The International Turnabout

Description:

•	About the Case:

Basically, the main premise of this case is that two murders that happened in two different countries have to be solved at once, and as the case goes on, it comes more and more to light how interconnected the two cases actually are.

However, what makes this case different from others is that it uses a gimmick that is partially similar to the MASON-system: Here, the player can switch between the two cases at any point he wants, during both the Investigation and Trial segment, which is often required throughout the case as well in order to proceed. Additionally, similar to the MASON-system, both parts of the case share the exact same pieces of evidence; since Apollo and Athena realized how many connections there seem to be between both of their cases, they decided it might be the best solution to always take a photo of a new piece of evidence that is added to their case and send it to the other one respectively, so that both of them have always the same pieces of evidence in their court records.

…Though for the sake of overview, I will mainly cover the events in Khura’in and California apart from each other rather than constantly jumping between them. Also, I’ve mostly only covered the trial segment, as that’s where the actual relevant parts for the case’s story happen, and most of the time only reference the Investigation segment.

Additionally, this case has only one investigation and one trial segment, since this turnabout is basically two cases put together and therefore definitely already as long as an average case.



•	The Investigation:



--California--: Trucy’s assistant in her magic tricks, Matt Jishon, has been accused on the charge of murder. After Apollo had left, Trucy was looking out for a new assistant, which Matt saw as a great chance for once becoming a famous magician himself. Trucy can’t believe that he has been arrested and after a short visit in the detention center talking to him, Trucy practically drags Athena into taking the case.

They shortly after arrive at the scene of the crime which seems to have been a parking lot. Here, a man by the name of Jeff Scoobes was apparently driving his car around 5:34 PM, until someone started shooting at his car. Out of the five bullets the shooter fires, one of them hit the victim directly in the forehead, resulting the car to crash into a nearby pillar soon after. The shooter is suspected to be Matt Jishon due to the fact that the murder weapon belonged to him (which he himself claims to only use for magic tricks), but also because gunpowder traces were established on Jishan’s hands. Furthermore, he has no confirmed alibi at that time and a witness who saw the whole incident identified Matt as the shooter he watched that night.

And to top it off, he even had a motive: Matt Jishon and Jeff Scobes have known each other since high school, and have stayed friends ever since. However, they apparently started to get into a fight over something that happened a few weeks ago: Matt, with Jeff as his assistant, participated in a magician's contest and actually won the 1st price. However, while Jeff wanted the money to be split 50:50, Matt thought he had put far more work into the actual tricks than him and thought he deserved more than just a half. The fight increased over time, and the police now seem to think that the murder was just the end result of it all.

Athena and Trucy decide to investigate the scene on their own until they stumble upon the detective in charge, Zacharias Creedes, also known as Agent Z. Creedes.

Creedes says that he actually isn’t a usual detective (hence why he’s called “Agent”), and reveals to them later on during their investigation that the only reason he has been put in charge is because he is hunting down a certain crime organization:
He tells them that he hasn’t always worked for the police. In fact, about 8 years ago, Creedes was just a usual businessman, living a simple life with his wife and his daughter. However, all of this changed when his wife fell ill of Meningitis and was brought to a hospital. At first, they have been assured that her Meningitis is in that state can be easily healed, and that she will be alright again – That is, until the surgeon made a fatal error during an operation and his wife died. That incident became quite famous and even though the surgeon was sued afterwards, he came off free. Not only that – Creedes also mentions that after studying the files and talking to the surgeon, he got the terrifying feeling that the surgeon actually made that mistake on purpose; but naturally, no one believed him. After that, he changed his entire life, as he became the agent he is today. Some years later, a psyche profile is taken of the surgeon and brings clarification: No emotions could be established in the surgeon. This made it very likely that he was part of an unknown International Crime Organization whose henchmen seem to create trouble all around the world. Ever since he knows that the surgeon was actually part of a criminal organization, Creedes has sworn to one day find the surgeon and to follow that organization, even if it’s the last thing he’ll do.

When Athena asks him why he tells them all of this, he answers that he’s convinced that someone of that very organization is the one who truly killed the victim, Jeff Scoobes. As proof, all he is allowed to show them is a phone number Creedes wrote down on a small piece of paper. He says he knows from top-secret sources that this was the phone number of a spy working for that organization, and potentially even the one who killed Scoobes. However, it seems like the phone has been destroyed, as calling that number doesn’t do anything anymore.



--Khura’in--: Here in Khura’in another murder occurred as well, inside the famous Tower of Meh’rà at the far edge of the Khura’in Kingdom. “Meh’rà” is the khura’inese word for “mother”, and the tower got its name due to the legendary, ancient statuette of the Holy Mother spilled with real gold that is guarded in the very top of the tower. The tower is also known for its giant clock at the outside: It works differently than other clocks in that there are no clockhands, but instead completely rotates a cycle all 60 minutes. The statuette inside is considered so sacred that only a very limited amount of people are allowed to enter it’s chamber, as the only way to enter it is a bridge between the tower top and a nearby mountain, whereas the rest of the tower can be accessed by average persons and tourists.

And out of all places where a murder could have occurred, it happened in that very sacred chamber at the top of the tower; a room that only three people have access to. One of the three guardians, Dhe’verse T’pahn’ava, has been found stabbed inside the treasure box that was supposed to keep the statuette inside instead. Not only that, but the chamber itself has been completely robbed; not a single valuable item remained, including the statuette. Even the gold-colored facades around the walls and pillars have been ripped off! Now, the whole room was infolded by a monotonous grey, with the treasure box being the only colorful thing remaining.

