March 4

District Courthouse

Courtroom No. 2

11:30 AM

My anxiety was still bubbling up excessively in my stomach when I watched Simon approach the witness stand. I had no idea what to expect in terms of what was coming next, but I knew that this was one thing that couldn't be left unresolved any longer. We had to figure out the reason behind the contradiction involving the evidence cabinet being left open, and even if it wasn't going to be easy, we had to try. I was nervous, yes, but that couldn't stop me no matter what wound up coming next.

"State your name and occupation for the court, witness," the judge instructed. He still seemed to be a bit on edge, and I assumed that he was nervous because of what had happened the last few times that Simon was in the courtroom. Simon was no longer thought to be a murderer, yes, but there were still people who were anxious about being around him. Others claimed that he had an intimidating presence, and while I didn't see it quite as much as those around me since I had known him for so long, I could certainly see that the judge was in the group of believing this to be fact. Given the fact that he still had his blade and Taka at his side, Simon was bound to scare at least a few people along the way of his journey through the legal world.

Simon had previously been staring straight ahead, and he offered a small smirk as he glanced up to face the judge. I could tell that he was barely holding back a snide comment in the judge's direction, but in the end, he wasn't able to mask it entirely. "Quite tense even though we're old friends," Simon commented simply.

The judge immediately began to stir uncomfortably in his seat. "I-I asked for your name and occupation, witness!" he exclaimed, the words coming out with much more force than I would have expected. Oh, he was definitely nervous, and there was no way that he was going to be able to hide it no matter how long the trial wound up going on.

Simon simply nodded, but his devilish smirk remained. "Simon Blackquill. I work as a prosecutor," he replied. He glanced over in Prosecutor Lin's direction, no doubt waiting for her next direction regarding his testimony.

Luckily for him, Prosecutor Lin didn't take all that long to offer her instructions. "Witness, we've encountered an issue in the trial up to this point... You see, the two pictures that were taken of the crime scene appear to have a contradiction when compared," she began to explain. "In the picture that you took, the evidence cabinet was closed. In the photo that the police took of the scene, the cabinet's doors were left open. Since you were the one responsible for the first picture being taken, we believed that you would be the best-equipped to answer our inquiries as to why this contradiction exists to begin with."

Simon stared at the photos for a long moment before he shook his head. "I have no answer for that question," he said bluntly. "The cabinet doors remained shut the entire time that I was in the room. I made sure that nothing changed about the scene of the crime while I was present. After I was satisfied, I left the room to tend to Justice-dono. He had been found on the ground unconscious, and it was best to ensure that we did not have another corpse on our hands."

I winced at Simon's use of vivid imagery before shoving the concept as far from my mind as possible. "We've heard quite a bit about your actions from the previous witness," I explained. "But I think that right now, it would be most beneficial if we heard straight from you what it is that you were doing at the time of the crime's discovery. Any details would be great."

Prosecutor Lin nodded. "We won't be able to figure out the reasoning for the impossible movement of the cabinet unless you explain it to us, so you might as well share everything that you know," she pointed out.

Simon shrugged at those words. "In that case, there's one other thing that has been bothering me since the body was discovered," he announced. "I'm surprised that you haven't brought it up yet, Lin-dono. I would have thought you to be more thorough than this."

"What is he talking about, Prosecutor Lin?" the judge questioned, his eyes going wide. "Have you been doing something to withhold evidence from this court?"

Prosecutor Lin shook her head. "Of course not... The truth is... There is one other thing that might be able to help our investigation into the case," she explained. "A security camera is set up outside the front door of the Prosecutor's Office to make sure that no... Unsavory characters attempt to enter the building. Unfortunately, it's set up on a somewhat antiquated system, so it isn't as if we're able to easily access the footage that would be on that camera quite yet. The film is still being developed at the moment since the system is so old and out of the current technological loop."

My eyes went wide. "We didn't hear anything about this...!" I murmured in surprise. I turned to face Trucy and Mr. Wright upon hearing Prosecutor Lin's explanation in full. "Did either one of you know that something like that existed?"

"This information is restricted to the prosecutors working in the office for the most part," Prosecutor Lin continued to explain. "This is to prevent anyone from attempting to conceal something from the camera. It's just an extra security measure, I suppose. The camera was active on the day of the crime, but since the footage takes a while to be looked over, we still don't know if anything out of the ordinary happened just outside the building."

