February 19, 2:00 PM

District Court

Courtroom No. 2

"All rise, honorable Judge now presiding," the bailiff announced drolly.

The loud thwack of the gavel against the wood signaled the commencement of the trial. "The court is now in session for the trial of Diego Armando." With a great cacophony of rustling fabrics, the gallery was seated. Godot– no, Diego now, Godot had died nine days before– remained standing. As the defendant and defense attorney, all eyes were on him.

"The prosecution is ready, Your Honor," the sallow prosecutor announced. Winston Payne was about as threatening as a cueball and only half as bald. For someone who lauded himself as a 'newbie killer', Diego's experience on both sides of the bar couldn't help but notice his abysmal winrate. Knowing the judge, if he really wanted to he could most likely get away with a Not Guilty sentence.

Key words being 'if he really wanted to'. But that was a foolish thing to want. In defense of Maya Fey or not, he had killed Elise Deauxmin– er, Misty Fey. Stabbed her in the back with her own dagger. Getting off scot-free would condemn him more truly than any gavel ever could. The truth, guilty or not, would be what gave him penance. For killing her… and for not being there when Mia Fey was struck that final time.

Oh, how he missed Mia Fey.

"The defense is ready, Your Honor," Diego stated.

"Mr Armando," the aging judge said, focusing his attention on the visor-wearing ex-prosecutor, "It is my understanding that you plan to represent yourself…"

Diego nodded. "That is correct, Your Honor."

"But aren't you a prosecutor?" Hah. Diego had been Diego before he was Godot. Hell, he was certain he had served as a defense attorney with this judge presiding. Maybe the old man needed some of Blend #22 to get his senses in order…

"I moved to the prosecutor's office recently, but I started as a defense attorney, Your Honor."

He shook his head. "Even so, I cannot allow–"

"Objection!" Diego cried, his voice and the slam of his fist against the desk cutting through that vile statement. "I reserve the right to defend myself! Besides, I'm suspended from the prosecutor's office until the conclusion of this trial."

"Hmm…" The arbiter nodded after some thought. "Very well, I'll allow it. After all, anyone who defends themself has a fool for a lawyer."

Now there was some food for thought. "Are we not all fools, Your Honor?" Diego tapped his glowing visor, shining that grayish color that he knew should have been red. But the color red did not exist in his world. "But I got myself here. And nobody needs to take responsibility for my actions excluding myself."

"As you wish, Mr Armando. The prosecution may begin its opening statement."

"Thank you, Your Honor," Payne said, tapping his wrinkled brow with a cruel smirk on his face. "The defendant stands accused of both murder in the second degree and tampering with evidence. On February 7th, he stabbed the victim through the back in front of a witness. He then cleared away the evidence of his crime and moved the body with an accomplice who was subsequently arrested for said crime. The prosecution will now…"

A confident grin surfaced on Diego's face as he set his left hand onto the desk, in the prime position to intercept a well-aimed cup of coffee, blend #37. Not his most intense mix, but a good start to what would hopefully be a productive trial.

Payne was successfully perturbed. "Uh…"

"Yes, Mr Armando?"

His fingers closed around the handle of the mug, the warmth tickling his fingers. "Interesting story, prosecutor. Curious to see how you tie it all together." He took a sip. "Please, do continue."

After a moment's hesitation, the prosecutor cleared his throat. "The prosecution will now call its first witness to the stand." In a couple of seconds, she came out to the lectern, still wearing the robes of the shrine maiden of the Hazakura Temple. His conspirator. Someone who had no business being punished for his mistakes. Iris Hawthorne had told him before the trial that she would testify to give a lesser sentence to the both of them. He had ordered her not to spin it, perhaps a little too harshly. To be punished for his crime was all that he really wanted. The verbal spat was nothing a mug of coffee couldn't patch up. All in all, if this went how he expected, it was a fairly good deal. "Please state your name for the court record."

"I-Iris," she stammered. "I'm Iris Hawthorne."

"You aided the defendant on the night of the crime, corr–"

"Objection! Leading question."

"..."

"Sustained. Mr Payne, please ensure your questions are nuanced."

"Well, in that case… Witness, please testify as to what happened on the night of the murder, on February 7th."

"It started from a call from the defendant telling me to wait at the other side of the bridge. It was to hand the body of the victim off to me, but the bridge was burning, so we had to swing her across the river with a cable. I dragged her back to the snowmobile I brought down and took her to the temple." Her resolve was thinning, like the snow on that fateful night. "When I got there, I removed the sword from her back and stuck it in the Schichishito before returning to my room."

