Aki and I dress our best for the court date.

She looks like a businesswoman in her flouncy pink blouse, pencil skirt, and heels. I feel much less professional, especially in trousers and a blouse that shows all of my tattoos, but Aki and I agreed last night that I should show my stabilizer. Whoever is in that courtroom should know that we're psychic—after all, they're supposed to know what we've been through after today.

The difficulty, for me at least, is driving all the way to the courthouse in heels; I've never climbed on a duel runner wearing heels any higher or thicker than a couple inches, and the heels that Aki lent me are twice as high and pencil thin. I feel like I'm going to panic at some point during the ride, especially with the twins on the back of my runner. Crow, who somehow managed to get his cast into a collared shirt sleeve, rides with Aki. Evan totes Kiryu, and Yusei and Jack take up the rear. Aki's parents, I think, are supposed to be following us in their car.

When we arrive, we park in a line next to each other in the parking lot behind the big stone court building. The twins are in their Sunday best, and the guys are all pretty well dressed, better dressed than I've ever seen them, actually. Jack's in grey trousers and a white collared shirt, Yusei's in jeans and a pretty navy blazer, and Kiryu's in a nice straight dress shirt and tan pants. Even Crow, who I didn't know owned anything considered formal, looks more professional than my brother—he's wearing a brown blazer over his shoulders, while the most Evan could produce were slacks and a rumpled dress shirt.

A part of me is really glad they came, though.

"Nervous?" Aki asks, looping her arm through mine.

"Not really," I say. "Not yet. I feel like it'll set in when we actually get in there."

"Hope you're not nervous enough to speak," Evan says.

"Aki! Silvan! Hey, you guys!"

We turn together and Carly comes jogging toward us in heels almost as high as mine, toting her camera around her neck and her knapsack over her shoulder.

"How are you running in those shoes?" I ask.

"Practice," she states nonchalantly; Jack holds his hand out for her, and when she takes it, he stoops down to kiss her hello. "I didn't know you guys were coming."

"Misty asked us to testify," Aki admits. "Did she invite you, too?"

"Yep." Carly brandishes her shiny 'Press' badge. "I was part of it, too. I mean... Divine k—I-I mean, I was there too!"

"Right," I breathe. I know she hates talking about it, so I'd hate to bring anything up again, but I am curious. I try to pick my next few words carefully. "Why didn't Misty ask you to testify?"

"She thought it was better if she kept it about Toby—about the Movement, in general. Bringing in all of the... well, the stuff that happened would probably confuse the jury and overcomplicate things." She runs a hand through her hair. "Also, my therapist advised against dragging those memories back up."

"Relatable," I say. If she's here, then that means her therapist must have cleared her to come. That means she's come quite a long way since last winter.

"Let's go in all together," Aki suggests. "Friend bubble. The letter did say they were expecting a lot of people."

Almost solemnly, my friends create this wall around us, and together, we start our procession into the courthouse.

The main hall is crowded with reporters, and we have to give our names to a Security who lets us past a gate blocking other people from getting through. Aki, at one point, loops her other arm through Crow's good elbow to help him past people who might jostle him aside. Evan and Jack blaze in front of us, which works out for the better—they're both big and imposing, and it's easy for them to clear the way.

It looks like this will be a popular trial: the former head of the Arcadia Movement, charged with murder and human trafficking.

I lean in toward Aki. "Do you feel that?"

"We're surrounded by psychics," she answers, no louder than a whisper.

"In front of and behind that gate," I tell her. "Like every psychic in Neo Domino, out or not, came to see this."

"Who says some of them weren't potential recruits? If I were an outside psychic and Divine targeted me, I'd want to see this, too."

It takes us a bit to push past people and get to the courtroom––when we arrive, we find that the jury has already been seated, and Misty and her lawyer are at the plaintiff's table. My friends squeeze into a place in the gallery, and Aki and I go down the aisle to see Misty. She meets us at the gate, dressed in all black like today is the funeral she never got for Toby.

"Hey," Aki says. "Feeling okay?"

"Ready to condemn my brother's murderer," she answers. "Thank you two for being willing to help with this."

