Chapter Text
Mia Fey liked to think she had a good memory.
She could remember all of her sister’s favourite foods and exactly what Maya had told her about this week’s training. She remembered exactly where she was in her own training before she left Kurain village. She aced almost every exam she took as she could remember the content incredibly clearly and thus, became a defence attorney with little trouble as she memorised every law, court procedure and investigative technique. She remembered everything she’d ever heard about the DL-6 incident and a certain company that profited from it all. She remembered a lot from Before.
Before her mother disappeared.
Before the media got a hold of top-secret information and ruined Kurain’s reputation.
Before her mother was so desperate to find her husband’s killer that she channelled his spirit.
Before she lost her little brother in the chaos.
Before her father was murdered.
Before DL-6.
Mia remembered snippets of her idyllic childhood with remarkable clarity. Her first memory is of hugging her little brother close after he fell asleep on the couch with her. She remembered when he twisted his ankle after tripping in the garden, not used to playing in the traditional garb he had to wear whenever he visited. He was small enough to carry, but old enough to be embarrassed about being coddled, turning bright red as Mia scooped him up and brought him back to the manor for Mother and Father to look at. She remembered the way his eyes had sparkled every time he visited after recently attending one of Father’s trials and how he declared he wanted to be just like him! Even then, he wasn’t nearly as excited as, one weekend, he told her about his new friends and the dog they’d found and adopted – Missile – and the show he now watched with them.
She remembered eavesdropping on her parents in the middle of the night as they exchanged sweet nothings and wistful words - “I wish I didn’t have to go back to Los Tokyo” and “I wish I didn’t have to stay in Kurain”. Mia had asked them about it the next day. Why was the family split in two? They told her that Mother had to continue her training, which she could only do in Kurain, but Father could only do his very important defence attorney job in the city two hours away and it just wasn’t practical for him to journey up into the mountains every day after work. It was a reasonable explanation, so young Mia had accepted it without question. These days, the eldest Fey of the Main Family and the supposed heir to the title of Master, knew that they hadn’t been telling the whole truth. After all, while men weren’t forbidden from entering or living in the village, it was… discouraged, to put it lightly.
She remembered the first time she channelled a spirit. She never wanted to forget the proud tears pouring from her mother’s eyes, her father’s strong encouraging embrace and her brother’s cheers of “You’re so cool, Mia!”.
She’d never forget when they discovered that the Feys’ affinity for the supernatural hadn’t skipped him, like everyone thought it did.
For some reason, Mia just couldn’t get to sleep that night. As she tossed and turned, she heard footsteps outside her room. It was far too late at night for anyone to be walking around… Then she heard it.
“B-b-but I don’t wanna wake Mia…” Was that…? What was her little brother doing up to late? Who was he talking to? Why did he sound on the verge of tears?
He sniffed “I-I know but still…”
Mia shifted under her blankets. That was odd, she hadn’t heard anyone respond to him.
“Alright… T-thank you, Grandma.”
Grandma!? But they didn’t have a-
She didn’t have time to unpack what she heard as her baby brother chose that moment to slide open the door. He’d had a nightmare and while he insisted that he was fine, the tears on his face said otherwise. Mia eventually had to lie and say that she was the one in need of comfort in order to give him an excuse to snuggle up with her.
When she told her mother the next morning, Misty had been very concerned that someone had been channelling her mother late at night. She’d gone on a village-wide campaign, telling everyone capable of channelling that “It was a very nice gesture for you to let Mystic May meet her only grandson, but he’s still too young to truly understand what channelling even is! This sort of thing needs to be handled with care and in an official capacity”, only for no one to own up to the deed. Even with a magatama of truth by her side, Mother and Aunt Morgan were stumped on who had done it.
Eventually, Mother channelled Mystic May herself, just to get to the bottom of this, only to return to herself and be told by her sister “She told us that you are the only person to ever channel her. Apparently, she wants us to look through the library for alternative ways spiritual power can manifest”. Through their research, they discovered that while, yes, the power to channel spirits was exclusive to the women of Fey blood, occasionally, male heirs to the current Master could develop powers of their own, powers that were often considered obsolete as a correctly used magatama could have the same effect, thus why it was such a little-known fact.