Not only that, but one of the detectives found out that the treasure box they found in the robbed sacred chamber wasn't even the real one - it was several times lighter than the original, meaning it was only a copy! However, the detective confirmed that the box was identical to the real one in all other aspects.

Ever since the revolution happened more lawyers came to Khura’in, making Apollo’s job here considerably less stressful. Now there were even weeks where he wouldn’t get a client at all… this was one of them. Though he liked how Phoenix, Athena, Trucy and Edgeworth have just visited him yesterday for the first time ever since he decided to stay in Khura’in, he’d really wish he could get another client. However, just when he thinks about it he suddenly receives a phone call of the Tower of Meh’rà-suspect by the name of Sahria Nedhmed’hi asking him to represent her in court. He goes down to the detention center and once he sees the seemingly confused and fragile young woman, he decides to take the case as he can hardly imagine someone like her to actually kill someone. Apollo then decides to investigate the scene of the crime and due to being the defendant’s lawyer, he is actually granted a special permission by one of the three chamber guardians with the name Fay’n Zeh’lot, a woman who later states to be a witness in the trial tomorrow.



•	The Trial



Khura’in: As a part of the usual procedure in a khura’inese trial, it starts off with a Divination Séance showing the last moments of Dhe’verse Ah’chust Wahn’tah’d Toh Fhan’douht haw’ridhi Cu’lous Lee’Lawng A’ndh Insah’n’lee Sih’lee A’khu Rai’h Nee’se Nahm Kohd Ac’thua Lee’bhe Ahft’a Ahl T’pahn’ava:

---DIVINATION SÉANCE of Dhe’verse T’pahn’ava (Khura’in’s victim): In the séance, it can be seen how Dhe’verse walks up the sacred room after it had already been robbed out. He walks up to the box and it looks like he wanted to open it, but then suddenly takes his hands away from the handle and turns around, heading back towards the exit door. In front of the door he takes out his phone, but before he can do anything on it he starts hearing the sounds of footsteps that can be seen on the vision that seem to get constantly louder. Before Dhe’verse could even turn his head around, he is pushed towards a pillar and a huge “PAIN” appears in the vision, which is probably the moment where the victim was stabbed in the back. He sinks down on the floor and with his last strength he moves his head to the side where he sees a person standing, but only their legs – after that, he fades away.---

During the examination of the Séance, Apollo only manages to prove one thing: The only place where the killer could have hid was inside the treasure box itself, as there is no other place in the room where a person could have been without the victim seeing him. Furthermore, he brings up something he has found out himself during his investigation: Wiped-off fingerprints could be established on the inside of the box’s cover, meaning only one thing: The treasure box has been opened – from inside!

However, this doesn’t prove much: It could have been still Sahria who hid herself inside the box, only to wait for Dhe’verse to arrive. Apollo realizes that the Divination Séance is a dead end at this point and asks the court to proceed with the next witness.

---Witness Testimony (Fay’n Zeh’lot): Fay’n states that she was currently taking a break near the tower when she suddenly heard a very loud and unidentifiable noise at around 3 PM. The sound was terrifying, but she first didn’t think much of it as the sound could’ve come from anywhere – however, a bit later she got worried and wanted to check if things were alright, and got into the chamber 40 minutes later. Then she opened the box, and found a body that wasn’t moving inside! Then, however, she immediately fainted out – and woke up whole three hours later and confusingly enough, the statuette was suddenly back in the box, with no hints of the body. She has no explanation at all about what happened, and even questioned if she only dreamed of finding the body. She says she didn’t want to tell the police at that point because she feared she might only embarrass herself, but on the next day she talked with Sahria about it when she came across her, who seemed to be even more shocked about it. When Fay’n asked her if she should tell the police about it, Sahria merely answers that she “should better keep it for herself” and runs away.

On that same day around 5 PM, Fay’n went the mountain passage up again to the sacred chamber as her shift would start at that time – only to find Sahria busting the door to the sacred chamber open from inside and running over the bridge while carrying some valuable items from the chamber in her hands. Once she notices Fay’n, Sahria throws the items away she’s been holding and heads straight down the mountain. Fay’n enters the chamber, only to find it being completely robbed, except for the treasure box. She takes a look into it – and finds a dead body lying inside again!---

Now, this is truly a testimony that isn’t going easy on the defendant… During Fay’n’s testimony, it becomes abundantly clear that – since one of the three chamber guardians was dead and the other on wasn’t even there – only the third guardian, Sahria Nedhmed’hi, could’ve done it. Furthermore, Fay’n also implies that Sahria was responsible for the thievery as well. Nahyuta than says that they have investigated the defendant’s locker on the other side of the bridge in a room near the mountain passageway, and have found all the missing treasure from the chamber in it. Furthermore, after examining some of these items Sahria’s fingerprints could be established on almost all of them. This is bad…!

During the cross-examination, Fay’n at one point accidentally slipped up: She said she could also imagine that the body came in by the hole in the backwall… and realized way too late what she just said. Apollo gets confused; what “hole in the backwall” was Fay’n talking about? Apollo even moved the treasure box away, but didn’t see anything on the backwall…

Once Apollo hears this testimony, he pieces A and B together: He remembers that when he put a grid off from what he believed to belong to a ventilation system to see if anything’s behind it in the eighth floor (the room directly below the chamber) of the tower, he only found a meaningless giant hole behind it.

And then he realizes: There is a secret passage inside the tower’s clock connecting the eigth floor, which is accessible for anyone, with the sacred chamber! He also found out during his investigation that the backwall of the treasure box was removable, but he had no idea why it existed when all that was behind it was a wall; it was part of the secret mechanism.

