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The last thing he remembers is the glass shards cutting his tongue.
They’d drawn blood the second his teeth crunched down on the bottle, but he lost track of the pieces as they crumbled, shattered, ripping down the walls of his throat and settling into his stomach. Little pinpoint pricks of sharpness scratching up his flesh dissolved into despair for the girl he loved, and then there was nothing.
And now he’s here.
Phoenix doesn’t know where he is. If it’s the afterlife, it looks remarkably like the courthouse men’s bathroom he probably just died in. Nothing has changed, there’s still a trail of blood leading up to his body collapsed upon the floor, limbs akimbo with one arm wrapped around the base of a toilet, but a man stands there beside it, blonde-haired, eyes hidden beneath his shades.
“This is not a pretty scene,” the man says.
Phoenix’s curiosity trumps his hesitance. “Who are you?” he walks–floats to him, the only other person he can see in this limbo.
The man looks up at his leisure, unalarmed by his ghostly presence. “Sissel,” he answers. “So… what happened?”
He tilts his head down towards Phoenix’s body, his real human body, crumpled upon the floor with blood dripping from his mouth in rivulets and pooling by his head, shards of glass glittering in crimson. It was a gruesome sight.
Phoenix—or his soul, or spirit, or whatever, is still lost, unable to summon a single memory of his past beyond the glass shards. “I don’t remember,” he says slowly. “All I remember is swallowing something… sharp.”
Sissel raises an eyebrow. “Why would you do that?”
“I don’t remember,” Phoenix repeats blankly.
“Huh.”
They both float, surveying the situation beneath them. Phoenix starts to worry, fearing that maybe they’re running out of time, somehow, but time doesn’t seem to pass where they are. The clock on one of the walls is perpetually frozen at ten thirty, Phoenix is positive, because he knows the sound of its tick and he can’t hear it. A distant memory itches at the back of his mind—sliding a metal lock shut, stuttering sobs spilling from his throat, his hands clamped tightly around a cold glass bottle. The distant voices of the courthouse security guards and the loud tick of the clock galvanizing him to tip his head back and pass the bottle through his lips.
“Would you like to live?”
Sissel’s voice, calm as the void they hover in, cuts through the painful memories. What a loaded question, Phoenix thinks. He supposes the answer would be yes, but he just can’t remember why he did it. He has never acted without a good reason, and he fears the dark truth behind his actions in the moments leading to his death. They’re shrouded in mystery, hazy and too far out of his reach to remember to its fullest, but he can imagine it if he tries: a cruel, cold fate awaiting him the moment he opens his eyes again.
On the precipice of life and death, he hesitates.
“I think you’re going to get tired of me saying this, but… I don’t know.” Phoenix’s eyes don’t stray from the body, still limp and bloodied and cold. It was a sorry sight, the longer he looked at it, more than gruesome. He felt sorry for the kid who suffered during his final breath.
“I think you do know. And I think you should. The world probably needs you,” Sissel says, but there’s no hint of a doubt in his voice.
“The world… needs me?”
“Well. Someone needs you. I’m sure of it.”
The echo of his words lingers in the space between them. Phoenix’s watery gaze slowly rises to meet his, and Sissel observes the way his resolve gathers from the bottom up: shoulders straightening, chin jutting up, mouth setting in a firm line.
“Okay. I get it. I think I should live.”
“I see,” Sissel says with an upturn of his lips. “You’re a good kid. Now give me a few minutes while I find out how you died.”
Sissel takes one last look at him—at his pink heart sweater, at the red scarf wrapped lovingly around his neck, at his eyes: big and brown, the color of the earth, unmarred by tragedy. He takes him in for a long moment, searching, looking for something. When he nods, Phoenix doesn’t know if he found what he was looking for.
Sissel’s image begins to flicker, brightening to a glowing white before shrinking down into a pulsating ball of neon blue. He collides with the bathroom sink, dissolving into it and leaving Phoenix behind.
Then, the last four minutes of his life play in reverse.
.
.
.
For Sissel, this is new. It’s hard to prevent the death of someone who actually wants to die. No, that wasn’t it—he didn’t want to die, but he was stupid enough to die. He catches a glimpse of the trial in the courtroom, overhearing something about a bottle of poison, and from there he pieces together its journey out of the room, down the hallways, into the bathroom and finally down Phoenix’s throat. It’s like there was no room in his mind for the idea of death, like he was above his own mortality. It invoked the question of why he was saving this man at all, and how and why doing so would lead to a greater good, to alter the grand scheme of fate itself, but his answer lay in the broken pieces on the floor.
