Chapter One: Shadows of Memory

**trigger warning; this chapter contains BRIEF mentions of implied s*icide ideation that could potentially be distressing. Proceed with caution if you need to, your mental health matters and you deserve to feel safe!

It was easier for Edgeworth to breathe the moment that the plane's wheels at last lifted from the ground.

Franziska sat to his right, her posture so stiff she might've been made of granite. Even her typically-domineering presence seemed a thousand miles away to him as he stared blankly out of the tiny porthole on his left. As the ground inched farther and farther away, that slithering darkness twining itself around his gut seemed to loosen its grip just the slightest bit. And when the runway had gone from a blurred streak of dirt right below the plane to completely invisible as it intermingled with a widening view of the jungle of buildings and roads beneath them, when at last they were distant enough from the world below that he no longer knew where Los Angeles began and ended, that ever-present feeling of foreboding faded entirely.

Or — not entirely. It simply felt as if it were . . . biding its time. A lion, curled up and resting in the farthest reaches of his mind, relaxing now, but poised to strike again when the moment was right.

Edgeworth's eyes narrowed as he continued staring through the window at nothing in particular. Long ago, he might have been compelled to notice how beautiful it was up here, how it boggled the mind to see so much of the planet laid out like carpet below you — but that would have been a different time, a different person ago. A bitter smile almost touched the corners of his mouth; as a child, he'd never flown, not even when his father had been required to move around for work. Ray had always babysat him in those instances, and Miles had been left at home, itching with wonder at where Gregory Edgeworth could be, what it would be like to travel like that. And now, as an adult, it was simply part of the job. Yet another part of his life that had lost any sort of meaning.

When was the last time he had genuinely felt something towards his work, towards anything in his life at all? Of all the myriads of questions that had hounded him, buzzed around in his mind like a hornet's nest ever since the Hammond trial, that was the one that hollowed him out the most.

He could, however, remember a certain person who had dredged up . . . something within him, though he couldn't quite pinpoint what it was. And Edgeworth hated that more than anything else — the fact that he knew he owed everything to someone else, the fact that he'd been forced to grapple with his own foolish pride and lost everything he'd known to be true in the process. He despised that one person could have such power over him, could see right through him when no one else ever had.

He hated that, of all the people to have possibly made him feel anything, it was Phoenix Wright.

And, blast it all, why did his thoughts linger on the man even long after he'd boarded the plane and left the United States behind?

Something frighteningly close to guilt lanced through his chest at the thought of the state Wright would be in once he finally learned of what happened. In hindsight, part of Edgeworth wondered why he'd had the gall to leave the way he did — with nothing but a letter left on his office desk, left to be found by whomever happened to wander in after he'd already left. No other explanation, no parting words, just a plain, simple statement that he felt summed up everything quite succinctly.

Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death.

Franziska would have sneered at him for dramatics if she'd known his choice of words. She'd never been the sort of person to shy away from the blunt reality of things, never hidden behind pretty words to make things easier for herself or others. He supposed he ought to consider her brave for that, considering how often he used his own cleverness to disguise the bitter truth of his real feelings more often than not. But even she had obviously never been stranger to hyperbole, and in this case, he couldn't help but feel that the words he'd chosen were the best possible for the situation. Though he remained very much alive, some fundamental part of who he was — who he'd been all these years — had withered away with the closing of DL-6.

And if that part of him were dead, then what did it matter about the rest? What was there left, after all that was gone?

In any case, some small, nagging voice in the back of his mind wondered if perhaps he'd chosen that phrasing for a reason. If something deep down within him instinctually knew that, whatever his intentions in going to Berlin may have seemed to be on the outside, he had something altogether planned for himself in the end. Perhaps that part of him understood something that Miles Edgeworth would never allow himself to face — that he might eventually give up fighting these warring emotions, might grow so tired of the uncertainty that, in a moment of weakness . . .

No. He would not — could not — allow himself to think that way. For better or for worse, even if this pathetic attempt at soul-searching earned him nothing in the end, he had to stay alive. Physically, anyway.

More than a little shaken by the morbid nature of his thoughts, as well as the suddenness with which they'd arrived in his head, Edgeworth suppressed the shudder that ran through him and turned his attention to the flickering television attached to the seat in front of him. An inane romantic comedy being shown for free across the plane — as if such a thing could be counted as entertainment — but at least it provided a distraction for the remainder of the journey.

At his side, Franziska eyed him carefully, and he couldn't help but wonder if she saw right through the careful façade he still so desperately tried to uphold.

The manor loomed in the distance like a great white beast, a spiked dragon of pointed, twisting spires and ridiculously ornate towers that slumbered on the lush hillside that surrounded the estate, lording over all it surveyed. Fitting for a man like Manfred von Karma — Miles had always thought so. He could remember sitting in the passenger seat of the sleek black car that had first brought him here as a boy, peering through the window past the guarded front gates for the first time at what would be his home for the remainder of his childhood. Even now, that terror he'd first felt looking at that imposing silhouette it cut upon the horizon didn't feel all that distant in his past. Even Franziska seemed at a loss for words at the sight of it.