Basically, the passage works like this: There is a small room big enough for a person to fit inside in the clock which rotates along with it in a full circle all 60 minutes. Most of the time, there’s just a wall behind the grid in the eigth floor – however, in a certain time span, there’s a small chamber behind it. Once you lay down in there, you only have to wait 30 minutes and you’re directly next to the treasure box! Now, only thing left is wait until the backwall clips over and you’ve made it inside the treasure box. Here’s a diagram explaining it more thoroughly: https://ibb.co/gmPsy5

And with that, Apollo has proven one thing: The killer could have been anyone! He explains that the true killer likely used the secret passage to enter the chamber a whole day before the murder finally occurred. When the killer, laying inside the box, heard someone approaching to him (Fay’n Zeh’lot), he pretended to be dead, and since she passed out it apparently worked. Then, when Dhe’verse finally arrived, the killer went out of the box, slowly approached the victim from behind and stabbed him in the back.

Apollo suspects that the secret mechanism is only known by the chamber guardians, meaning that only the victim, the defendant and Fay’n Zehlot knew about its existence. However, Fay’n continues to deny its existence, despite it being literally her who had slipped up about it. Apparently, the chamber guardians cared a lot about it being kept a secret, which is understandable as it being revealed in the public would mean a free pass for anyone to enter the chamber when he wants to.

Due to Fay’n not wanting to cooperate, the judge immediately orders detectives to check for the existence of that secret passage. As that will take some time, he orders a 30-minutes-recess.



--California--: Meanwhile, Athena is currently cross-examining the witness who supposedly saw Matt Jishon shoot the victim, Raymond Kay Tact (also known as Prof. R. K. Tact), a well-known architect who has been assigned to expand the current parking lot where the murder took place, who was at the scene of the crime in the night of the murder to study the building’s architecture and draw first sketches when he accidentally stumbled upon the murder scene – and after a seemingly neverending pressing on Mr. Tact, Athena finds out that he has never actually seen the defendant! When she asked Mr. Tact to describe the shooter, he suddenly said that the shooter was dressed almost completely white – which doesn’t fit the red-blue colors of Matt Jishon’s clothes at all! Meaning, there is no guarantee if this witness really saw Matt Jishon or – as she assumes – only claims he would be because he’s the main suspect of the murder case, without actually being able to identify him as the shooter! Blackquill then immediately objects, saying that Mr. Tact still saw something, and says that the shooter wearing different clothes doesn’t mean anything. What if Jishon was simply wearing something different when he commited the murder? The burden of proof lies on Athena.

Athena then cross-examines R. K. Tact another several times, but an acquittal seems still out of reach, and is almost about to lose the case. The only thing she was able to prove thus far is that the victim was actually not killed inside the car, as Athena and Trucy have found huge amounts of blood under the car which couldn’t have gotten there if Jeff Scoobes was truly killed while driving. Unfortunately, this does in no way prove that Matt Jishon isn’t the killer, and now the judge is about to hand down a verdict. Athena naturally objects, but she can’t come up with anything. So early on in the trial and it looks like there is nothing else she can do.

As a final remark, Blackquill makes a sarcastic comment about how unfortunate it would be that “the dead can’t talk”. That’s when Athena remembers: The dead CAN talk! In the next few seconds she gets a crazy idea. She has no idea how she should pull it off, but she begs to give her a last chance and allow her to prepare another piece of evidence. After some debates the judge finally lets his guard down and orders a 5-minutes-recess.

During that, Athena calls Apollo (who is luckily in a recess as well) and asks him to convince the khura’inese court to perform a Divination Séance for Jeff Scoobes, the victim from her case. He replies that he has no idea how he’s supposed to convince them to perform a séance of a victim from a completely different country, but when Athena says that this is her last chance Apollo answers that he’s going to try his best anyway.

Back in the khura’inese court, the judge states that they still haven’t received a report from the detectives and mentions that they can’t proceed the trial under these circumstances. Apollo sees this as his perfect chance to ask the court to perform a séance for Jeff Scoobes, but the reaction is just as he expected: Why in the world should they spend their time to do that for a completely unrelated victim? The Divination Séance isn’t some tool for public ceremonies for people all around the world to enjoy!
Apollo realizes that he has to prove a connection first, and once he goes over the court record again he really does find the one piece of evidence that should help him out: A bundle of papers… containing personal information about Jeff Scoobes, a victim who died in a completely different country – and the papers were located on top of a bunch of other papers in the eighth floor of the Tower of Meh’rà – here in Khura’in! Not only that, but there’s a quite visible, black fingerprint on it’s front page; which is probably ink or something that the person who left it must have accidentally got on his fingers. When Apollo had it examined by a nearby detective, it came to light that the fingerprint belonged to none other than Dhe’verse T’pahn’ava, and thereby proves a connection between the two victims. Apollo naturally thought of these papers as suspicious, but back then he didn’t know yet that the person on the front page was actually Athena’s victim!

Thankfully, the judge seems to accept it. He states that he is interested if this connection might be of any relevance to the case and since sees no issue in having Scoobes’ Séance being performed.

Apollo made it. He’s even granted special permission to record the séance so that the Californian court can see it as well. Athena has high hopes that this might be the breakthrough she has been looking for, since there is no way that Scoobes’ killer could have seen a Divination Séance coming.