After a few more odd incidents surrounding her son, Misty sat the family down on one of their weekend visits and told them the news. Mother believed that he had inherited two abilities from the Fey bloodline, the power to see the truth in two forms: the spirits of the dead and the secrets of the untruthful.
In simpler terms, Mystic May’s ghost had approached her grandson after his nightmare and when he’d seen her, she just pretended to be an alive loving grandmother and advised him to seek comfort from his older sister. After some acolytes had spotted the young boy talking to the air or side-stepping people who weren’t there, it seemed like the obvious answer.
Quite a few times, Misty had wondered if her son had been stealing her magatama of truth, as he was asking odd questions, as if he knew people were lying when he couldn’t possibly be sure, and sometimes claimed to see people covered in locks and chains. But every time she asked for it back, he said he didn’t have the little swirl of jade, even emptying his pockets to prove it. It was clear that seeing psychelocks was just another natural ability of his.
From that day forward, whenever her brother would return to Kurain village, Mia would help him dig out ancient scrolls and texts to help him hone his abilities. Unlike Mia, who was home-schooled, her brother attended elementary school and couldn’t dedicate all his time to his training, so she’d be a good older sister and help whenever she could. What, at first, was apparently just blurry vision and feelings, became more solid and easier to grasp. In time, her baby brother was looking at the sacred texts with the same reverence as the law books that Father had deemed kid-friendly enough to lend him. Even the elders were impressed, one of them even suggesting letting the boy live in Kurain full time, as he proved himself to be the first male heir in generations to inherit a gift for the spiritual. Mia didn’t notice at the time, but her Aunt Morgan, already rather cold towards anyone in the Main Family when she was stressed, only became more hostile to her and her brother after that…
She vividly remembered the day that their parents announced that they’d be getting a little sister. Mia had been ecstatic; she already had a little brother and now she was getting a little sister!? She couldn’t wait to meet her! Her brother was a little less excited. At first, he didn’t really know what to make of the news. It wasn’t until one night, after another nightmare, that the two were cuddled under Mia’s blankets, that he admitted he didn’t know how to be an older brother and he was scared of messing up. Mia just reassured him; she didn’t know how to be an older sister at first, but she learnt from doing and eventually figured it out. After that, he was a lot more excited, although he desperately tried to hide it.
And for the short time they had together, he was a model older brother to Maya. Whenever he was around, he’d do his best for his little sister, whether it was being on babysitting duty for a minute, or just being gentle with the tiny toddler. However, one of Mia’s favourite memories from that time was probably the worst to experience in the moment. The three siblings were playing in the Winding Way, when they accidently broke Mystic Ami’s sacred urn! All three of them were at fault in one way or another, so they quickly gathered up the pieces and went to their playroom to try and put them back together. Their parents found them in the middle of correcting their mistake and, with gentle hands and comforting words, they pieced the urn back together. No one else even noticed!
But… that was Before.
And the After was Mia’s worst nightmare.
Mia never had a chance to say goodbye to her father. It was during the Christmas holiday. Father had been working on a big case and returned to Kurain to pick up his son so that he could watch the trial, as per their usual routine. There was nothing unusual about the situation, so Mia was barely paying attention when her father gave her a hug goodbye. She’d been so focused on the scroll she was reading that she barely waved goodbye. She could’ve imagined the way he ruffled her hair as he left. Maybe she did. Maybe she had made up that part so remembering their final goodbye felt a bit more special...
When the earthquake hit the next day, she still didn’t think anything was strange. This was Japanafornia! They got earthquakes all the time! All they had to do was stay calm and everything would be fine.
Nothing was amiss until the phone rang. Misty had naturally answered it and Mia wasn’t paying attention to the call until she heard the clatter of something hit the floor. Mia looked over from where she was watching TV and saw the phone on the ground and her mother holding back tears. In minutes, Mia and Maya were packed into their mother’s (rarely used) car and they were on their way to the city. Mia tried asking what was wrong, what was that call about? But her mother wouldn’t answer. Looking back, Mia wasn’t sure her mother heard a single thing after that call had ended. Every ounce of her willpower was being funnelled into driving as fast as she could without putting anyone else in the hospital.
