Well, at least it wasn't three months.

I'm so happy for your reviews, and hope that you enjoy the rest of the story, as well. One of the reasons why this was so delayed was because I couldn't access deviantArt on my computer for a while. I even attempted to write a second version of this chapter, which didn't save. However, if you want to see it, I guess I could always upload it as an extra after the story's finished.

I kept listening to Madoka Magica music while writing this chapter, so if this one has an even stronger vibe of that than the first one, then that's why.

This is a fan-made work. The Ace Attorney series and the related characters belong to Capcom. The only things I own are the OCs and the story itself.


Chapter 2

March 18, 9:24 a.m.
Hotti Clinic- Waiting Room

It felt as if time had stopped for Pearl.

The waiting room had that kind of effect, though. It had dreary-looking gray walls, with hard, uncomfortable blue chairs with hardly any fabric on them. The hardwood floors were dull and covered in worn spots. The windows had white frames to them, and were wide, to let natural light in, but it only made the room look more sullen than it did before. Off-white blinds hung halfway on the windows, as well. A little boy sat in one of the chairs near a window and started to play with the blinds, causing them to swing wildly. His mother scolded him and he stopped, the blinds swinging softly.

The clock on the wall ticked silently, the minute hand moving ever so slightly. It was 9:25.

Phoenix paced in the room in front of her, silent. Nurses and doctors in scrubs walked in and out of the room, and people left with them. Nobody stopped in front of the two of them.

Soon, the waiting room was silent, as well. Phoenix and Pearl were the only two in the waiting room. She hated the silence, but could do nothing about it. She looked out of a nearby window. The sky was a beautiful shade of light cerulean, with only a few puffy white clouds drifting along lazily. It was the perfect day for a spring picnic, or a walk in the park.

She couldn't stand it when the weather was so nice when something terrible was going on. Pearl began to absentmindedly swing her legs back and forth while she thought.

Right, left, right, left, right...

She remembered that Maya once told her about Mia's funeral, which took place shortly after her trial. Maya had said that it was unusually warm for fall, and that the sky was perfectly clear.

"You know, Pearly, I don't understand why so many people think that funerals always take place on cold and stormy days." Maya had said after that. "I think they're usually on days that are nice and sunny. I wonder why...?"

Pearl replied, "Maybe it's to show us how small we really are? One person out of six billion...even a hundred out of that number is still small when you think about it."

Maya told her not to worry about it too much, and that she was just simply thinking aloud.

Thinking... Pearl thought to herself. I've been doing a lot of that lately.

She looked up at the ceiling, still swinging her legs. The blinds still moved slightly, the pull cord dangling in the breeze.

Pearl stopped looking at the ceiling and looked at the blinds in interest. The windows were closed before, so why would they be open now, and who opened them? She hadn't sensed anybody walking in. She got up and walked over to the window and reached out towards the pull cord to the blinds. As soon as her fingertips touched the cord, the blinds suddenly snapped up, revealing an overcast sky, with a bloodstained window.

"Mr. Nick, what's-" Pearl asked as she suddenly turned around, but stopped talking as she noticed that she was actually alone in the waiting room. There was no evidence of him leaving, but none of him even being there, at that.

"What's...what's going on here...?" Pearl asked, letting her words fade into the heavy, tension-filled air. That was the strange part-there appeared to be nobody in sight, but the air about the whole hospital had a quite weighted aura about it, as if something bad was going to happen. She turned back to the window. The blood had spread from the window to the sill, and was still dripping down the wall.

She was about to leave when something caught her attention. A strange aura of some sort, black and heavy with...something. She couldn't quite put her finger on what it was, but she knew that she had sensed that aura somewhere before. Pearl finally took a deep breath to calm her emerging nerves and walked out, following the source of the aura. It felt as if she wasn't moving of her volition; that whatever that aura was attached to was calling and leading her.

The aura lead her to a thick, grey door. The sign above the door read "morgue." Pearl opened the door, leading to a dimly lit stairwell leading downward. She walked down silently, barely hearing her footsteps. She passed a series of faded paper handprints on the wall. They had various names on them, written in the same set of handwriting.

Pearl examined them closer. Written on the thumb and pinky were two different years. She stepped away from the faded handprints with a wave of melancholy washing over her. They were the names of children who had died and been taken to this morgue, and the dates were of when were born and died. She continued walking down the stairs, her hand absentmindedly trailing on the wall above the hands of the dead. Her pointer finger slipped down onto one, and Pearl stopped.

It had her name on it.