I fidget. "I'm just glad to get it over with."

"Me too. The sooner they put him down, the better I'll feel."

That phrasing makes me shiver. Put him down, like an animal. Why am I still not sure how to feel about this?

"Hi, girls." Misty's lawyer is a pretty, curvy woman in a grey pant suit who looks not much older than Misty; her intricately braided dark hair has been twisted up behind her head in a knot. She crosses from the plaintiff's table to us and holds out a hand. "Uzoamaka Miyamoto. I'll be questioning you today."

Aki shakes her hand, and I follow her lead. "Nice to meet you."

Misty sent us all of the questions Ms. Miyamoto was planning on asking us—but this is the first time I've met her face to face. Last night, Aki slept over at the loft and we stayed up skimming over the questions for the ten thousandth time, repeating to each other what we're planning on saying. It's the cross-examinations, Misty told us, that'll be the questions we'll have to answer on the spot. We don't know what to expect of whoever will be defending Divine.

"Nervous?" Ms. Miyamoto asks. "Don't be. It'll be all over faster than you can blink."

"I hope you're right," I say. Aki squeezes my hand.

As Aki and I maneuver back to go sit down with our friends, Aki spots her parents a little further back in the gallery and separates from me to go talk to them. Carly, I find, has taken a seat at the other end of the gallery with a bunch of other people in shiny press badges.

I sit in between Yusei and Evan, and we leave enough space for Aki to squeeze in when she gets back. Evan puts his hand on my bouncing leg.

"It'll be okay," he urges.

"This is a lot of people to rip myself open in front of," I whisper.

"I know," he says. "Remember to breathe. Okay?"

"Can't promise that."

Yusei closes his hand around mine. Like he doesn't know what to say, but he wants me to know that he's here.

For a while, we sit in silence, and I'm listening to the chatter in the gallery around us and trying to remember everything I'm going to say. When Aki comes back, she reaches for my other hand, fingers lacing with mine, and we pin our eyes on the judge's bench. It feels like forever that we sit there and wait until the back doors swing open and the gallery goes quiet.

It's instinct—but I shrink when he enters, with a man I assume is a lawyer and three Securities in what I could swear is riot gear. I take in the handcuffs, the shorter hair, the Detention Center mark ripping down his cheek, and the stabilizer around his neck like a collar. Aki squeezes my hand. As if to remind me that she's there.

That feeling that comes with him fills the room—fills me—and that unsettling feeling I recognize begins to set in.

Divine. Here, in the flesh, yards away from me, for the first time in months.

Part of me wants to leap out into the aisleway and rip into him with my bare hands. Another part, the more dominant part of me, just wants to disappear.

A few minutes after Divine is seated, and I've almost had enough of the crushing silence filling the room to the brim, the bailiff calls for the court to rise: "The Honorable Judge Fujioka, presiding."

The judge is a man with salt-and-pepper hair; maybe somewhere in his fifties. He has smile lines, which makes me feel a bit better about the type of person he might be.

He spreads a bunch of papers across the bench. "Case number 4568 is now in session," he says in a voice like gravel, "Misty Lola v. Security Maintenance Bureau. Your opening statements, please."

"Ladies and gentlemen: today my client is making an effort to resolve a three year struggle. She has spent countless amounts of her time and money on private investigators, on therapeutic practices, attempting to somehow overcome the murder of her brother, Mr. Toby Lola. Three years later, ladies and gentlemen, we have determined that the killer of my client's only remaining family is now eligible for parole. Parole, when he spent at least half of his life spearheading a movement that tortured and killed children with special abilities. I urge you to examine this situation with every ounce of empathy you can muster. With your help, today, we will make this right."

Misty's lawyer sits back down beside her. The judge looks toward the defense's table.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I urge you to look with your eyes and your minds while reviewing this case." Divine's lawyer starts in a circle in front of the jury box. "Today, we are dealing with a pressing matter that may be more difficult to decipher because of its contents. Some of you may be of the same type as my client—a psychic. Some of you may not be. I urge you to remain as logical as possible when listening through some extraneous details. As we have seen through the introduction of psychics into our society… everything may not be as it seems."

