November 22

Morix Law Offices

4:30 PM

Victoria von Graye

I found myself feeling rather strange as I returned to the agency. Everything just felt off somehow, but I knew what the reason was despite my best attempts to ignore it. It had to be due to everything that we had learned over the course of the past day. The trial and its aftermath had been a chaotic matter, and it grabbed me away from my regular life and pulled me into something that I didn't know how to describe. It was a mess, to say the least, and I didn't know how I was supposed to respond to it. I guess that numb was the best way to describe my initial reaction given that I hadn't actually responded internally quite yet. I knew about what had happened, but it was hard to actually tell myself that it was real and not just some twisted fantasy that I had conjured for myself.

"We need to talk to Detective Umber as soon as possible," Yuri announced, pulling me away from my thoughts. I nodded my agreement and began to scan the area with my eyes. She had to be around there somewhere. It was just a matter of pinning down where she was precisely. I found myself frowning soon afterwards when locating Detective Umber proved itself to be more difficult than I expected.

Yuri suddenly gasped and began to tap on my arm rapidly. I glanced down and noticed that she was pointing towards a large hat that stuck out among the crowd of investigators, and I knew that had to be Detective Umber. Her hat was large enough to be seen from a decent distance away, and I didn't know of anyone else who would ever even dream of wearing something that big on their heads. I didn't know how she was able to keep herself balanced with all that extra weight on her shoulders, but I decided that it was best to not think about. It was probably only going to give me a headache in the end anyways.

We approached Detective Umber carefully, and I noticed that she was deep in conversation with Prosecutor Umber. I hadn't been expecting the man to be there as well, but given that they were twins, I supposed that it wasn't as far-fetched as I would have thought. He wasn't on the case, but then again, neither was she, so this was part of the deal, it seemed.

"I don't think that we should be doing this anymore," Detective Umber was saying in a low voice. She had stepped away from the rest of the crowd, and Prosecutor Umber was listening to her carefully. "It's been so long since we started, and... I don't know. It just doesn't feel right. If you ask me, we're betraying everything that we should be against. You've noticed it, haven't you? He's changed, and that should be our cue to pack up and get out as quickly as we can. What if something happens when we aren't paying attention? This is an awful situation for us to be in, and we have to escape it."

For a long moment, Prosecutor Umber was silent, and I knew that neither one of them had noticed us quietly approaching yet. "You're sure of this? You don't think that you're mistaken?" he finally asked when he managed to pull himself together. There was something strangely urgent to his voice that struck me in an odd way, and my stomach tied itself into a knot as soon as I heard how intense his words were. Just what was he talking about?

Detective Umber nodded furiously as soon as she could. "Yeah, I'm positive. I saw him walking out at the time that he would have had to if he was going to do something like this... I even checked the clock because I wondered why he was leaving so soon. There aren't any other possibilities as far as I'm aware. He did this, and we have to make sure that everyone knows it. His goals aren't worth it. There's a chance that they never were. What loyalty do we have to him anyways? Some distant connection that we were never given the chance to explore? It isn't enough for me," she told him.

Prosecutor Umber was silent for a long moment before he nodded. "You're right. If this is what you think is for the best, I'll come with you. I've had my doubts for a while, but I was afraid of what would happen if I said anything. Fine. If you think that this is what we need to do, then you can consider me at your side," he replied.

For another handful of moments, they were both silent, seemingly contemplating their thoughts about everything. I took a step back and gestured for the other two I was with to do the same. Deirdre and Yuri followed my lead, and then we began to walk forward once again. I cleared my throat to get their attention, making it seem as if we had just appeared. I didn't want them to know that we had been listening in. Whatever they were discussing, it must have been serious, and the last thing that I wanted when we were on the path to figuring everything out was for them to clam up and decide that it wasn't worth it to open up to us about everything.

"Looks like we have company, Abilene," Prosecutor Umber told his sister in a voice that was quiet yet intense. He nudged her carefully and glanced up to us with a strange detached fire in his eyes. "What is that you want? You're the attorneys on this case, aren't you?" He was so defensive all of a sudden, and I assumed that it was because he thought we had overheard something despite our attempts to hide such a truth.

