"I think that we both know that only one of us is supposed to be here... And it most certainly is not you."

"I want answers. I know the truth about everything that you've been doing."

"But it seems that you weren't smart enough to come here prepared for a battle."

"I wouldn't say that."

*BANG!*

"Drawing attention to me isn't going to make this any easier for you... In fact, I think that you've just signed your death warrant. You shouldn't have come here, but since you did... I'll go on and spare you the trouble of having to go back home."

"...!"

"...And so everything ends the way that it should... That's just the way that I like it."

June 21

Morix Law Offices

1:00 PM

Venus Rinko

I had taken to dramatically draping myself off the edge of the couch located in the main area of the agency, letting out a small yawn along the way. Not all that much had happened since the large case the month before with the murder at the gymnastics competition. I suppose that Mr. Morix and Chrysalis told me the story of how they met Prosecutor Lin, and while that was nice, I could tell that there was still a lot going on that I didn't know about. That applied both in and out of the agency, but since I had no idea how to approach it without somehow upsetting someone, I ultimately opted to stay quiet.

I had finished everything that I had to get down about an hour ago, and that meant that for the rest of the day, all I could do was lounge around. Chrysalis was still working on some sort of paperwork nearby, not that I really knew all that much about it. She was much faster with these things than I was though, and I couldn't help but notice how she had managed to go through more than half of a large stack of pages without even flinching. I didn't know how she did it, truth be told.

I ultimately rolled over onto my stomach and began to sit on the couch somewhat normally as I looked over to her. "So... What do you think we're going to be getting up to today?" I asked of her. Mr. Morix was elsewhere in the building, though I supposed that was fine with me. It meant that Chrysalis and I were available to indulge in a little bit of certified girl time, and I rather enjoyed that idea, I had to admit.

Chrysalis offered me a jerky shrug. "I'm not sure," she confessed. "You could call KJ, I suppose. You two certainly seemed to hit it off after you helped to free him of murder accusations." She began marking down on the page once again, not at all caring about the severity of her words or what it could mean for me and KJ.

Her words were enough to make me flush. "I don't know if I would go that far..." I told her carefully. It was true that KJ and I had started talking in the aftermath of the last case that we were involved with, but I didn't think that really meant anything. I mean, you could talk to anybody without it being romantic. For all of my teasing and playful flirtations, I really wasn't that great at noticing when people were like that with me specifically, and KJ was hardly an exception to the rule.

I was quiet for another long moment before I looked up to the ceiling. "Hey, maybe we'll wind up getting a case. I feel like that would do a good job when it comes to entertaining me, you, and everyone else around here," I pointed out. It wasn't as if we had anything interesting to do in these long spaces between investigations. There weren't any underlying cases that were prompting us to go out and search for evidence, so hanging out in the agency and waiting for something interesting to happen was going to have to settle as a distant second to actually getting out to do the interesting things of my dreams.

That was when the door opened, and I perked up at the sound of Mr. Morix walking into the room, a light frown on his face. He sat down on the couch soon afterwards, reaching for the remote. I had completely forgotten that the remote was there, truth be told, but Mr. Morix was most certainly aware of it. His expression was stoic, and his gaze locked solely on the television before us. I raised an eyebrow in his direction. "Uh... If you don't mind my asking, what's going on?" I questioned. I knew that he wasn't going to mind, but I said it anyways just for the sake of clarity.

Mr. Morix shook his head. "There's been another murder in town," he replied. "Ghastly sent me a text to tell me to turn on the news to find out as much as I could."

I smirked to myself at his use of Prosecutor Bespoke's first name. He had been doing that ever since he first started to date the prosecutor, and while I did appreciate it, I thought it was much more fun to use that information to tease both of them mercilessly. "Oh? So you're getting requests from him now to go out and take on cases so that you can face off against him in court? Wow, I didn't realize he was that openly playful," I joked, getting right into the merciless teasing without missing a beat.

Mr. Morix simply sighed, looking away from me and trying to get rid of the notable embarrassment that had come to cloud his features. "It's... It's nothing that you need to concern yourself with," he said under his breath in a shaded mumble, and that was more than enough in terms of evidence for me that this was something that I should be thinking about. I glanced over at Chrysalis and saw that she had almost entirely abandoned her task of filling out forms, instead smirking up at her brother devilishly. I let out yet another snicker at the sight of her so excited about this.

