May 1

Blackgate Community Center

4:35 PM

Chrysalis Starr

The inside of the gymnasium was exactly what I expected to see, and I mean that in the worst way possible. There were people and police officers chattering around the area to try and find even the slightest trace of evidence from the murder. The supplies from the competition were set out at the center of a blue mat that marked the floor, bars and beams extending skyward from there. A pair of rings hung from the ceiling from another event, and I shuddered at the sight of the circles dangling from the ropes. There was still blood splattered against them from the moment of the murder.

The victim was a gymnast who had been in the middle of the climax of her performance, her legs swinging in every direction as a show of just how much power she held and how much prowess lived in her body. The crowd's cheers seemed to halt for a moment as she grew closer to the end of it all, and that was when the gunshot rang out, a clapping echo that screamed throughout the gymnasium. People ran screaming for the doors, and Sora grabbed me with all the maternal overprotectiveness that she could carry. No matter how much she obsessed and doted over me in the aftermath though, I could see that there was fear living in the back of her mind much the same way that it thrived in the shadows of my own head.

There was a single outline of white tape against the blue of the mat, and I winced. The body had landed unceremoniously on the ground just beneath the rings swinging from the ceiling. There was blood everywhere, just another symptom of the greater problem, and I pressed my lips together to keep the memory of the murder playing back again and again on a constant repeating cycle. I forced myself to glance away, finding my eyes locked solely on Sora's shoes instead of the corpse waiting in front of me.

"Hey, Yuri, how about we go and look around the rest of the gym for other clues?" Venus questioned. When she was met with a perky smile and nod from her younger sister, Venus sighed and glanced over in my direction. "Chrysalis, can you please take her? I don't want to have her investigating the body, and you're not going to be in the trial, so..."

"Of course," I assured her with a gentle nod. I walked in the direction of the black and white haired young girl, ready to shift her away from the body that seemed to be etched into the back of my mind. It was one thing to investigate corpses as part of your livelihood, but it was another thing entirely to watch someone who was so full of life to suddenly turn into a hollow shell that I couldn't understand or comprehend in the slightest.

Yuri and I were on the way to walk off from the scene, awkwardness starting to manifest in the back of my mind, but we were ultimately cut off when Yuri let out a gasp, one hand flying to her mouth. "No way!" she hissed to me. Her fingers clamped around my sleeve, and she tugged with the brutality and jerkiness that I would expect from a younger sister.

"Yuri, what are you-" I fell silent as soon as I glanced in the direction that she had come to point in. She was pointing to a pair of people on the other side of the gym, and beyond that, they were people that I had met before and was more than familiar with.

Cassidy was standing with Prosecutor Bespoke, and beyond that, they were talking. I hadn't been given the chance to ask Sora about the strange behavior of Cassidy and why she was at the Prosecutor's Office to begin with, but it seemed as if we would be able to hear the explanation and truth from the horse's mouth before we could ask third parties. Yuri seemed to agree, and she started to drag me off to the other side of the gym. She would have torn my shoulder free of its socket if I wasn't careful and quick enough to follow in her footsteps.

Yuri wasn't the only one to notice what was happening, and Cotoli and Venus ultimately moved beside us as we walked in the direction of the pair of people waiting for us nearby. Cassidy and Prosecutor Bespoke were too caught up in their own conversation to notice what was happening though.

Yuri was the one to break through Cassidy's chat with him though with a cough that sounded like a clearing of the throat. "I didn't expect to see you here, Cassidy," Yuri said, her tone filled to the brim with overwhelming suspicion. She had her arms crossed over her chest in a show of curiosity and defiance.

Cassidy just about jumped out of her skin, glancing frantically between Prosecutor Bespoke and Yuri as her features grew pale. "Y-Yuri...! Venus...! What are you doing here?" she questioned, seemingly giving up on the idea of trying to cover for her tracks. She had been caught in the act, and as such, she was unquestionably guilty of the crime of going behind the backs of her sisters.

"I could ask you the same thing," Venus frowned. She sighed, her arms falling down to her sides. "If you don't mind my asking, why are you here? I didn't realize that you were going to be investigating anything, much less alongside Prosecutor Bespoke."

