The Trial (Open)

Shortly after Little Girl on the Moon

Yui sat quietly in her cell. She didn't want to move an inch, yet she was shaking. She tried not to think about the noise of rattling chains which reminded her of her time as a slave. She had gone mad again. Not only that, but she would also soon be put on trial for the murder she had committed. People wanted her to be brought to justice. In America this would mean a death row. Honestly, the lundragan was starting to doubt if she should resist. She was tired of being on the run, tired of being worried all the time. Yet she still felt fear, and she blamed the stupid corruption for that. Random emotions were spiking her mind ever since the incident on the moon. She slowly looked up when the cell door opened up with a loud creak.
"It's time."
Her eyes weren't used to the light, so all she saw was the silhouette of the jailer. Her chains got unbound, she froze at the noise it made when it started rattling. She was immediately handcuffed and then brought to standing. The jailer then escorted her to the court, where she would have to sit during the entire ordeal. She walk through the hallway felt like ages. The doors to the court opened. When she entered the room the public immediately started shouting her down. Called her a monster. Some people were even throwing things at her. She paid no mind to them. She was too tired to hear of it. The judge struck his hammer on the desk to keep the halls quiet.
"I demand order in the court. Refrain from throwing articles at the defendant."
The people disagreed booing at the judge whom struck his hammer again.
"ORDER!"
He shouted. And they finally shut up. Yui took place at her assigned chair. Her expression was blank and she looked no one in the eye.

"Alright then, let the trial begin. Are both parties ready?"
"Prosecution is ready, sir."
The other side was silent. Nobody really wanted to defend a lost cause anyway. Neither had Yui requested anyone to defend her. The judge sighed. He wasn't really feeling like doing this trial at all. Actually he looked like he would just instantly sentence the girl to execution. But regulations stated at least all valuable witnesses had to have a say in the matter, as well as evidence had to be presented.

Into the courtroom came a teenager, wearing a white suit. "Mind if I'm the defence, your honour?" He said, before moving very far into the room. "I'm not qualified and too young, but it's better than nothing, and I know a thing or two about dragons, though maybe not the kind that the defendant is, as I am bound by magic to a purple dragon by the name of Yurio. I am also a meister at the DWMA." He finished his explanations with a smile, directed at both the judge and Yui. He had been pestered by his partner to do this ever since they found that the dragon he saw on the moon had been taken under arrest.

Yui's gaze lowered. Why would he even bother, even she knew what she had done that day.
"Very well, defendant, do you have any objections to this man."
Yui shook her head. She didn't bother with it, it was a lost case anyway, and he wouldn't know any better since he hadn't been there.
"Well then, we will go through the summary of the defendant's crimes. Prosecution, you may speak."
The judge looked over to the prosecutor.
"Very well, your Honor... As many may have known, the defendant has been charged with the crime of murder on March 4th earlier this year."
The judge nodded confirming. Then the man continued reading the file he was holding in his hands.
"The victim was Sean Paólo, a wealthy man who was at the time in Puerto Rico. Witnesses have seen the monster crashing into his private chamber with explosives and watched the defendant, supposedly looking like a dragon, kill him."
Yui remained silent and she just concentrated on the table in front of her. She knew this lie already and had by now gotten accustomed by it as she had seen it appearing on tv-screens over and over again, explaining what had happened. Back then it still frustrated her how much humans were riddled with lies. But it had started to numb on her and she became less trustful by nature.

"However, nobody had seen the defendant actually turn into a human and had assumed it would keep this form. Until the recent event on July the third, the dragon was spotted once again. And this time we had enough witnesses to show that this woman in the chair right over there was actually the nicknamed 'Blood Wing'."
The man was now pointing at Yui. Her gaze was as neutral as always.
"But that's where it doesn't end. After questioning the defendant she had admitted to be this criminal called 'Blood Wing', as well as admitted she had killed Sean Paólo."
The man now had a cocky grin on his face, it seemed like a lost case for the defendant anyway. There was already enough proof to decide she was guilty. This whole trial was a waste of time and he just oped the boy that just ran up to defend her would see his point and give up.

"That seems pretty dire." Glyndwr said, before smiling. "But, have you asked the defendant why she killed Sean Paolo?" He aimed the question at the judge, and then looked at the prosecutor.."I say that we should hear the defendant, and see to it that she leaves nothing out of her testimony. There are things this court doesn't know. For example, what kind of creature the defendant really is. Looking like a dragon... Sheesh, the defendant IS a dragon and could break out of those cuffs easily if she transformed. Now, I think you shouldn't belittle someone, who is innocent, until proven guilty."

