Ace Attorney: Secrets Beneath Secrets

Turnabout Betrayal, Part 14 (Chrysalis)

//August 31, 2028. Morix Law Office, 3:01 PM//

I slowly opened my eyes to see a pair of blurred figures above me. I realized that my glasses were gone, most likely the cause of why my vision was so blurry compared to last time something like this happened.

"Glasses?" I asked the two people above me.

"Here you are," one person, Yuri, told me, sliding my bronze frames onto my face. "All better!"

With my vision cleared, I finally was able to identify the people above me. Specifically, Yuri and Niamh.

"It's about time you woke up. We were starting to worry," Niamh told me.

I nodded, brushing off her comment, and sat up. Standing around the room were Sora, Averl, Lucas, and Lily. H.T., or should I say, Bal Gam, was gone.

I gasped, realizing one more person who wasn't in my line of sight. "Wait! Where's my brother!?" I exclaimed, feeling reality return, though I wished it would just go die in a hole for breaking my thirty seconds of serenity.

"Take a chill pill," Averl said, pointing to Cotoli, who was a few feet diagonal from me, far back on my right. I sighed at seeing him until realizing that he was still out like a light.

"Is he okay!?" I asked, forcing myself to my feet and dashing over to him.

"He's fine. Just unconscious. Relax," Lucas told me.

"In the mean time, we'd like a full explanation of why Mr. Gam accused you of being the traitor," Niamh said.

I sighed, knowing I couldn't escape this. Things would have been so much easier if I had just explained all of this when Cotoli first announced that I worked at the agency. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything." Yuri took a spot on the ground, laying on her stomach like a girl at a slumber party. "Spill it, sister."

I took a deep breath, preparing myself for this lengthy explanation. "It all started three years ago with the GC-9 incident. Natasha Young was the murder victim. She was Cotoli's mom. Cotoli went depressed after the case, as the culprits got away. I hated seeing him like that, so I came up with an idea to catch the killers, commonly known as the Oracle of the Law project. All of this caused me to go into dangerous areas to find out all there is up know about the UCA, or the real killers. But what I didn't know was that it would end up putting lives at risk."

"So your biggest mistake was this project?" Lily asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. I wish I had never done it."

"What are your aliases?" Niamh questioned.

"Get ready, because it's a doozy: Shayla Willows, Jo Jade, Estelle Burns, Rosalie Libra, Amy Kalles, Sakura Rai, Aria Claris, Erin Anderson, Skyla Rain, and Eileen Liyle. Plus me of course, but I don't think plain old me counts," I finished. "I told you it was a lot. Now imagine trying to keep it all straight!" I laughed, trying to make this funny even though it was rather serious. I failed, as nobody was laughing. Not even a smile from anybody.

"You were all of them?!" Yuri gasped.

I nodded. "Yeah."

"But that Aria Claris thing kind of got you into trouble with Cotoli," Sora reminded me.

I nodded again. "Sadly, that's the cold, hard truth."

"What happened?" Lily asked.

I brushed my fingers over my unconscious brother's face. "I didn't tell him that I got arrested under an alias. I didn't want to worry him. When I finally told him, we got into a fight. That was about the time we found out about being related to Sora, so we were both at each other's necks for the secrets we kept."

"All of this has just about fried my brain," Yuri sighed, shaking her head. "Yuri has exploded. Try again later."

"You and Mr. Morix sure are close," Lily commented.

I nodded. "You could call me the guardian to his sanity."

"What are you, some sort of sentinel?" Lily questioned humorously.

"Maybe in some sort of alternate universe," I joked. 

"Am I the only one getting worried about Mr. Morix?" Lucas asked after a short silence. 

I shook my head. "I'm worried, too. Think we should take him to the hospital?"

"About that...." Niamh began. "I was the first out of us all to wake up. I realized that the doors was locked and the window was covered. As far as I can tell, Mr. Gam doesn't want us getting out with this new information he gave us."

I looked to the door. The door handle was gone and it looked like there was something jamming it. I turned to the window. It was blocked with wood.

"What does he think this is, a death game!?" I exclaimed.

"He's a murderer. Everything is a death game," Averl said. 

"I meant Dangan Ronpa. Y'know, he's Monokuma and we're all students at Hope's Peak Academy!" I grinned. 

"Why are you smiling at that? The though unsettles me," Niamh told me. 

"If that ever happens to me...." Lucas shook his head. 

"I don't even want to think about it," Lily said. 

"You guys! We're locked in here!" Sora exclaimed, flailing her arms around in an obvious panic. "What are we going to do?!"

"I'm not sure. All of this is so hard to drink in," Averl replied. 

"I'll just hope in the corner that my brother wakes up soon. I'm really worried about him," I whispered. 

Silence covered the room. Everybody seemed to be lost in thought. I know I was. Most of my thoughts were panicked and screamed 'will he be okay?!' I couldn't help but stare at my brother in concern. I gulped, trying to make all the evil and terrorizing thoughts go down with it, but they didn't. The fear just kept nagging at the back of my mind. 

At least, that was until I heard a groan.

Cotoli opened his eyes slowly. "Sis...?" he whispered. 

Before he could even sit up, I tackled him to the ground, arms wrapping around him. "Don't scare me like that. I don't think I'd survive."

Cotoli smiled. "Now you know how I feel 99.9% of the time."

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LOOK AT THE SOCIALLY AWKWARD AND NERDY LAWYER

LOOK AT HIM

I made so many jokes in this chapter it's not even funny. Like omg.

Really, Dij. 

Control your references. 

-Dij