---DIVINATION SÉANCE of Jeff Scoobes (California’s victim): In the séance, the victim can be seen bound to a chair in a dark, messy room with books and papers lying around everywhere. Then, a door opens and two persons enter the room – unfortunately, it’s too dark in the room to make out the identities of these persons. After entering, the two persons talk to each other and get into a loud debate for a short time, before everything becomes silent again. Suddenly, the former of the two man walks closer to [B], raises a gun, aims at him – and only a second later, the séance ends.---

The Séance makes at least one thing abundantly clear: Jeff wasn’t killed inside a car. Heck, he wasn’t even killed inside the parking lot! But the séance throws more questions in than it can answer. Who were those two people, and who of them shot? And what room is it that can be seen inside the séance?

Unfortunately, this didn’t lead to the breakthrough she was hoping for, since you can still not identify the murderer – it does in no way prove that Jishon is innocent. Blackquill then outright states that the scene of the crime is irrelevant (it would probably be just one of the many staff rooms spread over the parking lot) so long as the evidence still points towards the defendant, and demands the judge to declare his verdict. Athena in her desperation objects with a bluff, saying that she would have found something “off” with the Séance Vision. Now, her primary goal is to stretch the trial out as far as possible until Apollo comes up with more information – it all depends on him now!



•	Trial, Part 2 – What Happened in Khura’in



Apollo gets the bad feeling that they’re missing something big… And with that, the player enters one of two Thought Routes in the case, one for each character. Apollo’s thought route comes first:

Alright, we just found out that Jeff was killed in a dark room rather than in the parking lot. But doesn’t that contradict with something?

	> There was a huge amount of blood below the car

Right! If Jeff wasn’t killed in the parking lot, then what was all the blood doing there? As weird as it sounds, it can only mean one thing…

	> Another person has been killed in the parking lot

There is just no way someone who lost so much blood could have survived. But there is something else the amount of blood puts in question, and that is…

	> The person who was killed in the parking lot wasn’t shot

A shot in the forehead usually can’t make someone lose that much blood. It’s much more likely that the cause of death was a stab wound or something. Wait a moment – a stab wound!? Wait…!

I shouldn’t be jumping on early conclusions here… Let’s take a look at Khura’in’s murder again. Now, remember closely: Was there something crucially different between the sacred chamber and what we saw in Dhe’verse’s Séance Vision?

	> There should have been blood splatters on one of the chamber’s pillar

That’s right! The victim was pushed towards a pillar when he was killed, and the séance showed blood falling on it. But the detectives clearly said there was no blood on any of the chamber’s pillars! Let’s see…

	> One of the pillars in the parking lot had blood on it

But wait! Fay’n said she heard a terrifyingly loud noise near the tower. But when there has never been a murder in the chamber, what was that sound? She had never heard it before despite working right there at the tower, and she said it was really loud, so maybe it was…?

	> The sound Fay’n Zeh’lot heard was a gunshot

This can only mean…!

	> THE TWO VICTIMS HAVE BEEN SWITCHED

This is the only possibility that remains. Dhe’verse was stabbed over in California in the parking lot, while Jeff Scoobes was killed here – in Khura’in!

Apollo reveals his theory to the court, and suddenly it all adds up. The times of the two murders were a whole day apart from each other, which would be a big enough time span to switch the bodys per plane. Not only that, but now Apollo finally realizes why the sacred chamber had been robbed. It has never been done because of thievery – It has been done so that the sacred chamber would add up with the grey scenery of the parking lot! - Well, at least for the Divination Séance. Just imagine what would’ve happened if the body ended up in the sacred chamber, but that person wouldn’t have taken his time to remove all the colorful items from the room, including the gold-coloured facades: As soon as the Séance would have been performed, anyone would have realized that the grey-coloured crime scene could be impossibly the colorful sacred chamber.

As for the room where Scoobes has been killed? Apollo didn’t think about it much at first because he expected it to be a room somewhere in California, but now when he thinks back to Scoobes’ Séance, he recognizes the huge funnel-like grid seen at the back wall and realizes there is only one room that matches up with what we see in that séance: the eighth floor of the Tower of Meh’rà! He only didn’t recognize it because of all the other stuff that was in the room as well when Scoobes was killed, which must have mostly been taken out of the room afterwards. Apollo suggests that the floor of that room should be checked for blood to prove once and for all that someone has died there, and the judge orders to call the detectives who were sent to look out for the secret passage to look out for blood traces in the eighth floor as well.

After some time, the court finally receives the confirmation: The secret passage really does exist, and small blood splatters have been found on the floor.

Apollo thinks he finally convinced the court that the bodies must have been switched, until Nahyuta objects and points out an obvious flaw in Apollo’s theory: How in the world is someone supposed to smuggle a dead body per plane? Something like that should’ve been found in any airport security system! Apollo hasn’t even thought of this… Luckily, Fay’n Zeh’lot is still on the witness stand and listened to whole conversation. She intervenes and says that in the few months she has been working together with Dhe’verse she found out a lot about him, for example that he’s certainly not poor on money. One day, she overheard him mentioning that he even has his own private jet. She says that she can’t say for sure as she’s never flown before, or if it was even Dhe’verse in the first place who moved the body, but she thinks that this might have been a way to avoid any form of security systems…

Shortly after, Apollo receives a call by Athena in the middle of the trial. She informs him that she managed to find something “off” with the Divination Séance after all: Even though the two persons themselves couldn’t be seen, Athena could barely notice a scarf on the shooter’s hand – a scarf that looks almost identical to one that Agent Z. Creedes has on his right hand! Creedes himself denied it and seriously called it a mere “coincidence”, but Athena is now almost completely sure that he’s the one who shot Jeff Scoobes. Apollo informs the court about the new possible suspect – and only shortly after, the court is interrupted by a bailiff who reports that the defendant requested to testify to the court. Now this is news! Up until this point, Sahria barely cooperated with Apollo at all. What is she going to say?