Cassidy stammered in the silence as she tried to find a way to explain before she let out a heavy sigh. "I... I asked him to help me with something after the last case," Cassidy confessed. "I wanted to find out more about how to investigate cases. I didn't want to go to the agency though since... Well... I knew that you wouldn't want me to get involved with this. You think that I'm too young to get involved with all of this, and... You might be right, but... I had to find a way to do what I could on my own."

"I understand," I told her carefully. She looked up to meet my gaze with those words, and I offered her a small smile. "It's... It's a complicated situation, I suppose. You want to learn more one way or another."

Venus hesitated before she let out a sigh and shook her head. "Alright... If you think that you want to do this, then... I'm not going to stop you. I just ask that you stay out of trouble where you can. I don't want anything bad to happen to you," she said cautiously. When Yuri shot her an offended glance, Venus smiled in her direction. "That applies to you too. As long as you're careful, I guess that you can do this. Just... Don't look at the dead bodies for me, will you? I don't think that's the job of anybody, much less someone younger than sixteen."

"Deal!" Yuri exclaimed, clapping her hands together excitedly. "Look at us, the three Rinko sisters investigating and having a great time together! Well, as good a time as we can given that we're in the middle of a murder investigation. That's kind of a hard thing to explain, and I feel like each word is digging me a bit of a deeper hole."

"We can start off by talking to the witnesses around here," Sora suggested. She glanced up to Prosecutor Bespoke and waved gently to him. He nodded in her direction. "It's nice to see you here, Ghastly. I didn't think that we would be crossing paths at a place like this."

Prosecutor Bespoke simply shrugged. "I heard that there was a case, and I had to come and check it out when the chance came. I didn't realize that you were all going to be here," he confessed.

I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow in his direction. "Or perhaps you heard that my sister and I were witnesses and came since you thought that it would bring a certain prince of yours running to investigate," I told him as I tilted my head in my brother's vicinity.

Prosecutor Bespoke didn't respond to that though. Instead, his eyes simply went wide, and he pointed to Sora before pointing down to me. I waved, and Sora did too. As he put the pieces together, he opened his mouth and then closed it again ineffectively. "You two are..."

"Yeah, we are, but that's fine," Sora told him with a wave of one hand. "Don't worry about it. For now, we've got other things to be focusing on, I think. For example, we can check out the case that's waiting for us. If you don't mind telling us about it, we would be more than happy to hear all of the details that you're willing to share."

Prosecutor Bespoke nodded, recovering from the fumble of not understanding that me and Sora were related. He didn't comment in the slightest about the prince remark that I had thrown his way, choosing to not acknowledge it because he wasn't sure of how to confront it. "The murder took place earlier today in the middle of a gymnastics competition. The victim was shot at the apex of her performance, and she was killed instantly due to a single bullet that entered her heart. The entire audience saw what took place, and the immediate wish for evacuation caused the shuffle of the crowd to take the culprit away. There was someone arrested for the crime, but I'm afraid that I don't know any of the details quite yet. You'll have to forgive me for not being able to tell you more," he explained.

"Are there any other witnesses that we should be speaking to?" Cotoli questioned with a heavy frown. He was also choosing to not openly refer to the prince comment that I had made, but I could see pink starting to speckle his cheeks at the very implication of what I had stated.

"Well, you already know that these two are going to be witnesses. They had a better vantage point of the crime than the people in the actual stands, so that means that they're probably going to be called to testify," Prosecutor Bespoke explained. "I'm still getting caught up on the details of this case, so it's going to be a bit before I have anything out of the ordinary to tell you."

"There was one other person who seems to be testifying," Cassidy said next. "It would be a man who just so happened to be watching from against the wall. He volunteered to help out with the competition, so he was closer than anyone else to the actual murder. We haven't been able to talk to him quite yet either, but he said that he saw something important."

"I see..." Venus murmured under her breath. "Well, if you're starting from the same ground as we are, then I guess we can consider this a pretty even match. All we need right now is a little bit of information to try and get us ready for the next step of the investigation."

"Perhaps I'll be able to help with that."

A voice came from behind us, and I turned around to see a woman with brown hair and a bucket hat sitting haphazard on her head standing nearby. Unlike the rest of us, Prosecutor Bespoke recognized her immediately, and he took a step in her direction. "Detective Wattson, I didn't realize that you were going to be the one in charge of this investigation," he commented.

"Could you do the honors of introducing us?" Cassidy asked as she looked up to Prosecutor Bespoke with concern reflecting in her eyes.

