"I find the defendant innocent."
The judge's gavel struck with a definitive thwack that echoed through the silent courtroom, sounding to Kenji like the chime of a quest completion notification. He smiled lazily, leaning back in the leather chair as he patted the back of the man sitting beside him. The man, a humble deli owner named Mr. Simon, was shaking so hard the table was rattling, his knuckles white from clutching the defense desk for the last four hours.
Right now, Kenji Takahashi was, for all intents and purposes, a defense attorney.
Why? Because he could. And because... he turned to face Olivia Benson at the prosecution table, giving her a slow, smug look as her face soured into a mask of pure, unadulterated frustration.
He had always found the Law & Order universe a bit grating in his past life. It was a world governed by a specific, narrow-minded fools. In ninety percent of the episodes, the police formed a narrative around the most convenient suspect, spent forty minutes systematically dismantling their life and reputation with moral certainty, and then stumbled onto the actual killer in the final five minutes. Sometimes they got their man, sometimes they just left a trail of broken innocent lives in their wake, justified by the "greater good."
Kenji watched the veteran detective glare at him, her eyes burning with some kind of self-righteous indignation. To her, he was the slick, magic lawyer who had made a mockery of her evidence. To him, she was just a low tier obstacle in a side quest he chose to do to blow off steam.
And what better way to relax than by annoying fools like these?
Outside the courtroom, the heavy midday air of New York was thick with the scent of roasted nuts, exhaust fumes, and the ambient noise of a city that never stopped screaming. Mr. Simon was nearly in tears, clutching Kenji's hand as he thanked him. The man had been so close to going to jail for something he never did, and he could never thank Kenji enough for this.
"Thank you, Counselor... thank you. I thought my life was over. I thought... I'd never see my daughters again."
"Please don't worry about it, Mr. Simon," Kenji told him calmly, picking up the SVU team converging on his position from the courthouse steps. He could practically see the rage flowing out of them as Olivia breathed out fire like a dragon. "Go back to your family."
He watched the man scurry toward a yellow cab just as Olivia Benson and Detective Amanda Rollins reached him. Benson stopped inches from his chest, her jaw set so tight he could hear her teeth grind.
"Why do you keep doing this?" Benson growled, her voice a low, dangerous vibration.
"Doing what? Winning? It's what I'm paid for, Detective. Although considering the quality of your recent investigations, I should probably start charging a 'boredom' fee," he asked innocently, tilting his head.
"Do you think this is a joke?" Rollins snapped, her hand twitching near her hip as if she were tempted to cuff him just on principle. "This is the third time in two weeks. You've helped three separate suspects walk out of those doors. You're making a mockery of this office and every victim we represent."
Kenji nearly laughed. "The only joke here, Detective Rollins, is your investigative process. You don't want justice, you find someone who 'fits the profile,' and then you stop looking for the truth."
"Excuse me?" Benson stepped forward, her face reddening until Fin Tutuola stepped up to hold her back by the arm, his own expression wary.
"You like helping criminals walk free, is that it?" Fin said, his voice deep and accusatory. "You get off on seeing the bad guys win? You think it's a game?"
Kenji's eyes turned cold as he glared at them. "The only criminals here are the ones who can't tell the difference between a lead and a fact. I'm not helping 'bad guys' win. I'm saving innocent people from the staggering incompetence of 'heroes' who are too blinded by their own halos to see they're holding the wrong person."
"Innocent?!" Benson's voice rose to a shout, attracting the attention of several nearby news crews. She pointed toward the disappearing taxi. "He was the last person seen with that girl! He was seen on the corner, he argued with her, and then she was gone!"
"Do you have proof he did it, or is that just it?" Kenji asked, his voice dropping to a dangerous, silken whisper.
"Yes, we—"
"No, no, you don't," Kenji cut in sharply, his tone like a guillotine. "All you have is a grainy surveillance still showing him talking to her at 10 PM. That's it. You saw a man with a prior record and a loud voice, and you stopped thinking."
