Oh this is magnificient.
Oh this is magnificient.
as much as I'd like to love this fic, the fact is that Japan's law is based on the Civil Law, which doesn't really bother taking Common Law statute into account :/
But I suppose with Kiritsugu's objection on the status of worm people, the setting assumes American Law as the basis
This is obviously set in the US.Originally Posted by arsdraconis
it's just an amateur lawyer nitpicking, been spending the night drinking with a friend that goes to lawschool :P
Last edited by arsdraconis; June 16th, 2013 at 12:25 PM.
Phoenix Wright is totally set in the US people, pay no attention to the suspiciously similar Japanese law system. :V
Or the old-timey Japanese village that's just a two-hour train ride from LA for some reason!
It was japanese inmigrants! Inmigrants I say!
Thanks for pointing this out.
There are two reasons, though you may not find either completely satisfactory.
First, from a story mechanics standpoint, an over-the-top Ace Attorney courtroom scene requires more emotion. Especially if Kiritsugu is playing the traditional role of zealous defense attorney. So Kiritsugu got an added shot of emotion, and Kirei was even more gleefully evil than usual to fit with themes of the other half of the crossover.
From a canon character development standpoint, Kerry seemed (relatively) normal as a kid. His lack of affect intensified after he lost his first crush, killed his father, killed his surrogate mother, and massacred a whole lot of other people. I imagined Zealous Advocate Kiritsugu as never having suffered that psychological break. Saving disadvantaged clients from the clutches of false arrest and/or Kirei's lawsuits -- a la Perry Mason -- would probably be much more fulfilling for Kiritsugu than years of murder for hire as a "superhero". So he has some normal emotions and righteous anger along with the idealism.
Though in retrospect, this may have worked better with Shirou.
Last edited by Zalgo Jenkins; June 16th, 2013 at 02:21 PM.
Shirou is basically Apollo.
We just need a Kristoph analogue.
He never sleeps. He never dies.
Battle doesn't need a purpose; the battle is its own purpose. You don't ask why a plague spreads or a field burns. Don't ask why I fight.
So does this mean that Shirou, who inherited the family business, avenges Kiritsugu by defeating Kirei and then has to face the original Prosecutor?
Last edited by Siriel; June 16th, 2013 at 02:44 PM.
Von Gilgamesh
I need to make more sprites and make this into a game. Archer would pretty much match every Godot animation. Except instead of coffee it would be tea.
As for OOCness, I noticed it too but I also noticed how Kotomine was basically acting like a stereotypical AA prosecutor so I just rolled with it.
Last edited by mAc Chaos; June 16th, 2013 at 02:45 PM.
He never sleeps. He never dies.
Battle doesn't need a purpose; the battle is its own purpose. You don't ask why a plague spreads or a field burns. Don't ask why I fight.
Unlimited Motion Works versus a man who employs Coke, Garrow, and Blackstone as paralegals.
"Here I come, King of Torts. Do you have enough paperwork?"
It was LA? I always thought it was just random american city #6 (the first 5 were not silly enough, aparently)
Spoiler:
Yeah, pretty sure they say outright that it's LA in the English version.
Which gets funny at times. Hey, this court in LA is doing a test run of this newfangled thing called... a "jury"
Suddenly, trial by combat makes disturbingly more sense...
It's supposed to be in some sort of dystopian future though, so. AMERICA THE POLICE STATE
Ron Paul's America.
He never sleeps. He never dies.
Battle doesn't need a purpose; the battle is its own purpose. You don't ask why a plague spreads or a field burns. Don't ask why I fight.
It's an America where the legal process was expedited to three days of trial, tops.
Due Process is over-rated.
Spoiler:
What Fate/Stay Night character are you?
Kotomine Kirei
You are Kirei. You've always been a little different from the rest. You probably have low social skills. Whatever, it's not like what they think matters anyway. Ever searching for something missing within you, you probably don't experience the same happiness as everyone else. Good and evil are just labels, you are who you are.
If they managed to end up in court they obviously have a reason for being there. No sense in wasting time on stuff like 'innocence' and right or wrong.
OFF WITH HIS AND-SLASH-OR HER HEAD!
I was originally planning for this to be a oneshot, but there were enough requests to write a second (AND FINAL) part. Hopefully it worked out okay.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anti-Bono (Part 2 of 2)
The appointed day had finally arrived.
Somebody had put up silk banners. The fabric fwopped gently in the breeze. Presumably, the same person was also responsible for nailing Tohsaka and Matou coats of arms to a couple of trees. Kayneth appeared to have exchanged his judicial robe and wig for something out of the Merchant of Venice.
Workmen had spent the better part of a week constructing a sixty-by-sixty wooden enclosure in the middle of the city park. Kayneth evidently had a few friends on the city council. Aside from Kayneth’s mahogany throne with eagles carved into the armrests, everybody sat on crude plywood benches.
