Trial (July 10, 2026)

Trial, first session
Before the trial started, Justice was greeted by Valant Gramarye in the defendant lobby. Valant told him that a “Gramarye illusion” was the key to everything that had happened in the case, and left. The bailiff then informed Justice that the trial would start 30 minutes late because the judge had gone to the hospital to visit the Chief Justice’s son, who was terminally afflicted with Incuritis. He gave Justice a newspaper article about the illness; it was the first recorded case of it in the country.

Gavin opened the trial by refuting Lamiroir’s previous accusation with the same reason Crescend had given; he had been playing on stage and thus had an alibi. With Lamiroir’s testimony dismissed and the judge about to declare a guilty verdict, Justice remembered that Tobaye had been about to tell him something about the case when their meeting had been interrupted by Crescend. He asked to have Tobaye testify about the crime, with Lamiroir acting as an interpreter.

Tobaye and Lamiroir were called to the stand. With Lamiroir translating, Tobaye told the court that he had proof of his innocence: the murder had followed the lyrics to Lamiroir’s song, but he did not understand them, since they were in English, so he could not have done it. However, Justice’s bracelet reacted to this statement: Tobaye glanced at Lamiroir the moment she said the word “English”. Justice was now convinced that Tobaye did understand English. Lamiroir insisted he didn’t, but Justice had a counterargument: if Tobaye did not speak English, he should not have known that the crime had followed the lyrics in the first place. Lamiroir said he had read about it in the newspaper. Justice presented the copy of the Borginian newspaper he had received from Gavin: it did not mention the lyrics to the song, so Tobaye could not have learned about it from there.

Tobaye changed his version, saying he had been told about the lyrics by Lamiroir herself, which she confirmed, but Justice’s bracelet reacted again: Lamiroir had swallowed when telling the court she had told Tobaye about the lyrics. Knowing that she was lying to protect Tobaye, Justice told them both that he believed in Tobaye’s innocence, and they should trust him instead of lying to protect each other.

Tobaye finally confessed that he understood English. He told the court he had gone into the dressing room and found LeTouse’s body on the floor. Upon hearing Justice and Skye’s voices from outside, he had panicked and fled through the air vent. Gavin dismissed this explanation; since Tobaye had been at the crime scene and understood the lyrics after all, he had to have been the shooter. Knowing that Tobaye was still hiding something, Justice tried to get him to testify about the Borginian cocoon, but he refused. With the defense and defendant at odds, the judge was forced to declare a recess.

During the recess, Tobaye told Justice something surprising: he had gone into the dressing room, found LeTouse’s body, and only then heard the gunshots. He said the air vents connected both the stage and backstage areas, something he had heard from a magician.

The trial resumed. Justice told the court that Tobaye was still refusing to testify about the cocoon smuggling, but that he had another witness to call: Lamiroir. Gavin objected, saying Lamiroir had already been cross-examined and her testimony found insubstantial, but Justice informed the court about the attack on Lamiroir the previous day. Justice argued that Lamiroir was only known in the United States as a foreign singer who didn’t speak English, yet someone had tried to keep her quiet. The only possible explanation was that she had said something incriminating during her previous testimony, and someone wanted to silence her. Justice claimed that her attacker must have been the same person who killed LeTouse.

Lamiroir took the witness stand again. She testified once more about what she had heard: Crescend and LeTouse talking, followed by gunshots. Justice decided to try a different angle of questioning and asked her what they were talking about. She recalled hearing one phrase very clearly: "It's over. Press the switch! Now!"

Justice presented the remote trigger he had found on the stage, claiming it to be the “switch” in question. Gavin argued that someone on stage couldn’t have heard a voice coming from Lamiroir’s dressing room, but Justice then presented the headset. As the cross-section diagram showed, the direct distance from the dressing room to the stage was less than 30 feet, making communication with the headset possible. Gavin said Justice couldn’t even know for sure that the switch had been on the stage all this time, someone could have hidden it there afterwards. Justice then showed the court the igniter, which was connected to the remote trigger.

Gavin realized what Justice was getting at: his guitar suddenly catching on fire in the middle of the concert. He admitted that the igniter could have been the cause, but his guitar had caught fire during Lamiroir’s song in the second set, whereas the shooting had happened during the Gavinners’ performance in the third set.

