Miles Edgeworth thought the worst of his problems was just catching up on all the procrastinated paperwork littering his desk, but soon realizes just how wrong he is when a request from a late night visitor sends him into a quagmire of conspiracy, greed, envy, and a desperate desire for vengeance. However, Edgeworth is confident he can handle whatever is thrown his way, be it of this world or the next, and on that front, he's probably right.

... So long as his luck doesn't run out, that is.

Post Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice, Spoilers for both the AA series and AA: Investigations. Subtle amounts of Mitsumayo, mentions of suggested Narumitsu. Rated T for blood, murder, suggestive themes, and one old lady who won't stop telling inappropriate jokes just for kicks.

Disclaimer: I do not own Ace Attorney or any of the characters created therein. I do, however, own the character that I create and the plots for which they are responsible.

Hedging the Bets

Chapter One- An Unexpected Guest

It was at times like these Miles Edgeworth was truly grateful he was a veteran workaholic.

As he sat in his chair in the middle of his decadent office, his nose buried in a case file thicker than a dictionary, while the workload piled up in the inbox on his otherwise meticulous desk threatened to crack the container, it stood to reason that lesser men who did not have the tenacity and temperance to tackle such mountainous regions of documentation would surely have perished by now.

However, for a natural born workaholic such as himself, who had absolutely no problem working into the wee hours of the morning like he had done the past week and a half, the mountain of documents and files were nothing but a tenuous hassle.

An irksome tidbit.

A trifle, really.

A bit tedious, but nothing he couldn't handle.

He didn't need sleep, anyway.

Stifling a yawn, Edgeworth finished reading the case file, set it down in the 'out' box and spared the clock a mild glance.

A quarter past two.

Lovely.

Well, it seemed he was indeed in for another night of memorizing details of horrific murders, arson and extortion. Mixed with extra strength coffee, one couldn't ask for a better remedy for drowsiness.

Yawning again, Edgeworth removed his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose where the nose pads had dug into his skin. Despite having them for a few years, he still wasn't quite used to wearing glasses, but due to his hypermetropia having grown past the point of pretending it didn't exist, he had little choice. The other alternative wasn't feasible, since no one, regardless of their medical degrees, was aiming a laser at his face.

So the glasses stayed.

That didn't mean his nose didn't hurt, though.

He stayed still for a moment, trying to find a way to take his mind off the burgeoning headache building behind his eye, and slowly started to lean forward, only to jerk himself back upright and reach for another case file.

"I almost drifted off again." Edgeworth berated himself in a low tone and flipped the file open. "Ridiculous. I can't very well stop now. There's work to be done."

His head throbbed in protest.

"Perhaps... after this case file, I'll stop for the night."

That was a lie.

He knew it was a lie, but he had work to do. So the lie was tolerable.

It was amazing, he thought, that he wouldn't abide a falsity in court, but he was perfectly fine with lying to himself about his own physical limitations.

How hypocritical.

Unfortunately, he was too exhausted to find it in himself to be irritated by any potential hypocrisy. He knew he was stretching himself too thin, even by his standards, but as chief prosecutor, it was his responsibility to bring himself up to speed on all the cases that he had been absent for when traipsing about Khura'in at the behest of a certain spiky haired defense attorney.

So, as penance for his absence, Edgeworth was relegated to a desk position until further notice. Any thought of a break, sleep, or fresh air was banished from his presence until his inbox was devoid of paper.

If only his headache would receive the memo.

Well, at least he didn't have to appear in court to represent any of these cases while suffering from sleep deprivation, so he truly had no room to complain.

Ever since he had been given the position as chief prosecutor, Edgeworth had, for the most part, hung up the mantle of his courtly battles. He only ever took an active role in the courtroom when he didn't trust anyone else to conduct their duties properly because of other interests, underlying corruption, or simple cowardice.

