"Wh… what?"
Tsukimisato Somehana stared at Su Yuzu as though she couldn't grasp what that "little question" of hers was actually supposed to mean.
But… Su Yuzu, now on her feet, and Soga Yura, who had drifted soundlessly into place behind her — the look on both their faces said the same thing without a single word —
The counterattack had begun.
"We will hear the statements of defense counsel and guarantee, in accordance with the law, every litigation right afforded to you."
Miss Prosecutor looked at Su Yuzu and Soga Yura standing shoulder to shoulder, and something seemed to dawn on her as well. This was the Soga family's counterattack.
She motioned for Su Yuzu and Soga Yura to speak.
Su Yuzu and Soga Yura exchanged a glance.
"Then… submit our evidence, Sister Iori." Su Yuzu looked back over her shoulder.
The girl in the long, retro maid dress walked toward Miss Prosecutor without a flicker of expression, and Soga Iori handed the evidence over piece by piece.
First came a set of photographs and a thick stack of documents, along with the shattered remains of several instruments sealed inside evidence bags.
The photographs showed a bottomless pit. Along its walls, one could faintly make out the torn-away traces of pipework and machinery.
At the rim of the pit stood several ancient cherry trees, leaning at odd angles.
"The location in these photographs is "Tsukimisato.""
"Does Miss Prosecutor find that name familiar~?" Su Yuzu said brightly, her gaze moving between the prosecutor and Tsukimisato Somehana, whose face had already begun to sour.
"It was once the largest, most exclusive lei~sure~ bathhouse in the Tokyo metropolitan area."
"And at the same time —"
"It was also "Epiphany Manufacture's" auction house within the Tokyo metropolitan area."
"Tsukimisato…" Miss Prosecutor, plainly a far more guileless sort, didn't seem to know what the place behind that name truly was.
But… even she realized that the place had to be connected to Tsukimisato Somehana.
"Exactly so —" Su Yuzu nodded. "That bathhouse named "Tsukimisato" is Miss Tsukimisato Somehana's own enterprise."
"And at the same time —"
"The Tsukimisato bathhouse…"
"was also the hideout of "Wind, Fire, Mountain, Forest," the Aberrant organization that infiltrated the Tokyo metropolitan area several months ago."
"If Miss Tsukimisato Somehana intends to accuse me of harboring and colluding with Aberrants… then I wonder what we should call her own conduct?"
Tsukimisato Somehana's gray-blue eyes rested calmly on Su Yuzu. "I never had any intention of sheltering those Aberrants."
"Once I discovered that Aberrants had infiltrated "Tsukimisato," I cooperated with the Investigation Bureau's work."
"And I turned the relevant surveillance systems and security systems over to the Investigation Bureau in full."
Clearly —
she had long since prepared herself for Su Yuzu to turn the accusation back on her.
"Is that so?" Su Yuzu produced the documents recovered from the wreckage of the laboratory beneath "Tsukimisato." "Then perhaps Miss Tsukimisato Somehana could explain something for us…"
"Why was there a hidden laboratory underneath your bathhouse?"
"Why did that laboratory contain equipment related to Aberrants?"
"And why did it even hold equipment capable of taking a Second Sequence Aberrant…"
"and escalating her into the Fourth Sequence?"
Su Yuzu didn't come out and say that the little cat had been escalated into a Pseudo Throne. The matter of the "Thrones" was probably not something most people should hear.
"The laboratory was properly registered."
"As for the Aberrant escalation equipment… I imagine the Aberrant who infiltrated the place brought it with her. After all… they were researchers once themselves."
Tsukimisato Somehana's eyes moved to Asaba Maki, who sat with her head bowed in the witness stand.
Anyone could feel how weak that rebuttal was, but Su Yuzu understood perfectly: the woman was threatening her. Warning her not to drag Asaba Maki any further into the water.
"That's right…"
"They were researchers once themselves." Su Yuzu simply smiled and nodded. "Researchers where, exactly?"
"The "Eye of Insight"?"
"Or… "Epiphany Manufacture"!?"
Tsukimisato Somehana looked at her. "That isn't a question you should be asking me."
"I see~" The smile on Su Yuzu's face only grew more radiant. To Tsukimisato Somehana's mild surprise, Su Yuzu didn't keep hammering away at "Tsukimisato," at the Aberrants it had sheltered, or at the laboratory buried beneath it.
Even though… if Su Yuzu had chosen to build her whole case on that foundation, it would already have been enough to make "Epiphany Manufacture" feel a very real threat.
But there was no need —
no need whatsoever.
Because Su Yuzu was holding far too many cards.
"Then please take a look at this, Miss Prosecutor~" At Su Yuzu's signal, Yamabuki Nanako hopped down from her chair in the Keigunen Private Academy section.
The sight of a dark-eyed little l0li swimming in a researcher's white coat jumping off her seat was somewhat comical — but it made Tsukimisato Somehana's expression turn very strange indeed.
"Long time no see~"
"Tsukimisato."
Yamabuki Nanako offered her greeting with both hands shoved into the pockets of her lab coat, her tiny frame and childish face making the gesture look almost like play-acting.
Behind her came Unohana Chiyo, carrying a capsule-shaped vessel.
"I'm Yamabuki Nanako~"
"Former researcher with "Epiphany Manufacture."" She let out a sigh. "Currently employed at Keigunen Private Academy."
She gestured for Unohana Chiyo to display what she carried.
Behind glass of enormous thickness lay a fractured Black Gear.
"This thing that looks like a gear…"
"I call it the "Aberrant Activation Device.""
"It was one of the culprits behind the "Eye of Insight" attack Event a few months ago."
"It possesses the ability to convert an Esper into an Aberrant within an extremely short window of time."
"Our research revealed that the device's operating mechanism is to repair an Esper into an Aberrant."
"Well? Does that sound familiar to anyone?"
Miss Prosecutor still hadn't caught on.
Yamabuki Nanako gave her the look one reserves for idiots. Su Yuzu, back in the day, had gotten it in an instant.
"The "Medical Unit.""
"The operating principle of this thing is simply the Aberrant version of the "Medical Unit.""
"The "Medical Unit" — monopolized by "Epiphany Manufacture," and producible by "Epiphany Manufacture" alone."
Now Miss Prosecutor understood.
Tsukimisato Somehana's face grew uglier by the moment.
Granted, given "Epiphany Manufacture's" peculiar structure —
"Epiphany Manufacture" was in truth a federated organization assembled from a whole cluster of laboratories.
But an organization is an organization. If one laboratory inside it went bad, the reputation of the entire body would take the damage.
All the more so at a critical juncture like this — and with the Soga clan standing behind the other side, whipping public opinion along.
If they really wanted to blow this wide open, "Epiphany Manufacture"… was certain to run into trouble.
"Epiphany Manufacture"… in danger.
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