Prosecutor Bespoke nodded in response. "This would be Vera Wattson, a homicide detective working at the local precinct. I've been on a few cases with her in the past, and she's been a great help. She's good friends with Detective Erikson, so I'm sure that you're all going to get along," he explained. "Detective Wattson, allow me to introduce you to the rest of this little investigative posse of ours. You've met Prosecutor Sora Lin already, but these are the Rinko sisters, Venus, Cassidy, and Yuri. Finally, there's Cotoli Morix and Chrysalis Starr, a defense attorney and his assistant respectively. They're going to be involved with this case most likely, so you can look forward to seeing them again a bit more in the future."

"I see... Well, it's nice to meet you all," Detective Wattson smiled. "I take it that you're all new to the investigation given that you were just discussing how little you understand about the case up to this point. If that's the case, I would be more than happy to enlighten you on what has been taking place thus far."

"That would be great," Cotoli told her. "If there's anything that you can tell us about the investigation, we would be more than happy to listen."

Detective Wattson nodded as she took a small breath to ground herself in the present moment. "The defendant in this case is a young man by the name of KJ Jett. He was an onlooker in the audience, and... His fingerprints were found on the murder weapon. After the chaos of the crime, there were many people that fled from the gymnasium, leaving this place rather empty and desolate. People feared that they would wind up as the culprit's next target, but... Mr. Jett was one of the only people left in the area. He was the only one in the gymnasium, as a matter of fact, and the other major witness on this case saw him handling the gun in the aftermath of the murder."

"Is there any connection between the defendant and victim that you're aware of?" Cotoli questioned, his lips tipping downwards into a frown.

"I'm afraid not. We aren't sure of anything that could possibly resemble a motive, but we do know for sure that his fingerprints were found on the gun. He's a rather young person, I have to confess. He can't be any older than some of the girls standing here," Detective Wattson frowned. She gestured in the direction of myself and Venus, and my eyes went wide as I glanced up at her. Venus seemed to be just as surprised at this as I was at this.

As soon as the initial shock passed over me, I felt a twist of bitterness shift in my stomach. Was this really anything out of the ordinary? Out of the three cases that Cotoli and I had been involved with since he passed the bar exam, all three of them had young teenagers as the suspects to murders and brutalities of endless tragedy. This wasn't even surprising to me anymore when I thought about it critically, and that was the thing that hit harder than I could have ever expected it to.

"However, even if we aren't entirely sure if there's a connection between the defendant and victim, the fact remains that this Mr. Jett's fingerprints were found on the weapon," Prosecutor Bespoke pointed out. "So be it, I suppose. Well, what do you say, Mr. Morix? Do you think that you're going to be taking on this case?"

Cotoli hesitated for a long moment before he glanced over in the direction of me and our sister. His expression grew heavy, and he nodded slowly and cautiously. "For now, we'll at least start to look around. I'm not sure if we're going to be able to actually take on this case, but..." He once again shifted his attention towards me and Sora, and I knew that he was thinking about the fact that we were going to be testifying. Something in his expression shifted though, and he nodded. "Alright. We'll do what we can to find the truth of this case. I can't confirm anything since we haven't been able to speak with the defendant yet, but I'll do what I can for the time being."

"Looks like we're going to be investigating together once again then," Prosecutor Bespoke grinned in his direction. I nudged Cotoli in the side with my elbow, knowing that Prosecutor Bespoke's peculiar behavior was just more evidence in my corner of him investigating this case because he assumed my brother would be involved. Cotoli looked over at me with a slight tint of pink rising in his pale cheeks, but all I did in response was smirk.

"Let's go on and take care of this then," Venus declared, clapping her hands together. "We've got a dead body to check out." Yuri looked over at her with a smirk, and Venus gave her a dulled glare. "And by we, I mean me, Prosecutor Bespoke, Prosecutor Lin, Detective Wattson, and Mr. Morix. You will be staying here with Chrysalis and Cassidy. Do we understand each other?"

"Fine," Yuri sighed with a shake of her head. "In that case, you can go off and check that out. I'll see you a bit later, I suppose. I don't think that I've had enough of a chance to get to know your new best friend anyways." Yuri immediately turned to face me before I could even fully process the words coming out of her mouth, and I stumbled back by a step or two. "I owe you some thanks then, huh? You've done a lot to help out my sisters leading up to this point, and Venus practically doesn't stop talking about you and your brother."

