Chapter Text
What a bizarre, atrocious day. And it was barely even three.
Klavier’s morning started as usual, with Vongole’s walk and KOST’s morning program in the background, but nothing had made sense since.
For the second morning in a row, Atroquinine, My Love blindsided him on his way out the door. Not long after, his hog failed him on the road—also for the second day in a row.
Klavier was barely settled into his office before the courthouse called him, chastising him for his tardiness. The robbery trial he was prosecuting was scheduled to begin shortly, and he should have arrived an hour ago.
Except—Klavier could have sworn the trial happened yesterday. He distinctly remembered arguing the case and receiving a verdict. Unfortunately, his calendar confirmed his mistake.
So he rushed down to the courthouse, only to fail to bring the evidence with him, and ended up begging for an early recess. The judge had been thoroughly unimpressed.
At least the trial only took four hours to complete.
And now, barely back through the door of the Prosecutor’s Building, Payne-the-elder had caught him in yet another ear-splitting rant about seniority and respect.
Desperate for reprieve, Klavier lunged for Sebastian as he passed, slinging an arm across his shoulders. If there was a moment to prove their newly-reforged friendship, it was now.
Payne rambled on, oblivious.
Klavier tightened his grip, pleading telepathically. Sebastian blinked in confusion for several excruciating seconds. Finally, a lightbulb went off. “Oh!” He turned to Payne. “Mr. Payne, can I borrow Klavier?”
“Hah?!” Payne said, finally pausing to breathe. “Don’t you two know it’s rude to interrupt your elders—”
“Entschuldigung,” Klavier cut in, “but if Sebastian is interrupting, it must be rather important, ja? You’ll have to tell me about your early court cases some other time, Herr Payne.”
Preferably never.
“Oh, uh, yes—” Sebastian added, nodding along, “Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth, ah, has an arrogant—no, um… oh! urgent brief for Klavier. We should get to his office as soon as possible.”
Klavier steered Sebastian away as he spoke, all but dragging him along. He relaxed only after they made it to the stairwell, out of earshot of Payne’s indignant screeching.
“Danke,” Klavier exhaled shakily, “I thought my ears might shrivel up and fall off. Let’s go up before Payne catches on.”
“If your ears are alright.” Sebastian’s gaze flicked between Klavier’s ears, but he nodded. “Payne might suspect anyway. Mr. Edgeworth isn’t actually here right now.”
“Ach, ja, he left for that overseas mission yesterday. To Nepal? Nein—the neighbor, Khura’in.”
“Um, I don’t think so? He’s been in Courtroom 3 all day, for a special civil trial. The Wright Anything Agency is there, and… well, you know how he gets about cases involving them.”
Klavier paused. That didn’t sound right.
Klavier was certain Edgeworth had left the country the day before. He read the email several times, bewildered by the last-minute notice. Edgeworth liked to send multiple messages leading up to an absence; it was unheard of for him to depart so suddenly.
“Nein—I mean, ja, I do know about that trial, but—Herr Edgeworth sent an email yesterday.” Klavier paused on his step. “Let me find it.”
A search of Klavier’s inbox yielded nothing from Edgeworth, not even a request for paperwork or case notes.
“What email?” Sebastian asked, stepping back down to peer over Klavier’s shoulder.
“Hang on, I know it was here.”
Klavier scrolled once more, and then a third time, but—nothing.
“Klavier?”
Klavier started. “This can’t be right. I must have deleted it by accident. I read it at least twice.”
“If you say so… though I’m not sure what this email is,” Sebastian said, exiting onto the twelfth floor, “but Mr. Edgeworth should be back once the trial is over, and you can ask him about it.”
Klavier hummed in agreement. He should ask after the email—and more.
Edgeworth personally attending any trial was worth an inquiry. It was an anomaly, even when accounting for the Wright Anything Agency. There was more to the story, Klavier was sure of it.