That being said, having embraced his newfound role of prosecutorial puppeteer didn't mean his determination towards discovering the truth had diminished. If anything, his status boost gave him even more drive to pursue veracity in all its forms regardless of where it led, even when that pursuit led to the mass purge of the prosecutors' office, leaving only a few survivors remaining.

Edgeworth mildly thought about the debacle from a few months ago and scoffed disdainfully. When the former prosecutors were escorted from the building by the police after refusing to leave, it was shameful the way they conducted themselves. True it wasn't much better than when they'd been employed there, but to make such asses of themselves with nary a shred of composure or dignity was nothing short of ignominious.

Perhaps if they hadn't been such corrupt stains on the law and had actually done their job in accordance with the prosecutorial creed instead of their own morally ambivalent desires, they'd still be employed.

In any case, that was why he now faced such a strenuous workload on his desk. It was taxing and an irritation, but if that was the cost of remaining in line with his own personal code, Edgeworth would've gladly paid the price three times over.

Pair that with his little trip to the kingdom of Khura'in, and Edgeworth wasn't sure when he would next see the sun.

Taking some solace in his predicament of self induced solitary confinement, he pointed out to himself that even though the prosecutor's office was in shambles and he'd inadvertently been involved in a foreign revolution, daily life was far more subdued than it had been in his younger days. Edgeworth wasn't old, but as far as excitement was concerned, he had enough in the first thirty five years of his life to last him the remaining ones. Everything he did now was devoted towards the hope he might eventually banish the 'dark age of the law' that permeated over the prosecutorial districts across the country.

In all honesty, it sounded far more exciting than it actually was.

His days usually consisted of paperwork, delegation, and frequent culling of any personnel that reeked of venal intent. That might've proved stressful for some, but there were certainly fewer interconnected emergencies, random explosions, questionable acts of physics, nefarious kidnapping plots, or evil spirits returning from beyond the grave to wreak havoc on the living.

No, they were just regular old murders.

Nothing bizarre, or theurgical, or unexpected.

So, in the early hours of the rainy Thursday morning our story starts, it came as a shock to Miles Edgeworth when, completely bereft of an appointment, the door to his office knocked three times.

Edgeworth glanced up from the folder and stared at the door.

Who in their right mind was disturbing him? It was the middle of the night, for god's sake. Anyone in their right mind was long gone from the premises and he wasn't aware anyone was willing enough to breach the edict he had issued earlier that day; no one was to even come within a country mile of his office, lest they suffer a pay cut the likes from which they would never properly recover. So, with that imminent threat floating in the air like a cloud of poisonous fog, and all the detectives gone from the vicinity until further notice, who was knocking on his door at this time of night?

He had half a mind to dismiss the intrusion as a figment of his waning concentration and go back to his work when a thought stopped him in his tracks. If someone actually had the fortitude to approach him in spite of his earlier warnings, perhaps that meant the topic with which they possessed held particular urgence. If they were taking their life, and salary, into their hands, whatever topic they felt the need to bring to his attention was probably worth the risk.

And it wouldn't do to ignore an emergency.

"Enter." He said once before going back to the file. While it was annoying that he was about to be disturbed despite his efforts to procure solitude, and he was probably just hallucinating, if he allowed his irritation at the interruption to bleed into his other responsibilities, he might accidentally overlook a pressing matter in dire need of attention. However, if this proved to be a waste of his precious time he could've devoted to memorizing the details of the Baytown Butcher's latest victim's gruesome demise, he would, for all sakes and purposes, be most nettled.

In layman's terms, this better be good.

Edgeworth waited patiently for the door to open and the interloper, whomever they were, to enter, but when five minutes passed and no one came in, his patience ran out.

"I believe I told you to enter." He said tersely, silently hoping he hadn't finally pushed himself over the edge and lost his mind.

"I can't." came a voice from the other side of the door.

Edgeworth let out an unconscious breath of relief that he was, for the time being, still sane and furrowed his silver brows so deeply the creases dug a chasm in his forehead.

"Why on earth not-" He responded, but stopped short when realization hit him like a bullet train into a wayward cow.

