Elly noticed Vincent's expression and asked: "Is something wrong?"
"No, it's just..." Vincent pointed at the file. "I happened to be at the scene when this occurred. I saw what happened."
"You did?"
"How to put this — based on what I witnessed at the time, I can't say anything about the poisoning allegation either way, but the assault-on-a-constable charge... I'd say there's a real possibility of a misunderstanding."
"A misunderstanding?"
Vincent described what he had seen. Elly scratched her head. "So... all of his behaviour was just extraordinarily bad luck?"
"That's only my personal read on it."
Elly thought for a moment. "Alright then — let's go to the holding facility first. We'll deliver the prosecution notice to the suspect. We might learn more directly from him."
(Note: Simplified procedure — after receiving a case, the Prosecutor delivers notice to the defendant, reviews the evidence, notifies relevant parties to appear, then conducts the hearing.)
"And if we do determine that the suspect is actually innocent?"
Elly didn't hesitate for a second. "Then of course we argue for an acquittal!"
"..."
Wonderful.
As a lawyer, you tried to sue your own client. Now as a Prosecutor, you're about to argue for the defendant's innocence.
An hour later. The East District holding facility.
Vincent found himself face to face with the fat man again. The man was deflated, dishevelled, and wearing the expression of someone who had made peace with a bad end. His spirit was nothing like when they'd first met.
Through the Prosecutor's sight, Vincent could see only one label above his head: fraud.
"Darkwill?"
The apothecary looked up. A small flicker of hope appeared in his eyes. "Is it — has the time finally come for my release?"
Elly slid a copy of the case file through the slot. "I'm sorry. We're here as Prosecutors to deliver your formal prosecution notice. This Tuesday — the day after tomorrow — we'll be filing charges against you for the alleged poisoning and assault-on-a-constable incidents. You have the right to find a lawyer to represent you."
"..."
The hope went out instantly. But he went through the motions of one last protest: "I was falsely accused. I didn't poison anyone, and I never assaulted a constable. It was all a misunderstanding."
"Do you have any evidence to support that?"
"What I gave that boy was medicine. Therapeutic medicine — not poison. And as for assaulting a constable... I genuinely didn't mean to. I was struggling instinctively, and I didn't even know a constable was standing right there. Where am I supposed to find evidence for any of that?"
Elly looked down at the file. "The medicine?"
"Dropped it while I was running."
"So everything you're saying is purely your own account, with nothing to support it?"
"..."
Darkwill had nothing to say to that.
Elly thought for a moment. "Actually, going by what you've described: since you can't produce the medicine to prove it was therapeutic, it's equally impossible to prove you were poisoning him — particularly since no actual harm resulted. The poisoning charge does have room to argue."
"As for the assault, if you can find a witness who can confirm you merely stumbled into the constable rather than attacking him deliberately, and if you compensate the officer and receive his forgiveness, the charge can likely be significantly reduced."
Darkwill blinked. "But I can't do any of that from in here."
"Don't worry. The court will assign a lawyer to you. When you meet with them, explain your needs."
"Thank you. Thank you so much."
Vincent had barely said a word throughout. As they walked out of the holding facility, he said: "Miss Elly — aren't you worried that we'll be the ones who lose this case on Tuesday?"
Elly smiled. "If he genuinely can prove his innocence, then we lose. So what?"
"You take it so lightly."
"It's not that I'm taking it lightly." Her voice went earnest. "The reason I studied law wasn't to win. It was because I want the guilty to face the consequences they deserve, and the innocent to be free of charges they don't deserve."
"That's... a remarkably idealistic position."
"It's not idealism. I think this is simply what the law is supposed to look like. Isn't it?"
She opened the case file. "Come on. We should go and see the scene."
"I thought Prosecutors didn't personally gather evidence?"
"We do need to review the transferred materials and evidence, though — and I feel that just reading paper documents isn't rigorous enough. To understand what really happened, you need to go and see the place."
