Chapter 7: Lenient Bashing【P3】

Shun

“Thank you—but I will take it from here your unmatched, objective brilliance!” The prosecutor extends a palm toward her before glaring across the aisle. “The defense is playing mind games. Mind games! Cause and effect! It is as simple as that.”

He massages his fingers against the piece of paper, shuffling it back and forth. “The theft triggered a pursuit. Good Samaritans intervened to stop it, and they were beaten for their trouble.”

He picks up the sheet and tears it in two like an emotional husband destroying divorce papers. “That is a physical altercation! Rookie mistake, veterinary assistant. I expected nothing less from someone who needs an instrument just to see better.”

The severed halves flutter down—apparently they were blank.

He sits down rigidly like a knight in armor, scooping up his pen. “That is all.”

Tick. Tick… Tick… Tick. TICK. Tick… TICK.

The judge waits, staring at his silence before opening her mouth—but the defense attorney beats her to the punch. I pan my head, tracking the death ray from the prosecutor’s eyes beaming across the aisle.

The defense attorney scoffs. “The prosecutor’s imagination is as vivid as ever. A creative attempt to inflate a thin portfolio by magically tying unrelated cases together. I have heard my colleague could use the extra work.”

He nudges his glasses up the bridge of his nose, deflecting the burning stare right back.

I chew slowly, bringing the canned coffee politely to my lips without breaking eye contact with the floor. Neither of them has looked at the accused kids yet.

Clack.

The judge hammers her gavel. “Let us maintain procedural flow. Prosecution, rise.”

The prosecutor springs up like a gymnast executing a perfect landing. “Paragon of justice, you called!”

Huh. I did not know he could move that smoothly.

“Is that necessary?” She waves her gavel toward his unchanged stance. “That, and the added charge?”

“Of course!” He looks her in the eyes. “Ever since I was a little boy, I always felt that I needed to—”

Clack.

She glares at his deflated stance. “Today, please.”

He huffs, breaking eye contact and sitting down to play with his pen. “Well, we are free to choose our own wording when presenting our case—”

The defense attorney lets out a deliberately loud chuckle. “Allow me, everyone! I will save us, once more, from the endless stream of fabrications coming from the sweets factory on the other side of reality.”

“Hey!” The prosecutor breaks formation, slamming a hand onto the desk. “You primal little—”

Clack.

“Sustained. Silence on my left.” She sways the gavel to her right. “Defense, proceed.”

Her deadpan glare pointedly ignores the defense attorney’s low bow. The tapping of the pen stops.

He strokes his chin as if evaluating a fresh shave. “My thanks to the all-seeing beacon of justice. I will put this in simple terms for the boy with the top hat. How do we try someone for a crime at which they were not present, let alone with any supporting evidence linking them to said incident? With little orange men perhaps?”

He sits down for the first time this session, letting his words rest on the other side of the room.

She pans her head to her left. “Clarify. The recent submission states they were, and I quote, ‘involved in the subsequent violence’. Were the accused present at the scene?”

The prosecutor hesitates before, landing a flat hand on the table. “Esteemed guardian of the high bench... The-high-forces-of-infinity-in-the-cold-void-cannot-be-limited-by-mere-stardust-alleging-consciousness-for-they—”

Clack.

“A yes or no will do on this planet.”

His mouth is left hanging open. I can practically see the gears grinding in his head, debating whether to continue his cosmic lecture.

“Empire of righteousness! These triads have slipped through fingers of justice far too many time. We must squeeze harder if we want to grab the issue by the root and look past what can simply be seen.”

She does not respond.

“No, highly praised chosen Judge. But that is not relevant to—”

“And is there any evidence linking them to the subsequent violence?”

“Of course! They wore these masks, commonly linked to—”

“Anyone can wear a mask. Concrete evidence!”

His gaze darts sideways and hooks onto an empty spot on the wall. “No, esteemed appointed Judge... nothing else of note to report.”

“And to confirm, both of the accused denied their involvement in this?”

“That is correct!” the defense attorney interjects cheerfully.

Her glare moves back her left, waiting.

“They did. Judge.” The prosecutor drops his pen onto the table, its clattering fading into silence.

“Then it is settled.” She looks down at her paperwork. “This case will only cover the appeal regarding the theft of a backpack at the central square yesterday.”

Tsk. The OPB really messed up the paperwork on this one. How could they have gathered so little evidence for a court filing and then have the guts to submit whatever they had anyway?

She finally begins her formal opening remarks. The defense attorney rests his hand on his ledger, slowly stroking the leather cover like a super-villain’s cat. The pen lies abandoned on the table.

I take another bite of my baguette.

They really went light on the tomato this time, almost as if they were trying to compensate for it with the cucumber, which crunches perfectly with every bite. But it can only do so much. It is no substitute for the rich tomato flavor I was craving.

But everyone knows the bread is what really makes the sandwich. It must be crusty on the outside to keep everything well contained, while soft on the inside to accommodate the ingredients within.

Down on the floor, the trial blurs into words I have never heard before.

‘Abductionism’, ‘Bananarchy’, ‘Gravitational-Treasoner’?

But their bodies speak a clearer language

The defense attorney paces the floor like a robot vacuum. He gestures with his planner like a maestro conducting a symphony, frantically flipping through his notes to prevent his sentences from faltering.

Across the aisle, the prosecutor refuses to go down without a fight, resorting to character assassination and a conspiracy theory about the influence of solar flares. He tries to bring up the masks again, but gets sucked up by the defense before he can finish his fox imitation with a howl.

You cannot turn dirt into gold.

I track the arguments like a high-speed ball as they rocket back and forth. The conversation keeps flying over the judge, who is treated like a net in the middle the court.

The accused pan their heads between the players like spectators at a championship tennis match, their expressions gradually relaxing the longer the circus goes on.

I swallow my final bite just as an argument from the prosecution is sliced in two.

“It is decided then,” the judge announces. “By the authority vested in me, and in the name of the Student President, the punishment of the accused will hereby be changed—”

Clack.

“—the arguments of the defense have convinced me to—“

With a long sigh, the accused slump forward. The prosecutor keeps slamming his palm on his table, demanding attention while the judge stoically reads out the reduced detention time over the noise.

The defense attorney stands up and gathers his items into his briefcase with a smile, barely listening to the whispers of his clients. The prosecutor stays seated, breathing slowly into his fingertips with closed eyes.

Slowly, the room empties as people avoid each other’s eyes, leaving me to drain the last drips of my drink with a slurp.

I crumple the paper wrapper and stuff it into the empty cup, waiting near the threshold for the other visitors to leave.

The sound of footsteps catches my ear. I look back down behind me, where the prosecutor is the only one left below, picking up the two white remnants of the supernova from the floor.

Justice, huh?

Maybe I should stick to a trespassing case for tomorrow’s breakfast.

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Discover what happens next in: Chapter 8: Remotely Close【P1】

Written by Limited_Infinity. Extras, official publishing platforms and updates are publicly available only on the Patreon page “_Limited_Infinity_”

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