Ace Attorney: Fading Bloodlines

Turnabout Monorail Part 9 (Victoria)

Yuri had called me to the hospital to check up on Niamh. Apparently, she had been suffering from random panic attacks after seeing the monorail go up in smoke. I gulped nervously. Yuri kept on telling me that she thought the killer was responsible, which scared me a little. If they had blown up the crime scene, they had to be dangerous. 

Niamh had eventually fallen asleep, so Yuri leaned over to whisper in my ear. "Do you want to go see Mr. Spadarona? I heard that he woke up a while ago," Yuri told me.

I had heard that the explosion had badly wounded one of the Spadarona siblings and at least traumatized another, so I figured that they at least had a little bit of testimony to give regarding the crash. Knowing this, I nodded. "Let's go," I agreed.

Yuri led me to the hospital room two doors down. Inside were Yamato and Auralyn Spadarona. Yamato had his arms curled around his younger sister, who was sleeping soundly. Yamato was stroking her cheek gently. His eyes were tired.

"Mr. Spadarona...?" Yuri asked, slowly walking over to the pair of siblings. "Are you okay?"

Yamato looked up. "Hi, Yuri... Ms. Graye..." Yamato whispered, his eyes lighting up. "Be sure to stay quiet... It took me an hour to calm Aura down enough for her to rest..."

I took a seat in one of the chairs near his bed. "How are you doing?" I questioned.

"Things could be worse..." Yamato said quietly. "Aura could be the one who got hurt instead of me... That's the worst thing I could think of..."

"You really care for her, don't you?" I asked, feeling a pang of jealousy inside my chest. Siblings who care about each other... The concept was alien to me, so I found myself wishing I had it for myself. Only one out of seven siblings caring about you wasn't the best thing...

Yamato nodded. "Yeah... I guess I do..." 

"Well..." I didn't really know how I was supposed to carry on this conversation, so I stood up and started walking for the door. "If you'll excuse me... I should probably be on my way..."

"W-wait!" Yamato called after me. "P-please stay..."

"Why do you need me to stay?" I questioned curiously.

Auralyn began to flinch as she woke up. Her eyes were curious as she watched the conversation I was carrying on with Yamato. 

I started walking back to the bed, though I tripped. The next few seconds were a blur.

I went flying until I fell onto the bed, my hands were on either side of Yamato's head, my lips pressed against his. Yamato's eyes went wide, though he eventually started enjoying it, closing his eyes to savor the accident.

I pulled away as soon as I had regained my balance. "I-I'm so sorry!" I stammered, my heart beating a million times per second.

"I-it's okay! Just... I need to tell you something... It's really important," Yamato said.

"H-he means that there's nothing to tell you! R-right Yamato?" Auralyn stammered, fear clouding her eyes.

"N-no, I really need to tell her something-" Yamato tried to begin, though Auralyn turned to him and shook her head desperately. 

"Is something wrong?" I asked, though I'm pretty sure that everybody in the room already knew the answer. 

"Nothing is wrong...! Yamato is just... He's a little crazy and out of his mind... Ever since the debris hit him, he hasn't been acting like he usually does," Auralyn explained, though it was strikingly obvious that she was lying. I felt my bracelet tighten on my arm. I bit my lip so I wouldn't cry out in pain.

Instead of calling her out on her lie like I normally would have done, I decided to quietly take note of her lie. I rubbed my bracelet and began searching for a nervous tic.

Eventually, I found it. Both Auralyn and Yamato were demonstrating nervous tics, actually. Auralyn was holding her stomach rather tightly while Yamato rubbed his sister's spine. I wasn't really sure why they were both acting so strangely, but I figured that unless I could come up with some variation of proof, they would deny everything I said.

"Aura, can I please tell her?" Yamato begged of his sister.

Auralyn shook her head madly. "N-no... I'm sorry... But we don't have a choice..." Auralyn told him. "Look, I want to tell her, too, but I don't want to get you hurt because of it..."

I backed out of the room slowly. I didn't want to get in the middle of their sibling fight, so I took Yuri's hand and took her to Niamh's room.

Niamh was still asleep, so I turned to Yuri with a frown. "They were definitely hiding something. Anybody could see that they have some sort of deep, dark secret," I told her.

"I wonder why Yamato wanted to tell us though Auralyn didn't. I could tell that she was really scared of whatever it was," Yuri frowned. "I bet that one of these days, it'll end up involved with one of our cases and we'll blow that secret open.

"Is that foreshadowing?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Foreshadowing or no, I think that we should try and find out this secret if we can. Who knows? Maybe it could help out the current case," Yuri suggested.

"I think that we should leave it alone for now," I retorted. "If they were really that scared, then leaving them be may be our best option."

Yuri looked like she wanted to argue, though she didn't, so I assumed that she agreed with my idea.

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Nyooms away

-Digital