She flipped to the cover page. "Oh — there's something you got wrong earlier, by the way."
"What?"
"About losing. After reviewing the materials and evidence, if a Prosecutor determines that they're insufficient to support a prosecution, they can choose not to prosecute."
A complicated smile crossed her face. "Which is why Mr. Mountbatten and the others are so relaxed in there. The vast majority of cases transferred to them, they simply decline to prosecute."
She glanced at him. "You saw the files from before."
"Yes."
"I completely understand their choice. And I don't think their approach is necessarily wrong — they all tried at some point, and they all failed. But I still want to try for myself. Maybe I'll end up giving up too, in the end. But at least before that day comes — I want to know that I actually tried. That I genuinely did everything I could to make a difference."
"And that's enough."
Vincent said nothing this time. The world always has its share of people who charge headlong into hopeless things with their eyes open. You don't have to support them — but you shouldn't mock them either.
"What a shame," Bernadette said quietly from within.
"What do you mean?"
"She hasn't grasped the essential point."
"Which is?"
"In this world, if you truly want to change anything, you either need sufficient authority and power — to impose change from the top down — or you need sufficient raw strength, to force others to change on your behalf."
She paused for half a second. "Father was the first kind to begin with. Later he became both — authority and strength combined — which is what made him Emperor Roselle the Great, whose influence persists to this day."
"You're comparing a girl who probably just graduated not long ago to your father. Isn't that slightly unfair to her?"
Bernadette gave a quiet laugh. "Ha. Shall we make a bet?"
"On what?"
"I'm willing to bet that this girl Elly is no ordinary person. The naivety, the idealism, the sense of justice she's displaying — those only come from a very specific kind of background."
"Such as?"
"Such as Miss Audrey from the Holl family. Don't you think there's something similar about the two of them?"
Vincent thought of it, and then recalled — in the later parts of the original story, there was a noble girl named Hazel Macht with a similar quality about her.
"No need to bet. I trust your judgement."
"Tch. No fun."
Vincent couldn't help but laugh. "In our current arrangement — what would we even be betting? What's yours is yours, and what's mine is... also yours. Either way, you win."
"..."
Why does that sentence sound so peculiar?
For the better part of the day, Vincent followed Elly to the hospital, the police station, and several other locations, piecing together a reasonably clear picture of what had actually happened.
The round-faced man called Darkwill did, as a matter of fact, sell various substances — his most famous product being a certain specialty preparation made from mummified material, the nature of which was best left unspecified. But judging from his past conduct and history, there was no conceivable reason for him to poison an injured child. And after questioning the constable involved in the alleged assault, it became fairly clear that Darkwill had not acted deliberately.
By rights, a case like this shouldn't have gone anywhere near a formal prosecution. But here it was. One could only say his luck was remarkably poor.
Vincent found it genuinely puzzling. Does the Little Snake really dislike his great-grand-student that much? This seems almost like trying to ruin the man. Though — from what he remembered of the original story, Darkwill was eventually given the task of conveying a very important Uniqueness-level die. So surely the Little Snake needed him functioning?
The boy eating ice cream in the hospital bed put it plainly enough: I just want the idiot to stay away from me and not mess up my plans.
By the time they returned to the Prosecution Office, the room was empty. The seasoned veterans had all gone home already.
Elly sat down and wrote up her assessment on the case file: Insufficient evidence — recommend no prosecution. She compiled her investigative notes into a written report, and together she and Vincent signed their names and left it on Mountbatten's desk.
"First day of work. First case. Successfully concluded!"
And in that very instant, Vincent felt something shift in his spirituality — like a lock quietly releasing. The Prosecutor potion had begun, faintly, to digest.
To be continued…
Advance 100 Chapters are up on my Patreon!
pat reon.com/AlphaSenatus
Also, guys, check out my friend's new fic titled "Anime Crossover: Why Am I In JJK As An Uchiha?!" by Reid Astrea