When they finally arrived at the hospital, they were quickly shown to the children’s ward, where Mia finally realised how bad the situation truly was. Her little brother was unconscious in a hospital bed, all sorts of machines and wires connected to him, this weird plastic cup over his nose and mouth that the nurse said was helping him breathe. What had happened!? Was he sick? He looked completely fine yesterday! The nurse and soon, a doctor came and explained everything, and Mia wished they didn’t. It wouldn’t change what happened, but she wished no one had told her the truth. The elevator. The earthquake. The lack of oxygen.
The bullet.
The whole thing would’ve been an unlucky accident if it wasn’t for that bullet. Her brother was sick, and her father was dead. It was, without a doubt, the worst day of her life.
The rest of what would be known as the DL-6 Incident was a blur for Mia. She’d only know the facts for certain after everything settled down. By the end of it all, she’d lost over half of her family from that single bullet. First her father, dead. Then her mother, gone, for the sake of reputation, leaving her children behind. Then her brother, lost in some complicated custody battle Mia still couldn’t wrap her head around to this day. Then it was just her and Maya, being raised by their Aunt Morgan.
Mia desperately wanted to know what happened to her brother and mother, but no matter how she begged Aunt Morgan, she never got any answers. She had no way of contacting them and had no idea where they were. Everything seemed so hopeless… Her only clue was DL-6, and she had no clue where to start! For most of her teens, Mia was in a deep despair, only putting on a happy face for the sake of her little sister.
Maya was always confused whenever the rest of the family came up in conversation. Mia couldn’t really blame her; she’d been so little when everything had happened. Mia tried to keep their memories alive, telling Maya funny stories and showing her the things they’d left behind. It wasn’t perfect but she’d make do. She even kept watching that show that her brother and his friends watched, in some vague hope that watching something she knew he loved would somehow bring them together. It was a ridiculous thought, but that didn’t stop her from tuning in for every episode and accidently getting Maya hooked as well.
Maybe Mia had such a good memory because she was desperate to cling to the only thing that seemed real: her memories.
But one day, she made up her mind. It wasn’t a full-proof plan (it was barely a plan at all), but if she didn’t do something she’d be stuck in this little village forever, waiting for those she loved to take pity on her and return to her. She had tried waiting. Now she had to do something.
Mia did everything she could to be the best defence attorney she could be, just like her father, to find the truth about what happened to her family.
No, Mia Fey didn’t choose to defend a death row inmate as her first case for the fun of it.
She begged Mr. Grossberg to let her lead the defence on State v Fawles the moment she saw who the prosecutor was: Miles Edgeworth, her little brother.
~*~
How did it end up like this?
Mia wasn’t expecting her first trial to go smoothly, but this was a whole other level... Was she simply cursed? If she hadn’t stuck her nose in this case, would Fawles still be alive? How could so many things go wrong?
The first problem occurred the moment she walked into the courtroom. Even with Diego Armando acting as her co-counsel, encouraging her the whole way and helping her wrangle her fears, she almost had a heart attack when she saw him.
“So, that’s the little brother...” remarked Armando, as Mia spread out her files across the defence bench for easy access. “You bribed me to let you lead the case because you’re desperate to meet von Karma’s precious little protégé?”
Mia huffed under her breath. “I did not ‘bribe’ you.”
“Then what else do you call offering to pay for all my coffee for the next month?” he flashed that irritating smirk at her and even gestured at her with her coffee mug. That was already cup number five on Mia’s dime.
"A deal.” Mia replied simply. She glanced over at the prosecutor’s bench. He’d yet to look up from his own court record.
Armando frowned at the rookie defence. “Ain’t this a little much to get in contact with your own sibling? Couldn’t you just call him? Write him a letter or something?”
