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Yatagarasu
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Yatagarasu card
Organization info
Organization type Vigilante thief
Organizational structure Original team:

Successor: Kay Faraday

Affiliated groups District prosecutor's office
Criminal Affairs Department
Cohdopian smuggling ring
Notable dates 2009: KG-8 Incident
Sept. 8, 2012: Second KG-8 Incident
Sept. 10, 2012: Calisto Yew murders Byrne Faraday
Mar. 13, 2019: Ernest Amano arrested. Kay Faraday adopts the Yatagarasu moniker
Mar. 14, 2019: Calisto Yew arrested. Manny Coachen murdered
Mar. 15, 2019: Quercus Alba arrested
Mar. 17, 2019: Quercus Alba and Ernest Amano tried and convicted in the United States
Mar. 24, 2019: Quercus Alba tried and convicted in Cohdopia
Status Revived, but inactive
Relevant cases The Kidnapped Turnabout
Turnabout Reminiscence
Turnabout Ablaze
Kay Faraday
Even in the depths of night, when no other bird dares to take flight, one alone soars to shine the light of righteousness on the world's blight! And that one is me! For I am the Great Thief, Yatagarasu!

The Yatagarasu was an infamous thief, known for stealing corporate files that exposed their illegal or unethical activities and then sending them to the media.

Origin[]

Main article: KG-8 Incident
The True Yatagarasu

The three members of the original Yatagarasu.

Long before the name "Yatagarasu" ever came into being, prosecutor Byrne Faraday and detective Tyrell Badd had a strong friendship and partnership. The two worked on many cases together and eventually came across the Amano Group, which they found to have connections to an international smuggling ring. They found a single witness willing to testify: Cece Yew, an employee of the Amano Group, who was subsequently put under the protection of Detective Badd. However, Manny Coachen, one of the smuggling ring's members, managed to evade Badd's surveillance and silenced the witness. Unfortunately for Coachen, he was caught on a security camera, and so he was put on trial for the murder. In response, the Amano Group sent agents to lure Badd into a trap and steal the surveillance video, and thus Coachen escaped conviction due to the lack of the decisive evidence.

Smuggling ring card

The smuggling ring's directive card.

As Badd and Faraday heard the verdict and saw Cece Yew's sister Calisto Yew wail in despair, they vowed to take down the smuggling ring by any means necessary. While Yew initially refused their offer to join them, the three later met again, and when each party realized that the other was actively hunting down the smuggling ring, they decided to unite for their singular purpose. They knew that the smuggling ring's puppets were sent orders through distinctive black directives cards depicting a white Yatagarasu bird, and thus they thought to parody this by creating a white calling card depicting a black "Yatagarasu". Soon enough, the "Great Thief Yatagarasu" began to grab the attention of the news by stealing evidence of corruption from various companies affiliated with the smuggling ring and exposing it to the media, leaving its calling card to show who had done the deed.

Operation[]

NewspaperYatagarasuHaunts

A newspaper article on the Yatagarasu.

The legend of the Yatagarasu dominated the news for the next three years. The three legs of the Yatagarasu were represented by the thief's three distinct traits. The Yatagarasu always knew the exact location of the target object. The Yatagarasu knew exactly how to disarm the security systems in the way. Finally, the Yatagarasu never left a single shred of evidence behind. The Yatagarasu always managed to obtain the target undetected, and so the victim company would not realize that it had been infiltrated until the evidence and the telltale calling card reached the media and it was too late.

The Three Legs

The Yatagarasu's three distinct traits.

In reality, these three traits came from the particular skills that each of the three people comprising the Yatagarasu brought. As a defense attorney, Calisto Yew attracted the attention of potential target companies desiring legal protection, and so she could get close to the Yatagarasu's targets. As a prosecutor, Byrne Faraday had knowledge of security-disabling methods and used a device called Little Thief to plan the Yatagarasu's heists. Finally, as the detective in charge of the Yatagarasu cases, Tyrell Badd could ensure that no evidence made it to the authorities. Despite the Yatagarasu's efforts, however, the leader of the smuggling ring was never found.

Dissolution[]

Main article: Turnabout Reminiscence
Yewmurderfaraday

"Calisto Yew" moves in to stab Byrne Faraday.

In 2012, Faraday stole a key from the Cohdopian Embassy, but during the same night, an embassy employee named Deid Mann, who was to testify against the embassy, was murdered. In a curious move, Yew sent the key to the police rather than to the media, and it became known as the Yatagarasu's Key. In addition, the killer, Mack Rell, claimed to be the Yatagarasu rather than the killer. Because of this, Badd interrogated Rell to prove that Rell was not the Yatagarasu, and Faraday offered to prosecute Rell and brought the key to court for the same purpose. While Rell had been caught on camera, clearly proving his guilt, he suddenly pointed to Faraday and claimed that he was the Yatagarasu. When court was subsequently adjourned, Faraday took Rell to Defendant Lobby No. 2 to question him. Just before court reconvened, both prosecutor and defendant were found dead.