---Witness Testimony (Sahria Nedhmed'hi): She apologizes for keeping all this information as a secret for so long, and reasons it with that she didn’t want to have the suspicions as the killer grow on her any bigger. She reveals that she has actually been in a room right next to the scene of the crime in the eighth floor of the Tower when it happened, and watched everything through a small window in the door. She states that one of the two persons coming was undeniably Dhe’verse T’pahn’ava, while the other one was someone she has never seen before, and that it was clearly Dhe’verse T’pahn’ava who ultimately fired off the shot.---

To Apollo, the whole testimony sounds fishy. His bracelet has reacted pretty strongly during the testimony, so he suspects there might be much more Sahria is hiding.

After some examination, Apollo finds the first spot that made his bracelet react:

“O n e   o f   t h e   t w o   p e r s o n s   w a s   D h e ’ v e r s e   T ’ p a h n ‘ a v a  ,   w h I l e   t h e   o t h e r   o n e   w a s   S O M E O N E   I ' V E   N E V E R   S E E N   B E F O R E.”

Just as he expected. The nervous tick that gave it away was Sahria rolling her eyes pretty heavily when she said it. Apollo then asks himself: Might the reason Sahria was suddenly so eager on testifying because he said that Agent Z. Creedes might be the killer of Mr. Scoobes? He takes a wild shot into the blue that the person next to Dhe’verse was Zacharias Creedes, even though he has no idea yet how Sahria and Creedes could know each other. Sahria, seemingly under enormous pressure, can’t hold it back anymore and doesn’t even try to counter it – she straight out admits that he is right.

This seems to be cleared up – but apparently, the bracelet is still reacting!

“I ’ v e   s e e n   i t   c l e a r   a s   d a y   –   I t   w a s   D H E ' V E R S E   w h o   f i r e d   t h e   s h o t!”

With this one, Sahria basically gave it away. If you believe that Sahria was watching the murder as an outsider and rule her out as a suspect, there are only two possible suspects, Creedes and Dhe’verse. However, this time Sahria is more resistant: She wants to see real proof why Dhe’verse couldn’t have been the shooter. Apollo then reveals that, despite the gun being one of the more powerful calibers, no gunpowder traces could be found at all on Dhe’verse’s hands - This undeniably proves that Agent Z. Creedes is the killer of Jeff Scoobes!

Sahria suddenly has a breakdown and falls back in the witness stand. She collects herself again shortly after and finally admits it: Yes, it was Creedes who fired the gun. But Dhe’verse had forced him to! She says that he put a gun into Creedes’ hand and said “Shoot him”. This is also the reason why they started to have a loud debate for a short time. Weirdly, his bracelet doesn’t react this time around. Does she actually say the truth now? But then Apollo starts to wonder: How should’ve Dhe’verse brought Creedes to kill a person he potentially didn’t even know?

Then, the realization hits Apollo like a truck. He asks Sahria something he should have been asking her a lot sooner, and that is what she was doing near the crime scene in the first place; Sahria becomes silent. But Apollo has figured it out anyway: Dhe’verse has been holding her hostage. Not only that, but due to how much she wanted the true killer to be kept a secret, he deducts that Sahria is actually Zacharias Creedes’ daughter, whose existence Creedes briefly mentioned when he talked to Athena about the Spy Organization. With Sahria’s life on the line, Dhe’verse could blackmail Creedes to do anything he wanted, even if it meant commiting murder. The whole court seems to be shocked by this revelation, while Sahria further decides to silence.

But the puzzle isn’t solved yet. Sahria was Creedes’ daughter, but in what correlation were Creedes and Dhe’verse? And if it was Dhe’verse who wanted the victim dead, why didn’t he just pull the trigger himself? Apollo goes over all the evidence again and seems to find the answer in Scoobes’ Divination Séance, which he had fortunately recorded. It seems like in the last second of Scoobes’ life, Dhe’verse was slowly coming closer to Creedes, while moving his right arm up and holding something sharp in that hand. When the judge asks him what in the world he was doing there at that moment, Apollo replies that it seems like he was attacking him - and after a few moments of thinking, he comes to an even bigger revelation. It seems like Dhe’verse’s plan was even much more convoluted than anyone would have suspected!

It seems like once Creedes would have killed Scoobes, Dhe’verse was planning to kill Creedes only seconds after and have him end up as a victim as well. And for what reason? Simple: Once Creedes’ dead body would have been found and a Divination Séance of him would be performed, what would it show? Out of all possible things he could have done in the last moments of his life, it would show Creedes intentionally shooting a defenseless person. It was a perfect plan to undeniably pin him as the killer! But this isn’t all: Apollo figures that Dhe’verse must have made Creedes’ death look like a suicide, because otherwise he would have revealed that a third person was on the scene, making things needlessly more complicated. When Apollo goes over all his evidence again, he finds one piece that perfectly fits the bill: A jab, which he incidentally found lying around in the tower’s eighth floor. Looking at the séance, it also seems to be the only potential murder weapon that would match up with what they saw there. He probably injected an instantly killing poison into his body, and would have later put it into the left hand of his dead body (the one you wouldn’t have been able to see in Creedes’ séance), making it look like Creedes injected the deadly poison himself.