Loyalty.
Faith.
Strong enough to obscure justice.
But he was still young. He would learn. He wouldn’t let him die without having a chance to find out.
The bathroom is tricky to work with because it’s standard and organized and doesn’t have nearly enough miscellaneous, trickable objects just waiting for his perusal. He fails his first attempt, falling short when he swings open the bathroom stall and gets stuck with nowhere else to go, and Phoenix ignores the sound and does the deed.
He stumbles upon his coup de grace when he tricks the toilet. The sharp flushing sound startles Phoenix into dropping the bottle straight into the porcelain throne, where it puts up little resistance and disappears into the swirling vortex of water down the siphon jet.
Fate Averted.
The security guards finally arrive, wrenching the bathroom stall door open to find their defendant on his knees, a blubbering mess with a chain and no pendant in his hands.
“I ate it!” he cries as they drag him out, kicking and screaming with every step.
Sissel watches as he’s returned to the courtroom, shoved back onto the defendant’s stand and testifies a sort-of lie that everyone wastes no time in accepting as the truth, if only for the genuine waterworks that drip into his words, and he’s sure that at least half the gallery pities this lovestruck fool.
He knows he’ll survive this trial. He knows he will go on to do more than just survive. Sissel can recognize the seed of potential when he sees it.
.
“I’ll save you. What you do after that is up to you.”
“...Thank you.”
.
That’s what he does: he protects the seed.
.
.
.
He should’ve known he’d be seeing him again someday. He forgot to say goodbye, and he forgot to tell him he ought to be more afraid of death. He was practically inviting the grim reaper onto Phoenix’s doorstep by letting him get away so easily the first time.
Phoenix’s spirit flickers to life once more, and the recognition is near-instant this time.
“Are you… are you God?”
It’s the last thing Sissel expected Phoenix to ask, and he can’t help but laugh–a low, subtle sound, almost inhuman in its tone. “No,” he answers simply, and apparently decides not to tease him for the assumption.
“I remember you! You were there–last time, I think–back when I… well, I don’t know if I did it or not. That part’s kind of confusing. But you were there during the trial that day at the courthouse!”
Sissel regards him amusedly. “Your memory power is rather advanced. Most people don’t remember how they died after they wake up. Most people don’t even remember their own names.”
“How could I not know my own name?” Phoenix echoes loudly. Even though Sissel knows there are no voices in this world and that Phoenix is just projecting his thoughts directly into his skull, he feels his blazing spirit burn hotter. He’s reminded of a batty old scientist who once told him he doesn’t like losing things (memories and self-identity included). He wonders if it’s the same for Phoenix; if he doesn’t like losing things, but in his case, he just seems more stubborn than anything.
Then, Phoenix looks down, and Sissel follows his gaze to find the object of his interest—or body.
Phoenix Wright’s body, to be precise, charred by fire and blue from cyanosis, rests at the bottom of Hazakura river. Dead beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Sissel doesn’t even have to ask this time.
“I need to live,” Phoenix pleads.
“Okay.” Sissel nods without complaint. He’s ready to save the day as he always is.
Phoenix is taken aback by his easy acquiescence, evidenced by his rapid blinking and jaw slightly agape. “Who exactly are you? I mean… you told me your name. I think. But why are you here?”
“I guess you could say I’m a ghost. And I’m here to save you, of course. Thank God this mountain has a telephone booth.”
“Do you save everyone?”
“… I can’t save everyone. Nobody can. But I try.”
“So you’re a ghost with the powers to save people…” Phoenix turns the information over in his head, like it isn’t all that surprising to him now.
“But why me?” Phoenix presses. It’s impossible to escape Phoenix’s thousand degree stare as it beams into him as if he’s under a magnifying glass, but it’s not like he has anywhere to run.
“Special interest?” he tries. Sissel doesn’t want to give away too many details about the inner machinations of this world of the dead, just in case. It’s a half-truth, anyway. “Your job is to save people, isn’t it?”
“I’m a defense attorney,” Phoenix states carefully. “But… if you have a special interest in me, like you say… you knew that, right?”
“I’m not watching over you constantly, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Sissel assures. “It’s a little bit more like right place and right time.”
Phoenix doesn’t look like he’s buying it. “That seems convenient.”
“You’re really arguing over the details of how being a ghost works with me?”
