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Tsubasa Kagome was a defense attorney and a member of the Prosecutorial Investigation Committee. She was found murdered in the Committee's meeting room.
Loss
- Main article: SS-5 Incident
Kamei's corpse.
In 2007, Kagome's photojournalist boyfriend Ryūji Kamei was investigating the illegal activities of Chief Prosecutor Bansai Ichiyanagi. On February 10, Kamei followed one of his leads and stumbled onto what appeared to be a kidnapping of Teikun Ō, the president of Zheng Fa. Kamei called Kagome, but he couldn't reach her, so instead left behind a voice mail. However, while recording his message, he was struck dead from behind. Although the murder case and kidnapping were left unsolved, Kagome suspected Ichiyanagi's involvement, and wanted revenge.
When Ichiyanagi became the Chair of the Prosecutorial Investigation Committee, Kagome also became a P.I.C. member to get close to him and find a way to bring him down. Kagome's friend, a judge named Hakari Mikagami, also became a member to help Kagome in her quest. In the meantime, Kagome continued to take on clients as a defense attorney. She took on the task of defending Marī Miwa in court after the latter was accused of murder in 2019, but Kagome would ultimately never reach the trial. Mikagami eventually became one of Ichiyanagi's most trusted people.
Confrontation and death
- Main article: The Forgotten Turnabout
Kagome began receiving letters from a helpful stranger who fed Kagome information on Ichiyanagi, and eventually Kagome decided to act. She found out about Ichiyanagi's illegal auctioning of evidence from past cases, all of which was gathered in a hidden storage area above the Committee's meeting room. On April 4th, 2019, Kagome entered the auction; all the participants wore masks equipped with voice-changers to hide their identities.
Kagome won a bid for one of the items, and followed Ichiyanagi to the storage room to collect her winnings. With the two of them now alone, Kagome confronted Ichiyanagi, telling him that she knew who he was from the burn mark on his face. However, unbeknownst to Kagome, the stranger had informed Ichiyanagi of Kagome's intent to kill him, allowing him to be ready for her. He struck her over the head with the auction gavel.
Kagome's corpse.
In order to conceal his crime, Ichiyanagi gave Kagome's clothing and mask to an accomplice, Tōko Mutō, to replace Kagome at the auction so that no one would notice that one of the bidders was missing. Kagome was hidden inside a costume trunk as Ichiyanagi continued the auction, and Mutō covered Kagome with a red raincoat. However, after Ichiyanagi and Mutō returned to the auction, Kagome managed to climb the ladder to the top of the tower, where she died.
Meanwhile, Mutō won the costume trunk and she and Ichiyanagi returned to the storage room to discover the unconscious Kay Faraday, who had fallen into the storage room in shock after discovering Kagome's body. Seeing letters on Faraday and Kagome addressed to each other, Ichiyanagi decided to pin the murder on Faraday to get rid of what he believed was a duo out to get him. He covered the body with his auctioneer's clothes, and them stabbed the corpse with a candelabra that was among the evidence in the room. Both Faraday and Kagome were locked in the costume trunk until the auction was finished.
Ichiyanagi then brought the body down the elevator that connected the storage and meeting rooms. It was there that he removed the candelabra so that the resulting blood loss would make it appear that she had died in that room. He then laid Kagome's body on the Committee desk, left the candelabra nearby. Later, Mutō changed the cause of death in Otome Itami's autopsy report.
Unbeknownst to Ichiyanagi, the stranger who had played both sides had not yet finished manipulating the situation. He left Faraday's promise notebook next to Kagome, as well as placing the letter between Kagome and himself that had set up the situation in her left breast pocket, but forged with Faraday's name. The mastermind did all this knowing that Miles Edgeworth would defend Faraday and reveal the true criminal in the process. Kagome's death left Marī Miwa's trial without a defense attorney, and so Tateyuki Shigaraki took over her role as the only one able to do so at such short notice. Edgeworth went on to uncover Ichiyanagi's actions during the SS-5 Incident, as well as the identity of the mastermind whose schemes had led to Tsubasa Kagome's death.
Name
- Her given name "Tsubasa" (つばさ) means "wings", while her full name could be a play on the Japanese phrase "kago no naka no tori" (籠の中の鳥), which means "a bird in a cage". Along with her surname "Kagome" (籠目), all of these are likely references to the traditional Japanese children's game Kagome Kagome, of which "a bird in a cage" is one of the lines. This is backed up by her boyfriends's surname "Kamei" (亀井) containing the kanji for turtle (亀), which is also mentioned in Kagome Kagome.
- Kagome's English name in the fan translation of Gyakuten Kenji 2 is "Jill Crane", which is likely meant to have a similar meaning to her Japanese given name. "Jill" may be intended to harken back to Kagome Kagome by referring to the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill (backed by Kamei's given name being changed to "Jack"). The surname "Crane" more directly links back to Kagome Kagome, where the crane is mentioned alongside the turtle. As well, it combines with Kamei's changed surname "Cameron" to form a reference to a camera on a camera crane.
Development