The television was quick to drown out all thoughts of that though, and Mr. Morix frowned deeply as he pointed to the screen. "It's a murder case in an abandoned building. The place was completely isolated at the time of the crime as far as everyone involved with it is aware. The culprit shot the victim multiple times in the chest before making their escape, and I'm afraid that we don't know all that much about who was responsible for this," he told us. "We have no ideas as to who the witnesses even are, though I suppose that's par for the course right now."

"Yeah... It's not like they're going to start talking about the details of the case in depth on live television," Chrysalis agreed as she slid the pages off to the side. She leaned forward intently like she thought that would somehow get the information to her even faster.

"A suspect has been taken into custody for this case. The chief prosecutor of the local district, Hans Cristopher, was seen in the area at the time of the crime. His actions have been deemed suspicious by police, and as such, he is the one on trial for this gruesome crime. Police are still investigating the specifics of what happened."

That was enough to catch my full attention if there was any chance that I was still focusing on KJ, Chrysalis' incredibly fast writing skills, or teasing Mr. Morix about his new relationship. "The chief prosecutor?!" I exclaimed in surprise as I glanced around to the other people in the room. "There's no way that they're being serious about something like that. He's got so much power within the district. How in the world could he wind up being accused of something like murder?"

"You say that, and yet, here we are," Chrysalis murmured, her eyes having gone wide. "I've heard of the man a few times. A lot of people enjoy being around him, and apparently, most of the prosecutors in his employ are rather fond of him. The details are hard to pick out though; he's just as secretive as he is caring to his employees, I suppose."

A phone began to ring a moment later, and Cotoli reached into his pocket upon recognizing that it was his ring tone. He gasped at the sight of the name on the screen before answering the call. "Hello?"

He began to murmur into the receiver from there, but I ultimately decided that I didn't want to snoop too much on the conversation. I was sure that I was going to be hearing about it after the fact regardless, and I had something much more important to do in that moment. I got to my feet and stretched my arms above my head, something that Chrysalis followed up on soon afterwards. We both knew that this was going to result in a case for us, and we wanted to be read for what was bound to come next.

Mr. Morix hung up the call a moment later, a frown notable on his features. "That was Ghastly," he told us. "He said that he wants us to defend the chief prosecutor. It seems like we aren't the only ones who have heard about what happened in that abandoned building."

My eyes went wide. "You can't be serious," I murmured. "You can't possibly want us to go out there and defend somebody that important. I mean, we've got a great win record, and we totally know what we're doing, but... This is a bit different from anything that we've done up to this point."

"Ghastly says that the chief prosecutor specifically requested that we come and speak with him at the detention center. I would say that's an offer that we can't refuse," Mr. Morix told us with a light shrug. "I don't know why he would request us specifically, but I'm sure that we can't just leave him there as long as he's looking for help. Why don't we go on and head over there to see what we can find?"

I nodded vaguely. I didn't know how I was supposed to feel about all of this, but I knew that there was something about the situation that was starting to bother me already. Why would the chief prosecutor of all people want us to defend him? We were still relatively new when it came to figuring out cases, and yet, he was sure that he wanted us to look after him and his case? That made me nervous for reasons that I didn't know how to articulate, but I ultimately decided that I didn't want to protest it. After all, this was a cure for my boredom, and that was what I had asked for... Right?

June 21

Detention Center

1:45 PM

Venus Rinko

The detention center was the same as I remembered it, and I had to admit that I took a small amount of dismal comfort in the fact that it was unchanged compared to my memories. I sat down on one of the chairs in the area and gestured for everyone else to do the same. Our client hadn't yet arrived, and that meant that the three of us were left to boil alive in our own anxieties. Thanks for that, universe. It's just what I was hoping for.

It was an excruciatingly long five minutes of silence later that the chief prosecutor appeared on the other side of the glass. He was a tall man, albeit not as tall as Mr. Morix, wearing a gray suit. Something about his bright, pastel blue eyes was terrifying to me. The orbs were so piercing that I thought that he was going to somehow impale my soul on a spear without even trying. His hair was a pale blonde color and perfectly combed to frame his face. Everything about him was so well put together that it didn't even seem real, and all I could do was stare, my jaw slightly ajar. This most certainly was the man that we had seen on the television presentation not long before we came here... Chief Prosecutor Hans Cristopher.

