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Franziska von Karma is not a genius. As much as it pains her to say, it is simply the truth. She works and claws her way through her school days, grasping at the strands begging for them to become something coherent. To follow in the footsteps of her dad, in the footsteps of… him . Miles Edgeworth, how she despised him so. How truly unfair it is for a fool like him to be the man of this family, with no hope of carrying it on, at that! Miles Edgeworth with his perfect record, Miles Edgeworth who was so charming and good looking that everyone bowed at the very mention of his name. It wasn’t fair. She had never asked to be born a girl, so why was it that the way of the world was constantly moving as if this were the case? No, she would make daddy much more proud if she had been born a man, born without the needless mood swings and pains that she couldn’t control no matter how many painkillers she consumed. It certainly wasn’t her fault that she had been born in a body made to be physically weaker, made to bear children and support a life. How was it fair that she had been reduced to nothing but an object?
Well, she wouldn’t let that stop her. No, not now. She would put herself together, stand tall. She would hold her shoulders straight, parade around in dresses and makeup, always have her nails well manicured, possess only the sweetest scents of the summer, master anything that came her way. And, when she gets her ranking, if she isn’t the top, hasn’t she failed? When her peers see the 88 on her report card and tell her she’s made good grades, hasn’t she failed? For what is ‘good’ if not an optimistic term for failure, the term used by the fools of this inferior race! She would stop nothing short of perfection!
On the outside. On the outside she would hold herself up, be strong, force people to kneel at her every command. She would never let anybody see past that. Because, deep down, past the strength she has willed herself to produce in order to fool the foolishly foolish people she was forced to surround herself with, was still the fragile little girl she had always been. This fragile little girl who still cries when she doesn’t get what she wants, who misses her big brother, who can’t remember the last time she’s done something for herself.
In the end, with a blade in her hand, tallying each time she has failed on the inside of her legs, she wondered: was perfection ever satiating? Was it ever something to pursue if nobody could see how hard she had worked to get here? Franziska von Karma isn’t a genius. It didn’t come naturally to her. She was, above all else, a prodigy but that has never implied she didn’t work hard. If they couldn’t see that, what was the point of all the nights spent working until she broke, until she couldn’t keep her body going any longer?
Maybe it was time to give up the whip, after all. If she couldn’t follow in the footsteps the men of her family have so graciously stamped into the very foundation of her world, wasn’t it better to choose death?
Yes, that would work. Prodigy Prosecutor Franziska von Karma chooses death.