"Smart of him to avoid directly claiming Divine's innocence," Evan, to my left, mutters.

"Thank you," the judge says. "Please call your first witness."

"The prosecution calls Aki Izayoi to the stand," Ms. Miyamoto declares. I reach over my brother to squeeze Aki's hand before she rises, and the court pins their eyes on her as she passes the gate and presents herself to the bailiff. She looks so calm. So collected. As if she's been ready for this for years.

"Do you solemnly swear that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, under pains and penalties of perjury?"

"I do."

"Please step up to the witness stand."

I listen to her shoes on the floor, and as she turns to address the court, she folds her hands in front of her. I can see her swallow. I keep my eyes on her, in case she looks at me, to try to keep her calm.

"Please state your name, age, and occupation for the court."

"My name is Aki Izayoi," she replies. "I'm seventeen years old, and I'm a third-year Upper Secondary student at Duel Academia."

Ms. Miyamoto steps up between the witness stand and the jury box. "You're very young to be involved in this, Ms. Izayoi."

"I know. I offered my word on the matter at Misty's request."

"How kind of you. Why don't you tell the court what your relationship to the defendant is?"

"Divine was my mentor," she says. "When I was thirteen, almost fourteen, I had a fall out with my parents because of my inability to control my powers, and I ran away from home. Divine found me in the Daimon district and offered to let me stay in the Arcadia Movement to train me."

"You're a psychic duelist, then?"

I can almost hear people around us tense.

"Yes." She swallows after she says it.

"Were the reasons for your training ever disclosed to you?"

"Not in entirety. I felt it was safe to assume that I would be better off if I could control myself, but Divine never gave me the express reason for why he wanted to train me."

"Did he ever treat you in a way that caused you to be suspicious of his intentions?"

I finally catch her eye. "Not me. There were others with which his actions were definitely questionable. I don't quite trust myself to talk about my own experiences, because all I remember being was a scared little girl who needed the guidance he gave. The subtleties he issued to me, I didn't have any problems with. I witnessed him be not-so-subtle with other people."

"What, in that case, led him to fall from your favor?"

"I thought that I had witnessed him die, last summer, when the Movement building sustained an attack from an otherworldly entity that I'm sure most of the city's residents recall."

"Yes, of course."

"In the aftermath, my friends and I were allowed to hold a counsel with the late Director Goodwin—his personal assistant, Mikage Sagiri, was able to access Movement files detailing most of his actions as head of the Movement. I had seen the signs before that, but I'm ashamed to say that I ignored them until they were verbalized."

"Is there anything else you can tell us about the defendant's actions? Any that have been committed against you?"

"Besides manipulating me into believing he was a good person that wanted to help me without any gain whatsoever?" Aki manages a light, casual smile. "I don't know how he did it, but he was able to possess me."

Someone in the jury makes an audible gasp. Some people around us start whispering.

"It's some psychic subclass that I haven't heard of," Aki says. "To try and... I don't know, lure me back to the Movement. The scary part is that I remember all of it—I could feel my hands, and I was looking through my own eyes, but I couldn't control anything I was doing or anything I was saying. I just know that he wanted me to destroy everything I could."

"...did you ever cross paths with Mr. Toby Lola? My client has indicated that he was interested in joining the Arcadia Movement because he had seen you duel."

"If I met him, I don't remember it," Aki answers. "I was never allowed to come in contact with new members or candidates, and I used to duel in Daimon a lot. I had a lot of people come up to me and affirm that they wanted to join the Movement because of me. I never directed any of them to Divine, though; he always found them on his own.

"...thank you, Ms. Izayoi. That will be all from me."

Aki starts down from the witness stand, but Divine's lawyer stands. "May I request a cross-examination?"

"Granted," the judge offers.

"Ms. Izayoi," the other lawyer begins. "How many psychics were enlisted in the Arcadia Movement at the time of your membership?"

"About forty, give or take a couple of people, sir."

"Spread out in a twenty story building?" He approaches her. "You word it as though you were my client's willing, star student, and I have reason to believe that he spent most of his time with you. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"How is it possible that all of these activities can be verified? Where did he have the time to execute them if he was always with you?"

