June 7

District Courthouse

Defendant's Lobby No. 5

3:00 PM

Phoenix Wright

Arriving out in the defendant's lobby felt like taking a breath of fresh air for the first time in an eternity. In a way, that was the truth; the trial had lasted five hours before it finally drew to a close with the confession of guilt from Hugo Osborne. None of it felt real even though I knew it was. We had finally reached the end of this calamity, and everything could finally be left in the past once and for all.

"We did it!" Athena cheered once we were out in the lobby. She threw her arms around Trucy and picked the smaller girl up with a laugh before spinning her around. Trucy grinned the whole time before being put down, and she adjusted her hat once she was back on solid ground. "We're finally done with this case! And we were able to prove Prosecutor Lin's innocence too!"

"It all ended the way it should have," Apollo smiled. "Though I never would have expected that Detective Ponce would have been lying to us for so long before the trial began... We ran into him so many times before all of this started, and we were never the wiser to the truth of his actions."

"He wanted to keep the truth of his past as Hugo Osborne a secret by any means necessary... That was why he went so far, and it was why Detective Nyde was killed too," I murmured. "But now, he's going to face his own kind of justice. He decided that this was better than putting up a fight against Oracle. He knew he wasn't going to win, and so, he just surrendered."

"It certainly makes things easier on us to not have to deal with him again," Athena remarked as she smiled with a shake of her head. "I would rather not have to go through all of that a second time. He put up one heck of a fight in the courtroom, and I don't think I would have liked to see that again."

"Nobody would want to," Trucy agreed. "But now, it's in the hands of others. They're going to make sure he finally sees justice for everything that happened, and since he admitted it, I imagine that his trial is going to be a brief but righteous one. Finally, all the people he hurt and killed can be laid to rest."

"And it's thanks to all of you."

Prosecutor Lin walked out of the courtroom a moment later, a small smile on her face. "I don't know where I would be now if not for all of you putting so much effort and energy into that trial to help me. I knew I was right to put my faith in you when this began," she told us. "I knew you wouldn't let me down."

"I'm glad we were able to show that you didn't do it too," Trucy grinned. "Now, we finally understand everything about this case... And everything that happened in the past with your mother's death too."

Prosecutor Lin smiled gently at that, her eyes growing bittersweet and tragic. "Yes... We do understand," she confirmed softly. "I never thought the truth behind my mother's death would come out quite like this. I was so sure that it would take a lot more research before I stumbled into the one who killed her, but Hugo Osborne was right under my nose all this time. He was watching my every move to make sure I didn't find out who he was, and he even went so far as to frame me for murder to get me out of the picture."

"But he can't do that ever again. Where he's going, he'll only be able to think about everything he did for a long time," Athena assured Prosecutor Lin with a grin of her own. "We finally understand everything that we've been searching for... And we can leave it all in the past too."

Prosecutor Lin sniffled as she let one hand come up to rub at her eyes. "I... Thank you so much for everything you've done for me," she whispered, just barely managing to choke the words out around the knot in her throat. "I don't think I can say it enough. Finally, this nightmare of mine is over... I may not be able to bring my mother back, but I can at least say that she, Natasha, and the original Gordon Ponce are finally able to rest in peace. At long last... Everything is over."

Prosecutor Lin seemingly gave up on trying to hold back her tears, and she pressed one hand over her heart with a smile. "I could never thank you enough for everything you've done for me, and... I want you to know just how much it means to me. Thank you for everything," she told us softly.

"The past will stay in the past from now on," Apollo assured her with determination gleaming in his eyes. "Everything is over."

Prosecutor Lin nodded once more. "Yes... And that's the way it should have been from the very start." She looked over Apollo's shoulder before her eyes went wide, and recognition and joy blossomed in her eyes once again.

When I turned, I saw Chrysalis and Mr. Morix walking toward us, smiles on both of their faces. Chrysalis looked the best she had since the attack took place, finally able to carry herself with some degree of gravitas as she had before all of this. She said nothing as she looked up to all of us, a small gleam of pride in her irises. I knew exactly what she was thinking; she was proud of us for using the weapon she had given us to win the trial. We never would have been able to win without the gift that she had presented to us the day before, and she knew it. We would certainly have to discuss it one way or another after the festivities around the trial had ended.