Mia sighed and muttered “Don’t you think I already tried that?! The moment I was old enough to dig up his information, I tried that countless times. I never got a reply. This way, he has to talk to me.”
Armando raised an eyebrow at that but said nothing.
With the case laid before her, Mia steeled her resolve and forced herself to look over at the prosecutor’s bench. He was so… different, she almost didn’t recognise him. It wasn’t a matter of him changing as he grew older; he was the same physically other than the fact he was an adult now. Miles had always liked dressing more formally than the average child, either copying his father or his mother depending on where he was, but she’d never seen him wear a cravat before and the jacket he was wearing was so flashy, Mia wanted to avert her eyes. He’d always been a bit guarded, as a kid, he thought not showing much emotion made him seem mature, and yet, if you knew him well, you could always see the little tells. Fidgeting fingers, unsteady eye contact, the slightest blush on his little cheeks; unless he was talking about something he loved, those were small indicators that beneath the carefully neutral façade he was feeling a lot more than he was letting on. Now though? Mia couldn’t see any of that. Every movement was precise and intentional.
And Mia hated it.
Eventually, Miles stilled and stopped looking through his own file. He probably felt her gaze on him. Slowly, he straightened his posture and looked at the defence’s bench. To anyone else in that courtroom, they wouldn’t have noticed a thing. They would’ve seen Prosecutor Edgeworth look at the defence bench for a moment, then return to his case file, as if his opponents didn’t matter to him. Mia was the only one who saw the flinch, the hidden confusion within his steel-grey eyes and the way he returned to the files, not to look over the case or even to ignore her, but to look like that was what he was doing while he processed the sight in front of him.
Mia could feel his eyes on her, analysing her the way she had him just a moment ago and, for the last few minutes until the trial started, a small part of her rejoiced that her little brother was still in there somewhere.
That hope didn’t last long, however.
Between his underhanded tactics and his blatant insults, Mia was starting to lose faith. The way he concocted his arguments and pursued his line of logic until it was absurd to continue, could be chalked up to him being a prosecutor – it was his job to insist Terry Fawles was the murderer – the rest of it couldn’t.
Still, as the trial dragged on, Miles seemed to lose his tight grip on his emotions. He was shouting far louder than he needed to and was slamming the desk so forcefully it was a wonder it didn’t break. Most disturbingly of all, there was a wild look in his eyes that Mia had never seen before. The moment Mia raised her first objection, it was as if his control disappeared, and his eyes portrayed a feral fury that didn’t belong in her little brother. Part of Mia desperately wanted to leap over the bench, grab him by that gaudy collar of his and demand her answers from him. But she’d have to save that for the recess or after the trial all together.
When the judge finally called a recess, Mia didn’t even bother to grab her materials and all but ran out of the courtroom to the plaintiff’s lobby. She knew she should probably be getting some answers out of Fawles, but that was what Armando was for. He’d understand. Probably.
Almost at the exact moment she barged into the lobby, Miles stumbled through from the courtroom. He hadn’t noticed her yet, otherwise he would’ve been hiding the utter conflict on his face. Mia almost let her anger fizzle out, until a loud slam echoed through the room. She hadn’t meant to storm in so loudly, but she’d accidently flung open the doors so hard they hit the walls. The instant the crash sounded, the impassive mask was back, and Miles looked up to see his sister striding up to him.
“Ms. Fey? What are you-”
“Don’t you dare, ‘Ms Fey’ me right now Miles-!”
“Ms Fey, are you truly such a novice that basic professionalism is foreign to you-!”
“Screw your ‘basic professionalism’! I’ve waited years to find you and that’s how you treat not just the defence, but your own sis-”
“Finish that sentence and I’ll call the bailiffs to have you escorted out!”
Mia’s heart cracked, her anger draining away to be replaced with sorrow. “Are you really that desperate to ignore me?”
For a moment, she thought she saw something similar within her brother, a deep sadness that not even his best acting could cover up, only for him to practically snarl at her “I am simply returning the sentiment.”
“What? What on earth are you talking about!?”