"We are, as a matter of fact. We heard that a few new people had appeared at the scene of the crime, and we decided to see if we could learn anything from them," Deirdre explained, keeping her voice as level as possible. She was just as calm as always, and that was certainly a relief given how panicked I was at the thought of everything that had taken place.

"Ah, I see," Detective Umber commented with a light nod. "So... What is it that you want to know?" She began to rock back and forth on her feet, and I could tell that it was her way of passing the time so that she didn't have to think about the conversation she had just shared with her brother.

"If you have any information for us at all, please tell us," Deirdre continued. "We just returned from visiting the victim. It sure is strange and unexpected that she wound up being the same person as the witness. I take it that you're acquainted with such a truth given that you've been at the crime scene for a few hours at least, yes?"

Detective Umber nodded before swallowing dryly. "Yeah... We do know about it," she finally managed to say. "It wasn't anything that we saw coming either... It's... It's a lot to take in all at once." Her voice was filled with dejection, and I could see her looking down at the ground deliberately to escape our pressing gazes. If her conversation with her brother wasn't evidence enough that she knew something, this was proof that she was trying to hide something.

"Is there anything that you think could help us with the investigation? Even if you think it's small and won't mean much, it could be the deciding factor in helping us to figure out the truth," I piped in. I was praying that they realized that this was our way of pressing them in the right direction regarding what we wanted to know. They clearly knew something that we weren't aware of, and it must have had something to do with the man that had been on their minds a few moments prior.

Detective Umber hesitated and glanced up to her brother. His gaze was hardened, and he shook his head. "That isn't important for you to know at the moment. We're taking over the crime scene for the leading detectives, and that's the only vital thing you need to be aware of," he told us defensively. "If I were you, I would back away from the crime and focus on other things. After all, you have a long battle ahead of you in the courtroom."

"I suppose you could say that," Deirdre went on casually. "We need to find a way to figure out who the culprit is, but we still don't have any ideas as to who it could be. The man with white hair has done a great job of evading us up to this point. It really does make you wonder where he could have wandered off to in the time since the attack, hm?"

Detective Umber began to fidget anxiously with the hem of her jacket, something that was small enough to be unnoticed by most but still large enough for me to zero in on it. I watched her fingers carefully before prying my gaze away from them to meet her eyes directly so that she wouldn't realize what I was doing. She nodded carefully. "Yeah... I guess so," she remarked with an anxious laugh. "I don't know what could have happened with him though. I don't think that either one of us do, right, Anthony? It's a real... Conundrum."

Prosecutor Umber looked ready to sigh in frustration for a moment before he simply shook his head and shrugged. "I guess that it is strange," he finally agreed. "I think that we should leave you to your investigation. We don't know all that much about the case itself, so you would be better off looking around on your own terms. We're only here because we need to look out for the scene of the crime for the detectives behind the investigation since they can't be here. It isn't as if we have an easy way to get our hands on the important information about this case."

He was deflecting, and I could tell from a mile away. My eyes narrowed, and I forced a smile on my face to keep them from getting suspicious. "Thank you for the help anyways," I told the two before leading Deirdre and Yuri away. Neither one of them said anything, seeming to realize that we weren't going to be getting any information out of them even if we wanted to learn more. Detective Umber was clearly suffering over some form of guilt, but the truth behind what exactly was upsetting her to such a degree continued to elude us, and all we could do was really wait until she was ready to talk about it. We didn't have a way of forcing the truth out.

But we could sure as hell discuss it. After I was sure that nobody was listening in on our conversation, I looked to both Deirdre and Yuri. "They're definitely hiding something. I can't say for sure if they know anything about the culprit, but I think that there's something about this case that doesn't sit well with them. If I had to guess, it's a similar sensation to what happened with the previous case," I told the two confidently. "We don't have any exact evidence of it aside from their general anxiety, but I can tell that there's something going on here that we aren't seeing quite yet."