"As you can see, Your Honor, the defendant clearly orchestrated the whole crime."

"It certainly does sound very incriminating! Mr Armando, you may begin your cross-examination."

Alright, Mia, just like old times. "How did you know who it was?"

"Objection!" Payne shrieked like a dying vulture. "There was no one else it could have been! You were the only man at the inner temple!"

"Hold it!" Diego took a deep draught of coffee before slamming the cup down against the desk, sending drops of midnight splashing over the top. "When did you establish that?"

"Well, I… uh… it was stated in the previous trial!"

Cornered. "And yet, you're only bringing it up now? And you haven't entered it into the court transcript as evidence?" Honestly, decaf, rookie mistakes."

The gavel interrupted whatever the prosecution was about to say. "Gentlemen, allow the witness to speak!"

"I mean," Iris said softly, "it was only the three of us that were in on it."

"That hasn't been proven yet today," Diego countered. He wanted it to be proven, really. But maybe he was too used to picking apart Wright's arguments to just let it happen now. "Really, it could have been anyone." He drained his cup, and immediately had another one slid across the table for him. Ah, blend #77. The one he had had during Mia's first trial. "Seems to me that the prosecution's case is sorely lacking."

"H-how can you prove that she didn't see you when you were moving the body!"

"Simple." That inky darkness sailed down his throat, new life surging through his every vein. Coffee was life– it was the scent of coffee that had risen him from his endless sleep, the bitter taste of victory and defeat, joy and sorrow. It was Diego and Godot. It was him. "The bridge was out! It was twenty meters across the bridge, but the body swung diagonally which would make it about thirty. Therefore, she couldn't have seen whoever was on the other side!"

"Wh-what?! Nonsense! There was nothing obstructing her view! Granted, it was nighttime, but the bridge was on fire, which would light the surrounding area! She could still have seen who it was!" Hm. A half decent point– emphasis on half.

"Well, Mr Armando? Can you think of any reason why she wouldn't be able to have seen the perpetrator?"

Something obstructing her view… was there such a thing? "Yes, Your Honor. Please turn your attention to the map of the bridge." A small projector displayed a map of the bridge onto a screen, allowing the whole court to see it. "If we were to draw a line from the point the witness would have been standing and the point where the body was dropped from, it would go through the bridge."

"Yes? So what?" Oh, this judge definitely needed coffee in his system.

Diego supposed he would have to spell it out for him. "So, since the bridge was already on fire while the body was being moved…" His voice heightened. "The smoke would have prevented the witness from seeing the perpetrator!"

"Wha–"

The murmuring of the gallery had to be shut down with three bangs of the gavel. "Order! Order!" The old man's expression flattened. "I find it difficult to believe that anyone else could have been on the phone, but the seeds of a reasonable doubt have nonetheless been sown.

"I am still far from being able to provide a verdict. More testimony will be required. Mr Payne, please call your next witness."

The prosecutor gulped. Diego drained his cup, somewhat terse. If he managed to get out of this with a 'Not Guilty' verdict, he was going to seriously lose faith in the legal system. He was no Phoenix Wright, fighting for an innocent verdict no matter how dire the situation was, right up until the bitter end.

"Why are you here, Trite?" Godot had said through the glass. He immediately regretted his choice of words, and the vitriol that was laced into them. This was Mia's prodigy, and Diego had no worthy hatred.

If Phoenix Wright noticed, he did an excellent job of hiding it. "Your trial is tomorrow."

"I'm entirely aware." Blend #66 found its way into his hands.

"I requested to be your attorney, and–"

"And as the defendant, I formally reject it."

Wright adopted the expression of an infant who had just been told that there was no Easter Bunny. "But I–"

"Nobody should be punished for my mistakes but myself," Godot snapped. "I intend to represent myself."

"But–" Phoenix put his head in his hands. "Why?"

A cruel laugh tore its way out of Diego's throat. "If you really can't figure it out, then you don't deserve Mia's legacy." He crossed his arms.

Silence. "If you're found guilty, you'll be charged with a life sentence."

Godot said nothing. Wright absentmindedly fingered the Nagatama. Her Nagatama.

"You–" The words caught in Wright's throat. "You want that. Don't you?"