Justice was then ready to present a counterargument that would turn the case around: what was incorrect wasn’t the assumption about the switch, but the assumption about the entire case so far, namely that it had happened during the third set. He and Skye had heard gunshots from the hallway, and Tobaye had admitted he had been in the dressing room at the time, however, despite them all having heard the shots, no one had actually witnessed the shooting. The shooting, Justice claimed, had not happened at that moment, but earlier: during Lamiroir’s performance.

The judge argued that this contradicted the evidence: the crime had followed the song lyrics, in which the part about a “bullet” came after the “fire”. Justice, who had finally realized why the criminal had gone to all the trouble of making the crime follow the lyrics, explained the contradiction: the events had not actually happened in the same order as the lyrics. Everyone involved had simply assumed that they had, which was precisely the criminal’s objective. By making the crime appear to follow the lyrics, even taking the risk of moving LeTouse’s body to the stage at the end, they had created the false impression that everything had happened in a certain order. It had been assumed that the shooting had happened after the fire, but it had actually been the other way around. The real crime had happened during the second set, Lamiroir’s ballad, meaning the murderer must have been someone without an alibi for that set.

Gavin said that there was still a contradiction in Justice’s claims: at the time of the crime, the window through which Lamiroir claimed to have heard the gunshots was closed. Rethinking the case, Justice reasoned that there was only one explanation: if the window was closed, and Lamiroir had really heard what she did, she must have been somewhere else. Gavin said there was only one window at the crime scene, but Justice pointed out there was another “window”: the air vent.

Gavin asked what possible reason Lamiroir could have to be in the air vent. Justice decided to ask Lamiroir herself. She admitted that she had been above the ceiling at the time. The “window” through which she had heard the shots was on the ceiling, not the wall.

Lamiroir was asked to testify about why she had been above the ceiling right in the middle of her performance. She would not say why, claiming to be bound to secrecy, but she did name the person who had made her promise to keep it a secret: Valant Gramarye, the magician, who had been responsible for the illusion employed during Lamiroir’s song.

Justice presented the video tape with the recording of Lamiroir’s performance. Lamiroir had “disappeared” during the illusion, proving that she had not been on stage the whole time. She must have been hidden from view during that span of time, moving from the stage to the back of the forum. The diagram showed that the air vent covered that whole distance.

Lamiroir admitted to using the air vent to move across the coliseum during her performance. The judge argued that she had only disappeared for twenty seconds, and that she couldn’t have moved that fast. Since Lamiroir would still not tell how she had done it, it fell on Justice to explain. Lamiroir claimed to have made the trip in two minutes, but she had only disappeared for twenty seconds. Looking over the video of the performance again, Justice noticed that Lamiroir’s brooch had disappeared during the magic act: she had been wearing it on the stage, but not when she reappeared behind the audience. Justice claimed there was only one explanation for the brooch’s disappearance, as well as Lamiroir making the trip across so quickly: the Lamiroir seen on stage before her disappearance and the one who had reappeared behind the audience were two different people. Furthermore, the brooch had been found in the dressing room, directly below the air vent, meaning she must have accidentally dropped it through the grate while she crossed it.

Lamiroir confirmed that she had dropped her brooch through the air vent. Gavin, who knew part of the trick behind the illusion, said that the “fake Lamiroir” seen on stage was Valant Gramarye, who had replaced her before the tower was risen. Justice pointed out that she was still singing even after being replaced by Valant, and asked how that was possible. Trucy suggested a recording, but Lamiroir denied it, saying what they heard was her own voice; she had kept singing even while moving through the air vent. The judge asked how the people in the dressing room could not have heard her voice if she was singing in the air vent, but Gavin explained that the dressing rooms were fitted with speakers that piped in direct feed from the stage microphones. Lamiroir’s voice in the ceiling would have sounded just like her voice coming from the speakers, so no one would have known she was in the air vent.

Lamiroir then remembered something else: the moment she had heard the gunshots, she had been startled and stopped singing for only a moment. Justice realized that, with this information, they might be able to find the exact time the gunshots had been fired. Watching the recording again, Justice found the error he was looking for: one verse in the song was, “Pleasure, pleasure… but a fleeting melody”, but instead, Lamiroir had sung, “Pleasure… but a fleeting melody”. This appeared to confirm the time of the shooting, meaning that Daryan Crescend had no alibi after all. Gavin said there was still the possibility that Lamiroir was lying to protect Tobaye, and the only way to be sure was to cross-examine Crescend himself. Court was adjourned for a fifteen-minute recess.

