The courtroom finally settled.. and what left was.... the murmur of voices, the shuffling of papers, and the click of caras being positioned.
The judge — Honourable Justice Takeshi Moriyama, a man who had spent thirty-two years on the bench — surveyed the room from his elevated position.
Once everyone was settled, he began.
"The court will now hear opening statents," Justice Moriyama said. "The prosecution may begin."
A chair scraped against the marble floor.
From the prosecution's table, a man stood. He was old, had silver hair combed back in precise lines, and wore a dark suit.
His na was Hideaki Kuroda. Senior legal counsel to the Hero Public Safety Commission. A man who had prosecuted rogue heroes, defended governnt overreach, and shaped the legal precedent around quirk regulation for three decades. He had never lost a case in the Supre Court. Not once. His record was immaculate, and his presence in this courtroom told everyone who understood the legal landscape one thing: the HPSC was not playing around.
He adjusted his glasses, opened a folder, and began.
"Your Honour, distinguished mbers of the judiciary. Ladies and gentlen of the gallery."
"On the afternoon of the U.A. Sports Festival, a villain attack occurred at the stadium. Ten bioengineered creatures, designated as Nomus, were dropped into the arena alongside a convicted murderer known as Muscular. The pro heroes on site responded and engaged the threat. They protected the civilians. The situation, while dangerous, was being managed."
He turned toward Akira and pointed at him.
"And then a fifteen-year-old student decided to take matters into his own hands."
The words landed in the courtroom like stones into still water. Ripples of whispers moved through the gallery.
"Akira Shuzenji. Who is a first-year student at U.A. High School, not a licensed hero, not a provisional license holder, not an authorised combatant under any legal frawork that exists in this country, launched himself from a VIP observation box, engaged the villain Muscular without authorisation, and carried him into the jungle behind the campus."
Kuroda picked up a remote from his table and pressed a button. A screen lowered behind the judge's bench. Footage appeared: an aerial shot from the helicopter showing the fight.
"In doing so," Kuroda continued, walking slowly along the length of the prosecution's table, "he created a fire barrier that destroyed approximately four hectares of protected forest. He generated heat signatures that our instrunts could not asure. He caused structural damage to the surrounding terrain that will take months to repair."
He clicked to the next image. The crater. Three tres deep, thirty tres wide.
"But the damage to property is not why we are here today, Your Honour. Property can be rebuilt. Forests can be regrown."
He set the remote down and turned to face the judge directly.
"We are here because Akira Shuzenji killed a human being."
The courtroom went silent.
"He did not kill in the heat of a mont. He did not kill in self-defence while the threat was active. He subdued the villain. He removed his arm. He removed his legs. And then, and note, with the villain disard, immobilised, and incapable of posing any further threat, he lifted him into the sky and burned him alive on live television."
Kuroda let that sit. Every person in the courtroom feeling the weight of the image he had just painted.
"Furthermore," he continued, his voice sharpening, "the consequences of this boy's reckless actions extended far beyond the villain himself. His decision to engage Muscular alone — rather than waiting for the pro heroes who were actively containing the Nomu situation — drew the villain's attention to the VIP section. This directly led to Honoka Shuzenji, one of the leading figures in Japan's dical industry, and Momo Yaoyorozu, the heiress of the Yaoyorozu conglorate, entering the combat zone."
He turned to the gallery. To the section where Honoka sat, her face composed but her eyes burning.
"Both of these won were almost killed. Not by the villain. By the situation that the defendant's unsanctioned actions created. Had the villain not been distracted by the defendant's interference, the VIP section would never have been targeted. The evacuation would have proceeded as planned. The pro heroes would have dealt with the threat through proper channels."
He walked back to his table. Picked up a docunt.
"Let us review the charges, Your Honour. Article 3 of the Quirk Usage Regulation Act: unauthorised deploynt of a quirk in a combat situation without a valid hero license or provisional authorisation. Article 17 of the Public Safety Code: wilful destruction of public and protected land through quirk usage. Article 9 of the Criminal Code of Japan: homicide."
He set the docunt down.
"Homicide, Your Honour. Not justifiable. Not sanctioned. Not authorised by any institution, any hero, any legal frawork. A fifteen-year-old boy decided, on his own, that another human being deserved to die. And he carried out that sentence."
Kuroda's voice rose to make the statent even more impactful.