The audience howled in protest, another hammer slammed on the desk to keep them quiet. The prosecutor laughed.
"But of course, the motive is still missing. I'm sure she will gladly explain what she has done."
Yui remained silent, though attention now actually went to the actual discussion. The judge nodded in agreement with the meister's statement.
"A motive is still needed. Defendant, I would like you to testify."
Yui nodded still shaken.
"Ye-yes your honor."
She slid of her chair silently and walked over to the witnesses stand.
"Alright then. State your name, age and your occupation."
Yui did a slightly awkward bow.
[color=#9933ff]"My name is Yui Felwood. I forgot how old I am but the last time I had some track of time I was around... 560...-ish?"
Her head tilted slightly as she was pondering about her age.
"And I'm an ex-inventor."
The judge was staring a bit in awe at Yui's odd introduction.
"Why can't you remember your age."
Yui shrugged.
"Hadn't seen daylight in some while, couldn't really count the days for a while. And to be honest, the time keeping of humans ain't helping."
The judge nodded.
"I see, very well, that is a reasonable explanation if you used different ways of timekeeping."

"I'd like to draw attention to the fact, that the defendant said that they did not, in fact, see the light of day for long enough that she lost track of time." Glyndwr said, pointing strangely at the prosecution. "I am curious to know."

The judge nodded.
"That is indeed a curious statement. Let's hear what the defendant has to say."
The prosecution looked suspiciously at the defense. Yui nodded.
"I was... Enslaved."
"Objection."
The prosecutor has simply raised his hand.
"If I hear this right... You had been enslaved as you say."
Yui nodded.
"However... You did not resist in any way?"
The girl's gaze lowered.
"No, sir. I didn't resist."
"Even though you could easily subdue them?"
Yui went silent.
"Yes, I thought so... It looks like this person is fairly untrustworthy and actually a danger for this court. I would suggest to handle this trial quickly."
The audience cheered for him. The judge slammed his hammer on the desk and shook his head.
"If the defendant proves to be of any danger we shall take measures. The Trial ends when if proof leads to her being guilty or not. Defendant, you may now begin testifying."
Yui was fidgeting with her hands. Clearly nervous now. Inside her mind her emotion had spiked into fear and she was trying to distract herself from it to calm down.

"I would like to know why the defendant did not attempt to resist. Could the defendant make sure to add the reasons to the her testimony, once she gets to it?" Glyndwr asked. He had such a strange desire to spike his hair back...
"Hold nothing back from the court, and everything will be okay. That is how it should be, anyway."

Yui was still fidgeting and flustered.
"We-well... When I first got to land I tried to interact with some people... They told me lies and I ended up being collared with some weird device."
The prosecutor impatiently rapped his fingers on his crossed arms.

"Leave nothing out. Who were the people, and what did the device seem to do to you?" Glyndwr asked, in as calm a manner as he could. "All the detail you add will help in proving that you are not in the wrong."

Yui was silent for a while, thinking.
"I don't remember their faces that clearly anymore... I do remember though that the collar would explode if I were to do anything that they didn't like..."

"And here we have the reason why she couldn't do anything to her captors. To me, it seems like the defendant was not a cold blooded murdered, but an unfortunate person, or dragon, who was lied to and mislead by some very bad people. She killed because she couldn't take herself being enslaved any longer." Glyndwr explained his view on the situation, making sure to be as soppy as possible.

"Objection."
The prosecutor raised his hand again before the Judge could talk.
"It's true that in the files it's described that the defendant had explosives with her. So that would of course make the story likely."
He shrugged.
"However... There is one problem to this point. The fact that the collar couldn't possibly be removed. The bodyguards had witnessed explosions. Which would mean she wouldn't even have survived if she had acted out of self-defense, or do you also expect her to be strong enough to survive a blast so near the throat? ... The defendant once again proves to be unreliable."
The audience once again cheered for the prosecution. The Judge nodded his head.
"Neither do I see a reason to go further into that matter. I would ask the defendant to proceed to testify. And I would request for her to give honest answers."
Yui fidgeted nervously. She had been giving them exactly what she witnessed. As she expected they were very narrow minded.

