Athena Cykes

"Athena Cykes"

- I won't lose to anyone! Especially not you!

Athena Cykes is one of three defense attorneys in the Wright Anything Agency, working in this capacity alongside Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice. She is a specialist in analytical psychology, which she studied in the United States. Cykes has a special ability to pick up subtle emotions from witnesses' voices, and she examines these using a device called the "Mood Matrix". The Mood Matrix is linked to a necklace she wears that changes color with her emotions.

Early life

 * Main article: Turnabout to the Future

When Cykes was 11, her mother, Mari Kizuki, was killed by an unknown spy. When Simon Blackquill found her near her mother's body holding the bloody murder weapon, he decided to take the blame so no one would suspect her. After this incident, later known as the "UR-1 Incident", Cykes studied to become a defense attorney to clear Blackquill of all charges.

First cases with the agency

 * Main article: Turnabout Hyakkiyakō

The Wright Anything Agency was invited for a celebration at Nine-Tails Vale by Trucy Wright's friend, Jinxie Tenma. After Ginji Kyuubi was murdered, and Deemon Tenma was arrested, Phoenix Wright sent Cykes to assist defense attorney Apollo Justice in his investigation. A police officer was standing by the scene and refused to let Cykes in, so she used her strength and threw the officer on the ground, accidentally knocking him into Justice, and the two were assisted by detective Bobby Fulbright during the investigation. Cykes explained to Justice about the Mood Matrix's overload mode during the trial, and using this technique, they were able to find the source of Jinxie's fear while she testified. Eventually, Cykes and Justice exposed Shuuichi Biyouin as the culprit.

Friendship reunited

 * Main article: Turnabout Academy

Later, Wright, Justice, and Cykes were invited to Themis Legal Academy for a school festival in which Wright and Klavier Gavin were to participate in a mock trial. Later, when the group found Constance Courte, a judge teacher at the academy dead, Cykes's childhood friend and academy student council president Juniper Woods was arrested for her murder. Cykes decided to take the case as Woods' lawyer against convict prosecutor Simon Blackquill, and Justice and Gavin took part in a short version of the mock trial to help ascertain the facts of the case. During the trial, Cykes went into a state of fear after visualizing events from her past, and defense attorney teacher Shinji Ichiro taunted her while he was being cross-examined. However, Justice and Woods, as well as fellow students Rei Shizuya and Chishio Atsui helped her overcome her past and she, along with the assistance of Justice, was able to recreate the position of Courte's body to indict Ichiro of the crime.

Attack on HAT-1

 * ''Main article: Turnabout up to the Stars

Cykes and Justice later took the case of Taiyou Hoshinari, an astronaut at the GYAXA station, who was accused of killing Justice's childhood friend, Daichi Aoi. At the first part of the trial, Ted Tonate warned the court that a bomb was about to go off in the courtroom, and ordered everyone to evacuate immediately. However, Blackquill and Justice were persistent in solving the case, and refused to leave. However, just when the bomb went off, Juniper Woods, who was observing the trial from the gallery, fell and tripped. Justice was injured after rescuing her from the falling rubble, Cykes and Blackquill safely left the courtroom and Woods was found as the prime suspect in the bombing.

Woods' second trial

 * ''Main article: Turnabout Countdown

Justice decided to take Woods's case after the bombing. However, before the trial, he fainted due to his injuries, so Cykes took over for him against prosecutor Gaspen Payne, brother of "Rookie Killer" Winston Payne. Payne taunted Cykes, and she suffered slight PTSD as a result. After visualizing events from the UR-1 Incident again, Payne again taunted her, then Phoenix Wright took over right after making a surprising entrance, causing Cykes to snap out of her fear state.

Personality
Cykes has strong emotions and a drive to win. This can sometimes cause her to be reckless. She also likes orange juice after a good workout.

Name

 * "Kizuki" consists of kanji that can mean "rare" or "hope" (希) and "month" or "moon" (月). This can make her Japanese surname mean "rare moon", "rare month", "moon of hope", or "month of hope". Importantly, it sounds similar to kitzuki (気付き) which means "to notice".


 * Her given name, "Kokone", consists of kanji that can mean "heart", "soul", "mind", "emotion", "sincerity", "sympathy", or "answer (as in to a riddle)" (心), and "sound" (音). Combined, they mean "(the sound of one's) heartbeat".


 * Her full Japanese name could roughly mean "a heartbeat once in a blue moon". This may be a reference to the "heart scope" ("ココ口スコ‐プ kokoro sukōpu"), the Japanese name for the Mood Matrix. If you combine the "to notice" meaning of her last name with the "mind/heart", her full name can also mean "read someone's heart/mind".


 * Her given name "Athena" comes from Athena, the goddess of (amongst other things) wisdom, courage, inspiration, law and justice, strategy, and skill in Greek mythology. This is likely meant to link her name with the given names of both Apollo Justice (named after the Greek god of the same name) and Phoenix Wright (whose first name originates from mythology).


 * "Cykes" may be a play on "psychology" or "psyched".


 * Her last name was misspelled as "Sykes" twice in a "fact sheet" for Dual Destinies ahead of E3 2013.

Other pictures

 * The main clothing color themes of Phoenix Wright, Apollo Justice and Athena Cykes are the three primary colors.