Oh, that was right.

He'd locked the door.

Rolling his eyes in exasperation at his weakening powers of recollection, Edgeworth removed himself from his desk, briskly strode to the door and opened it.

His irritation quickly shifted to astonishment when he found the last person he expected waiting for him on the other side.

Standing in the hallway outside his office door was a woman in her late twenties decked out in probably the most outlandish attire imaginable, and, given the eclectic bunch wandering about the prosecutor's office at all hours, that was saying something. Part of her lengthy shiny black hair was tied into an elaborate topknot on the top of her head while the rest hung long past her shoulders, and though her clothing wasn't as it had been when Edgeworth first met her all those years ago, ceremonial occultist robes of white and purple, along with a necklace of massive beads and an unusual gem around her neck, weren't exactly the standard dress in a judiciary building.

"Hi, Mr. Edgeworth." Maya Fey waved at him while sporting a warm grin. "Long time no see."

"Miss Fey?" Edgeworth regarded the young lady in the hallway while attempting to keep his stupefaction at her sudden appearance under wraps. "What are you doing at the prosecutor's offices at two in the morning?"

"Two fifteen in the morning, actually." Maya corrected puckishly, but she petered out pretty quickly. "I was actually wondering if... if I could talk to you? It's important."

"It must be, given the time." replied Edgeworth. "How did you know I was here?"

"It's a long story." Maya grinned sheepishly.

Edgeworth raised an eyebrow.

"Well... I was looking for you, so I went by your flat, but you weren't there, so I phoned Nick and he didn't know where you were, so then I tried the courthouse, but the judge doesn't know how to work his new phone, and the bailiff didn't know, but he suggested I call the precinct, so I did and one of the detectives picked up and said you had banished them from your presence, so I figured you were still at work and I went to your old office, the one on the twelfth floor, room 1202, but the janitor said you'd moved, so then I went to the receptionist, who I probably should've talked to before I went up to your old office in the first place, but she was new, so she didn't know, so I've been trying every office in the building to see which one had an Edgeworth lurking in it and I just now finally found you."

Edgeworth stared at her.

"You set up a cellular manhunt in order to track me down." He repeated.

"Yep." nodded Maya.

"And you checked every office."

"Correct."

"In a thirty story building."

"My legs hurt."

"Why didn't you just call me?"

Maya blinked.

"You have a cellphone?"

"Yes, but- oh, never mind." Edgeworth staved off the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. "What did you need to speak with me about?"

"Oh! Oh... yeah." Maya's perkiness disappeared the moment she was reminded of why she was presently in his hallway, and she glanced around as if expecting to see someone stalking her in the shadows. "Would it be okay if I came in before I said anything? I don't want any eavesdroppers."

Eavesdroppers at that time of night in a deserted building were of little concern, but Edgeworth wordlessly moved aside to allow her entry into his office. Maya beamed at him, darted inside, and claimed a spot on the tufted sofa as her own while brushing some of the wrinkles off her robes.

Truth be told, he hadn't been expecting to see the master of Kurain Village again so soon, not after that whole debacle in the kingdom of Khura'in, he thought as he shut the door behind her. He assumed upon her return to the states, she was to undergo more rigorous training and thus would be MIA until further notice.

Apparently he assumed wrong.

He certainly hadn't anticipated she would attempt to track him down so doggedly, though. However, if something was so weighty on her mind that she would undergo even a modicum of what she had in order to find him, surely her concern must be fairly serious.

"So, Miss Fey, what is it you wished to speak with me about?" He inquired while folding his arms against his chest, having decided to forego pleasantries and get to the heart of the matter. "You seem disturbed."

Maya choked back a snort.

"You haven't lost your charm, have you, Mr. Edgeworth? And here I thought you'd improved a bit." She grinned, her vivacity flaring up in her face like a fire, but it quickly died back down to an ember. "Actually, I came here today because I... I need your help."

That response, he hadn't been expecting.