"And this is the question that this court must answer. Who gave Akira Shuzenji the right to decide the fate of another human being? Hero or villain — who is he to make that judgnt? He is not a judge. He is not a jury. He is not even a licensed hero with the legal authority to use lethal force in the line of duty. He is a child. A student. A boy who walked onto a stage, cut his hand open, and declared himself the Symbol of Fear."
He turned to the judge.
"Your Honour, I ask you to consider this: what happens if we allow this? What happens if we tell every person in this country — every quirk user, every angry teenager, every grief-stricken family mber — that the law doesn't apply when you're strong enough to break it? What happens when the next person decides that their pain justifies murder? And the next? And the next?"
"Society is built on the principle that no individual — no matter how powerful, no matter how justified they believe themselves to be — has the right to take the law into their own hands. The mont we abandon that principle, we abandon civilisation itself."
He straightened his tie.
"The prosecution demands that Akira Shuzenji be found guilty on all charges. We recomnd either a custodial sentence at a juvenile detention facility, or — given the unprecedented nature of his quirk — remandnt to the Hero Public Safety Commission for long-term rehabilitation and monitoring."
He paused.
"Because we believe, Your Honour, that even the worst of people deserve a second chance. The question is whether the defendant believes the sa."
And with that, he sat down.
The courtroom exhaled, taking in all the info that had been slapped on their faces.
In the gallery, Momo's hands were clenched in her lap. And her frustration was building up.
"Bullshit!"
Beside her, Reika placed her hand over Momo's and squeezed gently.
"It will be alright," her mother said softly. "Wait."
Momo's eyes were fixed on the defence table. On the small, white-furred figure who was now standing up from his chair, adjusting his tie, and picking up a folder with his small paws.
Nezu walked to the centre of the courtroom.
He was, objectively, ridiculous. A creature barely a tre tall, wearing a miniature suit, standing in the Supre Court of Japan in front of hundreds of the most powerful people in the country. The press caras tracked him. The gallery watched him. The judge looked down at him from the bench.
Nezu looked up at Justice Moriyama and smiled.
"Good morning, Your Honour. Thank you for the opportunity to address this court."
And the judge nodded. Of course he did... it was Nezu after all.
"My esteed colleague has painted a vivid picture," Nezu began, gesturing toward Kuroda. "A reckless child. An unauthorised action. A murdered villain. A society in peril. It is a compelling narrative, and I comnd him for its construction."
He paused.
"But narratives are not evidence, your Honour. And the narrative the prosecution has presented omits several facts that I believe this court deserves to hear."
He opened his folder.
"Fact one. The villain known as Muscular was not a random attacker. He was a convicted murderer who, two years ago, attacked and killed two pro heroes — Sasha and Shino Izumi, also known as the Water Hose duo — at Kamikochi Village. During that sa incident, he attempted to kill a thirteen-year-old boy and his mother."
Nezu looked at the court.
"That boy was Akira Shuzenji."
The murmurs in the gallery shifted. People who had been nodding along with the prosecution's argunt paused. The press section leaned forward.
"The HPSC classified the Kamikochi incident at the ti and the details were suppressed from public record. But the evidence exists, and I have submitted it to this court. Video surveillance. dical reports. Witness statents. The full record of what happened on that mountain, including the fact that Akira Shuzenji, at the age of thirteen, fought Muscular alone and nearly died doing so."
He clicked his own remote. New footage appeared on the screen of the mountainside where it all happened years ago.
"This was not a random engagent, Your Honour. Muscular ca back for Akira. We have audio evidence from the stadium broadcast in which Muscular directly addresses the defendant, references the Kamikochi killings, and expresses his intention to finish what he started two years ago."
Nezu looked at Kuroda.
"The prosecution suggests that the pro heroes had the situation 'managed.' I would ask: managed for whom? Endeavor engaged one Nomu. Kamui Woods, Mt. Lady, and Death Arms contained three others. Three students stopped one in the stands. But Muscular was not engaged by a single pro hero. Not one. He stood in the centre of the arena, called out a student by na, and no licensed hero moved to intercept him."
He let that settle.
"Akira Shuzenji did not take the law into his own hands, Your Honour. The law was not coming. The heroes were occupied. The HPSC had operatives on site who were ordered — not to protect the student, but to wait until the fight was over and detain whoever survived."
The courtroom erupted. Murmurs beca voices. Voices beca shouts. The gallery surged.
"ORDER!" Justice Moriyama's gavel ca down. "ORDER IN THE COURT!"