"I would like to hear what happened at the day of the murder."
The judge requested.
"... Yes your honor..."
She took a deep breath. The nerves were breaking her.
"I-i was doing my usual thing... I asked the master to release the slaves."
The prosecution sighed.
"Don't make this hard on yourself, there were no slaves involved. Stop trying to push that lie through."
Yui immediately shut up.
"Please let the defendant finish her testimony."
The judge ordered.
"Your honor, with all due respect. This... thing is still rambling about things that aren't there. This is a waste of precious time."
The judge sighed.
"I would rather have the defendant finish her testimony. Please continue, and don't interfere for once. Please continue your testimony."
Yui stood there, fear was overtaking her, her eyes restlessly looking around. Her eyes had switched to red at this point which went unnoticed for most of the court. But for meisters with soul perception it was visible that her soul had shifted color too.
"... S-so... He once again had refused. And was getting rather fed up with my constant pleading... So he grabbed a gun. He told me that every time I would ask again he would 'free' a slave from it's life... He then grabbed the closest slave he could find... And shot her in the head... And then... uh... There was blood on my hands and I stood there. With the body of the man in my hands... Limbless, gutless."

Glyndwr looked at the prosecution. "You call her, Yui Felwood, student at the DWMA and unfortunate victim of a slaver, a thing, and try to push the fact that she was enslaved off as lies? You disgust me. I would say you are no different from the people who did the things that are causing her to right now become very scared indeed." Glyndwr said this after listening to Yui. "I would urge you to listen closely without interruptions from here on, otherwise you might cause a situation."

The prosecutors eyes narrowed.
"I would be really careful about what you say in court. It can work against you... Your honor. I would like to show evidence that miss Felwood's testimony is false."
The judge nodded once again.
"Let us see this evidence then."
The prosecutor picked a photo.
"This is a picture from the crime scene. The police had taken the picture before moving any of the evidence around. And as you can see, aside from the body of the victim, there is no second body to be found. The only other trails of blood are claw- and splatter marks on the walls and floor and there is no sign of any bodies being moved around. Otherwise that may have left some peculiar lined blood trail on the floor."
The judge pondered.
"That indeed sounds very strange... This photo shall be added to the evidence inventory."

Glyndwr was not a detective or attourney. All he had going for him was the fact that he wanted to keep Yui from being put down like a dog that did a bad thing. "The body and blood of the slave could have been cleaned up to make sure nobody knew about the fact that the victim had enslaved anybody. Cleaned up by those that called the police." There went nothing... Still, Glyndwr didn't show any signs of doubt in his idea. That would be bad.

Yui's head raised up.
"I moved it..."
She said quietly. She felt really awkward she had forgotten about this.
"What was that?"
The prosecutor rested his hands on his table.
"I-i moved the slave's body from that room..."
The judge's eyes widened.
"Why would you leave such an important thing out of your testimony."
Yui's gaze lowered again fidgeting with her hands once again.
"... My mind is really fuzzy once I black out..."
The judge sighed.
"Please add the final part to your testimony and leave nothing out."
Yui nodded.
"After I killed the man. I looked at the slave that had been shot. In my culture we make sure people at least look their best when they die. So I lifted her on my back and then crawled outside. I had buried her on a nearby cliff side near the building and marked her grave with a rock, with my best attempt I carved her name in the stone. After that, I went back, took the keys of the man I killed and freed any other slaves he had."
The judge looked at the prosecutor.
"Is there any evidence found that could support this testimony?"
He asked.
"No, your Honor. Evidence had mostly been taken from the direct place of the crime."
"What about the slaves, as stated in the defendant's testimony, have any of them been found?"
"No, your Honor. Which is exactly why I would like to stay at my point that the defendant is lying."
"Lying or not, we cannot go any further without any evidence to confirm if the defendant is honest or not. Therefore I want to declare a break until the rest of the evidence is found."

Throwing the prosecution a triumphant and smug smile, Glyndwr, underneath the stand, let himself give a fistpump. "Thank you, your honour," He said, before he turned to face Yui. "You live to see another day. I hope to make sure you get the chance to live to see another 500 years."

Yui gave a weak smile to the guy who defended her. Hope for some kind of peaceful life was not entirely lost it seemed. More people were with her than she had first assumed, and it gave her a spark that she could get out of the mess the witches had set up for her. Maybe once this trial was over she could finally tell people about the trouble she had been in thus far. She was escorted back to her cell. She sat there for a few minutes until she heard footsteps getting closer.
"I have some matters to discuss with the defendant."
"Oh. Yes of course, the location of the body of course."
"Could you get me a pen and paper? I seem to have forgotten some and it might be important to write things down..."
"Uh... Yes sir."
She looked up, watching the prosecutor.
"I believe assuming someone lies without any evidence is not something that is allowed in court... If I read the laws of humans well."
He squinted.
"I have to give you, you've always been a tenacious one. It's almost annoying to watch you struggle."
Yui stared at the man for a while.
"... I don't think we met before this. Or are you referring to the fact that I was running away from my crimes."
When she finished that sentence the temperature in the cell seemed to have risen to an uncomfortable degree.
"You know exactly what I mean... If you even utter any word about anything that happened to our kind, you'll be having more deaths to be responsible for."
Yui's hand went to her just below her neck, the necklace she wore was hidden under her shirt.
"Did I make myself clear to you?"
The man asked. Yui nodded with fright in her eyes.
"Good... Until the next session then..."
The temperature dropped to usual standards again, and the man took his leave.
"Sir, I got the papers..."
"Nevermind, she has nothing useful to say."
"... Oh..."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(timeskip)