Recess
During the recess, Justice and Trucy were greeted by Phoenix Wright. He said he was confident that Justice would be able to prove Tobaye innocent, but, under the current court system, it would not be easy to indict Crescend, since the only proof they had against him was Lamiroir’s testimony. Before leaving, Phoenix gave Justice something else Ema Skye had found at the crime scene: fragments of a firecracker, found under the sofa.

Trial, second session
Daryan Crescend was finally summoned to the witness stand. He began his testimony by stating that Lamiroir was simply lying. According to him, she could not have recognized his voice, since she had never heard it in the first place; besides, Ema Skye had heard the gunshots during the third act. Justice countered this by presenting the two things found under the sofa in Lamiroir’s dressing room: an igniter and remains of a firecracker. The sound that Justice and Skye had assumed to be gunshots could have been the igniter going off and causing the firecracker to explode. Crescend could have activated the igniter remotely to produce the fake gunshots and create witnesses.

Crescend replied to this explanation by saying that it seemed too convenient; it was unlikely that the firecracker would just happen to go off when there were witnesses in the hallway. Trucy reminded Justice that Crescend had been playing on stage at the time; he could not have known whether there would be anyone in the hallway at the time to witness the fake gunshots.

Gavin then reminded Justice of something he had seen in the hallway that day: a headset lying on the floor. Justice realized that, if the headset had been turned on, someone in a different location could have heard what was going on in the hallway, even someone on stage. With Gavin appearing to help Justice with this clue, Crescend asked him whose side he was on, but Gavin simply replied that there were no sides in a court of law. Gavin then addressed Justice: with the headset and the firecracker, he had proven the possibility that the gunshots heard during the third act had been faked, but it was still just that, a possibility. Justice would still need to prove the other side of the story: that the real shooting had happened during the second act.

Justice offered to prove when the real shooting had taken place using a new piece of evidence: the mixing board Gavin had shown him after the concert. It made it possible to hear each band member’s performance separately, as recorded by their headsets. Since Lamiroir had heard the gunshots, her headset might have recorded the sound.

Justice used the mixing board to filter out everything but Lamiroir’s part of the song, and he found what he was looking for: right at the moment when she had forgotten the words to the song, there was a sound resembling a gunshot. Gavin accepted this as proof that Lamiroir’s testimony was true; there had been a gunshot sound during the second act. Since Crescend had not been on stage then, he could have been the shooter. There was something else that seemed to point to Crescend as the shooter: the murder weapon was a 45-caliber revolver, a weapon powerful enough to injure even the shooter. As Gavin recalled, Crescend had missed a cue during the third act. His playing could have been affected because he had hurt himself firing the weapon.

Crescend countered that, as a detective, he was used to shooting and would not hurt himself firing a weapon. Gavin, who almost seemed to be on Justice’s side now, replied that the standard issue for police officers was a 38-caliber revolver, a much less powerful weapon. Furthermore, the murder weapon had been stolen from LeTouse, indicating a struggle between the shooter and the victim, which meant the shooter might not have been holding the revolver correctly when he fired.

Crescend said that none of this evidence against him was decisive, it was all circumstantial. More importantly, he argued, he had no motive. Justice then presented what he believed to be the murder motive: the Borginian cocoon. He explained that the cocoon could be used to create a cure for a serious illness, but that it was illegal to take them out of the country. When the judge asked why, Gavin explained: by processing the cocoon in a slightly different manner, one could create a deadly poison, this was why Interpol was after the cocoons. Crescend said that selling cocoons on the black market was too dangerous and not lucrative, but Justice suggested that the smuggler may have been after a different buyer, presenting the newspaper article about the Chief Justice’s son, afflicted with Incuritis. As a detective, Crescend could have had contact with the Chief Justice.

Crescend argued further that smuggling cocoons out of Borginia was nearly impossible, the customs checked everything. Justice showed that there was a way to smuggle the cocoons out of Borginia: Gavin’s guitar. He had used a special shipping service available only to prosecutors to bring it to the United States, and it had been vacuum-packed. Customs would not check something belonging to a prosecutor. As a member of the band, Crescend could have had access to the guitar and hidden the cocoons inside it. This was why Gavin’s keys had been stolen on the day of the murder; to retrieve the cocoons from inside the guitar. However, something had happened that the smuggler had not counted on: the guitar had been wrapped, and unwrapping it would certainly raise suspicions. On top of that, LeTouse had been after the cocoons. He could have found out where they were hidden simply by checking the shipping records. The smuggler had had no choice but to destroy the cocoons by burning Gavin’s guitar.

