[FFML] [Ace Attorney]Gaze (Rewrite)

[Dot Warner]

Despite only having seen other people play these games, I got super inspired to write fanfic for it anyway during a 
particularly fertile period.  This is one of my earliest AA character pieces, one that I am rewriting thanks to the advice of a 
very awesome colleague who volunteered to be subjected to my wordsmithing.

Features spoilers for AA 1-4.

---

        'A hawk', Miles Edgeworth remembers thinking as Prosecutor von Karma fixes a piercing gaze on those who would 
once again make an orphan of the and tells them in no uncertain terms that von Karma, and no one else, is fit to be 
guardian. 'He has eyes like a hawk'.

        And then the dark orbs swing in his direction, and the boy remembers nothing else.

        The boy feels the eyes watching as he settles into uneasy sleep in an unfamiliar bed, moonlight streaming through 
the bars soldered over the window to keep out thieves.  Feels the eyes watching as he pores over his studies, being 
careful to handle the weighty, ancient tomes. Feels the eyes watching as he brings home his first report card and many 
more after, his palms sweating and his mouth dry each time.

        When the boy prays he imagines the throne of heaven to be like von Karma's study, filled with books on law and 
history on every shelf and a heavy, enormous desk at the far end, the aura therein a sacred space that must never be 
breached by one so unworthy. When von Karma deigns to speak, though his voice seldom thunders from the heavens and 
he never seems to address the boy in a direct manner, the boy still laps up every word as if they were of divine origin.

        With little to no verbal direction, the boy studies von Karma's nonverbal ones instead. Nothing escapes his attention. 
He memorizes every quirk of those mountainous eyebrows, every twitch of those thin, dry lips, every flare of those narrow 
nostrils. Von Karma's entire frame speaks a language that few can understand, and as the boy becomes a man in body, if 
not in spirit, he is almost more proud of being among the privileged elite of those who can interpret his mentor's wordless 
looks than becoming the perfect prosecutor he was meant to be.

        The boy is sent to reclaim von Karma's old hunting grounds alone, and he falters beneath the towering oak panels 
of the ancient courtroom. State v. Fawles falls apart before the unrelenting attacks of the defense--the nerve of that 
woman, daring to question his meticulous arguments, his coached eyewitnesses, his prepared evidence, his flaweless 
technique, _his infallible mentor_!--and though Fawles' death on the witness stand renders the case pointless, he cannot 
shake the conviction that, if the proceedings had kept going, he would have lost.

        The boy finds it almost impossible to look von Karma in the eye for God knows how long afterwards, all the more so 
when this failure gives cause for the famed King of Prosecutors to return to the place where he had first made his name.  
Von Karma does so with little fanfare, refusing any interviews during the media feeding frenzy that ensues as he 
reascends the long stairs up on his first day back. He chases the cameras away with a single imperious glance and 
continues on his way.

        The years pass by in what seems to be an endless parade of trials and victory after victory. The boy earns his own 
nickname, but he pays no mind to what the public, his peers, or even his superiors think of him. Only one man's opinions 
matter, and his presence in the courtroom is enough to give him the strength the boy needs to push through the web of 
lies and contradictions to the inevitable verdict.

        Phoenix Wright ruins everything.

        It is with great reluctance that the boy forgives his rival for marring the perfect win record. Wright seems to 
possess the devil's own luck, and does not know when to quit. Over and over again the boy steps in the courtroom with 
the conviction that this time, the case is airtight and the suspect's guilt obvious, but over and over again Wright somehow 
manages to wrench defeat from the jaws of victory.  So when the boy finds himself in the role of the accused rather than 
the accuser, it is with a profound sense of irony that he requests Wright as his lawyer, relishing the thought of Wright 
having to face von Karma as an opponent.

        And then the boy steps into the defendant's chair.

        He may as well have fallen into the abyss.

        He has never seen this look in von Karma's eyes before.  As terrifying as von Karma's visage has been while 
defeating the many money-hungry defense attorneys who would put a criminal back on the street just for a paycheck, he 
has always shown nothing more than contempt for their lot.  But this--this sort of seething, undisguised hatred aimed at 
none other than the boy himself--is too much to bear.  He shrinks as von Karma rages, objects, and accuses him of the 
unthinkable, and if not for the stalwart defender standing by him he would almost believe the lies being slung across the 
courtroom.