"There are records of these things, sir," Aki says sourly.

"You mentioned the late Director of the Bureau, Rex Goodwin," the lawyer says. "Records state that, at the time that my client formed the Arcadia Movement, he was actively under investigation by Director Goodwin himself for reasons of personal disdain, and of course the Director found nothing. My client has stated that he believes the late Director to have falsified information against him before his untimely death. You did say that Director Goodwin's personal assistant was the one who provided these records to you, correct?"

"Those records were accessed from a Movement database, sir."

"Do you have proof of that?"

Aki looks visibly perturbed. "No. I, personally, don't."

"No further questions, Your Honor."

Aki steps down from the witness stand, her hands still folded in front of her, but clenched into fists, as she exits past the gate. When she sits back down, she reaches for my hand over my brother again and holds it so tightly that her knuckles turn white.

Ms. Miyamoto clears her throat and files through a few of her papers. "The prosecution calls Seria Shimizu to the stand."

Seria. Oh gods. I crane my neck to look for her; my friend. The woman who got me out.

She makes her way to the witness stand in a white dress and a blazer, and her hair's grown long enough that she can pull it back now. She steps up to the bailiff, delivers the oath, and then takes her place at the witness stand.

"Please state your name, age, and occupation for the court."

"My name is Seria Shimizu," she answers blankly. "I'm twenty-nine years old and I'm the Director of the Elysium Group."

"What is the Elysium Group, Ms. Shimizu?"

"I founded Elysium in the aftermath of Divine's exit from Arcadia," Seria answers. "It's a nonprofit open training facility and home for psychics in Neo Domino and Satellite."

"You are a psychic as well, then, I presume?"

"I am, yes."

Ms. Miyamoto folds her hands in front of her and leans over the plaintiff table; as if she's having a casual conversation. "What was your relationship to the defendant?"

"Divine and I are childhood… friends," Seria says, with some difficulty. "We grew up on the same street in uptown Neo Domino, and we attended Duel Academia together."

"What was that like?"

"If you're asking about his arc as a person, he seemed completely normal all throughout our childhood. He and I both exhibited our powers around the same time, and he spent an exorbitant amount of time in my home, as my parents were both psychic and his were not."

"Can you tell us any details leading up to the founding of the Arcadia Movement?"

"He had a very strained relationship with his parents. His mother was a very soft spoken woman that only desired good things for her son despite the fact that she couldn't understand his power. His father, on the other hand, was incredibly frightened by his son's abilities. He saw them as a challenge, I suppose. Infringing upon his authority. Divine spent so much time around my family that, after his father finally threw him out, he already had a room in my home."

"So one might chalk this up to family issues?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. Despite the home troubles, Divine acted like every other kid in Neo Domino. Duel Academia was absolutely normal for us." Seria rests her chin in her hand, like being up in front of all these people doesn't faze her. "Divine graduated with flying colors; he was valedictorian, actually. Popular, loved by teachers and students… Actually, he wanted to go to university to specialize in social justice."

"How, exactly, did a model citizen resort to murder, then?"

"He came back from university raving that he would never return to it," Seria answers. "Divine's main subclass, as a psychic, is Elementalism. It's a specialization that has to do with telekinetic manipulation of elements, and he specializes in fire. He displayed his powers for one of his friends at some interval, somewhere, and I guess some other student was afraid of it. Overly religious, or just freaked out, or something, and had the little incident blown way out of proportion; a whole group of students formed that called themselves 'Anti-Psychics' and got him kicked out. He was furious about someone being so afraid and angry at something that was entirely under control, something that wasn't even that large of an issue. He had friends who, too, were psychics enrolled with him, who didn't step up for him. Everything that had happened with his father just sort of… finally hit him, with that. A breaking point, I'd say. He was sick of having his life blown apart. That, at least, is the story I've heard from him. I can't quite attribute to how biased it could be."

"Whether or not the story bears bias, I do have records that confirm his university termination. Tell me, are issues like these very common?"