However, there’s one giant problem with that: Mr. Creedes is very much alive! Atfer that, Sahria suddenly speaks up again. She must have finally realized that hiding information is no use anymore at this point. She reveals that she has been kidnapped about three days before the murder, and was kept hostage in the sideroom in the Tower’s eighth floor the whole time, which was also the room where Dhe’verse originally had hidden a whole reservoir of medical stuff, including jabs, poison and drugs. One day, Sahria overheard him when he talked to someone over a phone where he mentions he would soon silence someone who “got up to him” by an instant-death-poison called Potassium Cyanide. Ever since the death of her mother she had taught herself a lot about medicine, and planned to break up Dhe’verse’s murder plan by switching the bag of Potassium Cyanide with a powerful sleeping drug. She didn’t even know whose life she was saving, and yet it was her who happened to save the life of her own father!

Apollo then realizes something else. If Dhe’verse knew how to use medicine, and he knew Mr. Creedes… It only adds up that he was the surgeon who took the life of Mr. Creedes’ wife! Mr. Creedes said he has sworn to find this guy, even if it’s the last thing he does. As an agent actively following that organization, he must have found out that the surgeon had taken on a new identity as Dhe’verse T’pahn’ava, which made him move to Khura’in alongside his daughter in the first place. However, Dhe’verse must have realized that Creedes was onto him, which is why he took his daughter hostage and made him his marionette.

The judge seems to get more and more shocked, Nahyuta has become almost completely silent and the crowd gets louder with each revelation. Apollo asks Sahria to proceed, only to find out that she turned silent again - apparently, the shock of the previous events has gotten quite high onto her. Apollo than tries to unravel the final pieces of this puzzle: After Creedes’ “death”, Dhe’verse probably released Sahria as there was no reason to keep her hostage anymore and killing her would only make things needlessly more complicated. When Sahria saw the scene, she immediately checked if her father was still alive (e.g. gauging his pulse), and was relieved that he was. However, she realized that she could impossibly leave him in this situation, as anyone would suspect him of having shot the dead person bound at a chair in front of him. She should have maybe thought through her following actions a bit more thoroughly, but she must have been pressured by the fact that – since Dhe’verse unlocked the door leading to the crime scene and took the key with him – anyone could show up at any second, so she had to something – and fast! Then she remembered the one place where definitely NO ONE would find Creedes’ body – the treasure box, which no one was allowed to look into. Fortunately, the hole behind the grid that served as a secret passageway up to the sacred chamber was only about 15 feet away – it was the perfect opportunity.
Only after she took care of Creedes’ body, she noticed a pretty big suitcase in the sideroom which apparently belonged to Dhe’verse, indicating that he might return any minute which made her panic even more - until she came up with a more effective plan she could have thought of before she dragged Creedes out of the room; she put everything out of the suitcase, and drags the dead body of Scoobes into it. That means, in the end the one who was responsible for the body ending up in California was – Sahria!

Nahyuta then immediately objects, asking why in the world she would want the body to end up in a completely different country. Apollo replies that this is exactly what she did NOT want to happen! Even though she overheard him saying he would take off shortly after the murder, she expected him to take a regular flight with usual security measurements. She couldn’t know that he would avoid going under security checks by taking a private jet instead, which was probably provided by the organization he was working for as well. Sahria apparently also put the gun that took Scoobes’ live into the suitcase. Now imagine what would have happened if he turned up at an airport with a dead body and a gun inside his suitcase! Sahria didn’t want to get him off that easily, and saw this as a form of revenge for the horrible things he’s done.

Now, there’s only one thing that needs to be cleared up: How did Creedes end up in California? For this question, Apollo presents the treasure box, which has already been established as a fake, as it’s several times lighter. Apollo then asks the court: Why did Dhe’verse become a guardian of the sacred chamber in the first place? He then the papers about personal information regarding Scoobes he’s presented earlier, which is also stating that Jeff Scoobes got a special permission on the day of the murder to take photos inside the sacred chamber, and Apollo believes the whole reason he was murdered is because he took a photo of something that is actually an incriminating piece of evidence against the Spy Organisation Dhe’verse was working for; and he believes this object to be the statuette.

With that, everything makes sense; Scoobes must have been told to not look into the box, but he probably secretly shot a photo of the statuette anyway – Dhe’verse must have noticed it and kidnapped Scoobes only shortly after. Once Scoobes had been killed, he went to the sacred chamber with the fake treasure box in his hands (probably disguised under some sort of blanket) under some simple excuse (e.g. he would only check if everything was alright in there) and switched it with the real treasure box which he took with him to the private jet waiting for him. He must have been quite in a hurry, because otherwise he would’ve taken a look into it and realized that not the statuette he was after, but rather the unconscious body of Agent Z. Creedes was in it!

And that… sums up everything that happened in Khura’in – and why Sahria can impossibly be the killer.

A long silence follows on Apollo’s neverending explanations of the events. It seems like he did it.

•	Trial, Part 3 – What Happened in California


After the surprisingly successful outcome of the examination of the Séance Vision, Athena had to face the fact that despite the scarfs looking almost identical, Creedes was still denying being the killer – that is, until Apollo calls and brings new information. After the call, Athena tells the court everything that Apollo deducted… how Sahria was the one responsible for Scoobes ending up in California, how Sahria herself said to have witnessed Creedes as the shooter, and how the agent has been unintentionally brought into the parking lot by Dhe’verse, who was murdered only mere seconds later. She now tries to go through all the facts to finally arrive at the truth:

It all starts with Dhe’verse T’pahn’ava arriving in California. Due to the work of Sahria, he was also taking both the dead body of Scoobes and the unconscious body of Creedes with him, something he might have not been aware of until his death. Thankfully the treasure box is also partially made of wood with a lot of small holes in between which is why Creedes didn’t suffer from a lack of oxygen. After that, Dhe’verse used a car he had probably rented beforehand and puts all his stuff into it.

