Author's Note: Yes, a new fic from me – published two months after I said it would be out. -is lazy-

Obviously, this fic is about Diego, who is one of my favourite characters from the series, despite the fact Capcom doesn't give us much to go on. Why's he a lawyer? What happened between 3-4 and his "death?" Why's he addicted to coffee? And a million other random, unimportant questions that have no answers. This is my take on. . . well, everything, I guess. And yes, even though it's not marked "Romance," there will be Miego later on. :)

By the way, I'm aware that the prologue may be confusing, especially when it comes to the voice. It's relevant in later chapters, and it'll make sense the farther along you read, so just be patient and all will be explained. :)

Disclaimer: I don't own Ace Attorney, and I clearly don't own the featured quotes.

Prologue

"Criminals do not die at the hands of the law; they die at the hands of other men."-George Bernard Shaw

-X-X-X-

The world was frozen.

Shimmering flakes of snow stood suspended in the darkness, the smell of blood hanging heavily in the icy winter air. The nearby river had stopped running, and the wind itself had ceased to blow – there wasn't a sound to be heard on the whole mountain. All that could be seen was the shadow of a man standing in the middle of the small garden, staring sightlessly at the ground at his feet, desperately clutching the hilt of a long sword in his frozen fingers.

"Damn it!" he whispered to himself, his eyes fixed in horror on something that he could not see. "Why did I do that? It wasn't supposed to turn out like this!"

As if his words had triggered it, a bolt of lightning briefly illuminated the scene before fading away, shattering the illusion of stillness. The snow began to fall again, and icy gusts of wind began to tug at his white hair and at his clothes, making him shiver. He felt a burning pain beneath his left eye, and something wet and sticky trickling down his cheek, but he didn't dare release the sword to make sure his eye was still in place. In his stunned mind, the sword hilt was the last shred of sanity in a world that had just run mad.

He'd experienced some bizarre, frightening, deadly things over the course of his life, but he had never seen anything like this in his life. His mind was still trying to process what had just happened, what he had just done. All he could remember was a blur of shadows, pain, and a flash of plunging silver met with a harrowing scream.

I just killed someone.

It seemed to take a colossal effort to come to that simple, four-word conclusion. It sent a wave of panic crashing over him, making him feel weak and jittery. He tried to take a deep breath, tried to think rationally, tried to distract himself from the body that lay at his feet. Now, of all times, was not the time to panic. Now was a time for cool-headedness and action.

But first, he needed to see.

He swept the temple garden with his eyes, grateful for the distraction from the body. After a moment, he spotted something lying embedded in a nearby snowbank. Slowly, reluctantly, he willed himself to let go of the sword and scrambled toward the snowbank, his fingers touching cool metal. Quickly, he grabbed the object – a mask, his mask – and jammed it onto his face. In the same motion, he whipped around, his heart hammering, half-expecting the dead body to have jumped up to attack him again.

The body stayed dead.

He let out a small breath, ashamed at himself. He was acting like a small child who was afraid of the darkness and noises of the night. Still, his eyes lingered for a moment suspiciously on the body – it would not surprise him if it was only acting dead, after what he had just experienced – before he remembered why he was there in the first place.

Suddenly stricken with panic again, he looked around, his mask little aid in the darkness. Then he caught a glimpse of another body, this one of a girl in her late teens, slumped at the foot of a white stone lantern that stood tall and intimidating in the middle of the garden. He ran over to her and, kneeling down, grabbed her wrist, desperately search for a pulse.

He couldn't find one.

Fear gripped him as his hands scrabbled over her wrist, desperately searching for the tiniest sign of life.

Then he felt it – her pulse, beating rather faintly, but at what seemed to be a normal rate. She had merely fainted from shock.

He closed his eyes for a moment, letting his relief wash over him, making him feel even weaker than he felt already. If she had died, this would have all been for nothing. He would have killed someone for nothing.

He opened his eyes again and, carefully and more gently than he had believed himself capable of, he scooped her up in his arms and stood slowly, bracing himself for her weight. She was surprisingly light – but then again, she was only a small thing, and even if she had been a dead weight in his arms, he would have still carried her away from the garden, because her safety was the most important thing that night.

Even more important than his life.

Slowly, he began to walk out of the garden, toward the small wreck that served as a temple, the only shelter on their side of the mountain. He could barely see in the darkness – he had to squint just to see where his feet were going, and he worried that he might accidentally trip and drop her. Luckily, he made it to the building without any accidents.

She did not stir as he gently nudged the temple door open, feeling a blast of cold air hit him squarely in the face. Shivering partly due to the cold, he set her feet down on the floor and reached into his pocket, extracted a box of matches for just such an occasion, and lit the lamps inside. The flames guttered in the wind that slipped in through the open door, but they did not die out. They sent shadows dancing along the walls, making him shiver again – he glanced over his shoulder at the door, just to double-check that nothing sinister had followed them inside.