"They were talking about a man. I think that it's a bit too coincidental that Detective Umber was saying a man had left at the perfect time when we're looking for a culprit who just so happens to be a man," Yuri commented with a deep frown. "We have to find a way to see how the pieces there come together. If you ask me, that's going to be the way that we figure out what's happening here."

I nodded my agreement. She certainly had a point there. I couldn't think of any other outcomes, and even if we didn't have any deliberate evidence that they were involved with the culprit somehow, it seemed clear as day what the truth was. We had one extra piece of information that would help us to see the grand picture behind this case, and that was enough for me. Well, I certainly would have liked more, but given how starved for information we were, this felt like getting a thousand dollars worth of candy. I didn't know how we were going to find the truth behind how this fit into the equation, but I was confident that it would all come out soon enough.

"We should probably leave it there for now," Deirdre said a few moments later. "I don't know what else we can even do at this point. Tomorrow, we're surely going to hear from the victim of the case, and that might do us a little bit of good. Today's session of court was cut short before we could hear the full story, and I think that could start to point us in the right direction. If we have to, we can say that we think Detective Umber and Prosecutor Umber know something, and that could be all we need to say in order to get everyone on our side so that they'll have to testify. That would make everything a lot easier on us."

"If we can hear about what they know, then we're going to be at an advantage," I agreed. "Granted, we still don't know what that exactly consists of, but I'm confident that we're going to figure it out soon enough. For now, all we can do is press on with what we do know and hope that's enough for us to unravel the truth. It isn't all that much, but it's something, and that's fine with me. I mean, we've been clueless for so long. Finding out the truth about the victim really did change everything, huh?"

"It doesn't seem like they're planning on defending the person in question... And yet, they still got so cagey about it when we asked..." Yuri whispered before letting out a sigh. "I guess we'll simply have to see what comes next. For now, I'm ready to go home and crash. I know that it's still the afternoon technically, but I'm going to need to sleep for a week after all of the stress that today has brought me."

I laughed my agreement before bidding the other two farewell. This wasn't an easy case to unravel, but I was still going to do what I could. I owed as much to the others involved with it. The truth was going to come out one way or another. Everyone was counting on that much, and this was our last chance to reveal everything. It was now or never, and I was going to make sure that it was the first option of the two!

November 23

Defendant Lobby No. 6

9:30 AM

Yuri Rinko

The following morning presented itself as a paradox to me that I absolutely detested. I wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed and hide under the covers until after this miserable mess had drawn to a close, but I knew that wasn't going to help anybody. If I was going to figure out what was happening, I was going to have to get up and face the day with everything I had regardless of how awful that sounded. This was going to be my best chance to start understanding what was going on, and even if I hated the mere concept, I was going to have to try. There was too much riding on this case for me to even think of backing down.

When I arrived at the courthouse, my full dread began to settle into my stomach. I liked to think that I was a hopeful person most of the time, but this case was really starting to make me anxious. I enjoyed looking on the bright side of things since it offered me with new motivation to face each day, but this case... It was grating on my nerves, and I hated that I didn't know what I was supposed to do in order to face it. I despised the fact that I was going to have to put up with this.

The lack of information was starting to bug me all over again. I had been feeling pretty good about the case when I left Deirdre and Victoria the day before, but since then, my fears had settled in my stomach and left me feeling like I was going to be sick. How were we supposed to figure out the truth behind this case when we still didn't have any ideas about who the culprit was?

I glanced around the defendant lobby, praying that I would catch sight of someone who would be willing to listen to my woes. I found Lily, Felicity, and Sky together, and I walked over to them with a bright smile on my face. "Hey, you three," I greeted them. My grin soon turned into something awkward and nervous as I shook my head and shrugged. "I guess that this is the part where I apologize for us not being able to come and see you at the detention center yesterday. Everything got to be kind of overwhelming when we got into the thick of the case, and it sort of distracted us."

"You don't need to apologize," Lily assured me. "Besides, I had a sneaking suspicion that it was going to be like that. I mean, so much came out all at once during the trial yesterday... I don't know how you were going to find the time to come and see me, in all honesty." She let out a small laugh that sounded far more composed than she actually seemed to be feeling, and I felt my stomach twist all over again. This case really was a disaster through and through, huh?