"My help?" asked Edgeworth. "On what?"

"Well, okay, maybe not help. Help isn't the right word." Maya clarified, floundering in search of the correct phrasing. "I have a request. For a lawyer. Like you. I mean, I know you're a prosecutor, and not just a prosecutor, but THE prosecutor, but that still means you're a lawyer, so that counts."

Edgeworth's eyebrow arched once he sifted through her wordy response.

"Did you get accused of murder again?"

"What?!" gasped Maya. "No, of course not-"

"Are you sure about that?" Edgeworth's eyelids fell to half mast. "Because I'll have you know if that is the case, you're appealing to the wrong side of the debate."

"Yeah, I'm sure." Maya nodded huffily, picking at a button on the tufted sofa cushions. "If I had, I'd be in detention... again."

"Yes, as I recall, you do seem to make a habit of being arrested under suspicion of murder." Edgeworth commented lightly, remembering what Wright had told him of Maya's latest foray into the legal system in Khura'in. "By this point, one would think you actually enjoy being a defendant."

Maya's cheek puffed out defensively.

"Y'know, it's not like I majored in getting framed or anything." She folded her arms against her chest while directing an irked glower at him. "I'm a spirit medium, not a scapegoat."

"And yet how many times have you been arrested?" He countered, ignoring the glare aimed at his head.

"I dunno. I lost count." Maya sighed heavily. "Somewhere in the umpteenths. I think."

Hmph. He thought as much. Point, set, and match.

"Besides, if I got accused of murder, Nick'd be the one I'd be talking to right now, not you. You'd just try to pry incriminating details out of my alibi to use against any testimony I'd present, since you're the relentless Chief Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth and all that fancy schmancy stuff." Maya playfully wrinkled her nose. "Man, that always sounds so weird no matter how many times I say it. Chief Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth. Nope, still not used to it. Guess I'll just have to keep practicing."

A faint dusting of pink cropped up on Edgeworth's nose.

"You don't need to say my full name and title every single time, Miss Fey." He rebuked quietly. "It's... unsettling."

Maya thought about it for a minute.

"Yeah, you might have a good point. Franziska'll be convinced I'm copying her. I'll just have to stick to Mr. Edgeworth from now on. That's got a better ring to it, anyway."

"So, back to the topic at hand, if you haven't been accused of a crime this week, what kind of lawyerly advice are you so intent upon attaining that would compel you to seek me out at two in the morning?" Edgeworth brushed off the mention of his prosecutorial colleague, lest his thoughts summon her like a whipping demon. "Surely you could've waited for the morning to arrive before attempting such a feat."

Maya's playful attitude vanished.

"Actually, that's kinda the problem." She smiled, though the smile didn't fully reach her eyes. "I can't wait, not even for a second. This is too important."

"Elaborate." He indicated with a hand for her to continue.

"Okay. Here goes." Maya inhaled deeply as if steeling herself for what was to come next. "When I returned back to the village this morning from my trip to Khura'in, I found this waiting for me in my front room." Reaching into her sleeve, the acolyte retrieved a rolled up, dusty, slightly mildewed scroll and held it out.

"And this is?" Edgeworth took the scroll, carefully unraveled it and readjusted his glasses.

"A summons from the Synod of Elders." Maya replied. "The highest ranking council in the entire Fey clan."

"The Synod of Elders?" The proper prosecutor lightly skimmed over the elaborate calligraphy etched into the parchment. From what he discerned, the scroll was indeed a subpoena for Maya to appear at a meeting of the 'Synod of Elders' in the main hall of the Fey manor, which was to take place...

... tomorrow afternoon at three o'clock.

Hm. She really couldn't wait after all.

"I wasn't aware there was a council that held authority over the leader of your village." Edgeworth commented while he perused the document. "I thought that as master of your art, you were the highest authority. Is that not the case?"

