Ace Attorney: Web of Mistrust

Turnabout Masquerade Part 6 (Razi)

As soon as Nevada yelled the words, I covered my ears and held back a terrified scream. People were panicking, dashing for every exit as fast as their legs, long, short, or somewhere in between, would carry them.

Meanwhile, I was frozen in fear. It couldn't be related to...

Could it?

Niamh began shivering from the defense bench, trembling madly. Images of her in the same condition during a different case ran through my brain. Was I starting to remember...?

I was pulled from my daze by a scream. It must have been my name... Though I sadly couldn't understand it above all of the shouting.

"We have to get out of here!" a man exclaimed, approaching me quickly. I couldn't see his face due to the spreading flames appearing behind him.

I hesitated before taking his outstretched hand. The man's touch seemed familiar... Had I seen him before?

We began sprinting for the door, not having eyes for anything or anybody else. A flash appeared out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see who it was.

It was a person, running after me. "Come back here...!" they whispered, a bloody rock in hand. A headache took hold as memories of my attack, the cause of my memory loss, flooded into my head. "I failed the last time... But this time, you won't escape my clutches...!" They said something at the end of this that I didn't understand (I'm not even sure if what the person stated was English due to my scrambled brain).

The person sprinted a little faster and raised the rock over the man (who was holding my hand). He didn't see that attack, so at the last second, I jumped in the way of the attack.

"Thank you..." The words just tumbled out of my mouth, no influence from any part of my mind or body.

With that said, my vision gave way to darkness, leaving me on the burning, rocky ground, my cheek aching slightly with the heat. I feared that I would never wake up, as blood was spilling from my head.

Fast.

-----

Meanwhile, Niamh and Yuri had problems of their own. Niamh was shivering, unable to move. Her pyrophobia had taken control of what little she was doing.

"Niamh! Snap out of it!" Yuri yelled, shaking her partner madly.

Niamh didn't at all hear her friend's voice. She just stood there, frozen in obvious terror.

But, sadly, that wouldn't last much longer.

The same person who had attacked me came up behind her. The rock wasn't bloody quite yet, as it hadn't dug into any flesh as of that moment.

The person swung the rock at Niamh's right temple, aligning with the head wound of the victim, believe it or not. Niamh collapsed almost instantly, leaving Yuri screaming her companion's name in pure terror.

"Niamh!!" Yuri shouted, tears beginning to stream down her face. She crouched down next to Niamh and began gently shaking her. "Niamh, you have to wake up!"

My whole issue took place in the moments that Yuri was pleading with her unconscious friend to awaken and escape alongside her. The tears of Yuri were beginning to mingle with the small blood pool forming around Niamh's head. Yuri didn't even try to stop the ruthless sadness from taking over.

This was especially bad as the ceiling above her was about to crumble.

Yuri didn't even notice, nor did she care. She hugged herself in a failed attempt to bring her despairing self comfort and hope. The ceiling above her dislodged itself from the wall, crumbling into ten or so pieces as it fell.

One piece smashed into her bad shoulder, the one she had been shot in just days before. Yuri let out a scream and fell sideways, holding her aching upper arm. Tears streamed down her face as she laid there, not caring about the flare quickly spreading around her.

Out of the fire, slightly burned and his expression serious, came the Chief of Detectives. He leaned down so he was crouched next to the crying black haired girl. "It's okay... I'm here now..." Carson picked up the girl and cradled her in his arms, not regarding the unconscious psychologist nearby. He didn't care about my fanned out cloak either, choosing to just split with Yuri.

She coughed quietly, her eyes closed as she did so. Yuri didn't even try to speak as the smoke from the flames made breathe difficult to come by. Her coughing was becoming more violent as time crawled on. The clock seemed to be slowing more by the second to the girl, who was feeling herself slip into unconscious blackness.

Carson ran from the burning courtroom, his white hair swishing around his eyes as he sprinted away from the assault and arson crime scene. He halted once outside the building. Carson approached his car and set down Yuri in the passenger side before going around to the other side and igniting the vehicle to life.

"Why are... You helping me...?" Yuri choked out, still coughing due to the smoke giving her the sensation of her lungs being constricted by some unknown entity.

"That's not important right now," Carson replied, beginning to drive away with the lightly burned girl. "What does matter is that I get you to a hospital to treat that shoulder."

"What about Niamh...?" Yuri whispered, letting out a few more coughs as she sunk into the seat in pain. She wasn't even going to try to escape at this point.

"I could only save you," Carson answered simply, speeding up the car so that he was going faster but still not breaking the speed limit law. "Somebody will help them soon enough."

"T-them?" Yuri questioned.

"I believe that the witness was attacked as well," Carson explained. "But I'm positive that they'll live."

"How can you be so sure...?!" Yuri asked, suddenly uneasy at being in the presence of this mysterious man.

"Their injuries were only minor. They'll be fine within a few hours," Carson said quickly, letting his foot go down more as he drove.

I'm positive that Niamh would agree with me that he was lying on the subject, as the blood pools forming around our heads certainly didn't seem 'minor'.

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How much can Digital annoy people with her cruddy as heck author's notes-

-Digital