"The victim and the witness being the same person... It's still weird for me to think about," Felicity confessed. "I mean, who in the world would immediately jump to using a false identity when something goes wrong? It seems like a strange choice to make, but then again, I don't have any false identities, so what do I know?" She punctuated the question with a laugh, and I looked away from her to keep from showing how unfunny her comment was. She didn't realize the full context, so it wasn't as if I could blame her, but it was still strangely uncomfortable given what had taken place over the past day. It had only been a day. That was somehow even more jarring to think about than the tiny details that made this case so frustrating.

Luckily for me, I wasn't forced to tell Felicity my thoughts on her remark, as Victoria and Deirdre both walked their way into my peripheral vision a few moments later. I smiled to them in relief and waved to them. "Hey there, you too," I greeted simply. "We were talking about the case. Do either one of you have any extra wisdom? Heaven knows that we can use as much as we can get."

"I've been thinking about what Mr. Morix told us when we were leaving the hospital to speak with Detective Umber yesterday," Victoria admitted. "He said that he thought the arrest was rushed since there was never an explanation for the bloodstains until after Lily had already been taken in by the police. In all honesty, the more that I think about it, the more that it just... Doesn't make sense. I mean, I know that there have been hasty arrests in the past. We've had to defend our clients from quite a few of them in the past year, but... I don't know. It's hard for me to describe, but this just feels different somehow. Do you know what I'm saying?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I do... I mean, I don't know how to say it, but I get what you're trying to tell me," I assured her as I glanced down at my feet. "Still, I don't know who in the world would have a grudge against Lily and want to have her arrested. In a way, it feels a lot like the case with Mukuro from a while ago. She was arrested even though, when you looked at the critical details of the case, it didn't make any sense that she would be a suspect. The logic fell apart as soon as you started squinting, and it seems to be the same case here... Granted, you have to do a bit more work to make it clear that there's something out of the ordinary going on, but the fact still stands."

"I have to wonder if perhaps there was somebody rushing the arrest that we aren't aware of," came a comment from Sky. "I don't exactly have any evidence for that assumption, but... If there's really something wrong like you think there is, then I trust your judgement. That would lead you to wonder who would want to do this and why... Perhaps it's the culprit somehow."

"If you think about Detective Umber's odd behavior, it seems as if this case is somehow connected with the case involving Mukuro and Nevada," I murmured. "But what could the link be? It just doesn't make sense. There was an anonymous call to make it seem as if Mukuro was guilty even though she wasn't the one responsible. In this case, the arrest was rushed as well. Detective Umber has been nervous in both cases, and that makes you think that she's aware of something that we don't know about yet... But what could it be? What could she know that would make her get so worked up about both of the cases?"

"The conversation that she had with Prosecutor Umber yesterday made it seem as if they were both aware of something involving the culprit... They were speaking vaguely, but that was the impression that I got," Deirdre chimed in. "I just wish that I knew how we were supposed to wrestle the truth out of them. Our main hope at this point is that the prosecution has managed to find some clue during their own investigation. If they haven't figured anything out, then we're going to be left to struggle throughout the rest of this case, and I somehow doubt that any of us want something like that."

I let out a groan and shook my head. "You can say that again," I muttered under my breath. "This case is complicated enough as it is. I guess that all we can do at this point is listen to what the victim has to say. I mean, I can't imagine that she won't be dragged up to the witness stand, so we're going to have to press her testimony and see if there are any other details that we can learn from her."

This, of course, came with its own complications. Mr. Morix's story from the day before about the gamble that he and Chrysalis took to bring the culprit to light had left me feeling nervous in a way that was almost sickening to even imagine. This was a huge risk, and while I could understand why they had taken it, I still hated that we were being forced to confront Oracle and all of its frustrating sidebar issues at a time like this. In a way, it made me yearn for the days of two years prior when I still didn't know the truth behind Oracle. Granted, I had been forced to uncover what was going on for the sake of an important case, but I was in the dark for a while. Things had been easier back then, though I knew that it was safer for the resolution of the case this way. It didn't fix the lingering frustration though, and I found myself wanting to bang my head against a wall more and more with each passing moment.