"Yes and no." Maya tilted her head contemplatively from side to side. "Technically as Master of the Kurain Channeling technique, I'm the Grand Poobah, but there's a whole council of elder mediums who keep the Master in check and can relieve the Master of her title if they deem it necessary. Y'know, just in case I lose my powers or I turn out to be an evil demon lord or something."

Factoring in what Wright had told him about her relatives, that wasn't an unfounded concern.

"So this Synod of Elders is like the Prosecutorial Investigation Committee, but for spirit mediums." Edgeworth summarized, still reading the document. "I see. So, that being said, what is the nature of your request?"

Maya inhaled deeply and gripped the fabric on her knees.

"Will you come with me to Kurain Village?"

Edgeworth stopped reading the document.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Will you come with me to Kurain Village?" Maya repeated, the seriousness of her voice so potent, Edgeworth almost forgot to whom he was speaking. "It's my first time going in front of the council, and while I know the majority of them, the idea of actually facing them is terrifying. I thought that if I had some backup, special, scary, lawyer-y back up, it wouldn't be so bad and I'd be able to get out of the meeting in one piece if I had a safety net."

Edgeworth ran a hand over his face as the headache from before came back with a vengeance.

"You're telling me... that you spent all night trying to track me down so you could beg me to accompany you back to your village to attend a meeting as moral support?"

Maya grinned abashedly.

"Would you be that shocked if I said yes?"

"Honestly? No. No, I would not be shocked. That is the sort of thing you would do."

"So, what do you say? Will you come with me? I really need you there." Maya supplicated as much as she could muster, her dark eyes wide and entreating. "Please? Pretty please?"

It was rather surreal being asked 'pretty please' by a full grown woman, but he didn't comment on it. Instead, he slowly exhaled and leveled her with an enervated stare.

"Miss Fey, as you can see, I have barely enough time to sleep, let alone take a trip into the far flung reaches of the wilderness on a flight of fancy." Edgeworth gestured to the leaning tower of case files on his desk. "I am already far behind on my work as a result of having gone to Khura'in and, while I do not regret my actions, I cannot delay my other responsibilities here any longer."

Maya's shoulders drooped.

"So that's a no, huh?"

"Correct. I cannot just abandon my concerns here on a whim, even if that whim is requested by a..." He searched for the right phrase that best described his relationship to Maya Fey, but after a moment of mulling, Edgeworth came up wanting.

What was she to him, really?

An acquaintance?

An associate?

A pseudo colleague of sorts, perhaps?

"I think the word you're looking for is 'friend'." Maya chuckled mirthfully from behind a palmless glove. "Go on, you can say it. It won't burn you."

A friend?

Maya Fey regarded him as a friend?

... well... he supposed their history as long standing acquaintances both in and out of the courtroom stood to reason that a certain amount of attachment might form, so in a way that term held a modicum of truth.

"Very well. 'Friend'." Edgeworth awkwardly repeated the word and cleared his throat as if that would dispel the tension lingering around such a term of familiarity. "So, I cannot acquiesce your request. Unlike some who may be able to run off while in pursuit of a wild hare, my life is not so simple that I can."

"Yeah, I didn't think it would be that simple." murmured Maya.

"If you truly need someone of a lawful mind to accompany you for no other reason than a morally supportive entourage, Wright usually doesn't have much to occupy his time-"

"No!" Maya sprang up off the sofa and Edgeworth suddenly found a spirit medium so close, only an inch separated them from colliding torsos.

So, like he did whenever he found himself faced with an infraction of his personal space, Edgeworth's primary defense mechanism clicked into effect and he froze, stiff as a statue.

"Oh, right. Boundaries." Maya quickly took a step back from the ossified prosecutor. "Sorry, I didn't mean to invade your bubble. And as for Nick, I would ask him, but he's been really up to his eyeballs in catchup work lately-"

Edgeworth spared his desk a pointed glance.

"And after he lost Apollo, he's been in a bit of a funk, a 'proud of him that he finally spread his tiny wings and flew away' funk, but still a funk, and I didn't want to upset him by bugging him with my stuff."

