|| edgeworth ||
Sunset hits the window and stains the room in cuts of red. The desk is mahogany, peppered with neat stacks of paper in inboxes and outboxes, affidavits and certificates of death, testimonies, and forms in triplicate waiting to be filed. There is not so much clutter as the absence of clutter: whatever objects in this office that do not pertain to the practice of law are curated, carefully selected for display lest they reveal too much about their owner.
To the outsider, this might seem careless, the Steel Samurai figurine and the keychain on the desk. But the people in Miles Edgeworth's building know him well enough to know that he would not keep anything sacred out in the open.
Because there are no cracks in their genius prosecutor's armor. They know: they've tried to find them, and failed.
The wastebasket is regularly tidied and the shredder enjoys a healthy diet of secret paperwork and perhaps slightly underhanded photocopies, but this has stopped bothering him. It stopped bothering him when Von Karma took him to court to sit in the audience as a new orphan, to watch another, lesser prosecutor attempt to win his case and fail. To watch as a guilty man walked free.
This was just the way things were, Von Karma had explained the next time the man ended up in court. This was what they had to overcome. Get the guilty convicted the first time before they can hurt anyone else. Do it right.
And so Edgeworth does. His office is neat, a testament to quick cases, no one suffering longer than they should have to. There is even a fax machine, though he does not know who keeps sending him faxes and rather wishes that they'd stop.
The people downstairs are terrified of him but also take pride in the terrifying prosecutor being on their side, the stars are rising, and all's as it should be.
Except there is case file on his desk, next to the red keychain that he is hiding in plain sight, a case file with a name that has not become less familiar despite the space of years.
Phoenix Wright.
Edgeworth uncaps a fountain pen more roughly than he needs to and his notes on the autopsy report become a slash of ink. This was bound to happen sometime, the clash of past and present, and he's foolish for thinking that he could keep it at bay forever.
But a trial's a trial and he's never lost. He has a perfect record for a reason.
-o-
|| wright ||
In another building, a much smaller building, a man with spiky hair is preparing an opening statement.
A blazer with wet cherry petals stuck to it hangs over the tension bar in the shower, and the one table in the studio apartment is cluttered with papers. Lines through names and phone numbers, lines through sentences that don't lead readers to an overwhelming conclusion: innocence. Lines through columns of numbers on other papers buried beneath these, as he tries to scrape together rent or budget for food.
She wanted him to be her lawyer.
Granted, Wright has to admit, it's not like Maya Fey had a lot of other options. If he's being generous, technically there are two other names left on the list that he hasn't called. If he's being realistic, then of course he's the only one left. Grossberg wasn't kidding when he said that no reputable lawyer would take this case on, and in his darker moments Wright wonders if he's killing his own law career before it's had to chance to live.
He lays his head on the table.
He would ask himself how he got into this mess, except he knows exactly how he got into this. She's Mia's sister. He can't not help Mia's little sister.
Especially not with what happened to Mia. God, he wishes the Chief was here to help him with this. But no, he knows the ropes. She taught him what to do.
One more time, he goes through the paperwork, even as his sink drips and his blazer dries out over the bathtub and shower drain. Elsewhere in Tokyo, a girl cries herself to sleep in a police cell and Wright too falls asleep, running over arguments and logic in chains of conclusions and searing truths.
When he wakes up, he takes the train to the office, a single screaming headline etched into his mind: Genius Prosecutor Wins Again.
-o-
|| edgeworth ||
He likes cars. Fast cars.
Edgeworth cuts through traffic and presses down on the accelerator. He's never been a fan of public transportation, having to wait to be stuffed into capsules with fellow travelers and shoved through the city like reluctant blood. No, not for him.
Trains and subways do hold a prickling of nostalgia for him; he and his dad used to ride on them on the way to court. But no child of the house of Von Karma would be caught doing something as common as riding public transportation to their cases. He's well-acquainted with the realm of chauffeurs and private shuttles, but he likes this best, of all the options. Driving himself is the ultimate form of control, and if there is one thing that Miles Edgeworth prides himself on, it's control.
He shifts gears up and then up again as he coasts past slower cars on the highway.
He got it in red because he's heard that red cars are more likely to be bought by reckless people, drivers that the police pull over preemptively because they know they'll go too fast. And sure, he's been steered off the road by flashing lights before, at the start. But then highway troopers learned his plate numbers by heart, whispered to each other or radioed from the station that's Miles Edgeworth, you idiot and sent him on his way. Now, no one stops him.
And maybe that shouldn't make him sad, that he's so well-known that even the law knows that this is how he gets out the restless energy that wakes him up at three in the morning, that finds him in the moments after cases when the flush of victory has worn off and suddenly he's left remembering that he has sent someone to prison for life. Or condemned them to always be remembered as a criminal. He is not immune from this disorientation, from feeling like he has broken something irrevocably.
But it's worth it, all these shocks of aftermath, if it means he's seeing justice done.
And it's worth it, even if he pushes the needle of the speedometer past where it should go for this road, swings the sports car through hairpin turns and powerslides through the court driveway in front of the gate. He gets out, tosses the keys to a valet whose eyes are shining (either at being vaguely addressed by Edgeworth or being allowed to drive his car, it's hard to say), and heads into the courthouse.
His briefcase taps against a maroon pantleg, and he flicks an errant strand of hair out of his eyes as he climbs the staircase to the courtroom du jour. It will be, like all his victories, perfect.
"Edgeworth."
The voice is familiar. Too familiar.
A man in a blue suit, a few cherry blossoms caught in his hair that his trip has not shaken out, stands at the bottom of the stairs.
"It's you." Phoenix Wright says. "After all this time."
Edgeworth faces him coolly. Defense attorney from Fey Law Offices who stumbled onto the scene moments after the murder. That's all he is. "I can't imagine that you really think this is the best use of your time."
"You can't really think she did it."
"Evidence." Edgeworth holds out a hand, upward, like one pan of a scale. "Evidence is everything. What I've been able to find versus what you've been able to find. If you've been able to learn anything I don't already know."
There is a terrible silence and Edgeworth already knows how this whole thing is going to play out. This is how it always happens: cocky first-year defense attorneys, mammoth cases and even bigger promises, and at the end of the day, a single spotless record.
It's boring.
He turns and takes another few steps up the stairs. Behind him, Wright makes a noise of protest.
"If you didn't expect this, then you shouldn't have taken this case." Edgeworth shrugs, but before he can take another step up the staircase someone's grabbed his arm.
"You...aren't the same person you used to be." Wright's face is flushed, either from sprinting that fast up the stairs or from proximity. "You used to be different."
"I'd highly recommend removing that hand." Edgeworth's voice is even, but it's dropped several degrees. "Unless you want me to have the judge hold you in contempt of court."
"I," Wright takes a breath, calculating, "don't think you would do that."
"How well do you think you know me?" Something dangerous gleams in Edgeworth's eyes. "Try it and find out."
The hand vanishes. Wright looks at the bright red carpeting on the risers below them, the carpeting that matches one of them perfectly and clashes with the other. "Fine." Something has hardened in his expression, and it's not just the morning light shifting through the high windows. "I'll see you in there."
Edgeworth says nothing and heads into a back room. Time for another case and another victory, another person in jail.
After all, no one stops him. And this should stop disappointing him, but it doesn't.