"She has to have at least one new fact for us," Victoria declared, trying to sound a lot more confident than she felt. Still, I noticed the way that her voice wobbled, making it clear that she was only putting on a show to seem as if she wasn't as anxious about this case as the rest of us were.

"All we can do is see, I guess," Sky said quietly with a shake of his head. "We don't really have a way of knowing until after we get into the courtroom and are able to hear exactly what she has to say about everything... It's annoying, but we can't change that. I hope that she has something for us too, but all we can do is wait for now... I hate not being able to do anything at a time like this."

I let out a snort to show my agreement. In fact, I was sure that he was speaking for all of us despite his claim only holding true for himself. the frustration in the air was almost palpable. This was our last chance to figure out who the culprit was and show the world about their crimes. The man with white hair had evaded our grasp until that point, but if we were going to fix this case and free Chrysalis from the constant sense of danger, we had to figure out who he was and what he wanted. This case clearly went deeper than we ever could have expected at first, and while I hated how much was involved with it, I knew that I couldn't reverse such a fact. I would just have to go with it along with the other members of the agency. It was an unfortunate truth that we had no choice but to confront head on if we wanted to keep this case from spiraling even further out of our control.

"I'm wishing you luck."

I turned with a gasp and saw Mr. Morix walking towards us carefully. Ms. Lesa was standing beside him, her gaze glossy as she looked down at the floor. I could see that she was limping still, but Mr. Morix was doing what he could to stabilize her. Ms. Lesa didn't meet any of our gazes, but I could tell that she was trying to encourage us as well. Given how exhausting the past few days had been, I couldn't blame her for not wanting to come right out and talk to us. Plus, she was still trying to hide the truth of her identity from Felicity and Sky, so it was for the best if she didn't take any unnecessary risks. The last thing any of us wanted was for those two to figure it out when we were at such a critical moment of the case. We could put up with Oracle and its ramifications after the case ended to keep from complicating things more than we had to.

"Thank you," Deirdre told Mr. Morix gracefully, taking control of the conversation effortlessly as usual. "We've been trying to find a solution to the problem that you posed to us yesterday. You mentioned that the arrest seemed rushed, and thinking back on it, we all completely agree. Do you have any theories on why that might be?"

Mr. Morix shook his head. "I'm afraid not... I don't have any direct ideas regarding the one responsible, but it seems clear that somebody that we haven't yet encountered is pulling the strings behind this case. Perhaps it's the culprit, perhaps it's merely someone affiliated with them," he replied. "There was someone who really wanted Lily to be arrested for this case, and that was the reason that all of this happened. There wasn't even enough evidence to say that something severe had taken place, but Lily was taken into custody anyways. If you ask me, there's a chance that this comes from somewhere in the police force."

I nodded to myself as I looked down to the ground. It made sense that the one responsible for this train wreck was in the police force somehow, but that still didn't sit well with me for some reason. Maybe it was because I was spending too much time around Chrysalis, someone who wouldn't trust an individual officer even if her life depended on it. Hell, that was part of her reasoning for following through with this whole grand gambit.

Mr. Morix's words begged another question as well. If there was somebody in the police force trying to make it seem as if Lily was the culprit, then why would they bother? Was it a personal grudge against her, or was there something else going on that we had yet to uncover? I didn't know the answer, but I got the sneaking suspicion that we were going to figure it out soon enough for better or worse.

"Defense! Enter the courtroom at this time!"

I winced upon hearing the loud voice of the bailiff, and his words cut through my mind like a laser beam. It wasn't our old friend today, and I let out a sigh at this realization. Then again, it wouldn't have really changed anything regarding the outcome of the case. Things were still going to be a chaotic mess regardless of if we had an extra familiar face on our side or not.

"Good luck," Mr. Morix told us one final time before he walked into the courtroom, Ms. Lesa trailing behind him. The rest of us followed him soon afterwards, and I bit my lip as I tried to figure out what was going on. This case was somehow getting even more complicated than before, and in all honesty, I hadn't even thought that was possible.

Next week is final trial time woo!

-Digital