The chauffeur who had picked them up at the airport, a longtime member of the staff here, drove them through the gates with little fanfare. When at last they'd made it down the lengthy driveway and around to the front — an austere but open space of cobblestone and little squares of mulch that looked as if it might have wanted to be a garden, if the person who owned the property had actually cared for beautiful things — they clambered out of the vehicle and could only stare at the massive oak doors greeting them.

It was Miles who ventured for conversation first. "I must say, I . . . never imagined myself returning here."

"If words were enough, then my papa's memory of you alone would have kept you here," Franziska responded coolly. "After you left, his comparisons of my work to yours were constant. I heard your name so often that it was really as if you'd never gone anywhere at all."

The bitter edge to her voice didn't shock him — and perhaps that was what he felt guiltiest about. Growing up together, he'd been proud of the fact that he'd overshadowed Franziska in close to every subject, had craved Manfred von Karma's approval just as desperately as she. He'd believed that it made him something — something other than the child who had mistakenly killed his own father. Only now did he see with increasingly distressing clarity that perhaps his "little sister" hadn't had as idyllic an existence here as he'd thought.

"None of that matters now, I suppose," was Edgeworth's admittedly flat response, all the words that he truly wanted to say — all the apologies, the genuine compliments he wanted to give her for how hard she'd worked — getting stuck in his throat on the way out. "You never did explain what business we have here — or how long it will take."

Franziska sighed. "Do you remember our family's creed, Miles Edgeworth?"

He almost laughed at that. No, he didn't think that he was likely to ever forget it. The beginnings of a smirk touched the corners of his mouth. "To be totally perfect in every way," he recited smoothly, the words practically muscle memory by now. "That is what it means to be a von Karma. What does that have to do with anything, apart from your father's own hubris?"

Either she ignored the subtle jab or simply didn't care enough anymore to defend against it.

"My father wanted everything done perfectly, down to the last detail," she said, arms folded resolutely across her chest. "That did not stop with his death. Yesterday, I mentioned his . . . his will." She swallowed, blinking away the brief vulnerability that she didn't know Miles could see. "I did not lie when I told you that he left us nothing. Nothing physical anyway, nothing of any immediate value."

"But?" Miles prompted, an awful feeling of dread surging in the pit of his stomach.

Her mouth became a thin, impatient slash across her angular face. "It was his last wish that I come back here — that I be the one to handle old case files of his, and burn them. In the event that they should ever be discovered. I suppose he wanted any evidence of his illicit methods dealt with, before they could otherwise become exposed." A scoff punctuated her sentence. "Why should a von Karma care what is thought of them after they die? It is what we do while we are alive that matters. Foolish. He was better than that."

He supposed he could understand the anger and pain that laced her voice, the admiration mingled with disgust that didn't know entirely what it wanted to be. It hit him like a sack of bricks to the face that he wasn't the only one here with conflicting views of Manfred von Karma; the man who'd given him shelter, taught him to seek revenge and hone his fury and desire for justice as a weapon, who'd given him the entire career that he had today, dually juxtaposed with the man who'd murdered his father in cold blood, just as a way to settle a petty courtroom grudge. Dizzying imagery, to say the least. He couldn't imagine how Franziska was feeling in the midst of it all — though she and Miles had both had their differences and certainly could barely stand to be around one another at times, the fact remained that they had grown up as siblings, had come to care for one another on some level. He knew her well enough to know that her loyalty to her family's name certainly wouldn't have extended to wanting to see Edgeworth's father dead.

That there were truly so many former cases of Manfred von Karma's to be "dealt with" in such a way didn't come as a surprise to Edgeworth in the slightest. Much as it now ashamed him to think of it, there had been many that von Karma had used as a teaching opportunity with both Miles and Franziska when they were still learning the ins and outs of becoming perfect prosecutors. Knowing that now, knowing that he hadn't for a moment so much as batted an eyelash at what the man had done . . .

"And what are you going to do?" Miles found himself asking, though he wasn't quite sure why. She'd come all this way — surely that meant she was going to follow through with what her father had asked of her. "Typical, that a dead man should have no qualms with asking his daughter to effectively become an accomplice and conceal evidence. I trust you need no cautioning, as I'm sure you've already thought of this, but if this should go poorly for you, Franziska —"

"Oh, spare me you and your performative concern, Miles Edgeworth —"

"—you will be culpable. And I'm afraid in that situation, there is very little I or anyone else could do to help you."

"I don't need your help, foolish fool, nor do I need you as a moral compass," Franziska spat. "Need I remind you that you are here at all only out of courtesy?"

After a beat, she strode briskly forward up the steps, towards the front doors. Edgeworth, with a long-suffering sigh through his nose, followed suit. Franziska swiftly punched in the security code (her fingers slamming against the buttons with such force that he felt certain she was imagining his face on every one) and with a twist of the knob, the right door yielded to her touch and swung to let them both in.