"That isn't entirely what I was referring to," Simon told her with a small frown. "Justice-dono would have been unable to smuggle a knife into the office with his current clothing. There were no places to hide a weapon, and the camera would have surely seen it if he was holding a knife out in the open."

"The footage isn't going to show Polly with any kind of knife," Trucy murmured. "He wouldn't have just had something like that out in the open. Why would anybody have a weapon in an easy place for others to see it? That would have just gotten him caught sooner. He didn't know that the prosecutors were going to be busy at the time, after all."

"Ah, I see," Prosecutor Lin murmured. "Might I propose that perhaps he was wearing the black jacket at the time of him entering the building? It isn't as if anyone has a way to refute such a concept right now. He could have worn the jacket as a way of soaking up the bloodstains. The knife would have been hidden from view in that case because of how large the jacket is. It would have easily hidden his entire torso given how small he is, and that would have left more than enough room to mask a weapon from view."

"You don't have any evidence to say for sure that he was wearing the jacket when he entered the building," I countered. "The camera is a significant issue along with the matter of the cabinet doors being open in one photo and closed in another. It seems as if there are quite a few holes that have appeared in this case."

"Nobody could have gotten into that room to open the cabinet doors," Simon interjected firmly. "I was standing outside the door the entire time that we were waiting for the police to arrive. I was the only one in the area with Gavin-dono looking after Justice-dono the way that he was. I did not touch the cabinet doors. I had no reason to do so. Fingerprint analysis will prove as much. I did nothing to interfere with the cabinet, and no person could have entered the room to open the doors either."

"So, we have a locked room case, in essence," Mr. Wright frowned. "But somebody must have managed to worm through the lock on this door in order for the cabinet to wind up being opened. This shouldn't have been possible, and yet, we see perfect evidence of the fact that it wound up happening anyways."

I nodded to myself. I still didn't know what we were supposed to do with all of this. If I was being honest, I had really been hoping that talking to Simon would illuminate some reason for this contradiction. As it stood though, all that we really knew was the same old thing as the day before: the doors wound up open even though that never should have been possible to begin with. Then came the matter of the security camera outside the Prosecutor's Office. With all of this in mind, there was only one conclusion that I could come to.

"I think that this case needs to be investigated further," I declared. "First, we have the issue of the evidence cabinet's doors being opened despite the fact that nobody should have been able to get inside the room as a whole, much less touch the cabinet. From there, we have the question of how exactly the culprit managed to smuggle a knife into the building to use as the murder weapon. I believe that the security camera that was stationed outside the entrance to the building could illuminate our thoughts on the matter, and we aren't going to be able to progress in terms of this investigation until we can see what it is that the camera picked up on the day of the murder."

Prosecutor Lin was quiet for a long moment before she nodded. "As much as I hate to say it, I must agree that this is the only way to work out these issues. There must be a reason for the discrepancy regarding the evidence cabinet. As it stands, the only idea that I have on the matter would have had the evidence closet-which would have had to be opened at first-wind up closed. There was a window in the room, and since it was opened, it wouldn't have been hard to believe that a wind could have pushed the door closed. Unfortunately, the issue here comes from the reverse with a door that started off as being shut. I don't have a way to explain that, and so, I believe that taking a break from the trial for another session of investigation is our best call," she declared.

I couldn't say that I was particularly surprised to hear that Prosecutor Lin was willing to cooperate with me on this matter given how helpful she had been up to this point, but that didn't change the fact that relief flooded my chest all at once in an overwhelming tidal wave. I knew that we were really going to need this extra time to figure out just what had taken place at the time of the crime, and there weren't exactly any other ways to make all of the pieces come together in a way that made sense.

"You know... If the evidence cabinet was defective, then the doors could have wound up coming open while they were left unattended," the judge pointed out. "That's one possibility that we haven't yet explored."

Prosecutor Lin shook her head. "I'm afraid that isn't the case. I already did a thorough check of the doors to make sure that they were stable and in working order back when I was doing my first investigation of the crime scene. There was nothing that stuck out to me as making the cabinet seem defective in a way that would have kept it from closing. In the picture that Prosecutor Blackquill took, you can see that the doors have seemingly latched shut. They aren't at all cracked either, so the doors couldn't have just drifted open. There must have been deliberate effort put into opening them. We just have to figure out what that effort consisted of," she explained.