Badd tried to head the case, but Manfred von Karma overruled him and placed his budding students Miles Edgeworth and Franziska von Karma in charge. Initially, it seemed that the two victims had killed each other, but Edgeworth found that this was not the case. Manny Coachen, who had come to watch the trial, was also ruled out because he had been under constant surveillance. Yew, having conducted her own investigation, then accused rookie detective Dick Gumshoe of the murder. However, in another major turn of events, Edgeworth's investigations led to the conclusion that Yew was the real killer as well as the Yatagarasu. Yew then admitted that she was, in fact, an agent of the smuggling ring all along, and she escaped with the Yatagarasu's Key.

The smuggling ring had been one step ahead of Badd and Faraday once again. Badd, now the only "legitimate" member of the Yatagarasu left, vowed to catch the traitor at all costs. Later on, he looked into Cece Yew's files and found that she never had a sister. Nonetheless, the Yatagarasu was now effectively neutered, and the trail was cold.

Resurrection[]

Main articles: The Kidnapped Turnabout and Turnabout Visitor
Kay

Kay Faraday.

Seven years after Byrne Faraday's death, his daughter Kay Faraday found his diary and Little Thief, which revealed that he was the Yatagarasu. Kay decided to finish what her father had started and adopted the Yatagarasu persona. On March 13, 2019, she returned to Los Angeles to find Miles Edgeworth and helped him to solve a murder using Little Thief. This also resulted in Ernest Amano's arrest.

Tyrell Badd finally had his big break. He searched Amano's home and found the stolen surveillance video from the KG-8 Incident as well as the directives card that had led to the murder. That night, Badd broke into Byrne's old office, which Miles Edgeworth now occupied, and stole some files related to the KG-8 Incident, including a page hiding a directives card that Byrne had found. Edgeworth caught him in the act, but it was too dark for Badd to be recognized, and he managed to escape.

The last stand[]

Main article: Turnabout Ablaze
Yatashadow

The shadow that appeared in the rose garden.

The next day, a Yatagarasu calling card was sent to the former Cohdopian Embassy, which was now divided between Allebahst and Babahl. This attracted Edgeworth, Kay, Gumshoe and Badd, as well as Interpol and Franziska von Karma, to the building. Despite Interpol's best efforts, the "Yatagarasu" eluded them at every turn. In the end, the Yatagarasu's shadow had appeared and disappeared in the rose garden undetected, the Babahlese half of the building had twice caught fire, and two murders had occurred, one of whom was Manny Coachen, with each corpse found in each embassy.

Edgeworth gained permission to investigate the crime scenes, and he unraveled a complex chain of events that had caused the myriad of phenomena. Eventually, he revealed one of the top Interpol agents in the area, Shih-na, as "Calisto Yew", who had infiltrated Interpol as a spy for the smuggling ring. However, Shih-na managed to grab Kay and put her on gunpoint. It was during this confrontation that Edgeworth finally understood that both Shih-na and Byrne Faraday were the Yatagarasu. As Badd joined in the stand-off, he revealed himself as the third member. In the end, Shih-na's boss Shi-Long Lang stepped in and apprehended Shih-na, taking responsibility for her arrest as his subordinate. Finally having found the mole, Badd congratulated Edgeworth on his brilliant deduction and left it to him to find the real mastermind of the smuggling ring. Hours later, Edgeworth, Lang, Kay, Gumshoe and von Karma implicated Allebahst's ambassador Quercus Alba as the culprit of both murders, as well as the leader of the smuggling ring, finally ending the ring's reign of terror.

Legacy[]

The Yatagarasu held a legacy of being a noble vigilante hero of justice, using any means necessary to punish those who could not be brought to court. However, the Yatagarasu's actions were fundamentally outside of the law, to achieve what they believed the law could not under its limitations. This went against the beliefs of those who fundamentally upheld the law, such as Miles Edgeworth. When Tyrell Badd gave Edgeworth the KG-8 Incident video tape and directives card that he had obtained, both of them knew that both pieces of evidence were illegal, and Edgeworth refused to use them for the reasons that the Yatagarasu would have used them. Instead, he used the evidence on the principle that the law is, in fact, limitless, and that the fundamental purpose of the law is to bring about justice.

Ultimately, the Yatagarasu did not accomplish what it set out to do. It represented a frustration with and an abandonment of the law, but in the end, upholders of the law fulfilled the Yatagarasu's goals. While Cece Yew and Deid Mann were silenced in their attempts to bring down the smuggling ring, their actions and even their deaths paved the way for others - among them Miles Edgeworth, Franziska von Karma, Shi-Long Lang, Dick Gumshoe and Kay Faraday - to finish what they had started. Even Quercus Alba, who legally could not be brought to court initially because of his position, was ultimately brought to court and convicted through legal means.

Kay Faraday inherited the title of the Yatagarasu from her father, but planned first to assemble a team of three, dedicated to revealing the truth, just like the original Yatagarasu was meant to do. This plan originally involved recruiting two other girls her own age, but this never came to pass. Instead, she regards herself as already being in an unstoppable trio consisting of herself, Gumshoe, and Edgeworth. The three desire to work toward building a world that does not need vigilantes like the Yatagarasu, by making the law work for the people rather than for it to be abused for personal gain.

Development[]

Name[]

  • The Yatagarasu, in Japanese mythology, is a three-legged raven or jungle crow that is a messenger or symbol of divine intervention in human affairs.
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