"You three must be the lawyers that I requested... Good," Chief Prosecutor Cristopher said as he settled down in his seat. "I'm glad to see that my message was able to reach you. I was concerned that Prosecutor Bespoke wouldn't be able to reach out in time before I was assigned another lawyer to look over my case... I sincerely apologize for the short notice."

Mr. Morix shook his head. "Don't worry about that. We want to help you as much as possible," he assured the man. "My name is Cotoli Morix, and these two are Venus Rinko and Chrysalis Starr. We'll do everything that we can to make sure that you're not found guilty of this crime."

Chief Prosecutor Cristopher smiled and nodded to him. "That truly is a relief to hear... I was not the one who killed the victim of this case, let me assure you. It was someone else entirely. I may have stumbled upon the crime scene, but that doesn't mean that I'm the guilty party. I assure you that I would never aim to harm another human being in such a way," he told us firmly.

"So you weren't the one who did this?" Chrysalis questioned, fiddling absentmindedly with the Magatama hanging around her neck.

Chief Prosecutor Cristopher shook his head. "No, I was not the one who killed the victim," he replied. "I found the body, but that was all that I did. There was nothing else of note that took place at the time, and the fact remains that I did not kill her."

"What exactly did happen?" Mr. Morix asked cautiously as he examined Chief Prosecutor Cristopher with a critical gaze. "I'm afraid that we're notably uninformed regarding this case. It only came up a short while ago."

Chief Prosecutor Cristopher held up one hand and shook his head. "Please, it's no issue at all. I would be more than happy to explain... The victim was a woman found in an abandoned building on the outskirts of town. Many had left the building behind since the business inside of it was eliminated from the area and moved to a different location. She was shot many times in the chest and was killed in a notably brutal way. The culprit escaped somehow, and I... I found the crime scene after hearing the ruckus. Unfortunately, I was not the only one to overhear what happened, and so... A few witnesses of the gunshots came to see what was taking place, and then, they found me standing over the victim's body."

"Was this last night then?" I questioned with a light frown. "With the way that you're talking about it right now, all detached from the incident, I feel like it wasn't something that happened earlier today."

The man on the other side of the glass nodded. "Yes, it was last night. I just so happened to be in the area, and when I heard that something unfortunate was taking place, I simply had to come investigate. After all, I'm a servant of the law. What good would I be if I simply passed over a terrible injustice being committed?" he questioned with a gentle smile. "Unfortunately, entering the building that night just so happened to be my undoing... It's tragic, but I would have been lying if I said that some part of me did not see this coming."

"Do you have any ideas as to who could have done this?" I asked. "Did you see anybody leaving the scene of the crime or anything? If you have any leads, we would be more than happy to take them."

Chief Prosecutor Cristopher shook his head. "I'm afraid not. The only people who may be able to help you would be the two who initially found me at the scene of the crime... It seems that I was far from being the only one investigating at the time. I can't tell you the names of the witnesses though... I believe that I only heard their initials."

"Their initials?" Chrysalis echoed. "That's an oddly specific thing to know if you weren't aware of their names."

Chief Prosecutor Cristopher shrugged. "They claimed to by D and Q," he replied. "That was all that they were willing to share with anyone. I'm sure that they would be able to help you find more in terms of information."

Mr. Morix nodded. "I see... In that case, I suppose that we should go off to the crime scene and see if we can get any information out of them about what happened at the time of the murder," he remarked. "It was nice speaking with you, Chief Prosecutor Cristopher. You can count on us to do everything that we can to find the truth."

"Thank you for everything. I'm counting on you to be able to get me out of here. Please... Do what you can," Chief Prosecutor Cristopher smiled. He waved gently in our direction as we walked out of the visiting room, Chrysalis shutting the door just behind us.

Chrysalis let out a heavy sigh once we were in the hallway. "D and Q are Interpol agents, I think. I remember reading online at one point that they go by letters to keep their true identities a secret," she explained. "As for that man himself... I think it's ironic how the chief prosecutor is telling us to do everything that we can to help him find the truth behind the case when he's falsely convicted countless people or let criminals go thanks to their incompetence."