He thought he understood, didn't he? "I killed Misty Fey. And I wasn't there for her when her daughter was struck down."

Phoenix had the gall to laugh. "I guess you really can't see Redd on White."

Why was that so funny? It shouldn't have been. But it was. Redd White was the man who took Mia Fey away from him, and in his blind hatred towards Phoenix Wright, the CEO of Bluecorp slipped into the background. Forgotten. Unseen.

"Listen." Phoenix stroked his chin. "Is this really what Mia would have wanted?"

Godot was silent. "What did you say?" Diego demanded.

"Would she have wanted you to waste away in prison for something out of your control? You defended her sister–"

"That was because of–"

"The reason doesn't matter!" The defense attorney's fist slammed against the desk. "You still did it."

"But if the reason doesn't matter, then doesn't that make my murder inexcusable?"

A bead of sweat rolled down Phoenix's brow. "You know that's not what I meant."

Diego did know. But he couldn't claim that in a court of law. It was not the whole truth of what had happened on that night. But there was something in Wright's speech that struck a chord with Diego. Would Mia Fey have wanted him to 'waste away in prison for something out of his control'? Godot insisted it didn't matter– it was the penance he deserved. Diego, politely, told Godot to make like cream in coffee and get the hell out.

He hung his head, visor dimming slightly as though it was sensing his mental turmoil. "I'm still representing myself, Wright. But I won't plead guilty."

Wright let loose a sigh of relief. "That's enough for me."

"State your name and occupation for the court record, please" Winston Payne stated, drawing Diego Armando out of his flashback. On the witness stand stood Maya Fey. The girl he had tried not so hard to save.

"My name is Maya Fey," she said, a hint of glumness in her voice. "I'm an assistant at Wright & Co. Law Offices."

Diego realized he had finished off blend #77. "You witnessed the murder take place, correct?" Payne continued.

"Yes, I–" She slumped. "I did."

"Please testify to the court what happened on that night," the self-proclaimed Newbie Killer asked confidently.

"I was going through the garden to get to the spare prep room when it happened. The victim… hit me over the head and backed me up to the stone lantern."

"So you were attacked then, correct?" Diego confirmed.

"Yes, that's right," Maya replied, hand over her mouth.

"Just wanted to clarify that." Blend #91 was passed over the counter. This one was unique– it was the only one that wasn't made by Diego. Rather, it was the drink whose exact scent had roused him from his slumber. He took a sip– he would need its strength now more than ever. "What happened next?"

"It was dark, but I could tell it was an angry woman holding… something."

"We now know what she was holding, Your Honor," Payne chimed in.

"Yes, didn't she have a dagger?" the judge recalled.

"A dagger was found at the scene possessing both the victim's fingerprints and the accused's blood."

"Ms Fey," Diego inquired, "do you think you could have recognized that it was a dagger?"

Maya thought for a couple of seconds. "Um… Well… maybe?"

"No need to mince words," he pushed. "Just yes or no, could you tell?"

"I mean, it was dark out, but I guess I could tell its shape."

There they were. Another step closer to the truth of all of this. "Please change your testimony to reflect that," he said.

"It was dark, but I could tell that it was an angry woman holding some kind of knife," Maya rephrased. "Just then, I saw three red lights behind her. I was spattered with blood and she swung around to attack the person behind her. After that, I passed out… the next thing I remember was waking up on the training hall floor."

"As you can see, Your Honor, the case is as clear as day!" Payne announced, completely self-assured. "May we turn off the lights?"

"I fail to see how that will help your case, Mr Payne," the judge hesitated.

"All will be made clear, Your Honor," the prosecutor assuaged. With a shrug from the bailiff, the courtroom was ushered into a darkness as black as the bitterest coffee, the only illumination coming from Diego's own visor. "Witness, would you describe the three lights you saw as being the same as those of the accused?"

"Y-yes. Yes, I would," Maya admitted.

The harsh radiance of the courtroom came back in full force. "The defendant snuck up behind the victim and stabbed her with a sword. The victim then lunged back at her attacker. The wound was found under the defendant's mask, which matches with the red lights the witness described! After this, the accused took the witness to the training room and cleared away the evidence he could see." The conviction of Payne's victory exuding from him was nearly as repugnant as Payne himself. "Unfortunately, he missed the bloody writing on the stone lantern, due to his mask obscuring red in some instances!"

The gallery exploded into loud murmuring. "He's obviously guilty!" someone said. "Lock him up, Your Honor!"