"He was the last person with her," Rollins insisted.
Kenji shook his head, his expression one of genuine pity. "Just because he saw her doesn't mean he killed her, does it. How are you so sure she didn't meet someone else ten minutes later? You aren't. You just wanted to go home with a 'Solved' stamp on your file before the 11 o'clock news."
"And you just happen to know he's innocent? How?" Benson spat.
"Well, finding the real killer is actually your job, isn't it, isn't it?" Kenji said mockingly, adjusted his tie. "But since you're so clearly out of your depth, I'll give you a hand. Think of it as a professional courtesy."
As he spoke, two figures emerged from behind them. One was a young man with messy hair and a vibrant, mischievous grin, Sora. Beside him stood a small, porcelain-skinned girl with blank, crimson eyes, Shiro.
"Here," Shiro said, her voice a flat, monotone as she handed Kenji a thick manila folder.
"Thank you, Shiro," he smiled, patting her head.
"We were able to dig a bit deeper than the NYPD's 'finest'," Sora said brightly, casually leaning against a "No Parking" sign. "Turns out the victim was seen again around midnight, two full hours after she left Mr. Simon. She was headed toward the Lavious Casino with a man in a red jacket. We have the timestamps, the facial recognition from the casino's private security, and the license plate of the car they got into."
This had been one of the rewards from the main quest, an Invitation Ticket. Since Kenji didn't have many people he felt comfortable bringing into his group, and the other two didn't care, they all agreed to just let Sora have it.
The boy had been desperate to bring his sister, Shiro, into the system so they would never be separated again. Shiro had proven to be a good addition to the group.
Kenji handed the folder to Benson with a mocking flourish. "Guess even kids can do your job better than you. Try to arrest the right guy this time. It's starting to get embarrassing for all of us."
He turned and walked away, the siblings following close behind as the SVU team stood frozen on the sidewalk.
"You really don't like them, do you?" Sora asked as they reached the corner.
Kenji nodded. "I watched a lot of television in my old life, Sora. Seeing their brand of 'moral certainty' up close... It's a lot more annoying when it's an actual innocent man's life on the line," the boy nodded.
"Anyway, thanks for the invite, but we have to go. " It was fun though," Sora said, waving as he and Shiro got ready to leave.
"Fun," Shiro echoed softly.
They disappeared back to their home world, and Kenji hit the Return button. Side quest complete. Reward: +2000 EXP, 3000 points, and the profound satisfaction of ruining Olivia Benson's afternoon.
Back in Shizuoka, the atmosphere was far more peaceful.
Aoi sat in the center of her bedroom floor, her legs crossed and her spine perfectly straight. She held her hands out, cupping them as if holding a fragile, invisible bowl.
A faint blue mist swirled between her palms, glowing with a soft, ethereal light that bathed the room in a cool hue. A shard of ice manifested, jagged and cloudy at first.
Aoi frowned, her brow furrowing as she focused her mana flow, thinning the energy until the ice started to take shape. The ice smoothed over, shifting into a perfect, multi-faceted diamond. Then, with a flicker of thought, it flowed like liquid, hardening into a translucent box. Then an orb. A heart. A miniature, delicate ice flower, though a little rough.
She had taken to this control training every morning and afternoon. Her father had emphasized that while raw power was good, it was something that he could easily help with, but control was something they had to put in effort.
She was becoming a master of learning to manipulate her ice constructs.
"Aoi! Let's go, or we'll be late for homeroom!" Ayaka's voice boomed through the door, followed by the sound of a bag being aggressively packed.
Aoi sighed, letting the ice constructs dissolve into harmless vapor. This was her normal now, the strange bridge between being a high school student and a burgeoning learner of the elements. On the walk to school, she would practice small feats, freezing the dew on a blade of grass, trying to create a cold breeze, or subtly cooling the humid air around her sister to keep Ayaka from getting "cranky" in the heat.