"Thank you so much for everything you did for us," Mr. Morix smiled. He was much less hesitant about talking than Chrysalis, and he reached one arm around Prosecutor Lin's torso when he was close enough to her to do so. He hugged both of his sisters close, and all three of them offered smiles to one another. Mr. Morix began to cry before he could hold himself back, and he let out a watery laugh before continuing. "My apologies for making a scene, but... Thank you for doing so much to find the one who killed my mother. At long last, she can rest in peace."

"You don't need to thank us for that. We were happy to help," Trucy assured him. "Finally, everything can be left in the past... The way it should have been from the start, if you ask me."

"Yes... At long last," Mr. Morix agreed with a small nod. His eyes took on a different sheen than before, and he gazed off in the distance with reminiscence and tragic joy. Everything was finally over, and the war he had spent the last two years fighting could be laid to rest after all this time.

Prosecutor Lin laughed as she nudged him with her elbow. "You're just as much of a sap as ever," she teased, clearly trying to joke her way through the tears flowing firmly down her cheeks.

"As if you're any better," Mr. Morix retorted with a laugh of his own. He shook his head before pulling his arm away from behind Chrysalis and brushing away a few of Prosecutor Lin's tears. The prosecutor laughed at that before she threw her arms around him in full, and Mr. Morix staggered backward by a few steps despite being so much taller than her. The two stayed like that for a while, Chrysalis looking on fondly.

"Either way, I think we can say without a shadow of a doubt... That you are all people to be trusted," Prosecutor Lin managed to say when she was able to calm herself once more. She looked to me, Apollo, Athena, and Trucy with a fond smile on her face. "I knew I was right to place my faith in you, and I can see that plain as can be now. Thank you... For being people I can believe in."

I offered her a small smile in return, knowing no words could truly function as a full response to everything she had just said. "Of course... You're welcome."

"Nick!"

I barely had the chance to register the word before Maya had come up behind me, practically tackling me to the ground. I yelped with pain along the way, only barely managing to keep my footing as I forced her to stand behind me. "M-Maya!" I exclaimed as I whirled around to face her. "You can't just do things like that!"

Maya let out a laugh. "I couldn't help it! Everything's finally over! The trial ended the way we had been hoping, and everything is all back in order!" she announced with a joyful grin. "Great job in there! I knew you would be able to do it!"

"You did great, everyone!" Pearl chimed in, and I realized that she had come in with Maya after the trial ended. She had, of course, opted for a much more normal way to greet us though, and for that I was eternally grateful.

"Thanks, Pearly!" Trucy beamed as she bounced on her toes on the spot. "That was a tense one, but it all went the way we had been hoping, and that's what matters most. We can finally leave all of this behind us."

"But only after a celebration, I would assume," Maya remarked. "After all of that, I think you deserve a bit of time to celebrate everything you did. That wasn't easy for anyone involved, and you've more than earned a break."

"You can say that again," Apollo muttered, though he didn't focus on the words for long. Instead, his eyes went wide when he noticed another person had entered with Maya and Pearl. "P-Prosecutor von Karma!"

My eyes shot open as I realized that the one and only Franziska von Karma had followed Maya and Pearl out into the lobby. She had one hand pressed against her hip, and she regarded all of us with eyes that I knew were the closest to a genuine smile she allowed herself to get. I offered her a smile in return. "I suppose you were able to find the time to hang out with Maya around work after all, huh?"

"As if there was ever a doubt of that, Phoenix Wright!" Franziska snorted with a roll of her eyes. "She insisted on coming to see this trial though, and I decided to indulge her... It was quite the show to say the least."

"And we were able to figure out the truth behind the case where you were arrested too," Trucy grinned. "I think that's a perfect ending to all of this. Now, we don't need to ask any other questions about the one who had you framed. We know who the assassin was working for, and he's finally been brought to justice."

"I doubt even someone as slippery as Hugo Osborne will be able to put up much of a fight when brought to heel in his own trial," Franziska remarked. She glanced around the area before her gaze found Prosecutor Lin, and I could already tell by the way her eyes shifted that she had a lot more on her mind than she wanted to admit. "I never would have imagined you would have been proven innocent of the murder of Hugo Osborne... Much less that he would be the mastermind behind all we have seen as of late."

Prosecutor Lin pulled herself to her full height at that. "I know what you thought of me," she told Franziska bluntly. "You thought I was the one behind his death all this time... His trap worked exactly the way he had been hoping it would."

Franziska went tense, refusing to fully apologize the way she always had. "I may have had a moment of foolishness," she admitted slowly. "But he is going to face justice one way or another now that all of this is over. I may not have ever met eye to eye with you, but... I am glad to know that the truth has seen the light of day now."