"Are they common?" Seria laughs. "I could have guessed it would happen. Even back then, psychics weren't really classified, and most of them had to sit through attempts at exorcisms or trying not to draw attention to themselves if their powers went out of control. There was no way to train your abilities unless you did it yourself—I was lucky that my parents were self-trained, and that they helped to train both me and Divine. Even now, did you see the amount of people in here that tensed up when the previous witness and I both said we were psychics? We're nothing to be afraid of, but the number of people who don't stop and think that we're human beings and should be treated as such is astounding."

It's so silent after that, a pin could drop.

"I'm not excusing anything that Divine has done," Seria continues. "And I have no plans to. But a lot of my people that go off the deep end could have been saved if they were given a chance to explain themselves and what makes them special. There's blame to be passed around, here."

"I've noted that, thank you." Ms. Miyamoto straightens up a little. "Please continue, regarding Arcadia."

"Right. I didn't hear from Divine for years after that; it was like he'd gone completely off of the grid. I didn't hear a word from him until I'd graduated university, myself. He contacted me on the grounds that he was beginning a group solely for psychics, where people like us could go and learn to control our powers. So I supported him, because I thought it was a great idea. I thought he had bounced back and was ready to counter with a positive effort toward helping others like us. Somehow he'd amassed a fortune large enough to acquire the building that became the Arcadia Movement, and then he just started… collecting, I guess."

"Collecting?"

"The process for entrance into the Movement, to my disdain, was very… exclusive," Seria admits. "I was under the impression that, if you could be detected by a Specifier, you were in. But Divine would vet everyone interested, and he would take those who exhibited more than one specialization. Then he would test them to make sure that it was true. The Movement had less than a hundred psychics at its height because only so many people fit the bill."

"What was your role in Arcadia?"

"I served as Divine's right hand," Seria responds. "I kept him organized, and I usually kept correspondence with potential candidates. Later on, when I caught wind of what he was doing in all of his tests, I tried to confront him about it. He was far too rooted in what he was doing to understand that it was wrong, and every time I tried to press him for his intentions, he would divert my questions."

"How long did you remain with Arcadia?"

"Until the attack on it, last summer. I evacuated everyone and founded Elysium about a month later."

"Did you ever meet Toby Lola?"

"I did," Seria answers. "As a matter of fact, I remember him. He came striding into my office and declared that he wanted to be strong like Aki Izayoi. All smiles and confidence. I should have deterred him from going on from there, but from what I sensed, I thought he was strong enough to impress Divine. That pre-appointment was the first and last time I ever saw him in the Movement."

"Thank you, Ms. Shimizu. No further questions."

"Cross-examination, You Honor?" Divine's lawyer requests, and I feel Aki try to contain a sigh next to me.

"Granted," the judge states.

"Ms. Shimizu," the lawyer begins, "why didn't you leave Arcadia, if it was as displeasing to you as you say?"

"I'm not sure I ever used the word 'displeasing,' Mr. Faber," Seria tells him. Does she know him? "I stayed because, without my input, without anyone else as high up beside Divine as me, he could keep hurting everyone that walked into the Movement without anyone to stop him."

"And, did you "stop" him?"

"There were certain things he did that I had no hope of stopping," Seria answers. "I did what I could. And I stayed from beginning to end so that I could help anyone who needed it. Anyone who, for whatever reason, needed out but couldn't leave for a myriad of reasons. Anything little, anything crucial, until the universe finally invited them to escape."

"My client is being accused of torture, Ms. Shimizu, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to be a little bit more specific."

"You know what, Mr. Faber? He's also being accused of murder, which he absolutely committed. The missing persons reports that followed our denied candidates are proof enough. If you need numbers, though, the height of our Movement registered seventy eight members."

Seventy eight?

"On that last day, when the building almost came down, we checked out with thirty nine. The most recent escapee being five days before then. After the first few times, it was nothing. The tenth came around and he became suspicious. When we reached twenty, he started limiting my access to certain files, certain areas of the Movement, certain supplies that I could use. He knew I was freeing people, but he couldn't prove it, even though he was angry with me every time and lost over half of his numbers in the span of six months. Cross-examine me all you like, but I did what I could while in the same vicinity as a high-functioning sociopath."

The lawyer, Mr. Faber, adjusts his glasses. "No further questions."