“Do not act as if you are innocent in all this, Ms Fey! Who was the first to abandon and ignore the other!?”
“I didn’t abandon you! I’d never do that to you, Miles…” His eye twitched as she used his given name again.
“Truly? Then show me some evidence.” He sneered back. “After all, I have evidence to the contrary; a decade of living in the von Karma household and a paper trail of the Feys signing away all parental rights!”
“And you think I had any say in the matter!? I was twelve!!”
“And I was nine; what difference does it make!?”
Mia’s anger was threatening to boil. She tried to justify herself as calmly as possible, but she gritted her teeth like she was walking over hot coals. “Do you think I wanted to lose someone else after Mother and Father? That our family wasn’t broken enough already? Aunt Morgan had a vendetta against us ever since Mother was named Master and she used the opportunity to get rid of you! Do you think I never tried to convince her to bring you home or at least give me some way to communicate with you!? Do you think I never tried to sneak a look at the paperwork or tag along to the custody hearings!? I tried! So many times, that the moment the trials were over, she burnt the documents right in front of me!!” Mia could feel tears pricking the corners of her eyes. Just thinking back on those memories were painful. “I tried everything I could to bring you home!”
The more that Mia talked, the more Miles seemed to deflate. His righteous anger dulled until he looked almost as devastated as his older sister. By the end, he was clutching his elbow so hard it would probably bruise. Mia wanted to wrap him up in a hug, just like she used to. She took a step forward, only for Miles to take a step back. His whisper was so quiet, Mia struggled to hear it.
“Then you should have tried harder…”
“I-”
“You broke your promise!” he said it with the force of an objection.
Her promise. A memory hit Mia so hard it felt like someone had punched her in the stomach.
It was four or five years Before on one of Miles’ visits to Kurain. Mia had convinced him to play in the garden for once and eventually coaxed him into the forest surrounding Kurain village. They played for so long, going further and further out, that it was starting to get dark. They were playing tag when Mia lost sight of Miles in the underbrush. She spent hours looking for him, shouting his name, hoping he was somewhere nearby and just taking their game far too seriously. She’d finally found him curled up in a ditch hidden by the overgrown grass. He’d fallen in by accident and had gotten stuck. After Mia helped him out, she gave him a piggyback ride back to the village, Miles’ tears soaking into her shoulder where he buried his face. The entire way home, Mia had promised him something, over and over and over again.
“Don’t worry Miles! I’ll always find you, no matter what, and I’ll always bring you home! Rain or shine, through snow or lightning, I’ll never leave you, I promise!”
She broke her promise… It didn’t matter that it was a stupid kid promise that she could’ve never guaranteed to keep. It didn’t matter that despite the odds, she’d tried to keep it anyway. What mattered was that she had broken her promise and, along with it, Miles’ trust in her.
“Miles Edgeworth! Are you quite done!? Your witness has been kept waiting long enough!”
The doors behind Mia suddenly burst open again and in strode a thirteen-year-old girl with pale hair, a frilly black and white dress and a riding crop of all things. She strolled into the plaintiff’s lobby like she owned the whole courthouse, her heels tapping as she went, until she was standing right in front of the prosecutor. It was almost comical how short she was compared to him, but she still exuded this aura of authority.
“Yes, Franziska, I believe I am.” Miles turned back to Mia, back to his stoic, emotionless façade once again. “You need to leave. Unlike you, I have to make use of this recess wisely.”
Franziska, seemingly only just then realising they weren’t alone, turned and stared at Mia, looking her up and down like she was an annoying stain on her perfectly polished shoe. “Ah, you’re the foolishly foolish fool whose trying, in vain, to discredit my little brother. Don’t you have anything better to do than harass your opponent?”
Mia was only able to choke out two words. “Little brother…?” she repeated brokenly.
A smug grin crossed the pre-pubescent brat’s face. “Yes. Little brother. I have been a von Karma longer than him, so he is my little brother. Is that simple enough for a foolish defence attorney to understand, or must I tell you with my whip?” she raised the riding crop threateningly.
Mia didn’t reply at all this time.