"You don't need to say that you're sorry. It's fine," Prosecutor Lin assured her with a jubilant laugh. "I already know what you're thinking whether you want to admit it or not. You feel bad about how everything panned out. I'm not going to hold it against you or anything though. I can't say I blame you for your suspicions, unfounded as they may have been. I just hope we can start over now that the truth has finally been dragged into the light."

Franziska nodded stiffly. "Yes... Perhaps we can," she murmured. It was the closest to an admission of wrongdoing that anyone could have ever gotten out of her, and Prosecutor Lin seemed to know that, so she offered the other woman a small smile before letting the subject dissipate on the wind.

"I think this calls for a celebration, and a big one, too," Maya announced as she pressed her hands to her hips. "That was how all of this started to begin with, right? You were going out to celebrate a recent courtroom victory, and everything spiraled out of control."

"You're right!" Trucy gasped. "I had completely forgotten that this all started since we were hoping to enjoy a bit of time out of the office... The last few days have been so eventful that it feels like it was a lifetime ago now. Still, I think you're right when you say that we're entitled to a bit of time to relax."

"You can say that again!"

Kay was the next to make herself known, waving one arm above her head as she walked in through the door. Behind her, I could see Maggey, Detective Gumshoe, and Miles, all of them wearing smiles of varying strength, though I knew they were all just as excited about this outcome as the rest of us. Kay darted over to us first, pressing her hands together in a clap over her chest. "We all need a bit of time off after all of that. This case has been a disaster and a half," she continued.

"We've been investigating Oracle for so long too... I think we deserve a break from it all," Detective Gumshoe agreed with a small laugh.

Detective Gumshoe didn't seem to know what can of worms he had opened by bringing them up, but many others in the room did. I shot a cautious glance to the others of the agency before shifting my focus to Prosecutor Lin, Mr. Morix, and most importantly, Chrysalis. "Do you think you're going to try and learn the truth about Oracle even now?" I asked slowly.

Detective Gumshoe shrugged. "I'm not sure, pal. It's been a lot of work to find anything about Oracle at all, much less to even come close to figuring out who they really are," he admitted. "With the end of this case, I think we might give it a break for a while. We can think about it a bit more after we've had a chance to rest. The last few days have felt like a century, and I want at least a little time to kick back and relax. We can think about getting back on the Oracle case once that's been taken care of."

"Detective Nyde gave up on the investigation, but we're not going to give in that easily," Kay grinned. "Besides, I'm certain I'm going to find the truth soon enough. It's what I do." She sent a quick wink in Miles' direction, a reference to her work as the Yatagarasu. Not many people in the room knew the nature of her work, but those who did were just as sure as she was that she would find a way to uncover the truth one way or another. That was just what she did. That was just what the Yatagarasu did.

"Just try to not get too ahead of yourself, pal," Detective Gumshoe reminded her. "We've done a lot these last few days, and I think we deserve a little time to relax before we get into the thick of anything else. I know I want to stay away from big cases like this at least for a while longer."

"I guess you're right, Gummy," Kay hummed. "That just manes we're going to have to turn all of our attention to celebrating instead! I hope you're all ready for a great party, because I'm not going to let this opportunity go to waste as long as we have it!"

"I would be happy to treat everyone to dinner," Miles declared. "This has been a long and arduous case, and I agree that we need a bit of time to ourselves after that mess. This has been a long time coming."

"You can say that again," Maya agreed with a hefty sigh. She let all of the tension in her body melt out of her shoulders with the exhale. "I'm just glad everything worked out in the end. I mean, that Hugo Osborne guy still needs to be tried for all of his crimes, but he's basically admitted to it now. He's not going to be able to worm out of this one, not this time."

"I certainly hope not."

Ema came walking in a moment later, a small smile on her face. Trucy waved to her brightly, her hat bouncing ever so slightly on her head before falling perfectly into place once more. It was part of Trucy's magic in its own special way nobody could quite describe. "Hey, Ema!" she chirped. "You saw the end of that trial, right? It was amazing!"

Juniper, who had entered alongside Ema, nodded her agreement. "It was! I'm glad everything worked out in the end... Though I never would have thought that we would find that the detective was the one responsible... Then again, if it's happened twice now, I suppose it's not out of the question to say that it could happen again," Juniper remarked, her voice getting softer with each passing word.

