Before starting this chapter... Just for you to know... I have done so stuff that even I know can't happen in a real court so just take it as a fanfic...
Just as the break ended, the court began to fill up again.
Every seat was filled. Every cara repositioned, and every pair of eyes in the gallery locked on the centre of the courtroom where the defendant's podium stood, where Akira Shuzenji waited.
Justice Moriyama took his seat. The gavel ca down to mark the formal resumption of proceedings.
"The evidentiary phase will now begin," the judge announced. "The defence may present its evidence."
Nezu stood and walked up.
And he began..... What followed was a thodical and precise presentation. Each piece of the presentation, building on the last, each docunt reinforcing the previous one, the entire structure designed to create a narrative so airtight that challenging one elent ant acknowledging the validity of all the others.
He began with the Kamikochi records.
Surveillance footage from the mountain village, authenticated by three independent forensic analysts. dical records from the hospital where thirteen-year-old Akira had been treated for injuries consistent with combat against a superhuman opponent. Witness statents from local residents who had seen the fire on the mountain. The police report that had been filed and then classified by the HPSC within forty-eight hours.
He played the footage. The courtroom watched a thirteen-year-old boy fight a monster on a mountainside. They watched him burn. They watched him fall. They watched him rise up from his ashes.
Then the operational logs of the HPSC.
The Code Red directive, pulled from HPSC internal communications. The tistamp showing when the order was issued — seventeen minutes after the Nomu attack began. The specific language of Lieutenant Sato's orders: "Secure the subject post-engagent. Do not intervene during active combat." The follow-up directive from Madam President's private line: "If the subject is neutralised by the villain, proceed with extraction of remains and dia containnt."
The courtroom heard those words. "Extraction of remains."
This shocked the crowd to its core... As ti went by, the already bad image of HPSC was getting worse.
Then the quirk awakening evidence.
dical scans from before the Sports Festival, showing Akira's standard quirk factor. And then the post-incident scans, taken twelve hours after the fight, showing sothing fundantally different. A third fla signature... aka, his purple flas. Operating on a frequency that the scanning equipnt couldn't fully asure because the scale didn't go high enough.
Three independent quirk biologists testified via video link — each one confirming, in clinical language that the gallery struggled to follow but the judge absorbed completely, that the transformation observed during the broadcast t every diagnostic criterion for a Class S quirk awakening under Article 22 of the Quirk Biological Response Act.
Nezu very skillfully wove it together. Not just as evidence, but as a story.
A story of a boy who had been attacked at thirteen by a villain who murdered two heroes in front of him. A boy who had nearly died on that mountain. A boy who was attacked again, two years later, by the sa villain, a boy who had died.
"Akira Shuzenji did not choose what happened after his resurrection," Nezu concluded. "His quirk chose for him. The purple fla, the transformation, the actions that followed — all of it occurred during a state of altered consciousness that he could neither control nor prevent. Under Article 22, subsection 9, this court is required to consider that altered state as a mitigating factor."
He returned to his seat after he ended his presentation.
And with that, it was Kuruda's turn.
Kuroda stood up, and he did what he did best.
He started with the Kamikochi records.
"Your Honour, the defence has presented surveillance footage from an incident that occurred two years ago. Footage that was classified by the HPSC — not to suppress information, but to protect a minor. The defendant was thirteen years old at the ti. The classification was enacted under the Child Protection in dia Act, Article 6, which mandates the suppression of footage depicting minors in violent situations."
He turned to Nezu.
"The defence claims this footage was 'authenticated by three independent forensic analysts.' I would ask the court to note that the chain of custody for this footage is unclear. The original files were stored on HPSC secure servers. How did the defence obtain them? Through what channels? With whose authorisation? If the footage was classified for the protection of a minor, then its acquisition by the defence may itself constitute a violation of the classification protocols."
He let that land. Not a counter-argunt against the content — a counter-argunt against its admissibility.
Then the operational logs.
"The Code Red directive," Kuroda continued, "is being presented by the defence as evidence of deliberate negligence. I would remind this court that Code Red is a standard crisis managent protocol, activated when the HPSC assesses a situation as exceeding normal response paraters. The directive to 'secure the subject post-engagent' is standard language for any operation involving a high-value individual in an active combat zone. It does not an 'let the subject die.' It ans 'do not send additional personnel into an active engagent where they could beco casualties.'"
He picked up the operational log docunt.
"The phrase 'extraction of remains' is a contingency protocol. Every Code Red operation includes contingency language for worst-case scenarios. It is not evidence of intent. It is evidence of preparedness."
The gallery was quieter now, and so people nodded in understanding. The montum that Nezu had built was slowing.
Then Kuroda reached the quirk awakening.
And this was where he struck hardest.
"Your Honour," he said, "the defence's primary argunt rests on the claim that Akira Shuzenji experienced a Class S quirk awakening during his fight with Muscular, and that this awakening resulted in a state of altered consciousness that diminished his capacity for rational decision-making."
He paused.
"I would remind this court that this is not the first ti Akira Shuzenji has faced Muscular. The defence itself has presented evidence of the Kamikochi incident, in which the defendant — at the age of thirteen — fought the sa villain and, by the defence's own admission, nearly died."
He looked at the judge.