"Yo."
Aoi turned to see a familiar small figure near the school gates. White hair, void yellow eyes, and a perpetually stoic expression.
"Hey, Koneko," Aoi greeted, falling into step beside her.
Over the past few weeks, Aoi had gravitated toward the small Devil. While she liked Asia's bottomless kindness and Momo's quiet diligence, she felt a strange kinship with Koneko. Both of them were quiet and observant.
More importantly, Aoi had noticed the "eyes" of the others
Rias Gremory and Sona Sitri were kind, but when they looked at her or Ayaka, there was a hunger in their gaze. After asking her father about why he didn't like devils, he had told her different reasons, but it was one that got her the most, the one about the 'Evil Pieces' system, the reality of the situation.
That was what helped her understand why they kept looking at her like that, and she was not a fan despite their kindness.
Aoi loved her freedom more than anything. The idea of being "reincarnated" as a servant, chained to a king, seems to make her skin crawl.
She would be a friend to the Gremory and Sona peerage, if they wanted, a neighbor, even an ally. But she would never be their 'piece.' She would never be anyone's property.
The school day ended, followed by a grueling training session in the ID, as her father called it, that left the entire family panting and drenched in sweat, even Ren, who started training with them now. Evening finally settled over the Takahashi home, the sky turning a deep purple.
Aoi was relaxing in the living room, flipping through a leather-bound book on mana theory she had gotten from her father, when the doorbell rang.
No one seemed to be answering, so Aoi stood up and opened the door herself.
Standing on the porch were eight people. They were dressed in impeccably tailored clothes. They looked like a royal procession from a high-budget film. The man at the front was older, with sharp, hawk-like features and eyes that reminded Aoi unnervingly of her mother's whenever Anastasia was truly angry.
"Mum, Dad! It's for you!" Aoi called out.
Kenji rounded the corner, wiping sweat from his neck with a towel, his mind likely still on dinner. The moment he saw the man at the door, he froze. His posture shifted instantly, the relaxed, domestic father vanished. He now looked wary.
"Ah, Kenji. It's been a long time, hasn't it, son?" the man said, his voice warm and grandfatherly. One that Aoi knew didnt make her father happy at all if the way his body tensed was any indication.
"Father-in-law," Kenji replied, his voice flat and devoid of any welcome. "What a surprise. I didn't think you knew the way to this part of Japan."
Aoi's head snapped toward the man. 'Grandfather?' She had never even seen a photograph of him. Her mother rarely spoke of her family, and when she did, it was with a frostiness that suggested deep hurt.
"May we come in?" the man asked pleasantly, though his eyes were already scanning the interior of the house, judging the furniture, the decor, and Aoi herself with a cold, analytical eye.
Kenji's face soured. Before he could respond, Anastasia stepped into the hallway. Her usual warmth was gone, replaced by a gaze so frigid it made the room feel like a meat locker.
Aoi felt a shiver run down her spine. She had never seen her mother look at anyone with such pure, unmitigated loathing. not even back when her father was the scum of the earth.
"…Let them in," Anastasia said quietly. "We wouldn't want the neighbors to think we lack hospitality."
Elsewhere.
The Mother Box, the living computer of the New Gods. was having its own issues as it blinked and bipped.
It was having a problem. A Mother Box was more than a machine, it was a sentient computer with a link to the "Source", the primordial energy that one could say was used to create the DC Multiverse.
When it attempted to reboot, it reached out with its digital soul for that familiar cosmic power, only to find nothing. The Source was gone, it was nonexistent in this reality. That was a problem for the mother box.
The Box pulsed with a confused, rhythmic beep.
It began to scan everywhere. It analyzed the mana in the air, the ley lines it could reach, anything and everything it could reach.
It was after a while that it found something. It wasn't the Source, but it was... compatible. not as powerful, not as maliable, but it would do.
The Box connected.
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