"I never would have thought the one responsible would be right under our noses, especially for that long," Ema chimed in, quickly moving attention away from Juniper's words before any of us could start thinking about the Phantom in more detail. "I mean, I've been working with him for ages now, and I never would have expected him to not only not be the real Gordon Ponce, but actually be a killer responsible for the deaths of so many people... Four people was the total we heard in the courtroom. All this time, he was helping us out with investigations even though he had killed three people, or more recently, four people."

"At least the rot has been removed now," Prosecutor Lin pointed out. "We're not going to have to deal with him anymore. He's going to head to the courtroom soon enough, and when he does, there's not going to be any escape for him. He already made his decisions, and he's going to have to live with them from here on out."

"At the time, I really thought it was odd that he knew exactly where to go to come and see me where I was near the scene of the crime, but it makes a lot of sense now," Juniper remarked. "I thought he arrived so quickly, but I thought there would have been some other explanation for it. Instead, everything turned out to point to him being a killer and a criminal... He was waiting for all of that to fall into place."

"He would have gotten away with it under slightly different circumstances too," Prosecutor Lin frowned. "But he has this bad habit of distancing himself from a case as soon as he has the opportunity to do so. I suppose that after what happened with SR-3 when he was arrested, he decided that he didn't want to risk getting in close and paying the consequences for it. He decided to keep his distance instead, and that was all it took for everything to come crashing down."

"The old saying goes that criminals always return to the scene of the crime. Even when breaking that rule, he wasn't able to save himself from suspicion," Ema nodded. "I was sure during the trial back there that he was going to find a way to worm out of our reach again after you got close to pinning him down, but it seems I had nothing to worry about in the end."

"There wasn't all that much evidence to help us out either," Prosecutor Lin agreed with a small frown. "In the end, the only way we were able to figure out what really happened was because of the interference of Oracle. Well, I say that, but Oracle didn't get directly involved at all. You just had to bring up Oracle's name, and he crumbled like a house of cards immediately afterward. I think he knew just as well as the rest of us that there was no going back then."

"Even without directly showing up at all during this case, Oracle had such a massive impact... I suppose that's just the way it goes with them though," Juniper murmured. "This has happened quite a few times now, and it always seems to end with some disaster involving the truth of their identity... At least everything ended well enough this time for the criminal to end up behind bars."

"Oracle would have taken care of it even if we didn't," Trucy pointed out. "It was a bad situation for him all around. He wouldn't have gotten away even if he found a way to slip out of our reach during the trial. There wasn't much evidence of his past actions, but as long as we pointed Oracle in the right direction, they could have found at least something to reveal his crimes. Even if there was no evidence, people are in love with the sensationalization of Oracle enough now that they would have at least tried to listen to what they had to say on the matter. Everybody wants to know what's really going on with them whether they want to admit it or not, and in a lot of cases, that means hearing them out when they say someone is up to no good."

"Oracle really is a strange one..." Kay murmured. "Even after all this time, it feels like we understand so little. I suppose that's what we're going to have to use the next leg of our investigation for. As long as we have the chance to do something about all of this, then we're going to have to take advantage of it. Oracle is just waiting to be discovered at this point, and I'm going to jump on the trail as soon as I can!"

"Just be sure to take a break first," Detective Gumshoe reminded her. "I know that we've all seen enough activity to last a lifetime and then some, and I don't want you to push it anymore than you already have."

"I think we should leave all of that Oracle talk in the past to focus on the celebration now anyway," Maya suggested. "We've been talking a lot about the case even after saying that we could leave it alone since it's over now. We should go out and try to have a good time while we can! I think we've earned the time off!"

"Maybe we won't get interrupted by a murder this time," Trucy teased half-heartedly. "I think it might be a good idea to stay away from Hawk Park if we can get away with it. That would probably decrease our chances of getting caught up in anything."

Chrysalis rolled her eyes dramatically but playfully. "I feel like if a murder is going to happen, it's not going to wait for us to go to the right place to get involved with it," she remarked offhandedly. "I mean, if your luck is just that bad that it happens no matter what you do, then it feels like an inevitability."

"What a ray of sunshine you are," Detective Gumshoe murmured, and Chrysalis just snickered under her breath. Detective Gumshoe looked back to Miles with a smile on his face. "So? What do you say to us going out to eat now that everything is over?"

"We should go get burgers!" Maya exclaimed as she clapped her hands together excitedly. "I could use a little something special, especially since a certain person here wasn't able to take me out on a date at first due to work complications." She elbowed Prosecutor von Karma at that, and the blue-haired woman just rolled her eyes thickly and slowly. She didn't say anything in response, clearly not intending to rise to Maya's bait.