Seria steps down from the bench and returns to her seat, barely containing the bit of a smile that's creeping up onto her lips.

"Your Honor," Faber says, tottering back toward the defendant's table, "I'm sure most of the court is familiar with criminal proceedings, and I would like to question why it is that you have allowed no real evidence to be displayed."

"If testimonies aren't enough for you, Mr. Faber," Ms. Miyamoto pipes up, "then I'm afraid you may have nothing at all to use to attempt to acquit your client."

Faber clears his throat, then sits down.

Ms. Miyamoto shuffles through her papers again, straightening up. "The prosecution calls Silvan Levine to the stand."

Moment of truth. Aki squeezes my hand. I wobble up onto my feet, shimmying past the others in the aisle way, until I'm out in the open and I can approach the gate. I feel too many eyes boring into the back of my skull.

I lie my hand on the bailiff's book. "Do you solemnly swear that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, under pains and penalties of perjury?"

I swallow a lump that's formed in my throat. "I do."

"Please step up to the witness stand."

I totter up the step into the box—it's so compact that my elbows brush the sides of it, so I settle for folding my hands and putting them on top of the wooden lip.

Ms. Miyamoto nods toward me. "Please state your name, age, and occupation for the court."

"My name is Silvan Levine," I say. "I'm nineteen years old, and I work as a mechanic for Daily Automotive in downtown Neo Domino."

"Are you a psychic as well?"

"Yes."

"What is your relationship to the defendant?"

"He's—" I swallow. "My kidnapper."

There's some uneasy muttering going on in the gallery.

"Please expound upon that, if you can," Ms. Miyamoto urges.

"You know," I say, feeling short of breath, "I honestly wish that I could. The truth of the matter is, Ms. Miyamoto, that I can't remember anything."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I was brought into the Arcadia Movement, evidently, without a past and without a name," I answer. "Before I left the Movement, every memory I had was exclusively of Divine, exclusively in the Movement. I thought that I grew up there. Until I learned what genetics were and how they worked, I thought Divine was my father."

She moves a paper a little. "Will you please explain the significance of 'Cipher'?"

"It was my name," I say. "Like I said… I came without a name. To the best of my knowledge, at least. When he took me, I guess he didn't even bother to figure out what it was. But for some f... reason, he thought that 'Cipher' was the best name to give me. At first, I thought it was pretty cool. No one could say that their name was Cipher. I got my hands on a dictionary at some point and saw that a 'Cipher' meant a placeholder. An extra zero. Pointless, in essence. I asked everyone to call me 'C' until I left Arcadia and was able to find someone who knew what my real name was."

"Please explain to the court how you discovered that you had been kidnapped."

"My best friend Aki Izayoi participated in the Fortune Cup last summer," I ramble. "I wanted to see her duel in real life—on a professional stage, where everyone might be able to see how great she is. Divine never let me go outside, though. I'd been banned from leaving the Movement my whole life, for reasons I never knew, and the first time I was brave enough to sneak out was when I was just about to turn eighteen. I snuck out to go watch her duel, and it turned out that someone there knew me—recognized me.

"He and I put the pieces together, that he'd had a friend who had disappeared when we were children—about ten years old. The girl who had disappeared had a twin brother, and I looked just like him. Plus… we're both psychic, so it just sort of fit. You would think I'd have memories of my home before the Movement, having been taken from it at ten, but I also have memories of Divine teaching me to read and write. One of my friends confirmed that my caretaker in Satellite had already taught us to do those things, so I can only assume that, somehow, my memory had been taken from me.

"After the Fortune Cup, I left Arcadia and went back to Satellite, where it turns out I'm from. And I got my brother and my name back."

"Besides the obvious reason of kidnapping… why did you leave?"

"May I approach the jury box?" I say, looking up toward the judge.

The judge gives a stern nod.

I step down from the witness stand and totter toward the jury's bench––and put both my arms down in front of the first two people I see, a plump lady with short dark hair and a boy around my age with round glasses and purple streaked-hair.

"Ignore the tattoos," I say. I point to the raised white circular scar on my forearm, near my elbow. "What does that look like to you?"