“Did your brain fall out of your skull!? Answer me!”
“Leave her alone Franziska.” As much as the words themselves gave Mia hope, his deadpan tone dashed it to pieces. “The longer you talk to her the more reason she has to not leave.”
“In that case, I’ll simply escort her out myself.” Franziska strode up to Mia and delivered a blow. As Mia recoiled, the tiny prosecutor shouted, “What gives you the right to be in here anyway!?”
As if the sharp pain gave her the ability to think clearly again, Mia bit back “I think I should be allowed to talk to my little brother whenever I please!”
Franziska froze like a deer in headlights, clutching her riding crop to her chest. “W-what?!” Her eyes roamed over Mia again, this time actually taking in the woman before her. Her eyes landed on Mia’s magatama. “I see… I thought the name ‘Fey’ sounded familiar.” However, the moment of shock passed, that smug smile back on her face. “Not that it matters. You’re not his sister anymore.”
“E-excuse me!?”
“You heard her quite clearly.” Miles spoke up. “You’re not my sister. You are simply a person from my former life. The worlds we walk in are far too different for us to exist in the same one. I walk in the world of law, and you exist up in the mountains of Kurain, out of sight and out of mind, just where you belong.” Miles walked up to Mia, pushing Franziska behind him and getting right into Mia’s face. “You should have stayed there. Once this trial is over, turn in your badge: If you truly value family as much as you claim, you wouldn’t be playing pretend with Father’s legacy. If he was still alive, he’d be ashamed to see you at the defence’s bench.”
Mia couldn’t breathe. His words were choking her. His callous attitude was suffocating her. The disdain in his voice as he talked about their father was strangling her.
“Now, get out!”
She almost did. She almost fled just to get away from her own guilt and sorrow. But she stood firm.
“I’ll have you know that Father encouraged me to become a defence attorney. He was proud that I wanted to follow in his footsteps, in order to find you. Just the other day actually, I talked to him because I was handed the reins to this case, and he told me to do everything in my power to talk to you outside the courtroom at least once. He said he was going to stay by my side so that you could see each other again. So, why don’t you ask him yourself; who is he ashamed of?”
She thought that would be the winning move. That Miles would look around for their father, spot him, and listen to him, at least, if she couldn’t get through to him. Maybe they’d have a tearful reunion. Maybe there’d still be a lot of anger and resentment, but they could get through it together. Maybe-
He started laughing.
At first, it was a quiet wheezing laugh and then it quickly grew hysterical, his whole body shaking. Mia could only involuntarily step back and look on in horror as he choked on his breath. Even Franziska looked uncharacteristically worried.
“You poor deluded woman! You’re actually serious!” he wiped tears from his eyes. “You still believe your spiritual powers are real!?”
“O-of course they’re real!”
“Smoke and mirrors, all of it! Didn’t our dear mother prove that!?”
“B-but what about you!? You can see lies and the dead! Isn’t that enough-”
“The delusions of a jealous child! Once I accepted that, they stopped appearing.”
“S-s-so you haven’t been training-”
“There aren’t many waterfalls in Los Tokyo, Ms Fey, and unlike you, I grew up and realised such things as spiritual power don’t exist!”
He… he had to just be in denial, right? His powers had manifested without training, so surely even if he stopped, there’s be some left, right? And yet, looking into his eyes now, all she saw was a broken heart. Mia had never been able to get over how much she’d lost from DL-6, but looking into her brother’s eyes right now, she realised she’d had it easier. Yes, they’d both lost their parents, and each other, but Miles had also lost his home, the rest of his family and even the one thing he had to feel connected with them: his spiritual power, the mark of a true Fey. Everything had been taken from him, and unlike her, there’d been no one to help him pick up the pieces. Whether she’d abandoned him or not didn’t matter, because Miles had felt like he’d been discarded regardless of her reasons and excuses. Maybe the two von Karmas were right; she wasn’t his sister anymore.
She certainly didn’t feel like she deserved the title…
Miles took a deep breath, regaining his composure like he’d never lost it. “Now, with that enlightening discussion behind us, I really should prepare my next witness. If you would kindly leave us, Ms Fey, before I must call the bailiff.”