Ah, so that was her motivation. She was trying to spare Wright further discord in his already discordant life.

"That's surprisingly mature of you."

"I'll have you know I'm full of surprises, Mr. Edgeworth." Maya chirped back. "So that's why I came to you instead. I could really use some lawyerly presence as backup and I don't really want to resort to having Pearly channel one, so... is there some way I can change your mind?"

Edgeworth sighed.

"Miss Fey, I-"

He stopped short.

Maya, hands pressed firmly over the center of her chest, was staring intently at him, but not in the way she usually did. Unlike the cheeky repose she normally had when conversing with him, Maya's expression was remarkably serious, which honestly didn't suit her in his opinion.

If anything, it looked nothing short of blind desperation coupled with dizzying nausea.

Was she sick?

Nonsense. She was fine a minute ago. Though... certain diseases were known to come up without warning, so perhaps something akin to a stomach virus was beginning to manifest. She had been under an inordinate amount of stress lately- hadn't they all- and given Maya's tendency to devour anything that stood too slowly, he couldn't deny the possibility.

"Miss Fey, are you alright?" Edgeworth made a gesture to her face. "You look quite ill."

"I- I do?" Maya blinked, but quickly laughed it off. "Oh, uh, that must've been all the pancakes I had earlier. I normally go for burgers, but they had this special that was all you can eat for pancakes and I really wanted to know just HOW many I could eat-"

Ah, so it was just overeating that caused it.

Edgeworth thought as much.

"Maybe it would be best if you sit for a while then, lest you end up doing something undignified on the floor that requires me to call the custodial staff." Edgeworth readjusted his cravat and turned back towards his desk. "Also, it is not a matter of changing my mind as it is a fact of reality that I have been away for too long as it is and cannot leave again. I spent too much time galavanting around Khura'in and now I must pay for it."

"... oh." Maya plunked back on the sofa and stared at her sandals. "I see. And you can't make an exception? Not even this once?"

"Not unless it was a grave emergency. However, if you are truly struggling that much at the prospect of facing down a committee, I..." Edgeworth cleared his throat and picked up a case file; he was starting to feel a little ill himself. "I could provide some legal advice."

"Really?" Maya perked up like a hound that had caught the scent of fresh blood.

"Yes." Edgeworth reached into his desk and retrieved a folder labeled 'FAQ'. "While it may only be a cursory level of information, basic navigation skills of the legal system can be used to safely traverse meetings. At the very least, you won't be roped into some agreement without a way of getting out of it."

Over the next hour, Edgeworth calmly explained different techniques to avoiding common contractual sand traps to Maya who subduedly camped out on his sofa, but he wasn't sure she truly was giving his advice her full attention. Her mind seemed to be elsewhere and she kept fidgeting with her hands in her lap and pulling at the gloves.

Still, she thanked him for his help and around four in the morning bid him farewell and let herself out.

"Hmph. That was odd." Edgeworth murmured once the door shut behind her and a pair of sandals clipped down the hall in a brisk clop. Perhaps it was because most people found him imposing, but he wasn't really used to someone approaching him for advice as if he were an overly sentimental, idealistic defense attorney, and not one of the most terrifying legal minds in the whole city.

Edgeworth supposed due to their history, Maya likely confused him and Wright past the point of reason, and, despite finding it a little painful, Edgeworth could grudgingly see why.

After all, he had volunteered to venture into the kingdom of Khura'in just like Wright had and had been involved with all sorts of Fey clan incidents just as Wright had, if not more so. In her mind, there probably was little difference between him and Wright, horrifying as it was to think about.

Snorting to himself, Edgeworth shook his head and opened up another case file.

Well, mistaken identity or not, Maya had gotten a modest amount of what she wanted and would be able to fend for herself, so it was fine. She had her own world to attend to and her own duties to fulfill, as did he, and Edgeworth suspected he wouldn't hear from her again for a very long time.

A very long time turned out to be nine the following morning.

"It's gone!"