"A, uhm…" The boy glances up at me. "Like a bite mark?"

"Like a little animal, maybe," the lady offers. "It looks like sharp teeth." Other people in the jury box are standing, leaning over each other, trying to get a look.

"Good guesses," I say. "They're from electrodes."

The woman looks like she's going to swallow her tongue.

"For checkups, health-related things, heartbeat, blood pressure, brain waves, Divine would use stick-on electrodes," I say. "The kind you see in movies, sort of. Every time I disobeyed him, if he caught me going outside, if I did anything he didn't like, he would take me down to the testing quadrant at the basement level and deliver two to five minutes of voltage into me. Through those electrodes—six to eight, usually, along my arms and legs, and once on both sides of my head—the ones that grab, yeah, like little sharp teeth, and he did it enough times that they scarred."

"That should have killed you." It's the judge who speaks up this time. "Human beings who sustain electrical injuries on any level are always either seriously injured or killed."

"I survived based on a subclass I discovered after I met my brother," I state. "It's called Internalization. It allows my body to internalize energy and store it instead of taking it as a serious injury. I can't say whether or not Divine knew that I could sustain energy that way, just that he kept doing it when he thought the situation called for it." A brash, angry wave of heat scores up my spine as I say, "Would you like to see?"

Ms. Miyamoto gestures for me to continue. "Please."

I lift up my hand, digging in and in and into myself, and my fingers sparkle with audible blue electricity.

The gallery uproars.

"Order!" The judge bangs his gavel until the crowd is still uneasy, but mostly quiet.

"For the record, I have my brother plug things into sockets for me. I don't want to go near anything that expels electricity again for as long as I live. The secondary subclass that I have, called Expulsion, allows me to give off the energy I sustain."

The static spreads up my arm, until it reaches my stabilizer, and glitters for a few more seconds before it crackles away into the air.

"I've used a lot of the static that I've Internalized—but I've seen a psycho-physician, and according to her, there's still enough electricity in me to persist, probably, for ten or twelve more years. My body isn't ever going to be the same, either—Internalizer or not, I've lost a lot of functionality in nerve endings and pain receptors all over me. I can't fully use my powers because I'm not strong enough for it. Not to mention all of the things I've got to talk to my therapist about every week."

The judge bangs his gavel a couple more times to quiet the muttering gallery.

"How did you leave Arcadia?" Ms. Miyamoto asks as I step back up to the witness stand.

"Seria," I say. It takes every ounce of self control I have to keep my eyes pinned on Ms. Miyamoto, to not look for Seria's wonderful face somewhere in that crowd. "I was the last person to leave Arcadia before it disbanded. Seria was there for me every second, every morning, noon, and night. She brought me anything I asked for, anything to try and make me happy or, at the least, comfortable, and when I told her that I had found someone who knew me, she did everything she could to get me out. She covered for me, she always nursed me back to health, she gave me a duel runner when I left the Movement, for crying out loud… From day one, she had my back, and she told me that she wouldn't stop until there was no one else that Divine could hurt. I owe everything to her. I owe her my life."

"Silvan, you are living proof of every claim my client has made against the defendant," Ms. Miyamoto says. "What is that experience like?"

It's a question I prepared for, but it takes a second to get the words out of my throat. "It's—strange. Nothing ever really feels real. My therapist makes me go back and dig up everything I can, to talk about it and try to resolve it, or whatever, but it sort of feels like looking through a screen. After being in the situation I was for so long, it still takes me a second to realize that there are things I'm allowed to do, that I'm allowed to feel. She told me that—that captivity is a mentality that you bring with you, even after your body leaves it, and sometimes in the middle of the night I still feel it, and I have to go walking outside just to prove to myself that I can."

If it's intentional or not, I don't know, but I look at Divine for the first time since he entered the room. Some part of me still shrinks at the sight of him, of his face, saying that I'm in danger, that I'm in trouble…

He looks—totally emotionless. Like nothing I've said has resonated with him at all.

"I have to admit, though," I say, swallowing, thinking back to months and months ago when I dreamt of being able to tell him how I felt, "there's something surreal and satisfying about seeing my abuser in chains."