Once he arrived in the parking lot, he was killed soon after. Athena deducts out of the fact that the treasure box could be seen in Dhe’verse’s séance that it was in the opened trunk of the car, which itself was originally wrongfully interpreted as part of the backwall of the sacred chamber. Once the trunk was open, Creedes could finally get out of the box. As soon as Dhe’verse turned around, he looked out. He had no idea where he was and why he ended up here; however, only seeing Dhe’verse must have caused a lot of anger and rage to arise in him. The man who killed his wife… the man who made him kill a person with his own hands… Incidentally, Athena saw during the investigatio  that a whole bundle of pocketknives was at the side of the trunk… It was the perfect opportunity.

However, what exactly happened after that? After all, the body was found in Khura’in! Athena looks through her evidence and seems to find the answer in a photo that has been taken after the murder. She then asks the court to identify the red car in the back – and both Blackquill and the judge realize that it’s the car of Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth! They look closer onto the car number plate, and it really seems to be his car. When the judge asks her how this stands in relation to anything, she reveals that Mr. Wright, Mr. Edgeworth, Trucy and herself have visited Mr. Justice for the first time ever since he stayed behind in Khura’in on the very day of the murder, and Mr. Edgeworth offered to have them use his private jet, which he had bought for a relatively cheap price many years ago when he started taking cases in foreign countries as well. Private Jet… Does that ring any bells? Furthermore, while being in Khura’in Edgeworth said that Mr. Wright’s decision to visit Apollo at this day was quite spontaneous which is why he had to inform quite a lot of people about his leave, including a certain agent by the name of Zacharias Creedes. Athena knew that the name sounded familiar to her the first time she heard it, but she didn’t remember from where until now.

Anyway, back to the actual murder: Creedes must have quite panicked once he realized what he’s just done. After all, he just intentionally stabbed a man to death in a public place! He couldn’t leave his body there, but he also couldn’t drag it through the whole parking lot; anyone could have come any minute! That’s when he noticed the Chief Prosecutor’s car, and that’s when he remembered how Edgeworth told him on that day he would fly over to Khura’in for one day tomorrow… And that’s when he played out his plan. He drags the body all the way to his car, forcefully breaks the trunk open, took out a suitcase he found there, removed all of the clothes and papers he found inside (following what Edgeworth said) which he probably burned up and put Dhe’verse’s dead body in it. Ironically, bringing the victim into a different country really might have been the safest way to dispose of the body at that moment.

After that, he quickly wipes up all of the blood until all visible traces of a murder have disappeared. He then puts out his phone and calls Sahria in the hopes that she has been released, and is incredibly relieved when he finds out that she’s safe. He has so many questions to ask – mainly why in the world he ended up in a parking lot of a different country – but only tells her one thing she needs to do for him: Namely, to steal the red suitcase from prosecutor Edgeworth once he arrives and to dispose of the body.
Considering how relieved he must have felt about the fact that nothing happened to her, Athena can easily imagine that Creedes might have stressed that Sahria shouldn’t overcomplicate things to not bring herself in danger. Athena remembers a deep and wide river right next to the airport, which makes it possible for Athena that Creedes just wanted her to throw the suitcase along with the body in the water, where it would have been likely never found.

However, Sahria already had her own plan in mind, a decision that would ultimately cause her to end up on the defendant’s chair. She wanted to bring the body as far away from the airport as possible so that no one could raise any suspicions, while also wanting it to place somewhere where she could be sure it would be never found… and out of all possible places, the Tower of Meh’rà came into her mind. Not one person has taken a look into the treasure box for the past few decades (or at least that’s what she believes), which is why she brings the suitcase all the way back to the tower and makes use of the secret passage to dispose of the body. And it would have stayed at that – if it wasn’t for a devastated Fay’n Zeh’lot approaching her, saying that she found a body that wasn’t moving inside the treasure box yesterday! Sahria couldn’t believe what she just heard. Because if she really took a look into the box and might tell the police about her discovery, then Dhe’verse’s body was in no way hidden!

This causes Sahria to do the final piece of this overly convoluted plan: As long as Fay’n nor anyone else was near the sacred chamber, she used this last opportunity to rip off the facades of the wall and take all the valuable items out of the room into her locker on the other side of the bridge in the mountain passageway, to make sure that at least the Divination Séance would make it look like the killing happened in the chamber. And when she tries to flee after having seen Fay’n walking up the mountain… once she’s down again, she directly runs into the arms of a policeman who have been called after Fay'n Zeh'lot called the police.

Meanwhile in California, thinking that he has finally escaped the trouble, Mr. Creedes made another cruel discovery: While he investigates the car – probably to figure out what even happened – he opens up a suitcase on the seat next to the driver’s seat and finds out that the dead body of Jeff Scoobes was inside it! He turns around the car key and wants to escape, to find a place where he could dispose the body before anyone could see him with it, but Athena believes that he was still a bit “dizzy” from all the events that happened earlier at that moment which caused him to crash directly into a nearby pillar – incidentally, the same pillar where Dhe’verse was stabbed at.. Creedes had enough: He decides to make it look like Scoobes was driving the car, and that the shot into his head was what caused him to crash into the pillar. To make it look like that, he takes out the pistol, goes out of the car, and shoots into his windows – that’s when R. K. Tact saw him.