Resigned and heartbroken, Mia replied “Of course, Mr Edgeworth. My apologies for bothering you.”
She turned around and pushed open the doors, leaving the lobby as quickly as she dared. She managed to make it to the defendant’s lobby before she burst into tears.
~*~
If her disastrous meeting with Miles hadn’t made her regret ever stepping into the courtroom, she certainly did once Mr Fawles committed suicide on the stand.
For a long time, she couldn’t even look at her badge or walk down the street the courthouse was on without being overcome with guilt and self-loathing. She had delegated herself more paperwork than was probably healthy, just so she didn’t have to.
Despite their agreement, Diego (when he became Diego, not Armando, is a mystery to Mia), immediately dropped their deal and instead helped her track down everything to do with the case. The two of them investigated into the late hours of the night, trying to at least correct one injustice that happened that day. Even on days where they weren’t working, Diego often dropped by her apartment just to check on her. They’d chat for hours. On some of her worse days, Mia would tell him of the Miles she knew, of the parents she loved, of the days Before, and Diego would listen and laugh and cry and hold her when it got too much to handle. Some days, it would be the reverse and Diego would remark on his personal demons; he had no family to care about him, no one to miss him if he died tomorrow. He used to, but they all left eventually, either physically or beyond the veil. Maybe he was cursed.
Maybe they both were.
They quickly became something more. A relationship started by two desperate people clinging to whatever they could to stay afloat, evolved into something more caring, more selfless and gentler. They weren’t just partners in solving this case and putting that woman behind bars, they were true partners in all the ways that mattered.
About six months after the trial, Mia and Diego were lounging around in Mia’s apartment. The two were cuddled up close on her couch talking about whatever crossed their minds. In a gap in conversation, Diego casually asked:
“Mia, have you ever wanted to turn back time?”
“More times than I can count…” Mia replied whimsically. “But the Feys have very strict rules about it, so I’ve never tried.”
Diego laughed, assuming it was a joke, until he realised Mia had stayed silent. “Hold on a moment, are you serious? You could actually turn back time and just… choose not to!?”
“It’s not that simple. I don’t think. I’m not entirely sure myself. Only the current Master has access to ‘forbidden’ techniques, so I wouldn’t know.”
“I suppose that makes sense.” Diego sighed, shifting even closer to his girlfriend. “If anyone could do it, who’d be able to resist going back and fixing a few mistakes?”
“Not me. I know that for sure.” Mia tried to joke.
Eventually they moved onto something else, then dinner had to be made and work had to be done and the conversation was forgotten. At least, until Mia was sitting beside Diego’s hospital bed. As she looked at all the horribly necessary machines connected to him, how pale his usually rich tanned skin had become, the bandages around his head from the surgery that managed to save his life and nothing else, Mia fell into despair.
How many times was she going to lose everything? The moment she thought she was taking back her life, something always happened to reduce all her progress to nothing but a waste of time. She was sick of it! She was sick of innocent people being hurt! She was sick of terrible people getting away with everything they did! She was sick of always being the victim, losing someone she cared about and having to watch them suffer or pass on and for one reason or another, being completely unable to stop it. Why her!? Why couldn’t someone else suffer for a change and give her a break from the misery!? Why couldn’t she just be happy for once!?
Her thoughts were selfish, she knew that, but that didn’t make them stop.
So, instead she thought back to that conversation. That snippet of memory that had been brought up and swiftly dismissed. She knew there was a way for a Fey to send her spirit back in time. It had been referenced in too many texts for it to just be wishful thinking. It was never elaborated on; all she knew was that it was possible. Perhaps it was selfish to think about it only after something else had happened to her, but all of her thoughts were taking a selfish turn right now, this was hardly new.