"Miss Fey?" Edgeworth returned the phone receiver back to his ear once the ringing finally died down. "What are you talking about?"

"My talisman!" Maya's voice betrayed the obvious panic attack she was having. "The Master's Talisman, it's gone, vanished, vamoosed, poof! I'm supposed to keep it on me until the day I die, but it's gone missing and I can't show up to the meeting without it! Mr. Edgeworth, what am I gonna do?!"

"Alright, alright. First, calm yourself. Your pace of words is making it difficult to decipher." Edgeworth removed his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose with his free hand. "Where did you see it last?"

"I think I had it when I was looking for you."

"Alright. At what stage of your manhunt did you last see it?"

"I don't know!"

"... good to know you're keeping track of these things."

"Mr. Edgeworth this is no time for jokes! This is serious!"

"Miss Fey, I assure you I am not one to make idle bouts of humor." said Edgeworth. "I am merely asking for the facts of the matter to make an accurate assessment of the timeline. So, if you would kindly tell me what you remember as concisely as possible without the over the top hysterics, I would be immensely grateful."

He was already exhausted. The last thing he needed was to be deafened as well.

"Um, okay." Maya took in a deep breath and slowly let it out. "I think the last time I checked to make sure I had the talisman, I was on the twelfth floor of your office building looking for you. I had it then, so-"

"So it's somewhere in the prosecutor's office." concluded Edgeworth. "Hm. I suppose that narrows things down a little. Very well. I'll start in my office, then. It's likely you simply dropped it somewhere, which means it can't have gotten far in just a few hours." The chief prosecutor extracted himself from his desk chair, steadied himself against the desk -good lord, his head hurt- and began to roam around his office in search of the garish trinket.

"Mr. Edgeworth, thank you so much! I owe you one!" Maya praised.

"Hmph. I'll remind you of that the next time you want something." Edgeworth got down on one knee and peered underneath the sofa. Unfortunately, the talisman wasn't there; only a few dust bunnies. Edgeworth frowned. If the custodial staff was cutting corners by allowing debris rabbits, he wasn't going to let that fly, not by a long shot.

Shoddiness, that's what that was.

Annoyed at the incompetence of the janitorial squad, Edgeworth removed himself from the floor, dusted off his jacket, picked up one of the sofa cushions and pulled it free.

Sure enough, lodged in the back and just sticking out of the upholstery was the edge of a slick, shiny red box.

"Miss Fey, I believe I may have found what you're looking for." Edgeworth plucked the small box out of the crevice and turned it over. The yellow glint from the gold detailing on the side of the box was hard to look at thanks to his growing headache, but he could tell they were of a fine quality.

"You found it?!" Maya exclaimed over the receiver. "Mr. Edgeworth, you're a lifesaver! Where was it?"

"Deep in my sofa." said Edgeworth. "For an ancient relic you aren't allowed to let leave your side, you didn't pay it much heed, did you?"

"I was too distracted because I was looking for you." replied Maya. "Besides, it's super old. I bet the cord just snapped when I wasn't looking."

A quick glance at the cord told him that it had indeed snapped, but the fibers didn't look particularly frayed with age.

"Very well. Since this relic is of particular importance, I'll keep it safe until you or one of your associates can come retrieve it."

"Oh no! I didn't think about that..." Maya made a worried noise over the phone.

"Didn't think about what?" asked Edgeworth.

"I don't have time to go get it! I'm already back home and I have to prepare for the meeting and I don't have time to go ride the train, get it, ride back and make it to my meeting."

"Then just send one of your subordinates to fetch it." He sent the detectives on errands all the time.

"Well... the thing is... I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"I can't let anyone know I lost it and none of the other mediums are supposed to ever lay a finger on the talisman." explained Maya. "It's too sacred to just let anyone touch it. Only the master of the Kurain channeling technique is ever supposed to handle it. Anyone else who touches it without the master's rank is doomed to be cursed for all eternity."