        And then Phoenix Wright achieves the impossible, but it is too late.  Even if the boy has been declared innocent of 
one man's blood, he cannot--should not--be absolved of another.  The echos of the sin he committed fifteen years ago 
still reverberate during every waking moment.  Confessing now, a decade and a half too late, wouldn't undo what he had 
done, but at least this way he could at long last stop running from the past and show everyone that he should've been the 
one to die on that horrible day.

        "OBJECTION!"

        This shout from Wright seems to startle even von Karma, but the boy is horrified when he recognizes Wright's tone 
of voice as the same that heralds the beginning of one of his improbable turnabouts.  'What are you doing?' the boy 
wants to say, but no sound comes out.  He is frozen, caught between fear and--hope? What sort of hope could he, a 
murderer, dare dream to have?

        No doubt von Karma shared this sentiment, for his lip was curled in contempt, as if he was doing everything in his 
power to keep himself from scoffing at Wright's futile attempts to stave off the inevitable.

        And yet--and yet--

        And yet, for the first time since the trial has begun, von Karma's gaze has focused on Wright instead.  Does he now 
consider Wright a credible threat? Of all the absurd things that have happened so far--rampant boundless speculation, 
obvious bluffing so reaching even the otherwise easy to sway Judge would buy it, _cross-examining a parrot_--the idea 
that the undefeatable von Karma would be intimidated by a man who had yet to earn the distinction of the badge he wore 
was so outlandish that the boy couldn't believe he was thinking such borderline heretical thoughts.

        And yet, a case was forming amid Wright's desperate grasps at threads so thin they might as well be woven from 
angel's whispers, driven by Wright's unshaking conviction that the truth was not as simple as anyone believed or made it 
out to be.  And with each passing moment, the boy finds himself wanting to share in that conviction more and more, 
despite every reason not to.  He's played out That Awful Day in his head over and over and over again so many times 
that he lost count, and every time, it ends with him holding The Gun in his hands, pulling The Trigger, and committing 
The Ultimate Sin.

        "HOLD IT!"

        Wright's stance grows ever more confident, while von Karma's theatrics descends into ever hollower posturing.  A 
different picture is starting to emerge from the mess of memories, contradictions, and lies, and the boy reels as the 
implications begin to sink in.  That the man who saved him from an uncertain fate could have been, even in the remotest 
of possibility,  responsible for that very state in the first place, is an idea so abhorrent that the boy almost prefers to 
remain a supposed murderer.

        But hadn't von Karma himself taught the boy that a Prosecutor's duty was to unearth the truth, no matter how 
awful it was, no matter what it took, no matter who wanted to keep it hidden? No, they couldn't stop now, shouldn't stop 
now, _mustn't_ stop now.  The truth of DL-6 would be dragged to light even if it destroyed him and everything he 
believed.

        "TAKE THAT!"

        The truth strikes von Karma much like the errant bullet did all those years ago.  He roars, clutching at the ghost of 
the past embedded in his shoulder.  In his rage, he seethes at the boy, all the while confessing to have killed the boy's 
father--whose blood the boy had believed stained his hands such a crimson red that he couldn't ever imagine wearing 
another color for the rest of his life--and spitting out the boy's true name with such vitrolence that von Karma may as well 
have used the foulest epithets known to man.

        When the judge pronounces the verdict and von Karma has to be dragged out of the courtroom by a contingent of 
police officers, the boy finds himself unable to move from his spot, his knuckles white from clutching the witness stand 
with both hands. He is falling, a kite with its string cut.

        "Edgeworth," a voice cuts through the fog in his mind, and again in softer, kinder tones, "_Miles_. It's over. You're 
_free_."

        The boy looks into the eyes of the man who, for reasons he has yet to comprehend, calls him 'friend' and takes in 
the expression of open, searching worry like one who had been wandering the wilderness and stumbled upon an oasis.

        "Thank you," he manages.

        Von Karma's eyes haunt his nightmares for years afterwards, but Miles Edgeworth decides it is a small price to pay 
to have a different set watching him.

-"Dot"
http://dotchan.com/

I'm my own mind-altering substance. 8)