With one goodbye kiss to her boyfriend’s forehead, Mia left, packed up some things and left for Kurain. Everyone was surprised to see her, but only Maya seemed to be happy as well. Mia hadn’t expected anything less. That was why she made a beeline for the archives, pretending to be interested in perhaps returning to her training and taking up the title of Master when she was ready. The elders agreed, despite Aunt Morgan’s glare and Maya, while a little sceptical and peeved that Mia had come home for such a lame reason, didn’t press her on it. Becoming Master, especially after a few years of skipping her training, would take years, but Mia wasn’t willing to wait. She’d wasted enough time already. In the dead of night, Mia stole the key to the archives only the Master was allowed into and searched for the secrets to time travel. It took three stressful nights, but she managed it. The moment the scroll was in her hands, she decided she was done with Kurain village for the last time. She left Maya a note saying she was sorry and returned to Los Tokyo.
She read the scroll front to back and back to front until her head spun. She now understood why this was such a forbidden technique. Just the amount of spiritual power it needed would be too much for most acolytes. The magatama this technique would create would take the acolyte’s spirit and force it into the acolyte’s younger body for one day of their choosing. One day, from midnight to midnight, and one day only. On top of that, this technique could only be used once per person. Anything the acolyte did in the past can affect the present, but fate itself will try to stop them and make everything go according to the ‘plan’. Mia would have one chance to change her past while fate itself would do everything it could to keep the original timeline on track.
But she didn’t let that stop her.
After spending a few days researching and planning, jotting down endless notes and committing them to memory, she finally decided she was ready. There were just four things she had to do.
Mia visited Diego once more. She held his limp hand and told him what she’d been doing, hoping he could hear her voice through the fog. She apologised for not using the one day she was given to prevent his poisoning. She desperately wanted to save him, but in the end, she had to be logical about her decision, if she was going to save as many people as possible. She promised that, if given the chance in whatever world she ended up in, she’d do everything in her power to stop this and return him to his charming, witty, intelligent, smug, coffee-loving self.
When she returned to her apartment, she channelled her father, leaving her notes for him to see. When she came to some time later, she had a handwritten letter in her hands. He knew he couldn’t stop her, so he barely even tried. Her father commended her for her bravery and for doing what she thought was right, still warning her not to get her hopes up and not to take everything too hard if the present didn’t change. The letter was stained with tears.
She called a number she now knew by heart and left a lengthy voicemail on the pile of shorter ones. Mia wasn’t sure if Edgeworth ever checked his voicemail, but she felt the need to inform him of her plans, since they involved him so heavily. As usual, her call wasn’t picked up at any point and there was no call back.
Finally, she called Maya. Unlike her ‘conversation’ with her brother, the chat she had with her sister was lengthy and mentally taxing. Maya, at first, berated her sister for not saying goodbye, but quickly changed the subject to her favourite cartoons and anime and what she’d done in training that week. Once Mia finally got a chance to talk, she explained everything to Maya. Her little sister was surprisingly quiet as Mia said her piece; what she was doing, why she was doing it, the potential risk of it considering how little she’d been training lately and how ultimately pointless it could end up being if she didn’t succeed, how sorry she was for acting so coldly when she last visited; she laid it all before her sister. When Mia was finally done, Maya started shouting incoherently. Mia said goodbye and hung up the phone.
It was time.
Mia sat on the floor of her apartment. She poured spiritual power into the magatama on her necklace, reciting the incantation aloud and visualising the process exactly how the scroll described she should. She focused on her regrets, her mistakes, her memories of everything she’d lost and wished with all her heart to regain. She focused on the same feelings that made her want to become a lawyer, her love for her family and a strong sense of justice she must have inherited from her father. She focused on wanting to make things right!
Unbeknownst to her, Mia’s body keeled over as her spirit left it and was forced into the past, using the same impossible pathways the dead used. To even the most seasoned medical professionals, she would’ve appeared to be dead herself. She had no pulse, was not breathing and her eyes glazed over as they lost the light of life. In a way, she was dead; after all, what are corpses other than empty vessels for spirits that cannot re-enter them?
By the time a squadron of police forced their way into Mia’s apartment, led by a distraught Miles Edgeworth and closely followed by a tearful Maya Fey, it was already too late to reverse what Mia had started.