The bang of the gavel calmed them, like the mechanical ding of a coffee machine. "Order!" he demanded. "That sounds like quite the damning testimony! Your cross-examination, Mr Armando?"

"Of course, Your Honor." This was it. The precipice, upon which the rest of his life hung in the balance. "Ms Fey: Do you recognize…" Diego procured the dagger from the evidence list. "This?"

"Yeah, that's the dagger!" Maya confirmed, clearly surprised.

"What's the matter, Mr Armando? Is there a contradiction?" the judge asked.

"No, Your Honor." Diego said, draining his mug of coffee and immediately receiving another. Blend #58, the blend he'd drunk at his first trial. If ever there was a moment, now was the time. "I'd… like to change my plea." Due to some tortured legalease, the defendant was always assumed to be pleading 'not guilty' at the start of any given trial, and a change had to be explicitly sought after. Diego thought that was ridiculous.

Maya's jaw dropped. "Finally realized your fate is sealed?" Payne taunted.

"My fate's been sealed a long time," he grinned. "But not in the way you're thinking, decaf."

"Wha– what?"

Diego cracked his knuckles. "Your Honor, I would like to enter a formal plea of: Heat of the Moment, with a sub-plea of Defense of a Third Party!"

"Wha–" the prosecutor raised a hand to block that brilliance. "What?!"

"What is the meaning of this?!" the judge demanded.

"Murders are like coffee," Diego mused. "All are bitter and black, but no two cups are created equal."

Payne was silent, utterly flabbergasted at this turn of events.

"Mr Armando, please understand that I will not allow changing plea for means of evading punishment!"

"Oh, I understand, Your Honor," Diego assured. "But if I wanted to avoid the gavel, I would have claimed defense of a third party on its own– or better yet, simply have allowed the previous trial to end without demanding that Wright find the killer of Elise Deauxmin."

"I'll allow the change of plea," the judge admitted after some deliberation. "Mr Payne, how do you wish to proceed?"

"B-but, at the last trial you stated that–"

Diego cut him off. "Did you find that court transcript I was asking for earlier?"

"Well, I– Agh!"

"Then what I said before doesn't really matter. In court, that's known as 'hearsay'."

"But I– This-this is ridiculous, Your Honor! How can he possibly justify that he was at the scene of the crime, defending her?!"

Diego took a deep swig. "If it's worth asking, ask the witness."

Payne nearly fell over himself. "Witness! Testify to how you felt during the attack!"

"Sure!" Maya agreed, smiling. She could sense what Payne could not– the momentum of the trial was shifting closer and closer to the truth. "Like I said, I was walking through the garden. When I got hit, I was confused. I didn't know what was happening."

"Did you know what you were hit by?" Diego pressed.

"Not at the time, no," the witness answered, looking glum.

"The only thing it could have been was the victim's staff," Payne added. Finally, something mildly correct from that sad excuse for a prosecutor. He was everything in Godot that Diego hated– all the vitriol and confidence with none of the competence.

"Let's keep that in mind. What about after that?"

"Then the attacker backed me up to the stone lantern. I was terrified! I thought she was going to kill me. But then I saw Mr Armando– I was so relieved, because there was a chance that I wouldn't die on that night. They fought… and I lost consciousness."

"You may begin your–"

"Objection! That should be all the proof needed, Your Honor," Diego interjected.

"What?"

"Misty Fey attacked the witness and then backed her against the lantern! Just before she could kill the witness, I stopped her and she attacked me instead.

"Any problems with my recollection of events, prosecutor?"

"I… uh…" A glint formed behind his oversized glasses. "Hold it! It's not defense if you planned to cause harm to someone! Why did you bring a sword with you?"

Diego took a sip of inky life before bringing the mug down against the desk. "I didn't. It was concealed in the victim's staff! You yourself stated that was what she used to attack the witness, but she threw it aside because the dagger was more convenient for close quarters!"

"Agh!" Payne was desperately searching for a way out. "Take that! For you to legally be able to defend her, she had to have a reason to defend herself! How do you know that the victim didn't just want to talk to the witness?"

"Let's think about it this way, decaf," the ex-prosecutor said, tapping his visor contemplatively. "If you wanted to have coffee and a chat with someone, would you bring a sword and a dagger? And attack them with it, no less?"

"Wha–"

"Truth is, she was going to stab the witness!"