And what a crowd it was. Irisviel Emiya practically radiated elegance in her mink coat (it was July). She’d brought the children, which struck me as moderately irresponsible parenting given that this was a duel to the death. Judge Archibald had apparently followed suit. His son sat in a chair beside him. The boy had brought a girlfriend, too – an Asian girl with pink hair. Kayneth kept shooting her dirty looks. As for the others, I noticed Waver Velvet from the Times, just out of college and already inhaling cigarette smoke like oxygen. A red-headed man with an earring watched the proceedings from the back row, a wide grin plastered across his face. Kept staring at Rin, too. Nobody was quite sure how he’d gotten in.
Kiritsugu looked across the field at me. He’d already stripped off his coat, and was going through an approximation of a warmup. In accordance with the Wager of Battle’s rules, Kiritsugu had agreed to be Kariya’s “champion”.
Tokiomi fiddled with an amethyst, flipping it through his fingers like a magician playing with a coin.
“What happens now?” Tokiomi said.
“Now?” I said. “You find a champion to fight for you.”
“Oh…that’s—wait, find a champion?”
“Yes,” I said. “Someone who can swear to the justice of your cause. According to the rules –“
“You were supposed to do that!” Tokiomi snapped.
I shrugged.
“I can’t, I’m afraid.”
“Why not?”
“The law requires each champion to swear to the justice of his cause.”
Tokiomi’s frown deepened into a scowl.
“And?” he said.
“I dislike lying.”
Tokiomi’s brow furrowed. His grip on the amethyst tightened until I suspected that it would leave a mark.
“You’re a lawyer!” he said.
“So I've been told.”
He glanced at Kiritsugu. Looked back to me. Pursed his lips. Five, four, three…
“All right!” he growled. “Fine! What do you want, Kirei?”
I’ve been told that bewildered innocence is one of my better performances.
“Me?” I said. “My dear Tokiomi, are you implying that I’m somehow extorting you?”
“Triple your normal rates,” Tokiomi said.
“Oh, but I couldn’t…”
“My stocks,” he said. “The car. A tenth of my rare jewel collection, even! Please Kirei! I’m not going to let that bastard Kariya beat me, do you understand me? Never.”
“…Let me choose your daughter’s school district.”
“W-what?”
“Let me pick Rin’s school district,” I said. “And every summer camp she’ll attend until her eighteenth birthday.”
Tokiomi's eyes narrowed. His hand hovered near his goatee. Pondering, no doubt, what the catch was.
“That’s…Okay, sure,” he said. “I don’t see why that would be a problem. You seem like a responsible sort.”
“…Along with my customary hourly rate,” I said.
“Drat.”
Another pause. Fortunately, Tokiomi’s appalling parenting skills and desire to beat the cripple won out. We clasped hands.
“Done,” Tokiomi said.
“And done,” I replied.
I put on the regulation boiled leather armor. It clomped when its pieces bumped together – not unlike the cardboard suit of armor I'd assembled as a child. Not to mention the leather shield. And greaves. And best of all, a “warhammer”. Or small sledgehammer, depending on whether you chose to ignore the Ace Hardware logo on the hilt. Emiya was equipped the same way.
Ah, Emiya.
How long had I waited for this day of reckoning?
I’d often pictured this meeting of titans in my mind’s eye. In another world, perhaps. Two warriors giving battle with arcane armories beyond human ken. A duel of blazing pistols and knives that could cut through a man’s shadow…and kill the unkillable. We would tear at each other with superhuman strength. Like beasts. Monsters. Assassins who had walked a path of murder and blood, drenched in the black mud of a terrible chalice…
Alas, we were both middle-aged lawyers.
Kiritsugu discarded his shield. He stood with his feet apart, holding his sledgehammer a bit like a tennis racquet. Judging from the woodcuts in the Young Person’s Encyclopedia of Medieval Life I’d checked out the previous day as research, this was probably poor form.
I feinted. Kiritsugu flinched back, running sideways like he was trying to intercept a tennis ball. I chased him a couple yards, until my arm started aching from swinging the sledgehammer too vigorously. I called it quits before I tripped over the shield.
Kiritsugu circled back.
He feinted. I stumbled away. Kiritsugu lurched forward to exploit the opening, but I managed to wave my sledgehammer in a way that was vaguely menacing enough to back him off. We exchanged dirty looks.
Matters continued in this vein for awhile.
The sun beat down. I could feel rivulets of sweat pouring into the leather armor. And why on earth had I chosen to wear a wool suit under this thing? Emiya was already gasping. I wasn’t doing much better. Between breaths, I thanked the powers for my weekly racquetball sessions with the younger associates.
“Oh, dear…” I wheezed. “Too many…late nights…and Ramen noodles…Emiya?”
“You don’t look…like you’ve been doing…your pushups either…Kirei,” Kiritsugu replied. “And on…that note—HAH!”
Kiritsugu half-lunged, half-tripped at me. Gravel crunched underfoot at his charge. His sledgehammer looped in an arc. I raised my shield, but the impact smashed it from my grip. My arm throbbed.
“YEAH! Splatter the bastard!” Rin shouted. “WOOOO!”