Inside, the foyer was every bit as grand as he remembered. The soaring ceiling sported a massive crystal chandelier — how many guilty verdicts had paid for that detail alone? he wondered — that cast sparkling diamonds of light across the smooth, cold marble floor. The walls were painted a subdued, sensible beige, the color interrupted every so often by large portraits of von Karma ancestors or descendants. There were no paintings purely for the sake of beauty; plenty of trophies displayed in glass cases, awards and accolades hung up and gathering cowbwebs, but nothing that served the purpose of simply decoration. Manfred von Karma hadn't been a man who cared for frivolity.

"You know where your old room was," Franziska said flatly, her voice resounding in the open space. "I suppose you can sleep there for the time being."

"Of course."

A beat of silence that seemed to last an eternity passed between them. Just when Edgeworth had resigned himself to ending the conversation and taking his luggage upstairs to his old bedroom, Franziska turned to face him, her facial expression thoughtful. Her eyes gleamed like a bird of prey's as she stared him down, determined to find something there in his gaze; the intensity of it made him uncomfortable, though he didn't dare shift or squirm or otherwise give her the satisfaction of knowing such a thing.

"He didn't tell me where they are," she said at last, her voice stony, matter-of-fact. "The case files he wished me to retrieve, that is. All I know is that I will find the answers here."

Edgeworth blinked, utterly bemused. "But that's absurd," he said, too surprised to care how flabbergasted he sounded. "Why on earth would he go to all the labor of asking you to do such a thing as his last wish, only to send you on a wild goose chase? It makes no sense. Heaven knows how many case records there are scattered throughout not just this home, but police stations, his own office — why?"

Franziska arched an eyebrow. "You truly don't think it makes sense? Use your head, Miles Edgeworth. This is my papa, right down to the last detail. There is something he is purposefully withholding from me — from both of us — and this is the method through which I am to find what it is. He would never confess to me; he would want to ensure that I go to these lengths to figure it out on my own."

Because Manfred von Karma would have wanted to taunt, even from beyond the grave, would have wanted to constantly test his daughter's loyalty, make her prove herself to be a true von Karma. And knowing Franziska's vulnerability where that was concerned, he felt all too certain that she would fall for it, even if she realized what her father was doing in the first place.

"You said it yourself, Franziska," said Edgeworth. "The man is dead." He hated the way she flinched back ever so slightly from the harshness of his words, but he didn't dare balk from her, from the truth of the matter. "What would be the point in pursuing this at all? Why even give him the pleasure?"

For a moment, he saw that unshakable confidence flicker, but if he'd blinked, he would have missed it. In an instant, her usual carefully-crafted walls were back up again, her face a mask of frosty indifference. Her mouth curved into that familiar smug little smirk, and she said breezily, "Because I am a von Karma. And I leave no stone unturned."

He'd thought that with the closing of the Robert Hammond case, his nightmares about DL-6 would have left him be at last, too. But that night, perhaps simply because being in this place dredged up the absolute worst in him, the images he tried so hard to forget in the light of day came back in full force.

The inside of a cramped, cold elevator, the sound of cables screeching to a halt filling his ears. The lights flickering like the last few feeble heartbeats before a flatline, only to then wink out entirely, submerging him in total darkness. His father at his side — it was so real, always so real that it almost felt as if Gregory Edgeworth were there, standing right next to him, still drawing breath from the air. And then there were the desperate screams of Yanni Yogi rising to meet the steadily thickening air, the man's voice disjointed and increasingly hysterical. There was the thunk of the pistol landing at Miles' feet, the feel of it, heavy and metallic and icy, as he picked it up and clumsily threw it at Yogi. The bullet discharged, the smell of blood rent the air — and those screams — those horrible screams —

Miles Edgeworth was screaming himself as he woke to an unfamiliar bedroom, where even the air felt strange and stale. There was an atmosphere here, even under the cover of nighttime, that this place had never been lived in, never been a place that the person who occupied it could come to relax. The silk sheets slid under him as he pulled himself to a sitting position, still shaking, drenched in a cold sweat. Slowly but surely, his senses returned to him, that hazy sleep-induced veil over his mind lifting by the second. The details of the room came into sharper view — the desk pushed against the far wall, the bookshelf off to his right filled with legal textbooks and old notebooks, the bare walls — and he remembered that he was not at home, not trapped in America. He was here, back in Berlin, back in the place that he'd sworn he would never return to . . .

And though he didn't believe in such wooly things as fate, he couldn't help but wonder if perhaps his being here was more fortuitous than he'd realized. He had to stop Franziska — had to make sure that her father's crimes no longer went unknown, unnoticed. Even if it was an exercise in futility, even if there was no punishment they could afford a dead man, no punishment that could ever possibly make up for the things von Karma had done . . .

He had to convince her not to hide them any longer. Perhaps this would be his chance to finally absolve himself of the very things he himself had kept hidden all these years.