"Thank you," Ms. Miyamoto says. "No further questions."

"May I request a cross-examination?" Mr. Faber asks.

The judge, sounding particularly disgruntled, answers, "Granted."

"Lovely tattoos, Ms. Levine," Faber says as he approaches the witness stand. "Did you say that you were merely nineteen?"

"Objection," Ms. Miyamoto calls. "I had hoped you wouldn't stoop to ad hominem today, please."

"Relevant questions only, Mr. Faber," the judge confirms.

Ah, I knew I should have worn a jacket, or something. I told Aki somebody would put together the 'illegal' part of the tattoos. I try to keep my lips pursed and my face blank as Faber looks me up and down. I'm not allowed to curse or talk back or anything during this. At least, that was what I was told. I just have to try and stump this asswipe, make sure there's nothing he can do to try to twist my words against me.

"Did you say that you originated from the Satellite sector, Ms. Levine?" He asks.

"I did."

"Though I feel for you and your gut-wrenching story, I am having difficulty believing that someone would travel all the way to Satellite to steal children. This most certainly happened before the completion of Daedalus, correct? In a city absolutely rife with gifted people, I don't see a very high probability in my client traveling so far for, what… one little girl? Were there others he took from Satellite, too?"

"No, just me," I say, trying to put my hand up in front of my mouth to hide a rueful smile. I had no intention of bringing what I know about my family into this. This is supposed to just be about Toby and all the other kids Divine killed. But, if that's where this person is venturing, then maybe I'll have to bring it up. Maybe that will make this open-and-shut. "Divine came to Satellite just for me."

"That seems like a very impossible prospect, Ms. Levine."

"Actually, it isn't," I say. I take a breath and try to organize my thoughts enough to put them out into words. "I was born here, in Neo Domino, actually. My father, Dr. Sören Levine, was the Executive Project Designer for the Ener-D Initiative, and my mother, Dr. Rei Hamada, was a neurosurgeon who stayed present in the Reactor Lab to study the effects of Ener-D on the human brain. Both of them were killed in Zero Reverse, which left me and my brother to grow up essentially alone. It's on public record. I shared your confusion, actually, because my brother, as well, is a psychic. He shares my exact same abilities, but Divine came and took me alone. Very recently, I learned that it was entirely due to a relationship he must have had with my mother. To my understanding, it wasn't remotely any type of romantic relationship—as a matter of fact, I've come to understand that Divine believes my mother to have 'picked' my father over him."

"You're chalking this up to a lovers' quarrel, Ms. Levine?"

"My mother had no love for Divine," I say, with absolute certainty. "He felt something for her. And he hated my father, believing that his circumstances would change if my father wasn't present. Last winter, when he possessed my friend Aki and tried to take us both back into some semblance of Arcadia, he admitted to me that he believed he was entitled to both me and my brother—that we should have been his children. And the only reason he left my brother alone is because he takes a bit too much after our father."

Faber is halfway through some question about how 'I expect him to believe that', when I can feel a spike of horrible, familiar heat shoot upward into the air, and I whirl to look at the only person it could be coming from: Divine.

Faber stops when he sees that I'm not looking his way anymore, and only then does he notice the sudden silence, and behind him in the gallery, where both Aki and Evan are standing, ready to react, their eyes turned on Divine.

"What's going on?" The judge demands.

I put as much venom into my voice that I can—thinking about all of the innocent people in this room, Misty who just wants her brother's retribution, Carly who suffered in tenfold because of Divine—and I tell him, "Don't you try it."

He—He smiles at me. I force myself to keep my eyes on him, in this standoff, refusing to be anything other than unshakeable. I refuse to let him see any fear on my face.

Faber is the one to break the silence. "...no further questions, Your Honor."

The judge bangs his gavel. "I'm ordering a recess. Security, please remove the defendant."

The Securities spring to life and haul Divine up and out of the room. As soon as he's gone, I feel light-headed and realize that I'm still in the witness stand.

The bailiff, a big man that reminds me a little bit of Ushio, asks, "Miss? Are you all right?"

I manage my sweetest smile. "Just give me a second to remember how to use my legs."