms that the seals on the two rooms' doors are still INTACT.) So, how could Battler have escaped ? LOGIC ERROR !
Now, this is not the end for Game-Master!Battler. If he can find a way to get himself out of this room while still putting back the chain behind himself, that would break the logic error. But until he does, he's trapped in this guest room for all infinity. Yep, that explains all those obscure scenes about someone trying to escape the same room.
But that's just Game-Master!Battler's mind. His body's still around, kinda like BSOD!Beato from EP 5. Which leads to the opening wedding sequence, a masquerade wherein Erika is about to take over the game board and be promoted to full Witch and Game Master status.
...
Your move, Beato.
- Sometime over the holiday period, I'm gonna finally finish my commentary of EP 6 AND post a comprehensive WMG entry taking into account the huge reveal in there and how it impacts all the previous episodes. I want to make my ideas clears about that before delving into EP 7.
- Then, from the beginning of January onwards, I'll try and do a proper liveblog for EP 7. I've managed to stay nearly entirely unspoiled (apart from the existence of new members of the Ushiromiya family that I've got no information whatsoever about), so this should be fun.
I'd love to get this back on track faster, but the next fortnight looks very busy for me, and moreover I'll be away from my regular computer for most of it. So I'm trying to be realistic here.