Yui was bought to court once again sitting on her assigned chair. The atmosphere was heavy in the air, as if the audience was afraid something came up that would prove the monster not guilty of her crimes.
"The trial will begin. Picking up where we left off with the case involving miss Felwood."
The judge started.
"Was enough evidence found for the case."
"Yes sir, we found some more evidence. I will present them to court in due course as I will rephrase the words the defendant has said in the previous trial."
He had a small box of articles with him.
"First off, the matter of the missing body."
He picked a photo from the box.
"As explained by the defendant, there was indeed a gravestone found at the cliff side. The name of the dead slave was Rosella Amos the same woman that had been reported as 'missing' around sixteen years ago. After the body had been retrieved and DNA tests were taken we could indeed confirm that the person in the grave was her."
The prosecutor rummaged through the box of evidence once more. And picked a bullet.
"This. Was found in the head of the body. Which also confirms the explanation our defendant has given."
The judge nodded.
"That seems like solid evidence as to the defendant speaking the truth."
The prosecutor nodded.
"It is true that the defendant had most likely been driven to madness. I would give you that. However... It would be worrying to keep a person like her walking around freely. After all she had already proven that she would be ready to kill if someone would drive her to certain levels..."
Yui looked like she wanted to say something, clutching the necklace that was hidden under her shirt. But she remained silent and kept her eyes low.

"I say that we seek an ultimatum. You cannot execute her, so, I say, she is put back into the care of the DWMA, where she can seek therapy and otherwise be relatively safe from anything that may enrage her enough to cause her to kill." Glyndwr said, looking between the judge and the prosecution. "The students of the DWMA would not be in much danger from an attack anyway, as they are trained to survive encounters with Kishin Eggs. The residents of Death City would also be fairly safe from an attack, seeing as they would also be protected by the meister, teachers and weapons that live in the city."

Yui was neurotically playing with some hair strands now as some kind of distraction from her still spiking emotions.
"... I did go to a therapist on my own accord..."
She nervously looked away when the prosecution glared at her. Somehow she felt really uneasy now. The talk from after the previous trial made her realize that this was a bad idea. Professor Exagora would be in the audience as she was following the trial. She pondered on the facts of what might have happened if she didn't call out on that fact. Probably her therapist would've stomped forward, and probably say enough for that prosecutor to actually act. And that was what she was more worried about right now.
"Well, good job to whoever is your therapist then. Witnesses from the moon mission were probably also impressed by your display on there."
Yui's eyes lowered.
"... That was not her fault... I take responsibility for that..."
Her voice was slightly shaking and barely heard.

"Excuse me, Mr.Prosecutor, but are you giving the defendant weird looks?" Glyndwr asked, gesturing with one hand towards Yui. "If those are meant to keep her from saying things, then maybe you should stop, and let her talk."

Yui flinched.
"Ah, my apologies. I didn't mean to make miss Felwood feel uncomfortable. We wouldn't want her to leave any details out as for valuable information... right?"
He had an arrogant smile on his face. Yui looked really terrified now and she shook her head quickly.
"Anyway, since therapy has apparently been arranged... We get to the next topic to discuss as for the well being of people, and a question you had in mind for the previous trial... What exactly is this defendant, and can we guarantee she has some ability to keep herself in check?"

"The defendant is a half dragon, or a person that can turn into a dragonlike form, or vice-versa." Glyndwr said, and smiled at the judge. "And, as for the matter of keeping herself in check, I don't believe that she has lost control in Death City before. She had been staying there while she was on the run, right? That shouldn't be a problem."

"And how long do you believe she will be able to...?"
Yui's eyes widened on that statement. Was he trying to tempt the boy? She shook her head frantically when the prosecution wasn't looking her way.
"I've heard of people succumbing by madness in the long run. We need to be 100 percent sure that she won't slip up again."