"I see..." the judge nodded. "It seems as if something as seemingly small as an evidence cabinet's doors is going to wind up being the critical point to solving this trial. There must have been something to cause the doors to open later in the day, after all... Over the course of the next day, I expect both the defense and prosecution to research explanations for the doors winding up open at the time of the police arriving on the scene. I will want to hear your theories when the trial comes back into session tomorrow."

I simply nodded. "Of course, Your Honor," I said, still feeling the tension that came with the courtroom thick and heavy in my chest. I knew that we were going to be able to find freedom to research the case again in a few moments, but that didn't change the dread that was still lingering inside of my body. Something about these contradictions gave me a bad feeling, and I unfortunately had no idea how I was going to resolve it.

"I also expect both sides of the case to look into the matter of the security camera stationed outside the office's entrance. If the camera truly did capture something meaningful, then we will need to see it at once. Surely the footage will be nearing the end of the process to transfer it to a manageable format by the time that the trial comes back into session tomorrow," the judge said, though I could tell that he was primarily trying to convince himself of this fact. After all, he was hardly the most tech savvy individual, and he was trying to hold onto anything that could keep this trial somewhat under his control.

"I'll make sure of that much, Your Honor," Prosecutor Lin assured him with a gentle smile. When she grinned that way, I could almost forget for a few moments that she had been debating against us on the matter of the truth of this case just a short while ago. It was almost unsettling how quickly she was able to change her demeanor, truth be told.

Still, I didn't have much time to think on the matter as the judge raised his gavel. "In that case, as long as there are no further objections, this court is now adjourned!" he declared. The gavel came down a moment later, and with that, the first day of the trial was over. I once again felt like I was going to fall over under the power of my own relief, but I did what I could to remain standing. After all, the battle wasn't quite over yet, and we still had a long way to go before we would be able to claim victory in full.

March 4

District Courthouse

Defendant Lobby No. 2

12:30 PM

All of the tension in my body practically melted away as soon as I realized that we were safe, at least for the time being. A lot had taken place during that trial, but we had managed to push through for a little bit longer. Our next step was to go to the scene of the crime once again and do a second sweep for evidence, but for the moment, I was just glad that everything seemed like it was going to be alright, at least for a little while.

"Well, it looks like we know what we're going to be doing next," Trucy commented as Apollo came up to join me and Mr. Wright in standing with the young magician. "We're going to have to go back to the Prosecutor's Office and see how it is that the cabinet was shut one moment and opened another. I guess you could say that it's like a..."

"Please don't say it," Apollo said dryly, his voice edging on pleading as he recognized what joke Trucy was about to make.

"A magic trick," Trucy joked as she grinned in Apollo's direction. He just sighed and shook his head, unwilling to admit if it was a good joke or not in his opinion. Trucy just chuckled to herself and pressed down on the brim of her hand with a fist as her expression slid into something joking.

"There is one other question that I have," Mr. Wright cut in as he looked Apollo from head to toe. "Apollo, you know what injuries you sustained during the time of the crime, yes?"

Apollo nodded. "I most certainly do... The bruises hurt wickedly laying on the hard beds of the detention center," he admitted. He rubbed at his lower back with a wince, clearly trying to dismiss some of the pain that refused to leave him be.

"Do you have any scratch marks on your body?" Mr. Wright questioned. "The victim had blood under his fingernails from supposedly scratching someone. The blood on his hand was already tested, and we can say for sure that it doesn't belong to you. Still, I suppose that I'm a bit curious."

Apollo hesitated before he shook his head. "No, I only have bruises. I don't know what happened for me to wind up with so many injuries, but I know that whoever did it chose to not scratch at me or anything," he explained. "There are tons of bruises though, and they're practically everywhere... Well, everywhere except for my head and face."

"And you don't think that you were hit on the head or anything?" I questioned. "You already said that you don't have any injuries there, but I want to be safe rather than sorry with something like this, you know?"

Apollo shook his head once again. "No, I don't think so," he replied. "If anything, there must have been some other method used to knock me unconscious. I can't say that I remember exactly what happened at the time though. My consciousness drifted way pretty quickly after I was attacked. I didn't get any glimpses of who did it either. I just know that one second, I was walking through the hallway of the Prosecutor's Office, and when I came to next, Klavier was looking down at me and saying that something had happened," he said. I noticed tenderness slip into his voice at the mention of Prosecutor Gavin, but I chose to not prod him on the matter given the tense subject at hand.