Venus looked at Yuri with such notable mortification, her eyes going wide as she addressed her younger sister. Cassidy raised one hand to cover her mouth as she laughed under her breath. "Yuri!" Venus cried out. "I don't think it's polite to just tell people so bluntly that you've been talking about them behind their back!"

"I don't think it matters all that much. You've been talking about how much you like spending time at the agency, and I don't think that's really anything to be ashamed of," Yuri continued, either not noticing her sister's frustration or choosing to not call it out openly. "It's going to be fine. I think that it's nice to be able to talk with the girl behind all of the words that you've shared with me up to this point. I bet that Chrysalis will want to hear about your baby sister too. After all, I'm the only one who hasn't been arrested for murder up to this point, so I haven't been able to talk to her quite as much."

"Please don't jinx it, would you?" Venus questioned with a sigh. She looked up to me, and I noticed how much I was blushing as soon as she shifted her attention in my direction. I hadn't realized that Venus was talking about me, and even if it was all platonic, it still made me a bit nervous. Venus didn't have a crush on me in return, not that I was particularly surprised about this, so that meant everything was fine. Romance would only complicate what we had going on in the first place, wouldn't it?

I pulled myself out of thoughts like that when Venus placed a hand on my shoulder. "I hope that Yuri doesn't give you too much trouble. I'm not too worried about Cassidy, but Yuri is my younger sister, and I mean that in every possible way you ca imagine," she continued with a light laugh. "You're not going to be able to be on the defense if you're on the witness stand, so I'll take your position for the time being. I'm going to find the truth behind this case no matter what. You can count on that no matter what, got it?"

I nodded, glad that Venus was so oblivious about my emotions towards her. Yuri didn't seem to fall into this category judging by the devilish grin that had spread across her features from her place a few feet away, but I chose to not look at her openly out of fear of suffering from debilitating embarrassment from my own internalized struggles. "I... Um... Yeah. I got it," I told her with a nervous smile. "Don't worry about me. I'll meet back up with you after the dead bodies are out of the picture."

Venus nodded, pulling away from me as she waved in my direction. She started to walk off with the adults in the group, and I found myself looking over at my shoulder where she had touched me. I still felt endlessly embarrassed from all of that, and I didn't think that I was going to be moving past that anytime soon. I just hoped that Cassidy and Yuri didn't notice too much of it. That would only make this harder and more embarrassing for me.

Unfortunately, the gods of the universe were not looking down on me fondly in that instant, and Yuri snickered as soon as the other group was out of sight. "Do you have a crush on my sister?" she questioned teasingly, stepping a bit closer to me.

"Of course not," I told her, beyond relieved that I had learned how to refine my lying skills over the years. I didn't think I would ever need them for something like this, and yet, there we were. "Venus and I are good friends, and I was surprised to hear that she was the type to talk about me behind my back. I'm not upset about that or anything since I know that it was all in good faith, but... It caught me by surprise since I didn't realize that she was doing that."

"But you got all embarrassed when she put her hand on your shoulder," Yuri pointed out, and I found myself resisting the urge to openly wince because she was right. Yuri was frighteningly perceptive, I had to admit. "I can tell it when you're lying, you know. It's something that all Rinko families have been able to do for ages. According to our mother, we get it from our father. He's always been able to pick up on when people are putting up a front about something, and I can see it too. Venus and Cassidy can do it too, though one of my sisters tends to be a bit oblivious to how others feel about her, and it's not the one standing here with us."

I didn't know how to respond to that at first, but luckily for me, Cassidy swooped in to act as my savior. "Leave her alone, Yuri. You shouldn't pester her over something like this. It's rude to try and push people to share their feelings," Cassidy told her. Yuri immediately deflated, but Cassidy simply gave her a light smile. "Don't feel so down. We're here at the scene of an investigation just like you were wanting. You were able to come here even though Venus didn't think this was the best idea. This is a pretty good way to kick off the rest of the day, wouldn't you say?"

"I guess that you're right," Yuri agreed with a light shrug. "We'll just have to see what happens from here, I suppose. I'm excited about this, I have to say. All three of the Rinko siblings are going to be helping to find the truth behind this case. As long as we're investigating the truth, we're sure to figure out what's been taking place behind the scenes."