Much later in the case, Creedes thought about framing Matt Jishon for the murder just to be on the safe side, as he realized how his and Matt’s guns look nearly identical. He then must have found a way to switch his gun with Matt’s that he constantly uses for magic tricks; he probably managed to do AFTER Jishon had already been arrested, and under the excuse he would investigate the defendant’s apartmemt to find more clues, he secretly switched the guns.

And that’s all what Athena believes to have happened that day in the parking lot.

After all that explaining, Athena was sure that she just won the case… until Creedes speaks up. He finally admits that he was indeed the one who shot Jeff Scoobes, and he was also the one who put it into Edgeworth’s suitcase… but then says that he did, however, NOT actually kill Dhe’verse!

---Witness Testimony (Agent Z. Creedes): He states that when Dhe’verse opened the trunk of his car, he could finally leave the treasure box which Dhe’verse had put into there. Once he stood up, he saw Dhe’verse taking out his phone phone in front of a pillar. He saw how Matt Jishon was slowly approaching him, pushed him towards the pillar and stabbed him right in the back, and mentions that aside him and Matt, no one else was in the parking lot at all. Jishon then ran away as far as he could, while Creedes just stood there clueless about what just happened. The victim then turned his head to side and Creedes admits that it was indeed him whose legs could be seen in the seance vision – but stresses that this doesn’t make him the killer!---

For Athena, this sounds incredibly unrealistic. Why in the world should he move the body if he wasn’t the one who killed him? However, despite being unrealistic it’s still plausible, and the burden of proof lies, once again, on her.

Then, the player enters the final Thought Route of the case:

Let’s see… maybe I should turn my thinking around here. I shouldn’t ask myself why Creedes must be the killer, but rather why Jishon can’t be the killer! Is there any information about him that might help me solve the case…?

	> Jishon had an alibi both before and after the murder

That’s right! He told me back in detention that he assisted on two of Trucy’s magic performances in a row, from 3 PM to 5 PM and from 7 PM to 9 PM, and that the murder took place at around 6 PM. This means… If I can prove that Jishon had an alibi the whole case is solved! Is there anything that can tell me when Dhe’verse has really been killed?

	> The time on the parking ticket is close to the time of death

It’s reasonable to assume that Dhe’verse opened the trunk as soon as he arrived, and on the parking ticket it says 5:34 PM. However, didn’t we even take fingerprints on the parking ticket? Yes, but back then we didn’t realize that a person’s fingerprints that should have been on it weren’t there…!

	> There were no fingerprints of Dhe’verse on the parking ticket

His séance revealed that he wasn’t wearing any gloves, and why should he wear any if he’s just buying a ticket? If we go this route further, it means…

	> The parking ticket is a fake

Exactly! Who says that Creedes couldn’t have just bought a new parking ticket after the murder had already taken place? But if that’s true, he would have already burnt the real ticket by now. No, wait…! While investigating, didn’t Creedes show us a phone number he wrote on a small paper? It seems like there was stuff written on the back of that paper, but I couldn’t read it from that distance. Don’t tell me that was it…! After he showed it to us, he put it back into his…

	> THE REAL PARKING TICKET IS INSIDE CREEDES’ JACKET

Now she finally got him. Athena reveals that the time Dhe’verse has supposedly been killed was wrong from the start, and orders that Creedes’ jacket should be examined immediately! The judge has no idea where she is going with this, but he allows it. A bailiff examines his jacket and finds the piece of paper Athena has been looking for: It is indeed a parking ticket just like she expected…
…and the time on that ticket says 4:11 PM. When Dhe’verse was killed, Matt Jishon had a perfect alibi!

Creedes still tries to deny it by saying that there are still other persons who happened to be in the parking lot could’ve done it – Until Athena reminds him that he himself has just stated that there was not a single soul in that parking lot aside him and Jishon, which means that there is now literally only one person who could have killed both Jeff Scoobes and Dhe’verse T’pahn’ava in two different countries, and the name of that person is… Zacharias Creedes!

Then suddenly, Creedes blurts out a long and loud scream filling up the entire courtroom, until he breaks down onto the ground.

The case is finally over.

Once Creedes stands up again, he confesses to everything he’s done, and even apologizes to Athena for causing her so much trouble. Looking back, he even admits that it was quite a dumb move by him to not burn up the real parking ticket, but says he really didn’t expect Athena to figure all of this out. He says he feels guilty for being so resistant and especially for framing a completely innocent person - He states that he has always hated people who frame others with a passion; people who would make innocent people suffer to get away with their own, dirty deeds, and now he just became one of them. He ends off by saying that nothing will matter anymore for him as long as Sahria is safe, and even goes as far as to thank Apollo and Athena for having been this ambitious to drag the truth out.

He then continues to say that the international crime organization he has investigated on seems to be causing serious trouble all around the world. He still has no clue about the goals of that organization or how it’s even called; he only knows that the marionettes of this organization, the ones that carry out the deeds they are told to do, are absolute professionals who have almost no emotions left at their heart, and have been drilled to living machines that only serve to accomplish things that others tell them to do and to kill without feeling any sympathy or compassion.

Creedes tells Athena that it’s a dangerous organization that needs to be stopped, and says that the statuette that is currently still in Khura’in is likely a very important piece of evidence to unravel the organization’s true face. This dialogue would serve as a cliffhanger to be potentially picked up by another case, mainly the questions what secret that statuette is hiding, and where Dhe’verse even planned to take the statuette to after he parked his car in the parking lot.

After that, we can finally see the words “NOT GUILTY” appear on the screen of both the khura’inese and californian court, and the courts are adjourned.