"Then we're looking for another method for him to have been knocked unconscious that doesn't involve being hit on the head," Trucy confirmed with a small nod to herself. "I don't know what that could mean for us though. Unless we can find evidence of something that would have been able to knock him unconscious without leaving behind any injuries, then we're kind of stumped on this."

"It wasn't strangulation, that's for sure," Mr. Wright concluded firmly. "That would have left behind a set of bruises around his neck. Plus, if he was grabbed and held in any position for a long period of time, then he surely would have tried to scratch back at his attacker. Since that didn't happen, I think it's safe to say that this truly was a case of something happening that left behind no injuries."

"It could have been chloroform," I suggested. "I know that we don't have anything in terms of evidence to back that up, but it's the only idea that I've got right now, so we might as well go along with it for the time being. Unless we can come up with something else, it seems pretty likely."

"That wouldn't have left behind any injuries, that's for sure," Mr. Wright confirmed with a small nod. "But we can't say for sure that this is the case until we can find something to make it clear that there was chloroform used at the time of the crime. We'll have to scour the office and the surrounding areas for any evidence of chloroform. Forensics would be able to pick up on if a drug like that was found on any type of fabric, I believe. Ema has found things like that in the past."

"I guess that we know what we're looking for at the very least," Trucy declared. "The idea of chloroform being used makes a lot of sense, but it does make you wonder exactly how the culprit managed to get something like that into the Prosecutor's Office on top of the knife. It seems a bit strange that somebody would have been able to bring both of them into the building at the same time for the murder to take place."

"The jacket could have been used for something like that," Apollo said. "I haven't ever seen that jacket before this case took place, and I can say for sure that I didn't wear it inside the building. You can have Prosecutor Lin check the security footage for evidence to back that up. Somebody else must have brought it in along with the knife and chloroform. For all we know, there could have been more that was brought in too. That jacket really is big. I feel like I would drown in it if I was left in that thing for too long."

I let out a small snicker under my breath. "Because you're short?" I questioned playfully. That was the fact of the matter; Apollo didn't want to admit it, but he really was on the tiny side. Everybody else in the agency was taller than him, including Trucy, who was still a teenager. It was something that nobody let him forget, but Trucy and I were particularly ruthless about it when we were given the chance to make joking jabs in Apollo's direction.

Apollo didn't dignify my taunt with a response, instead simply sighing and shaking his head. "The point is that I haven't seen the jacket before, and if you can help me to figure out what's going on, I would greatly appreciate it," he told me. "I would prefer to not wind up properly arrested and serving time for a murder that I didn't commit, thank you very much."

"Of course we'll do that, Polly," Trucy assured him with a nod. "We're going to have to look around the Prosecutor's Office for anything that could be considered suspicious. It might not be easy, but it'll be worth it for you to finally be let out of the detention center. All you need to do is put your faith in us for a little bit longer, just until tomorrow's trial."

Apollo's expression, which was previously exasperated as a result of my teasing, softened as he watched Trucy speak. "I know," he said softly. "If there's anybody that I can count on for something like this, it would be the three of you."

"We'll do what we can to come down to the detention center and catch you up on everything that we figure out after the investigation is finished," I assured him. "I know that you're going to want to hear all about our interesting adventures. If I was in your position-which I technically have been-I know that I would want as much information as possible. We'll figure out what we need to do in order to prove your innocence, and you're going to be out of there in no time as soon as we take this to court."

"I'm glad that we're all in agreement on this then," Trucy smiled. "We'll go back to the office now so that we can look around. I hope that you aren't feeling too lonely down at the detention center until we're able to come and talk to you. That place must be awful to be stuck in for hours at a time. It's miserable for even just a few minutes, truth be told."

"Perhaps I can make it a bit less miserable then, ja?"

I smiled at the sound of the familiar voice, and I perked up to see Prosecutor Gavin walking closer with his trademark smile spread across his face. His hands had been shoved into his pockets, and everything about him seemed much calmer than it had been during the trial. His demeanor was less tense for one, and his voice actually seemed to be somewhat at ease. Given how worked up he had been previously, that was certainly an accomplishment as far as I was concerned.

But Prosecutor Gavin wasn't the only one to enter the room. He was followed by Simon, who was examining the contents of the room silently, never one to speak unless he had something to say. I waved to them both with a grin all over my face. "I'm glad to see you two again," I said kindly. "Are you going to head down to the detention center with Apollo, Prosecutor Gavin?"