Tokiomi glared down at his daughter, who winced.
“…Um, go Kirei,” she finished lamely.
But all was not lost. Kiritsugu tripped over my foot as I tried to escape. He tumbled into a cloud of dust and tangled limbs, and I had just enough presence of mind to grab his discarded sledgehammer. I tossed it a couple feet away.
And there he was. My mortal enemy, lying in the dust. I’d never seen such a look of cold hatred in another man’s eyes. In the stands, Irisviel started hustling her children away.
Kiritsugu was breathing hard enough to cough up a lung. I tried to keep myself from swaying.
“What…are you waiting…for?” he said.
“Running…the clock,” I said. “I bill…by the hour.”
We waited there for what seemed like ages. I, savoring the moment. Kiritsugu, contemplating his death. Soon, I would have the triumph I’d always—
He grabbed my foot with a final gasp. Pulled. I hopped on one leg and tried to swing my sledgehammer. No dice. Kiritsugu stumbled forward until I fell. He dropped on top of me, hands around my neck.
“Oof!”
“Cry craven,” he said.
I considered my options. The cold fingers of death were already tightening around my throat. I checked my watch.
“You sure you can’t ask that question again in another six minutes? I keep track of billables in half-hour intervals.”
“NOW, KIREI!”
My vision swam. I felt the pressure building in my neck. My eyes seemed to bulge. Building, building…
“Fine,” I said.
“Nice try. Say it.”
I scowled.
“Craven,” I muttered.
“Louder!”
The fingers closed further. Oh, very well.
“Craven!” I said. “Happy now, Emiya?”
Kiritsugu replied by rolling off of me and collapsing onto his back.
The crowd roared. All eleven of them.
While I tried to catch my breath, Judge Archibald strode onto the field. The peacock feather in his burgher’s hat kept drooping into his face. He flicked it repeatedly, to no avail.
“In accordance with the ancient laws,” Judge Archibald intoned, “The penalty of the perjuror hangs heavy upon you, Kirei Kotomine. Never again can you act as the witness in a client’s dispute.”
The crowd was silent. Except for Rin, who cackled like a schoolgirl – a schoolgirl, I might add, who would soon be spending her middle school years at the Frances J. Welch Reformatory for Incorrigible Children.
“Eh, ABA rules prohibit me from doing that anyway,” I said. “Frankly, I was surprised you allowed me to pull this off at all.”
Judge Archibald glowered even more than usual.
“Furthermore,” he said, “the Rite of the Duellum demands that you pay three pounds to the rightful tenant.”
A pall of menace descended on the field.
“So that’s…what, four dollars?” I said.
Kayneth looked down at his son, who in turn looked at the pink-haired girl. She sighed and whipped out a calculator.
Tick-tacka-tick…
“Four dollars and seventy-one cents,” she said.
“Sold,” I said.
One five dollar bill later, I picked myself up and peeled off the armor. After a few fruitless attempts to brush the dust off my suit, I looked down at Kiritsugu. The rest of the Emiyas had already gathered around their patriarch, babbling their saccharine congratulations.
“I’m appealing this,” I said.
“…What.”
“I’m appealing the decision,” I said. “Just give me a week to look through the old Eyre records, and I’ll find a couple nice, juicy precedents—“
“You’re insane, Kirei,” Kiritsugu said. “They’ll shoot it down. Give up. It’s over.”
I smiled.
“Oh, it hasn’t begun, Emiya,” I said. “I’m planning to start a wager-of-battle advocacy organization. We’ll take it all the way to the Supreme Court. They’ll have to grant cert eventually.”
“WHY?!”
“Why else?” I said. “To annoy the Justices and take up time that should be devoted to more legitimate civil liberties questions.”
I shrugged, and headed for the gate. Kiritsugu’s brood were already hopping up and down like rabbits on caffeine pills. The red-headed boy was particularly vigorous.
“DAD! THAT WAS SOOOO COOL! YOU WERE LIKE A SUPERHERO! WHEN I GROW UP, I WANNA FIGHT BAD GUYS JUST! LIKE! THAT!”
That was…
Hm.
I found myself turning around.
“Boy,” I said.
The child stopped swinging his little fists just long enough to stick out his jaw and glower at me. Irisviel tensed. Kiritsugu started to pull himself into standing position.
“You do know that superheroes operate outside the law, don’t you?” I said.
“Wh-huh?” said the boy.
“Vigilantism,” I said. “Look it up. Growth industry, that. Marvelous job prospects.”
A thoughtful look crossed the boy’s face. He turned to his sister. She, too, scrunched up her features with a pondering sort of expression. Both turned back to their father, grinning from ear to ear.
“Dad?” he said. “When we grow up, can Ilya and I be vigili—villi—whatever he said?”
If one listened closely enough, one could almost hear a faint grinding of teeth issuing from Kiritsugu Emiya, Esquire.
And that…? That almost made it a draw.
Last edited by Zalgo Jenkins; June 17th, 2013 at 04:18 PM.
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