"Would the three of you like to join us?" Miles questioned as he looked to Mr. Morix, Prosecutor Lin, and Chrysalis. "I think we all deserve to celebrate that not guilty verdict, especially those who were at the heart of the case."

For a long moment, Miles made eye contact with Chrysalis, and the two simply stared at one another, trying to feel out what the other was communicating. I knew exactly what was going on though; Miles was trying to subtly tell Chrysalis that he knew the truth of her deadly secret, but he wasn't going to be speaking a word of it to the rest of the world as long as she wanted him to remain quiet. It was a passive understanding but an important one, especially given the current circumstances.

If anyone else noticed that the two of them were watching one another for an oddly long time, they chose to not say anything about it. Instead, Chrysalis simply looked over to her siblings, and Prosecutor Lin smiled. "As long as we're being offered free food, I don't think that's a proposal we can refuse," she pointed out. "Thank you for this, Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth. Just be careful that something like this doesn't get out. People could start to think I'm your favorite at the office."

Kay laughed at that, but when Miles shot both her and Prosecutor Lin a sideways glance, her chortling only got louder. Miles rolled his eyes at Kay's excessive laughter. "It doesn't matter. This is a celebration between people who worked on an important case, nothing more. Let us leave it at that and set off," Miles declared as he started toward the door. He moved with a finality that made it loud and clear that he wasn't going to be slowing down for anyone, not after Kay and Prosecutor Lin had teased him.

"Let's get going then!" Maya announced, clapping her hands together once more. "I know this is going to be great! Burgers always taste the best when they're part of a victory lap from a case in court." Maya started around the corner after Miles, and the rest of our party began to trail after her as well, leaving the defendant's lobby primarily empty.

The last person not from the agency to move toward the door was Chrysalis, and she stared at us for a long moment. Mr. Morix, who was standing in the doorway, seemed to notice that she had stopped, and he looked over his shoulder at her. Chrysalis met his gaze before sneaking in a quick glance at me, Apollo, Athena, and Trucy. "Give me a moment. I'll catch up with you," she told her brother. Mr. Morix looked to the four of us as well before he nodded, trusting his sister to be able to handle whatever happened next. With that, he rounded the corner.

It wasn't until after me and the other members of the agency were alone with Chrysalis that she allowed herself to sigh in relief. "I think we have a few more matters to discuss before we truly wrap up this case once and for all," she told us. I wasn't particularly surprised to hear this, though I wasn't entirely sure what it was that she would want to share with us. We had already covered most of our bases in the courtroom. Still, if she wanted to talk, I supposed there was little I could do to refuse.

Apollo and Trucy shared a look, and Athena glanced over to them as well before she nodded back to Chrysalis. "Yeah... I suppose we do," she said slowly. She cleared her throat before pushing her shoulders back and staring at Chrysalis carefully. "What is it you want to talk about?"

Chrysalis smiled wryly, the answer already clear even if none of us could say it out loud without risking being overheard. "A few lingering details from the trial," she said in place of the actual response. "Assuming you're ready to hear what it is I have to say, that is." As usual, she was testing us. Speaking with her felt like a constant obstacle course with no clear solution, though that was simply par for the course with her. She had a lot to hide, and now, all of us did as well as some of very few privy to the secret.

"Of course we're ready," I confirmed for her even though she already knew that too. Oracle was a constant dance in many ways, and this was simply another piece of the routine. If all went well, this would be the last time we had to hear the intimate details of the performance though. If all went well, we would one day be able to leave Oracle in the past the same way we had finally been able to seal off this case once and for all.

Somehow though, I already knew it wasn't going to be that simple, and I was sure everyone else knew it too.

The end is in sight, everyone!

I don't have all that much to say about this chapter specifically since I think a lot of it speaks for itself, but I can tell you about the remainder of the story. After this, there will be one more chapter as part twenty-five of this case to cover the conversation with Chrysalis. From there, the next week will release the epilogue along with the character profiles as we gear up for the end of it all. Character profiles are a bit of a tradition with my big stories like Morix and Alitia, and by request, I decided to do them here too. So you'll be getting some little profiles for everyone in the story after everything else is out.

Wow. I can't believe this story is really almost over. It doesn't even feel real, if I'm being honest. I started working on this story in June or so of 2021, and here we are in late October of 2022. Just... Wow. Really is amazing just how much time flies, huh?

Next week, we'll come together for the last main chapter of this story. Until then, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Feedback is appreciated as always. Have a nice day, everyone!

-Digital