The blonde man nodded in response. "I am. I'll be keeping him company until I am needed back at the Prosecutor's Office. I could hardly stand it if Herr Forehead grew lonely while he was awaiting the next segment of his trial. My heart may not be able to keep beating under the influence of that fact," he smirked, pushing some of his hair out of his face in the process. He was doing a fine job of keeping up the act that everything was fine in spite of his regular opinions, and I had to admit that I was impressed. He was doing better than he had been previously, but that didn't mean that it was a perfect performance. I knew him too well for that, and I could hear the way that his voice still strained at the edges from all the pressure that he had been under.

"I'll be returning to the Prosecutor's Office before him though," Simon said next as he shifted his attention off to the side. "I doubt that the detective on this case is going to let me get away without talking to her about the issue of the two photos. It certainly has everyone confused, but I know that nobody could have gotten into that room. I was just outside the door the whole time, and the doors were shut when I saw them before the police arrived."

"I can only imagine how much Ema is going to be panicking about this," Mr. Wright murmured under his breath. I couldn't help but smile to myself at the words that Simon had spoken on the matter though; most detectives were too intimidated to want to have anything to do with Simon, but it seemed as if Detective Skye had nerves of steel and was more than able to push through his iron-hard front. I was glad that somebody just as stubborn as him had wound up being the one to talk to him about this case, and something in the back of my mind wondered if perhaps the two of them would work well together as prosecutor and detective at some point in the future.

"We can ask her about it when we get down to the Prosecutor's Office," Trucy suggested. "For now, we have a lot to look around for. If Apollo really was drugged, then we're going to have to do what we can to look for evidence that happened. Just bringing it up isn't going to be enough if we don't have anything to back up our theories in court."

"But that still sounds easier than the matter of the evidence cabinet doors being randomly opened," I admitted under my breath. "There has to be a logical way to explain this, but if there is, we certainly haven't seen it yet... But I guess that's just an excuse for us to give it our all! I'm not going to let anything stop me in this case, least of all a ridiculous piece of furniture that doesn't know how to follow the whims of man!"

Trucy snickered at my words, and Mr. Wright offered a smile as he spoke. "But we can't do that until we actually get there," he pointed out, and I nodded in response. He glanced up to Apollo and smiled softly down at him. "We'll be back when we can with all the evidence that we have."

"And I'll make sure that he doesn't get into any trouble before then," Prosecutor Gavin smirked as he pushed another few strands of hair away from his face.

"I don't think that's going to be much of a concern. My two options at this point are to sit in a metal box with bars or a glass box where I can talk to people. I feel like I'll be able to keep from being accused of murder again as long as those standards continue to be met," Apollo said dryly. This comment earned him a chuckle from Prosecutor Gavin, and Simon gave him a simple snort but nothing more.

"We'll be back as soon as we find what we're looking for!" I exclaimed. I offered the trio of men a wave before I started to make my way to the door of the defendant lobby that would take us in the direction of the outside of the building. That was the first step to getting to the Prosecutor's Office to look around for evidence, after all, and it was exactly what we needed to do for the time being.

If I was being honest, I had no idea what in the world we could have potentially expected from the matter of the evidence cabinet that didn't want to listen to logic or reason. However, I did know that this was one contradiction that we simply had to solve, and I was going to figure it out no matter what.

Even if that stupid evidence cabinet wound up killing me, I would find the truth. I swore it.

And there's another chapter in the bag! Yay for the end of the first trial segment!

This case sure is a strange one with its main reason for the break, huh? The impossible evidence mystery is something that's going to have to be resolved sooner or later though. It's funny how something that seems so minor can wind up being such a large issue in terms of figuring out what happened at the time of the crime.

Writing the scene at the end of the chapter out in the defendant lobby was really fun. Since this story is so linear and based around the plot, there isn't all that much time for regular Ace Attorney banter fun times, so the time away from the trial at the end of the chapter was a nice way to see how the characters interact. Simon is still the same as ever, and Klavier and Apollo are totally in love but also being low key about it but also kind of bad at being low key about it. It's fun to see everybody together and talking in a setting with a bit less pressure behind it, you know?

Well, that's about all that there is to say this time around! When we next come together, it's going to be time for the second investigation, which has a chance to wind up the longest of the segments given how much is involved with it. Until then though, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Feedback is appreciated just like always. Have a nice day, everybody!

-Digital