Kuroda was on his feet. "Objection! The defence is making unsubstantiated accusations against a governnt institution--"
"I have the operational logs," Nezu said calmly. "Showing the exact mont the HPSC's Code Red was issued, the exact orders given to Lieutenant Sato's team, and the exact directive to wait until the engagent concluded before moving in."
The courtroom went cold.
Kuroda's mouth opened. Then closed.
Nezu continued.
"But I understand the prosecution's central argunt. Regardless of the circumstances, Akira Shuzenji killed a man. That is a fact. It happened. And it happened on live television."
He set his folder down.
"Which brings to the defence's primary argunt. Your Honour, what Akira Shuzenji experienced during his fight with Muscular was not a deliberate escalation. It was a quirk awakening."
The courtroom went quiet again.
"Under the Quirk Biological Response Act, Article 22, subsection 4: A quirk awakening is defined as a sudden, involuntary evolution of a quirk user's abilities, typically triggered by extre physical or emotional stress. The Act further states, in subsection 7, that during a quirk awakening, the user may experience significant alterations to their psychological state, including but not limited to: emotional dysregulation, loss of impulse control, altered perception, and in severe cases, temporary dissociative states in which the user is not fully in control of their actions."
He looked at the judge.
"Subsection 9 of the sa Act provides that in cases where a cri is committed during a docunted quirk awakening, the court shall consider the altered psychological state as a mitigating factor in sentencing — similar to the existing legal frawork for cris committed during episodes of diminished ntal capacity."
Kuroda stood again. "Your Honour, there is no way to confirm that a quirk awakening occurred! The defence is asking this court to accept an unverifiable claim as the basis fo-"
"I have the evidence," Nezu said.
The courtroom froze.
Nezu smiled. The sa smile Recovery Girl had seen in the hospital corridor.
"dical data from Akira Shuzenji's hospitalisation following the incident. Quirk factor analysis conducted by U.A.'s dical staff under the supervision of Recovery Girl. Before-and-after comparisons of his quirk signature, his fla output spectrum, and his biological markers. The data conclusively demonstrates that Akira's quirk underwent a fundantal structural change during his fight with Muscular.... A change consistent with the clinical definition of a quirk awakening under Article 22."
He picked up a thick docunt from his table and held it up.
"Furthermore, I have an independent analysis from three certified quirk biologists, all of whom have reviewed the data and concluded that the transformation observed during the Sports Festival broadcast ets every diagnostic criterion for a Class S quirk awakening. The highest classification. The kind that occurs once in a generation."
He set the docunt down.
"Akira Shuzenji did not choose to kill Muscular, Your Honour. His quirk evolved beyond his capacity to control it. The purple flas, the unknown transformation, the actions that followed — all of it occurred during a state of altered consciousness brought about by a biological event that he could neither predict nor prevent."
Kuroda's face had gone rigid.
"Your Honour," Kuroda said, his voice strained, "there is no way to confirm."
"Like I just said, I HAVE the evidence," Nezu repeated, his pleasant voice carrying an edge that silenced the courtroom. "Submitted. Docunted. Authenticated. Ready for examination."
The gallery buzzed. The press section was writing furiously. The politicians in the upper tiers were whispering to aides. Madam President, seated in the back of the prosecution's section, had not moved. Her face was stone. But her eyes were calculating.
Justice Moriyama looked at the prosecution's table. Then at the defence's. Then at the boy standing at the podium with quirk-suppressing cuffs on his wrists and half a nation watching him through caras.
He lifted his gavel.
BANG.
"This court will take a thirty-minute recess. Both parties will prepare for the evidentiary phase. We reconvene at ten-thirty."
He stood. The court rose with him.
Nezu turned from the podium and walked back to the defence table. His small footsteps were steady. His expression was pleasant.
Kuroda watched him cross the courtroom. He had prosecuted rogue heroes. He had defended governnt overreach. He had won every case he had ever fought in this building.
But he had never fought Nezu.
And sitting in the gallery, watching the small creature walk back to his seat with a folder full of evidence and a smile that promised more, Kuroda felt sothing he hadn't felt in thirty years of practice.
Doubt.
Sooo how was it??? I have never studied law or know how these places work. All i wrote was what i knew from TV shows, Novels, and fanfics.
Hope it was decent.
Plus if you want to support , you can join my P@teron and read up to 17 advanced chapters and support you can alway join my P@treaon. (Just search up Joe_Mama p@treon on google.)
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