I held up one hand to interrupt her rattling. "Members of your family have been able to figure out when others are lying?" I questioned. That was the one thing that I was focused on above all else, and I was choosing to fixate on it rather than the fact that Yuri had so quickly figured out my feelings towards Venus.

Yuri nodded with a wide and bright grin on her face. "Yeah! It's something that we've always been able to figure out, I suppose. I guess it's just kind of... We can feel it. I don't know how to describe it aside from putting it that way. It's like a little taste on the back of my tongue or an instinct in my stomach. I can just tell when people are lying to me, but I can't say for sure what they're being dishonest about or what the truth is. You have to do a bit more digging if you want to find out something like that," she explained.

"I see... That's something that could certainly help us out in terms of our investigations," I murmured. I shifted my attention in the direction of Cassidy a moment later. "Speaking of that, I guess that you would be able to come and work with us at the agency now that Venus knows the truth. You were trying to keep her from going into overprotective sister mode by going to the Prosecutor's Office, right? Well, since she's heard about what you've been doing, you can come to work with us now if you'd like."

Cassidy shook her head. "I appreciate the offer, but... I think that I'm alright where I am. I like working at the Prosecutor's Office a lot more than I thought I would. Prosecutor Bespoke is a nice man, and I would like to be able to get to know him better from here on out. I think that it's nice to think of us sisters parting ways instead of running around the agency as a bunch more teenagers to take up your brother's time and attention," she smiled with a light chuckle.

"I'm not quite like that," Yuri said as she glanced over to me. "You can get me into the agency, right? I totally want to help out! Venus makes this place sound like tons of fun. We might not have been able to do all that much today before the case started, but I think that it would be cool to keep on with investigating. You can totally convince Venus and your brother to let me start helping out. They both really like you, so you might as well use that to help me get in good with them!"

I blinked numbly in her direction before I shook my head with a small grin on my face. "I don't think that I can do that quite so easily. I'm not going to push their boundaries any more than I have to. You'll have to ask Venus first to make sure that it's alright for you to start investigating with us, and it's up to her. She knows what this work is like, and I don't want you to become overwhelmed by all of it," I told her. "From there, we can go to my brother and ask if it's alright for you to work with us."

"Venus is never going to let me. She didn't even want me to come here today, and she's not going to let this happen a second time. This is my only chance," Yuri pressed.

"You never know that for sure. Venus shook her opinion as time went on, and she's letting you help out with the investigation now. I would say that this is a step in the right direction for sure. You don't need to be so confident that she's not going to let you help out with the investigation," I reminded her. "It'll just take a bit of time for you to check things out and see how it goes. We'll let Venus decide what the best option is when the right time comes."

"Alright," Yuri agreed with a small nod, though I could tell that she still wasn't going to be dropping this issue until she heard an answer that she could enjoy from her sister and my brother. At the very least, that took the pressure off me. I didn't think that I was the best at talking to kids, and Yuri was no exception to this rule. Then again, she hadn't shouted at me angrily yet, so that could be considered a note of victory on my end, right?

Cassidy suddenly tapped on Yuri's shoulder and pointed to the other side of the gymnasium. "Hey... I don't remember that man being here before now," she pointed out quietly. "He's not even wearing the regular uniform of the police, so he has to be involved with the case otherwise."

I followed where she was gesturing to, and I saw that there was a man on the other side of the gym just as she had said. It was a man wearing somewhat casual clothing, though everything about his posture still seemed formal and tense despite this. I didn't quite know what to make of him, but I did have to agree with Cassidy that he stuck out like a sore thumb.

"That could be the other witness," I realized. I looked down to Yuri with a light smile. "Well, if you want to talk to a witness about a case, I guess this is going to be your chance to do so. We can go and get the others to see what we can learn about the time of the crime. They would want to help us out and hear more from this person when we go talk to him."

"Then let's go take care of this!" Yuri declared, clapping her hands together excitedly. She started to dash off, and Cassidy and I shared a knowing yet quiet glance about it. Even if I hadn't been able to talk to Cassidy quite as much, I could already tell that we were taking the right first steps.

Our next step though was to talk to this witness. I was looking forward to this. I wasn't going to be able to investigate this case with my brother, so the least I could do was investigate what I could. Nobody was going to be able to stop me from doing that much.

Double update time! You guys can look forward to double updates through the end of September so woohoo!

-Digital