"You don't seem to like him much," I commented with a light frown. "I know that you're on the jaded side, but... I don't know. This just seems like a lot for you."

"I suppose that he just strikes me as being odd," Chrysalis replied with a loose shrug. "I don't know how to articulate it. Something about him is just... Off. But I guess that doesn't matter now. We have to go and look around the scene of the crime so that we can figure out everything that's going on, and it would be for the best if we did that before we got distracted with anything else."

I nodded. "That sounds like a plan to me," I declared. "Let's get right to it."

June 21

Abandoned Building

2:45 PM

Venus Rinko

When we arrived at the scene of the crime, the first thing I noticed was just how rundown the area was. I winced at the sight of the building that was on the verge of completely falling apart. There as a small alley off to the side, and it seemed like the perfect place to do something shady. In fact, that was more than clear because of the way that there were graffiti markings all over the walls on either side of the alleyway. I shook my head at the sight before turning my attention to the building itself.

Luckily, it seemed that fortune was smiling down on us amidst the chaos, as once I looked over to the building, a familiar face made herself known. Detective Wattson walked out into the open, and her eyes went wide when she saw us. "Ah, you three... I didn't realize that you were slated to be involved with this case," she said simply. "It's nice to see that you're here though. It's a relief to see a familiar face in a time like this."

Chrysalis and Mr. Morix shared a knowing glance. A moment later, they shook it off, and Mr. Morix looked back to Detective Wattson. "Is something the matter with this case?" he questioned carefully. "If there are any details that you can share with us, we would be more than happy to hear them."

Detective Wattson nodded as she let out a sigh. "The victim was one Mea Albrecht. She was shot multiple times in the chest by a particularly brutal killer. She was found dead in this building, and the defendant was standing in the entryway of the building. He was ultimately cornered by none other than a pair of Interpol agents who just so happened to be in the area at the time on an unrelated investigation. From there, he was arrested as the suspect for the crime, and everything seemed to fall into place after the fact," she said. "This case is bound to be an intense one... After all, your client is the chief prosecutor. There are many people who will be looking in on this case out of curiosity, and it could mean quite a few unfortunate things if something just so happens to go wrong."

Chrysalis snorted. "No pressure then," she muttered. "Do you know anything about the victim?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," Detective Wattson replied. "She was on the police force, and she was trying to investigate a recent surge in what she believed to be forged evidence... You remember the incident of a back alley deal taking place, yes? It came up as the motive for murder during the last case that we were involved with together."

"That's right," Mr. Morix remembered with a small nod. "The victim of that case stumbled upon a back alley deal and was ultimately killed for it all."

"Well, the victim of that case was friends with the victim of this case. It seems as if Officer Albrecht was trying to find the truth behind what happened since she wanted to seek justice for her companion, especially after the evidence was destroyed," Detective Wattson replied. "She was investigating this area because she was trying to show that there was something more going on behind the scenes of the case, but we aren't sure what she was looking for specifically. We have quite a few questions at the moment, I'm afraid."

"I see... Thank you for telling us all this," I smiled to her with a gentle bow of my head. "Do you think that we would be able to look around at the scene of the crime? After all, we're the ones who are going to be defending him when the case goes to court, so the more information we can get our hands on, the better."

"Go right ahead... Though I will warn you that it might be somewhat difficult to speak with the witnesses. They're rather... Cagey, I suppose, when it comes to the information that they're allowed to share. They've only stated what they were doing when the crime was discovered, and they haven't breathed a word of their reasons for being in this area to begin with," Detective Wattson replied. "They're somewhere in this area, but I'm not sure where they are specifically. For the time being though, I suppose that you can concentrate on trying to figure out as much as you can about the actual murder. I welcome you to look around as much as you like. Just... Be careful about what you get into, alright? The building has been mostly cleared of potential hazards due to its condition, but it would still be best if you were as cautious as possible."

"Of course," Mr. Morix said with a firm nod. He turned to me and Chrysalis before gesturing to the door of the building. "Let's go on and see what we can find then."

