The lobby was empty except for Apollo, but he knew this status would not last. Sure enough, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He hesitated, then turned so his gaze met Klaire's.
She still had her radiant smile, but she did not say a word. Apollo understood; there was no need for any. She understood that she had set him up with the most high-profile case a rookie could ask for, but that it would not be an easy one. Least of all with Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth on the case.
"If you lovebirds are done with each other..."
The pair jumped and moved. Reina was a few feet away from them, a hand on each of her hips.
"You sure do know how to draw things out." The witness shook her head. "And you certainly don't know how to quit when you're ahead." She raised an eyebrow as Klaire moved in front of Apollo.
"Oh? Something to say, Missy?"
"I know who you were." Klaire took a step forward. "And I know who you are now. And I am more than prepared for whatever you can throw at me."
For a minute, Apollo thought that Reina would glower, or shout, or perhaps curse. But instead, the young woman just stood silently. Then she turned on her heel and began to walk away.
Klaire huffed. Apollo wanted to stay where he was, but found that he could not. He found himself on the move, issuing a muttered farewell to Klaire.
Apollo found Reina near the doors of the courthouse, pacing in front of the oaken planes. She had her jacket folded over her right arm, showing off the kimono beneath. When she saw Apollo, she scowled and turned away.
"I don't intend for anything to be personal," Apollo said. "I'm just trying to help my client."
Nothing from the witness.
"Why is...why is my client and what you think he did so important to you?"
Reina kept her back turned to Apollo. The young lawyer thought he saw her shoulders roll forward...her arms must have been making movement. Before he could speak, she dropped the back of her kimono, letting the unfastened cloth fall down to the back of her waist. Apollo acted instinctively, yelping and covering his eyes with his arms.
"Don't get testy. I'm not putting a show on for you."
Apollo gathered his nerve and dropped his arms. Across Reina's exposed back was a tattoo of an enormous dragon with green scales and yellow horns. The eyes were red, giving it a hint of fierceness, but the printed dragon was very delicately proportioned. Even though it did not move, Apollo could practically see it float on the bluish clouds that surrounded it. Abruptly, Reina pulled her kimono up and whirled around.
"Don't take it lightly. I don't just show anyone that tattoo."
Apollo did his best to cool off, knowing that he probably still had the blush on his cheeks. "Is that like a...a gang thing?"
"It's the symbol of the Kitaki family, the family of families around these parts. I'm not with them. I could have even had it covered up, if I wanted."
"Then why haven't you?"
"It's my reminder."
"Of..."
Reina huffed.
She cocked her head. "Bad publicity, I can take. A slimy houseguest? No problem. A crime syndicate sharing space with me in the news? Fine. But having all three things at once makes things a little hard for me." She paused. "No, it makes it very difficult for me. I don't need this kind of attention, but I guess I'll have to play the cards I'm dealt."
Apollo nodded slowly.
"I'm not going to stay in my family's shadow forever. I got the Ivory Motel from them, but I'm not anchoring myself to them. I'm going to get this trial wrapped up, I'm going to make the money I need to make, and I am going to move on. No matter what."
"Was it worth it?"
That was the question Valant Gramarye asked himself every day since that fateful case nearly seven years before.
Thalassa was gone. The old Magnifi had ended his life on his own terms. There would be just two left, Valant and Zak. And there was no way Valant would play second fiddle to anyone, least of all the pompous fool who had taken the love of his life away from him. The trial had gone exactly as planned, except that no one could have accounted for Zak's disappearance act from the court.
"He wanted to protect his partner..."
"Suck-up..."
"He's guilty..."
Zak had endured so many rumors, so many accusations that it was actually he who planned the death of Magnifi. But even when he had to take on low-paying jobs at birthday parties, even when he had to move into a tiny one-room apartment above a bakery, even when he found himself living on cornflakes, he never lost hope.
Surely fate would smile on him one day. One day, he would seize his moment and shove everyone's noses into everything they had thrown at him.
As a result, he did not even make a scene when he was evicted from his single room for lack of rent.
He had simply dressed and walked to the Ivory Motel, figuring he could spend a week or more in a slightly larger place than he had been used to.
He had learned too late that tabloid writers and angry debtors were not the only people after him. There was a frying pan-wielding marauder, too.
-A multi-chapter story; Chapter 31; story idea by CRed1988 and writing by Jerviss.