Edgeworth looked down at the talisman clutched in his hand.

It was a good thing he didn't believe in curses. Otherwise he might've been a mite concerned.

"And yet you let the sofa eat it."

"The sofa's not a spirit medium, Mr. Edgeworth. It doesn't have to follow the same rules as us. That's why you're safe touching it too."

So he was on the same level of handling clearance as the sofa, then.

Lovely.

"And if anyone else found out I lost it... well... let's just say I would be in fourteen different kinds of hot water. So no, I can't say anything to anybody, not even Pearly." Maya made a pained noise that sounded half like a laugh, half like a groan. "Guess I'm pretty sunk, huh?"

"What do you propose to do about this, then?" Edgeworth inquired as pain in his forehead mounted pressure behind his eyes. "Do you expect me to drop what I'm doing and deliver it to you like an overly inflated errand boy?"

"Really?! You'd actually do that? Wow, Mr. Edgeworth, thank you! You're so nice."

"Wha- I- Now just hold on a minute, I was being sarcas-"

"Actually, that's just about perfect! You bringing it to me's a heck of a lot easier than any other option I can think of. I'd get it back and no one would know that I lost it and everything." Maya continued to praise gleefully. "There's literally no downside! Wow, Nick said you were smart, but who knew you were such a genius, Mr. Edgeworth. You've really saved my bacon!"

Edgeworth pinched the bridge of his nose, all the while trying to figure out how he was going to get himself out of the hole he'd dug.

"And you did say you would leave your work in the instance of an emergency. Well, this is about as urgent as emergencies can get!"

Great. Now she was using her own words against him.

Maybe she'd listened to his advice more than he originally thought.

"So, when can I expect you? If you're quick about it, I'll make it worth your while."

'In what possible way could she manage that' was what he wanted to say, but he decided to keep his thoughts to himself for the time being, lest he be bombarded with a list of potential rewards each more outlandish than the last.

"Miss Fey, I'll have you know that when I said emergency, I meant a matter of life and death, not a fetch quest regarding anyone's personal- nngh." A dull throb suddenly pounding in his forehead, Edgeworth snapped his eyes shut as a wave of dizziness crashed into his face, lost his sense of equilibrium, and crumpled.

Luckily, his solid wood desk broke his fall.

"Mr. Edgeworth, are you okay?" asked Maya; she must've heard the thump on her end. "What's wrong? Are you alright?"

"It's nothing." Edgeworth waved her concern away, though she wasn't there technically there to see it, and pulled himself up from the desktop. "It's merely another headache. I've been having them a lot lately." He had been pulling concurrent all-nighters recently. It wasn't too much of a stretch to think his body was finally beginning to rebel.

"Maybe you should get some fresh air." Maya suggested. "Y'know... there's a lot of fresh air in Kurain village, lots of trees and mountains and fresh air and I felt a lot better when I got back here, so maybe you would too. That's all the more reason you should hurry and come here as quick as you can. It's worth a try, right?"

"Miss Fey, be that as it may-"

"And, to top it off, you can return my talisman while you're at it. See, two birds with one stone and everything!" Maya sounded rather proud of herself that she'd come up with such a, in her eyes, splendid idea. "You can't beat a deal like that. I'll even show you around if you like. Think of it like a little mental break from all that case filing and murdery stuff. It does wonders for Nick-"

Edgeworth bit back a groan and pinched his nose, though that did nothing to alleviate the headache at this point. He didn't have time for this. He had work to do. He couldn't just run off to Kurain village on a whim because Maya begged him to. He had responsibilities to uphold.

However, his head did feel like it was about to explode from the tension and as much as he hated to admit it, he could use the fresh air.

It was getting hard to breathe in his office.

"... when does the next train to Kurain village leave?"

The cheers could be heard down the hallway.

A/N: And that's the end of the first chapter. Thank you for reading and if you would, please leave a review. I'm always interested in feedback and would love to hear from you all. Anyway, thanks again for reading and please stay tuned for chapter two!