She looked at the others beyond it, and noticed they all had her name on them. She leapt over to the other side of the stairwell, crashing into the railing. It crumbled under her weight, and she nearly fell. She ran down the stairs, nearly tripping over her feet and the stairs when she tried to take them two at a time. The walls started to fall apart, causing Pearl to dodge several holes in the floor. Small whispers and sounds of laughter came from behind her. She willed herself to move faster, and attempted to sprint down the stairs, only to trip and roll down, her back slamming into the wall.

After a while, it seemed like the stairs would never end, and the farther down Pearl went, her insanity slipped away from her. The stairs began to change shape, and popped after she stepped off of them. The remains of the walls became covered in stars and cosmic shapes, and the gaps turned into strange rainbow-striped creatures that stayed on the wall, hissing and shrieking at her. The stairs suddenly ended and curved into a lopsided hill with many rises and dips in the path. Pearl broke out into a run, tripping and falling.

Is this what Maya has to face everyday? Pearl thought. A sudden loss of sanity, stability, and feeling like she's just running the same path, over and over again?

She tripped and fell again, this time rolling over to her back, watching the ceiling crumble around her. She outstretched her arms, not moving, just watching everything with a blank expression.

No, this is my inner thoughts. What I really feel. It's like I'm in a never ending labyrinth. Thus, this is my life: A labyrinthine mess of never ending disasters that I cannot stop. This fate I cannot break. Whenever I get to the end, this happens. It just all falls apart, and it's all...my...fault...!

Tears slipped down Pearl's cheeks.

"This is all my fault..." She whispered. "I...I can't...do this...anymore..."

She let out a small sob, her voice cracking as she continued to speak.

"I can't...I can't...I...just can't...!"

Suddenly, a bright light filled the remains of the room. The ceiling rose into the air, piece by piece, affixing itself to where it went. The hills became flat as it turned back into the floor, and the constellations and cosmic shapes twisted and turned, and eventually turned back into the plain walls, except instead of being gray and black, it was all white, with large windows covering the walls.

"You look like you need some help." Somebody said. They bent down next to her. "Why are you just laying on the floor and not getting up?"

"I don't know." Pearl whispered. "Is it bad to say that I've given up?"

"Here." They held out their hand. "You really don't have to do this alone, you know. So, why give up now when you haven't even asked for help?"

Pearl stared at the person's hand for a bit, then slowly reached out and grabbed it. She stood up, and they walked down the hallway.

"You don't have to do this alone anymore, Pearls. You're not alone anymore..."


Pearl sleepily opened her eyes. Her body slowly drifted downward, then collasped in the chair beneath her. She had her head back on the chair, looking at the ceiling. She slowly dragged her left leg up the chair and wrapped her arms around it, lowering her head. Slow, deliberate movements were the key to bringing down her spiritual energy levels. They always spiked whenever she got out of a vision and, for her, took a while to go back down to normal levels. Pearl closed her eyes, letting her sensing ability take over.

Phoenix was sitting next to her, and somebody was walking towards the room. She lowered her leg again and opened her eyes. She looked at Phoenix again, puzzled. His aura was blazing with hope, but the expression on his face was not one of happiness. It wasn't even sorrow. His expression was completely apathetic, unreadable.

"Mr. Nick..." Pearl asked quietly. Phoenix looked over to her and smiled.

"What is it, Pearls? Is something the matter?" He asked.

"Um...well...it's a little hard to explain, but I'll try to." Pearl replied, and took a deep breath. "If I told you that I knew everything that was going to happen in the next few days, would you believe me?"

"Wh..what? What do you mean?"

"I already knew that all of what has happened up to this point in time would happen in the exact order that it did. I already know the gist of what is going to happen in the future. I need your help, Mr. Nick. We need to prevent the future that is going to happen from existing. I didn't realize it at first, but I now know the key to everything. The key to solving this inescapable maze. Your fate is intricately tied to so many others that whatever you do affects the future as a whole. You're the only one who can break this fate, Mr. Nick!"

Phoenix was silent.

"Mr. Nick?" Pearl asked. "Do you...believe everything I just said? Do you trust me?"

"You're a good kid, Pearl." Phoenix replied. "But, you don't need to make up all of this to make me feel better."

"But, I'm...!" Pearl protested. "I'm not! Everything I've said is true!"

"And how do I know that?" Phoenix asked.

Pearl felt the chains around her envelope and saw in her mind three Psyche Locks. She knew that she couldn't tell him the whole story just yet. He wasn't ready to hear all of the truth, especially not with how cold he was treating her. She could tell that he was still hurting because of what had happened with Maya.

Phoenix sighed, then looked at his phone. "I have to call Edgeworth to tell him we're going to be late for the trial. Wait here."

As he left, Pearl looked at the clock. It was 9:47. She turned her attention to the sky again.

