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“Miles Edgeworth? Why are you calling me? Shouldn’t you have been declared guilty by now?”
“...Franziska, there is something very important I need to tell you.”
Franziska slammed the phone down onto the receiver with an audible BANG!
Her heart was pounding. Her hands were trembling. She could hardly hear anything over the sound of blood rushing through her ears.
It couldn’t be true – she didn’t want it to be true – but deep down in the pit of her stomach, she knew Miles wouldn’t lie to her, not about something like this.
Whether she believed it or not, her father had killed Gregory Edgeworth, and not only had he been arrested for it, but his perfect record had been shattered too.
A forty-year long legacy, gone in an instant. Everything she had modeled herself after, rendered meaningless.
Unable to hold back any longer, a scream ripped from her throat, and she swept everything off her desk with a forceful shove. The phone caught on its cord, and the handset dangled uselessly over the edge.
“What? What could you possibly have to tell me? If it’s about the trial, then I’m sure I will hear it all from Papa in due time. In fact, he’ll probably call any second–”
“Franziska. It’s your father.”
“...What about my father?”
“....”
“Spit it out, Miles Edgeworth! What happened with Papa? Don’t tell me he–...!”
“...I wasn’t declared guilty in court today. I was cleared of all charges, in fact.”
“But that would mean–....”
“Yes. He lost, Franziska. He… lost.”
Once she started, she couldn’t stop.
Franziska grabbed the few remaining pens left on her desk and hurled them at the wall. She plucked books from her shelves and chucked them to the floor, and when that failed to bring catharsis, she knocked the shelves over entirely. She ripped drawers from her filing cabinets. She tore frames from the wall. She kicked and smashed and broke and tossed until she was the only thing left standing amongst the rubble.
Her chest heaved, out of breath. Her hands still hadn’t stopped shaking.
More. She needed more.
Franziska threw the door open with such force that the handle dented the wall, and she stormed off deeper into the von Karma estate.
“No. That can’t be true! You’re– you’re lying to me! This is all a cruel joke! Papa has never lost a case in his forty-year long career! There is no way he would lose to that– that rookie!”
“...Do you actually think I murdered someone?”
“Of course not! You’re too soft!”
“Then is it that unreasonable to think your father would fail to convict me?”
“Yes! Papa has never failed at anything! He’s– he’s perfect! He’s supposed to be perfect!”
On the wall outside Franziska’s home office, there was a mirror. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t give it more than a passing glance – occasionally, adjusting her collar and necktie in it before knocking on the other home office next door – but today it gave her pause.
She had been told since she was young that she was the spitting image of her father. All she could see in her reflection now was him.
She had the same eyes, the same hair, the same nose and cheekbones and chin. She was every bit her father’s daughter. The apple never fell far from the tree.
What had been a point of pride as a little girl only made her feel hollow now.
Franziska tore the mirror from the wall and slammed it onto the ground with a shout. The shattered pieces scattered across the hardwood floor, and reflected a kaleidoscope of her.
“Franziska, this… isn’t the news I called to tell you about.”
“...What?”
“...Do you remember the details of my father’s case? The DL-6 incident?”
“Obviously, but what does that have to do with anything?”
“....”
“...Miles Edgeworth?”
Franziska stomped down the hall adorned with photos commemorating their family’s achievements. Each picture had been so deeply ingrained in her memory that she didn’t need to search to find the ones she was looking for.
Her elementary school graduation picture? SMASH!
A photo of her after her first debate team win? SMASH!
The framed newspaper article about how she was the youngest lawyer to win a trial in their district? SMASH!
One-by-one, picture-by-picture, Franziska plucked frames off the wall and flung them down the hall until there was only one of her left hanging. She grabbed it and hesitated.
It was one of the few pictures they had of her and Miles together. It was taken on the day he passed the bar – him staring stonefaced into the camera while trying not to smile, law degree in hand, and Franziska, by contrast, was forcing one. She would stop hiding her jealousy once the camera was off.
She had never questioned the scarcity of Miles’s photos before – he wasn’t actually a von Karma, after all – but now she wondered. Did her father have other reasons for keeping his face off their walls? Did he disapprove of her thinking of him as a brother?
Her home office had been his childhood bedroom once, stripped down into nothing barely a month after he moved out.
Franziska set the frame face down on a nearby end table and turned away.
“NO! You’re wrong! He didn’t– He couldn’t– There must have been a mistake.”
“The rifling marks on the bullet matched–”
“So? Who’s to say that bullet was the same one they had found in his shoulder? Someone must have switched it to frame him! You don’t get a career as illustrious as Papa’s without making a few enemies. I bet it was that rookie! He did this! He ruined your career and now he’s coming for Papa’s too!”
“Franziska, would you calm down for a moment and listen to yourself–”
“No! You listen to yourself! I can’t believe you’re going along with this foolish nonsense! Papa? Shooting your father? Don’t make me laugh. It was that bailiff that did it! Anyone with half a brain can see that! Robert Hammond got a murderer declared innocent, and now that fool Phoenix Wright is pinning the blame on Papa because he won’t lie down and accept his loss like the pathetic dog he is!”
Franziska’s rampage through the estate eventually brought her to the living room where she immediately came to a halt, her father’s steely eyes freezing her in place.
Above the mantle of the fireplace hung an oil painting they had posed for one new year when she was just a girl – her father and mother standing watch over Franziska and her sister. Her father’s hand was on her shoulder, and his expression was regal and commanding.
It would be so easy to destroy this one too. A sharp kitchen knife would slice through the flimsy canvas like butter. All it would take was one puncture in the forehead and a slow drag down. She wouldn’t even have to touch her mother and sister. She could leave their serene faces intact.
One little stab, and his omniscient gaze would be no more. She could finally be free of his judgemental stare at last.
But she didn’t move.
“Franziska–”
“No! Shut up! This is all your fault! If you hadn’t done something as foolish as getting yourself arrested, then– then this never would have happened! I… I never want to hear from you again, Miles Edgeworth!”
“But it was your father who orchestrated–”
“Shut up! Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!”
“Franziska–”
SLAM!
Franziska’s fingers trembled as she looked up at the painting, then her hands, her shoulders, her body.
Everything she was, everything she had tried to be, was because of him. She had pursued a career in law to be like him. She had chased perfection to be like him. She had given up an entire childhood, exchanged fairytales for textbooks, and slumber parties for study sessions, to be like him.
She was every bit her father’s daughter.
If he was a murderer, then what did that make her?
Tears pricked at her eyes. She grit her teeth and clenched her fists until her nails dug painfully into her palms.
One knife. One knife and she could rid herself of him forever. It would be so easy. It should have been so easy.
Her legs buckled under her and Franziska fell to her knees, her strings cut. Her father’s portrait, devoid of emotion, watched her as she cried.