And, more selfishly, Klavier wished to sate his curiosity on another matter. It had been quite a while since he last spoke to a certain Forehead, after all. It would be well worth seeing what he could glean from Edgeworth’s commentary.
“Indeed, let us hope Herr Edgeworth can shed some light.” Klavier shook his head, tucking his phone away. “Tschüss. Danke, Sebastian.”
“Good luck!” Sebastian wiggled his baton in farewell, before turning down the hall.
Klavier pivoted in the other direction, toward a kitchen he could lurk in. It hopefully wouldn’t take too long for Payne to leave.
As he started the old, sputtering coffee machine, Klavier turned over his conversation with Sebastian in his head. Had Sebastian truly not received Edgeworth’s email? And why was it now missing from Klavier’s own inbox? None of it made sense.
And there were the other odd happenings to consider—the case today he thought he prosecuted already, Atroquinine, My Love being played at the same time as the previous day, his hog breaking down again.
Together, the events painted a fantastical image, and Klavier wasn’t sure he liked it.
Perhaps it was déjà vu. It was a well-documented phenomenon. Surely it could manifest as the sensation of reliving an entire day.
Or, more likely: Klavier dreamt the events of the previous day, and was now convinced of their reality.
There were a myriad of logical, grounded explanations. Anything more reasonable than the idea lodging itself in his mind, so ludicrous that he did not want to name it.
But if there was one thing Klavier learned from facing the Wright Anything Agency, it was that the facts of the case, no matter how fantastical, never lied. It was better to trust the twists and turns of all the evidence, physical and human, than to presuppose a conclusion. It was the only way to ensure the truth would prevail.
No matter how much Klavier might dislike where the facts led him.
The coffee machine finally shuddered to a halt. Klavier grimaced as he poured out a mug.
It was probably best to forget the day’s oddities and move on. The longer he let himself be distracted, the larger his stack of paperwork would be, and the worse his case backlog. Filing waited for no one.
On the other hand, choosing to leave the day’s mysteries as they were would be deeply unsatisfying, and likely detrimental. The last thing he wanted was more cases like Kristoph or Daryan’s; crimes he should have foreseen and did nothing to prevent. If he failed again, it served only to prove Kristoph’s claim that Klavier never learned, that he would never be a good lawyer.
The coffee burned as it went down, scalding his throat, coating it in an acrid taste. At halfway, he could take no more, and dumped out the rest in the sink. He retreated back down the stairs to his own office. The journey was thankfully Payne-free.
Once there, Klavier dropped into his massage chair and leaned back, letting it work against his spine.
He had to focus. He could be paralyzed, or he could force himself through some work and be productive. The answer was obvious.
He shuffled to find a working pen and cued up a playlist. The screen of his phone lit up as he did so, and an email banner slid in.
Miles Edgeworth
Urgent out of office, traveling to Khura’in
Dear all, Due to unforeseen circumstances relating to…
Klavier stared blankly at the message for a long moment, his heart sinking.
It couldn’t be. Could it?
With more than a little trepidation, he swiped the email open. His hand shook, and it took another try to get it open.
He scrolled through, reading rapidly. Once at the end, he read it a second and then a third, just to be sure. With a groan, he threw his phone away from him, letting it fall into a pile of sheet music.
If the subject line was a single alarm bell, then the rest of the message was nothing short of a cacophony of them. Every sentence was exactly as Klavier remembered, right down to the extra line break between the final paragraph and Edgeworth’s signature.
Edgeworth was in-transit to Khura’in for a case relating to a rebel group and their attempted revolution, but would be back to Los Angeles within a week. He expected the office to keep abreast of the news. Anything requiring his authorization would be suspended until his return or assumed to have his approval. All international concerns should be cc’d to Franziska von Karma, who would act in his place.
This was the email he had discussed with Sebastian, he was sure of it—but it had only arrived just now, not yesterday. And with it, any hope of forgetting the day’s strangeness vanished.
There was only one—outlandish, absurd, incomprehensible—conclusion that Klavier could come to. He was living through May 17, 2028 for a second time.