"Objection! For it to be justifiable, she would need to be close enough to be an imminent threat! How do you prove that!"

"Objection! Look at the area of snow I cleared away!" Diego yelled. "Bladed weapons have some backsplatter, like a spilled cup of coffee. So to miss no blood, she would have been close enough to strike the witness!"

"So you admit to tampering with evidence!?"

"Yes. But it was only to ensure that Maya didn't get charged with her death!"

"Ngh! But- but- but wasn't the victim the mother of the witness?! Why would she attack her own daughter?!"

Well, at least in this department his ignorance could be excused. "I would remind the court that the victim was the Master of the Kurain spirit channeling technique. Which leads to my Heat of the Moment plea…"

"I was wondering about that!" the judge exclaimed.

"As established in the previous trial, Misty Fey was channeling one Dahlia Hawthorne." The name made Diego want to spit, as no lifetime's worth of hatred was enough to encapsulate his fury at that damned woman. "When a channeler uses the technique, they take on the appearance of the person possessing them, so at the time of the murder Misty Fey looked like Hawthorne." His expression soured beneath his mask, marred though it was by that ugly wound. "Before I took the prosecutor's stand, I was a defense attorney. The reason for the switch was a five years' absence."

The gallery was silent, enraptured by this tale. "I met Dahlia Hawthorne. She poisoned me, putting me in a coma for five years, draining the color from my hair, and causing irreparable damage to my nervous system. The visor allows me to continue functioning, at the cost of the inability to see red on a white background. The only reason I woke up… was because of the smell of one of the nurse's cups of coffee.

"I woke up to find that I had lost more than everything. My partner, both professional and romantic, had been murdered two years prior. She was the elder sister of the witness on the stand right now." Maya was somehow even more stunned than before. "If it weren't for Dahlia, I would have been there. I could have saved her…"

Diego took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. "And here I thought you only drank coffee for the caffeine," the judge remarked. If he were in the right state of mind, the ex-attorney would have glared several daggers at the old man.

"When I learned of a conspiracy to kill her sister, I couldn't stand idly by and allow it to happen. And when I came upon that fateful night, face to face with that woman who had taken everything from me…" Godot drained the last of his cup, and the sympathetic bailiff passed him a mug of Blend #102. A personal favorite of his, although it would never match the brew of February 10th. "Well. I'm sure you have an understanding of it by now, Your Honor. The defense rests its case."

"V-very well. Mr Payne, do you have anything else to add?"

"N-none, Your Honor. I… I do not."

"In that case, I am ready to deliver my final verdict. On the charge of murder in the second degree, I find the defendant, Diego Armando… Not Guilty." The gallery cheered, and someone dumped an entire bag of confetti on his bone-white hair. The spirit was there, but the execution was certainly off. "On the charge of evidence tampering, I find the defendant, Diego Armando… Guilty." Understandable. "Since you are not a police officer, it is only a misdemeanor. As such, I cannot give you time in jail. Hmm… Tell you what. You like cleaning so much? I sentence you to 400 hours of community service doing just that, as coordinated by the police department…"

"That sounds like a fair punishment, Your Honor." Diego Armando took a long, deep draught of coffee. This is what victory tasted like. He may not have served time in jail, but he could give back to those around him. That, he decided, was what Mia Fey would have wanted.

"... as well as the maximum fine of $15,000," the judge finished.

Needless to say, a cloud of saliva and Blend #102 ended up coating Winston Payne's entire face. Being a prosecutor had paid well, certainly, but most of his bills had gone straight into paying his medical fees for being comatose all those years. And this mask wasn't exactly cheap… He would need to find a way to make money, preferably without ending up like Glen Elg. But an idea struck him then…

"This court is adjourned!"

And the thwack of the gavel sealed his fate.

The door swung open with a tiny ding. From within came the heady smell of ground coffee beans and smooth jazz over the radio. It had taken some doing, but now that it was all together, Diego couldn't see himself being anywhere else.

It was a tiny little place, hosting nothing but a couple of faithful coffee machines, some tables, and a bathroom. But it was all Diego Armando needed. A café of his very own, to share his inky life with the world. Its name hung proudly over the door– Waiting for Java.

This is what Mia Fey would have wanted. The Mia Phoenix Wright knew lived on through him. It was high time that the Mia Diego knew lived on through him as well.

His sightless eyes burned beneath his visor, but he welcomed it. After all, the only time a lawyer could cry was when it was time to start anew.