Satisfied that all was well, he rummaged behind an ancient dresser and found some blankets. Carefully, he wrapped her up in them, thinking it was the least he could do after what she'd just had to go through.

When he finished, she still hadn't woken up. Her face was pale beneath her dark hair, her eyes closed. If it hadn't been for the expression of fright on her face, you would have thought her to be merely asleep.

He knelt there on the floor for a moment, prolonging the moment when he would have to go back outside and deal with the mess in the garden. He felt a stab of guilt, knowing he would soon be leaving her to wake up in the cold, dark temple, alone with the shadows and the memories.

But it was better than letting her wake up in the bloody garden outside.

Anything was better than that.

"I'm sorry, Maya," he said to her, his voice barely audible over the howling wind outside. "I didn't want it to happen like this. Just. . . stay alive. Please."

There was no reply.

He did not expect one.

Quietly, he stood up and left the temple, closing the door behind him.

Outside, in the frigid winter air, he tried to collect his wits about him. He felt another stab of regret for leaving her inside that. . . wreck, if it was good enough to be called a wreck. If he had a choice, he would have stayed with her until she woke up.

The thing was, he didn't have a choice.

In an attempt to distract himself from his thoughts, he plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. With numb fingers, he fumbled with it, and managed to open it without dropping it into the snow. He would need to make the call eventually – why not now?

Because you're a coward, the small, truthful voice inside his head told him. You don't want to go back to that garden. You can't bear to face up to what you've done. You've never been able to face the consequences of your actions, have you, Diego?

Shakily, he dialled a number and jammed the phone to his ear, waiting for the person on the other end to pick up. How he'd hoped he wouldn't have to make this call. Yes, he'd never wanted to use this number. And yet, what could he do? It was part of the plan, and she had agreed. It was his only option. There was nothing else left for him to choose.

You have the choice, the same voice told him torturously. You have always had the choice. You know this, Diego. So tell me, why? Why do you choose to ignore that choice? Why must you push the blame for your actions onto someone else? Why don't you be a man, and take the blame for yourself for once?

There was a click, and a woman's voice, calm and sweet and pleasant, answered. "This is Iris."

He took a deep breath, bracing himself for the moment of the telling. He couldn't show his weakness, not now, not ever. He had to be Godot, the fearless, calm, cocky man who was never fazed, not by blood or by murder or by spirits returning from the dead. He couldn't allow himself to be Diego, the frightened, vulnerable man who was afraid of his own existence.

"This is Godot," he managed to say into the phone, in what sounded like his usual tone. The normalcy of his voice almost scared him – especially after taking into account that this was taking place right after he had killed someone.

"Mr. Godot! What happened?" Iris's voice suddenly became both eager and reluctant, as if torn between wanting to hear the answer quickly and afraid of what the answer might be.

". . . Misty's dead."

There was silence on the other end of the phone as Iris absorbed this piece of news. "Who did it, Mr. Godot?" she finally asked in her soft, quiet way.

"I did."

The words hung in the air, terrible and real, and yet, he said it so nonchalantly, as if it were an everyday thing to admit to murder. Especially when the victim had been a co-conspirator, an ally, almost a friend.

"How did it happen?" Iris inquired softly.

"I stabbed her with that sword of hers," he replied casually, once again spooked by the tone of his voice. "She's in the garden right now."

"And Maya?"

"She's alive. So at least it wasn't for nothing," he answered.

Iris breathed a sigh of relief.

"Don't relax yet," he advised her. "We've still got to clean up the garden. We can't make it look like there was any murder here. Maya would definitely be the prime suspect."

The taunting voice in his head spoke again. She wouldn't be the prime suspect if you could just take responsibility for what you've done. But you can't do that, can you Diego? Or maybe it's not a question of what you can and can't do. The question is of what you're willing to do.

"You're still ready for you part in the plan?" he asked, ignoring the taunting voice.

He could hear the determination in her voice when, without even a slight hesitation, she said, "Of course, Mr. Godot."

"All right, then. Let's do this."

He hung up his cell phone, slipped it into his pocket, and made his way cautiously back into the garden. The body still lay in a heap in the snow, soaking the ground in blood that he couldn't see. Feeling numb all over (from the cold or shock, he couldn't tell), he gazed down at the dead woman, the sword still wedged tightly into her back.

Why did I do that? he asked himself. Why did I kill her? For all I knew, that could have been Maya, or even that little girl, but I ran her through with that sword anyway. Why did I do it?

In a way that had become almost a reflex, he was reminded of one of his many rules: Don't ask a question if you don't already know the answer, and this answer he knew well. Even in the darkest of nights, there would have been no difficulty for him to identify the woman he'd killed. The body at his feet might have been that of Misty Fey, one of his allies, but when he'd plunged that blade through her back, she hadn't been Misty Fey.

She had been Dahlia Hawthorne.

The woman who killed him.