What a lovely day out...it's a perfect day for a walk, or a picnic...

Pearl got out of her seat and walked down the hallway.


March 18, 9:49 a.m.
Hotti Clinic- Room 5053

Maya Fey's room was silent when Pearl walked in. It was a small, empty field of white, with an open window above Maya's bed. A set of transparent white curtains blew softly in the early morning breeze. Maya was unconscious, her arms tied down to her bed. Pearl sighed, then took out from the folds of her sash Maya's magatama necklace, which she tied around her cousin's neck.

"There. I'm sure you'll feel a little better that way." Pearl said quietly. She then took out from her sash a small medicine case, which contained a small syringe and a few glass jars. She filled the syringe and injected it into Maya's right arm. "Please, stop forgetting your daily injections. Don't you see how important they are?"

Maya turned softly, then weakly opened her eyes. "Well, I'm sorry that I'm not immune yet, unlike someone else I know."

"I know." Pearl replied. "If only I wasn't immune...then I'd take the injections for you."

Maya shook her head. "You know I wouldn't want that for you, Pearly." She looked back up at the curtains. "You're too young to endure such pain."

"If only she knew what kind of pain you've endured..." A voice said, inaudible to Maya. Pearl turned around, then went to face Maya again.

"Hold on for a few minutes." Pearl replied, then closed her eyes, touching her magatama with one hand. The world changed, and Maya disappeared.

"What do you want, Keyblade?" Pearl asked, turning around again. Her hair was long, and blew around her and she held onto a large, black scythe.

"I just wanted to see how you were doing, Xionn." A girl with long black hair in two long, bushy ponytails replied coolly. She levitated in the air, her long white dress with black trim flowing about her. A black sash tied around her waist had a karakusa pattern on it, and she held on her shoulders a large key, the top of it curved into a scythe's blade. Her olive green eyes shone with greed. "Because your friend there doesn't seem to be."

"She had a sudden relapse today." Pearl replied. "The Death Seed should dislodge itself from her soul soon." She turned back to where Maya had been, now a bright blue silhouette with a large black seed-like object in the center. "See, her soul's fainter than before, and the Death Seed's colour is already fading. "In a few hours, her soul should be back to the normal transparency and the Death Seed will be gone."

"Yeah, you're probably right. How lame." Keyblade remarked. She took out a small box of candy and grabbed a piece, then held the box out to Pearl. "Want some?"


March 18, 10:07 a.m.
Hotti Clinic- Dr. Sycamore's office

"So, how exactly is Maya's condition?" Phoenix asked. The doctor in front of him frowned slightly. He was quite a young doctor, and most likely just finished his residence years. He wore his shoulder length jet black hair in a ponytail, and thin black glasses, which somehow made his azure eyes brighter than they really were. His nametag read "Yamato Sycamore."

"We're still quite complexed about what exactly happened." Dr. Sycamore replied. "She was fine one moment, the next, she was trying to scratch out her throat. We sedated her and tied her arms down, of course, in case it happened again."

"She was...trying to scratch out...her throat...?" Phoenix asked. I feel like I've heard that before. Maya trying to scratch out her throat was a final symptom to something...what was it...?

"Yes, Mr. Wright. Also, do you know if the number thirteen has any correlation to Maya?" Dr. Sycamore asked, laying a picture down on his desk. Phoenix picked it up and frowned slightly. "We think that the loss of blood from those cuts might've been the reason for her falling unconscious. However, from what you have said, it appears that she may also have acute to severe paranoia, possibly caused by these strange dreams. Mr. Wright, do you, Pearl or Maya have any history of sleepwalking, or PTSD? Or maybe suicidal and homicidal thoughts or actions?"

"No, of course not. We're fine, we're all fine..." Phoenix answered. "Do you think that one of us did it? Pearl is eight, and I'd never do anything like that to Maya. Not to mention the fact that this is all over her back. She couldn't have done this on her own."

"Well, I'd still like to have her stay overnight for observation." Dr. Sycamore said, standing up. Phoenix stood up, as well, and they both walked out of the office. "If these dreams are the source of her paranoia, then I'm going to have to know the root of the dreams."

"Alright, then. Thank you for doing this for us, Dr. Sycamore." Phoenix said. He suddenly stopped to see Pearl standing in the middle of the hallway. "Pearl, where did you run off to? I was worried when I didn't see you in the waiting room..." He stopped talking as he realized that something was wrong. Her hair was down, the ponytail holders used to keep her hair up in her hand. Her hair flowed about her head softly, barely touching the base of her neck. Her head was downcast, her eyes covered in a shadow left by the front of her hair.

"Mr. Nick..." She asked, her voice at a lower pitch than usual. "Why...why do you trust him...?"