"Oh, but first... You'll probably be wanting a copy of this," Detective Wattson told us. She reached into her bag and pulled out a manilla envelope before handing it over to Mr. Morix. I was able to figure out what it was rather quickly. It had to be the autopsy report, and sure enough, it was confirmed as such a few moments later.

"Thank you," Mr. Morix smiled to her. "We'll do what we can to find out as much as possible about this case. Thank you for all of your help up to this point."

"It's no issue at all. Just do what you can to stay safe in the midst of all this," Detective Wattson told us. Something about her was overly cautious all of a sudden, and I would have been lying if I said that it didn't catch me by surprise. There had to be something else on her mind, but I didn't have the slightest clue as to what it could possibly be.

Still, I didn't have all that much time to think about it. I let out a small breath and began to walk in the direction of the building, the other two hot on my heels. I crept inside carefully, glancing around at the scene that unfolded before me once I was inside of the building proper.

There were a few lights set up around the room to illuminate the space because of how dark it was naturally, likely because of how it had fallen apart so many years ago. The body could be seen at the center of it all, sprawled out on the ground in a pool of stark crimson. The blood had dried up, but I could see just how dangerous the situation had been at the time of the murder. There were many bullet injuries dotting her chest, and I winced at the sight. It was nothing short of brutal, and I didn't think that there were any words to describe the disdain I had for the culprit of this case.

"Ouch," Chrysalis said under her breath, but I could tell that she was primarily saying it so that she didn't have to fully think about just how jarring this scene was to look at. "I guess that we should start to look around here for evidence, huh?"

I nodded and began to look at the ground below. I had no idea what we were supposed to be searching for to begin with. There was something amiss here, and I could feel it long before I could realize just what it was that was catching my attention in such a way. In fact, I had no idea as to what it was that could have been so wrong. I was just sure that there were alarm bells going off in the back of my mind that I couldn't seem to silence no matter how hard I tried.

"Look at this," Chrysalis said as she crouched down low to the ground. "Is it just me, or does it seem like this is writing in the blood?"

I let out a gasp and realized that she was right. I went to her side and saw that there was something indistinct written in the crimson. I couldn't see what it was trying to say though because of how poorly it had been put together. "Could it be the name of the culprit?" I questioned softly. "I don't understand... How could this have been written in the first place?"

Mr. Morix frowned as he began to open the autopsy report. "It couldn't have been," he said quietly. "It says here that the victim died instantly due to her injuries. She was shot many times in a row, and after the fact, she was killed. She had no time to write anything out that could have made it seem like she was trying to point to who her murderer was."

"I don't like that at all," Chrysalis told us with worry in her eyes. "That doesn't make any sense, but there has to be a reason for all of this... I wonder who could have written this. Is the culprit trying to make us believe that somebody else was responsible for the case?"

I let out a small gasp as I remembered to pull out my phone and turned on the flashlight. I glanced down at the scene a moment later, the light illuminating the area. The closer light source made it much easier to see what was being written, but it still looked like a bunch of complete nonsense. I frowned at that, but I still did what I could to try and find out what it said. After all, it seemed to me that it was two sets of writing layered on top of one another.

"Hey... I think I've figured it out!" I gasped a moment later before I looked up at the others in the room. "Remember what Chief Prosecutor Cristopher told us about the witnesses? He said that they were going by the names of D and Q because they were Interpol agents. If they were trying to hide their identities, then the letters would be the best way to go about it, so I feel like it's safe to say that they were doing this on the night of the murder too."

"And the writing on the ground..." Chrysalis murmured, her eyes going wide. "Do you mean to say that you think...?"

I shrugged. "Well, I can't be sure, but this writing does look an awful lot like the letters Q and D written over and over again, right? And then... It's the same thing on top of that, but it isn't at all done well, so it just looks like a mess," I replied. "That's exactly what it looks like to me, but how in the world could that be the case?"

"I have no idea," Mr. Morix confessed with a shake of his head. "But I think that this is one thing that we're going to have to ask them about after we speak with the witnesses about what they saw. Until we find them though, let's look around the crime scene more. We don't have enough proof to point fingers in any direction right now, so let's do what we can to keep searching."

I nodded my agreement, and so did Chrysalis. From there, the investigation began anew, but one thing was on our minds constantly: just what was it that caused the impossible letters to be written in blood?

This case is so eerie and I love it

-Digital