However, Crescend said it was impossible for him to have been the smuggler because he had never even been to Borginia, which Gavin confirmed. Justice said it was far from impossible, all he needed was a Borginian accomplice to hide the cocoons. Only one person fit all the requirements to be this accomplice: Machi Tobaye.

The judge was shocked that Justice would name his own client as an accomplice to smuggling, but Justice explained that his job was to prove Tobaye innocent in the murder of Romein LeTouse. The judge suggested the possibility that Lamiroir had been the accomplice instead, but Justice explained that this was impossible. At the moment when Gavin’s guitar had caught fire, Lamiroir had been in the air vent. The tower in the middle of the stage, on which Gavin was standing, had been raised, putting it too far away from Lamiroir’s position for her to have pressed the switch that activated the igniter. Only someone actually on the stage could have pressed the remote switch, namely Tobaye, who was at the piano.

Crescend then asked to see the video of the performance again and pointed out a problem with Justice’s theory: the piano could clearly be heard at the moment when the guitar had burst into flames. If Tobaye had been playing the piano, he could not have pressed the switch. Justice’s theory appeared to have fallen apart, but then Gavin commented that something about Tobaye’s performance sounded odd. Justice then presented the mixing board again, proposing that they listen to the piano at the moment before the guitar had caught fire. Indeed, the piano at that part sounded odd, almost as if Tobaye had been playing with only one hand. If that were the case, it could mean he was using his other hand to press the switch.

Justice compared the piano at the end of the second verse, when the guitar burned, to the same part in the first verse. They should have been the same, but in the recording, only the part in the first verse had both high and low notes, meaning it had been played with two hands. Tobaye could have been using only one hand during the second verse. Crescend said it could simply have been a different arrangement, but Gavin answered that there was no point in changing an arrangement if the change couldn’t be heard clearly. The piano was simply a background accompaniment, so Gavin wouldn’t have changed the arrangement.

Justice finally appeared to have made a solid case to indict Crescend, but the latter started laughing. Gavin explained to Justice that, although his case was solid, none of the evidence was decisive. He could not prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Crescend had smuggled the cocoons or killed LeTouse. Justice argued that all the facts pointed to him, but the Judge would not hear it, saying that, even if a thousand facts pointed toward the same conclusion, it was not proof without decisive evidence. The court could not acknowledge the accusation against Crescend.

Remembering what Phoenix had said – that he would not be able to prove Crescend’s guilt through conventional means – Justice realized that what he needed was not evidence, but a witness. Namely, the one person who knew the truth about Crescend’s plan, Machi Tobaye. With permission from Borginia, they could obtain a cocoon and burn it. It would certainly leave a residue, which they could compare to residues found inside the burnt guitar. All Tobaye had to do was acknowledge his participation in the smuggling, and the case would be solved.

Crescend laughed, saying Tobaye would never talk: cocoon smuggling was punishable by death in Borginia, so confessing to it would be suicide. However, Justice pointed out that confessing was, in fact, the only way Tobaye could avoid the death penalty. If he admitted to smuggling in the United States, he would be tried there for smuggling, and wouldn’t have received the death penalty. But, since news of LeTouse’s death had already reached Borginia, if he didn’t confess, he would eventually be picked up by Borginian police. Plus, with everything that had been proven, Tobaye was also no longer in any danger of being found guilty of LeTouse’s murder; he had no reason not to confess to smuggling. Realizing his situation, Daryan Crescend tried to bargain with Tobaye for his silence, making offer after offer, until he finally broke down on the stand, desperately begging for Tobaye not to talk. Gavin told him it was nice rocking with him.

Tobaye was called to the stand. The judge asked him if he would testify about his role as an accomplice. Justice told him he had never wanted it to come to this, but he was not the kind of lawyer who could overlook a crime. Tobaye said he had known from the beginning that he would have to confess. Finally taking off his sunglasses, he thanked Justice for defending him in spite of his lies. The judge then handed down a not guilty verdict.

Aftermath
In the defendant lobby, Justice and Trucy met Phoenix and Lamiroir. The singer seemed remarkably calm about the outcome of the trial, saying that, although she loved Tobaye like a son, he still had to pay for what he had done. She also announced that she was considering having an eye operation to regain her sight, per Phoenix’s suggestion. According to the doctor, Lamiroir had lost her sight in some sort of accident. She said that she wanted to take up painting if she regained her sight. Phoenix told Justice and Trucy that he still had to finish his “secret mission”. Lamiroir then bade farewell to them, saying that she hoped they would meet again.