"The defendant's dical records from Kamikochi, which the defence submitted as evidence, show that during that incident, the defendant's quirk also underwent significant stress-related changes. His fla output spiked beyond previously recorded paraters. His regenerative capabilities activated at levels inconsistent with his baseline asurents."
He set the docunt down.
"In other words, Your Honour, the defendant has experienced extre quirk responses under stress before. At Kamikochi, his quirk responded to a life-threatening situation with elevated output and enhanced capabilities. Yet during that incident, the defendant did not kill Muscular. He did not burn him alive. The villain survived."
He turned to the courtroom.
"If the defendant was capable of restraint at thirteen, then the claim that he was incapable of restraint at fifteen, during a second encounter, is significantly undermined."
Nezu, sitting at the defence table, sighed.
He had known this was coming. The Kamikochi evidence was a double-edged sword — it established Muscular's personal vendetta, which supported the self-defence narrative, but it also established precedent. Precedent that showed Akira could face Muscular under extre duress and choose not to kill.
And Kuroda had found the edge.
"The defence argues that the purple fla transformation constitutes a new, unprecedented event," Kuroda continued. "And perhaps it does. But the actions that followed the transformation were not random. They were not chaotic. They were not the actions of a person in a dissociative state."
He clicked his remote. And the footage played.
"The defendant, after his transformation, demonstrated the following behaviours: he located and secured his girlfriend. He spoke to her coherently. He reassured her. He then located his mother, spoke to her coherently, and reassured her as well. He then approached the news helicopter, made a verbal request to the crew, and arranged for his mother and girlfriend to be placed in a safe location."
He looked at the judge.
"These are not the actions of a person experiencing emotional dysregulation, loss of impulse control, or a dissociative state. These are the actions of a person who is fully aware of their surroundings, fully capable of rational decision-making, and fully in control of their faculties."
He set the remote down.
"Only after completing these rational, coherent, controlled actions did the defendant return to the villain and begin the process of dismbernt and execution. This sequence of events suggests that the killing was not an involuntary consequence of a quirk awakening. It was a deliberate choice, made by a person who had already demonstrated — monts earlier — that he was capable of making rational decisions."
The courtroom went silent.
Kuroda had taken Nezu's own evidence and turned it against him — not by denying it, but by reinterpreting it.
The gallery was uncertain. The press was writing. The politicians were calculating, like always. And Madam President, in the back of the prosecution's section, allowed herself the smallest trace of a smile.
Kuroda finished with the weight of his career behind every word.
"The prosecution maintains its position, Your Honour. Akira Shuzenji killed a man. He did so deliberately. He did so after demonstrating clear rational capacity. The quirk awakening defence, while scientifically interesting, does not absolve the defendant of responsibility for actions he took while fully conscious and fully in control."
With that said, he sat down.
Justice Moriyama looked at both tables. He looked at the evidence — stacks of docunts, dical scans, operational logs, video footage, expert testimony. He had reviewed it all. He had listened to both sides. He had weighed every argunt against every counter-argunt.
Then he went quiet for a long ti.
After a while, he finally spoke.
"Both parties have presented their evidence and their argunts. This court has reviewed everything submitted. Both sides have made compelling cases, and the evidence, while extensive, presents a complex picture that does not lend itself to simple interpretation."
He looked at Akira and sighed.
"My decision is final," Justice Moriyama said. "And I expect both parties to accept it with the dignity that this court deserves."
The courtroom held its breath.
"The jury ha-"
BANG!!!!
The courtroom doors flew open.
The massive oak panels slamd against the walls with enough force to crack the marble fras on both sides.
Every head in the courtroom turned.
Standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the bright light of the corridor behind her, was a woman.
She was muscular, dark-skinned, white-haired, with long rabbit ears that stood straight up from the top of her head.
And she had the widest grin in the world.
"WHAT'S UP?!" she yelled, her voice filling the courtroom with a volu that made the microphones squeal. "AM I ON TI?!"
The courtroom froze.
Justice Moriyama stared at the woman in his doorway. His gavel was still raised. His mouth was still open from the sentence he hadn't finished.
The gallery erupted in whispers. The press section scrambled. Cara flashes exploded.
Because everyone in Japan knew who had just kicked down the door.
Mirko... AKA: The Rabbit Hero. Japan's Number Five. The woman who fought villains with her legs and her attitude and nothing else. The woman who had been reprimanded by the HPSC three tis and wore each one like a badge of honour. For the simple reason, called 'Not giving a fuck.'
And she was standing in the Supre Court, grinning at a room full of the most powerful people in Japan, as if she had just arrived at a party she was fashionably late to.
At the prosecution's table, Kuroda closed his eyes.
He didn't need to hear what she was going to say. He didn't need to see the docunts she was probably carrying. He didn't need to understand the strategy.
He already knew.
This was it. This was the hidden card. This was the thing his instincts had been screaming about for the last thirty minutes. The weapon that Nezu had kept in reserve while Kuroda spent the evidentiary phase attacking evidence that was designed to be attacked. The piece that couldn't be challenged, couldn't be refrad, couldn't be disputed by counter-experts.
A licensed pro hero. Japan's Number Five... to claim responsibility.
"Shit."
Was all he could say.
GUESS WHO'S BACK!!! BACK AGAIN!!!
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