“I’ve met ghosts, and I don’t think you’re like the rest.”
Well.
“Don’t you have more pressing matters? Like getting back to your life?”
At this, all of the suspicion twisting Phoenix’s features melts away, leaving behind the face of a man who is tired more than anything. Exhaustion pulls his eyes into dark circles and the fire in his eyes has dimmed considerably over the years.
But the flame is still there, Sissel notices.
“I have to find her.” Phoenix meets his eye. “I don’t know if you can stop the bridge from collapsing, but I’ll take anything you can do. I can’t leave either of them defenseless.”
Sissel had already witnessed it all. The wildfire devouring the bridge, the way it swept in an underhanded arch across the lake as it snapped, the wooden planks giving way for Phoenix to plunge into the icy depths below. No one survived a fall like that, not even Phoenix Wright. He’s kept up with his story over the years through the news, and it doesn’t surprise him that his end would be found here, in this place, back with the girl who had started everything.
Dahlia, Iris, whatever her name really was. He had his own suspicions—he was quite familiar with the dead.
Sissel eavesdropped on his fair share, knowing a much greater deal of his life than he let on. He didn’t have much to say for himself in defense, and if asked he would blame it on his curiosity to see how far an ex-art student could go. From samurai show actors to the convicted ex-prosecutor to assassins and thieves, Phoenix has won almost every trial. He’s come a long way from the naive little boy he was five years ago.
Today, he remembers the conversation at the telephone booth by the flaming bridge—the pink sweater artist friend shouting to Miles Edgeworth, making a desperate plea for his help. It was a name he recognized easily, for anyone who kept up with Phoenix Wright would be remiss to not know of his rival/friend/partner/secret fourth thing. He wonders how he would react if he knew that man was chartering a private jet at that very moment (or at least would, once time unfroze.)
“I’ve always liked your moxie, kid,” Sissel remarks with a smile. “You sure you’re gonna stay out of this trouble this time?”
Phoenix has the decency to give him a sheepish smile. “I’ll try.”
“You’ve got good friends,” Sissel suddenly says, unable to stop thinking of those words from before— Nick needs you . “Especially the prosecutor. Keep him close, Phoenix.”
Phoenix eyes widen with barely contained surprise, and Sissel goes back in time.
.
.
.
He resets the timer four times before he figures it out.
He can’t prevent him from falling into the river, because no distraction or trick can stop lightning from splitting the sky and setting fire to the bridge or thwart Phoenix’s single-minded determination in crossing that bridge to save Maya Fey.
The only objects he can possess are sticks and stones. He wishes Phoenix could choose a nice storehouse to die in next time to spare him the headache of trying to solve a puzzle with little to no components. Phoenix hasn’t stepped onto the bridge yet, but once he does, time will be up.
Sissel knows that for Phoenix to survive, he has to make it out of the water in time. The freezing cold temperatures are his biggest threat after the jagged rocks; once hypothermia sinks its talons in, he’ll barely be able to move. That’s when he finds something at the bottom of the river–a small pink bag, tucked behind stones and almost completely invisible to the human eye. When he opens it, two more objects come floating out. A small, retracted parasol and something that instantly seems too good to be true.
He wastes no time pondering its origins. If he times it correctly, Phoenix can live. Whoever left this gift lying at the bottom of the Hazakura river is the reason he will survive.
.
.
.
When Phoenix finally pulls himself ashore, he’s positive that he has a guardian angel.
His limbs ring with a bone deep ache from the river’s sub zero chill, and they protest even as he tries to lift his last remaining leg hanging in the water. The life vest responsible for his survival had been punctured by the sharp edge of a boulder jutting out from the side of the river, and all he can do now is watch it slip away from him, sinking into the depths of an unforgiving current. It served him exactly enough time to make a blind scramble towards the shore, no more and no less.
It’s at least another hour before anyone finds him. Not that he can keep track of the time when he shudders violently in the duration of his wait, too weak to peel off his shirt and too stubborn to remove Iris’ hood. Along with the paramedics comes the wailing sound of a siren, and with the relief that he’s been found, his limbs go boneless. Someone’s shaking him, but he doesn’t care. He slips into unconsciousness, into a dream of blood red psyche locks and the ever-glowing magatama, relentless in his pursuit even in limbo.
(When he wakes up in the hospital, he remembers how he survived. The debris of the bridge had been cleared where he plunged into the water, and the life vest had sprung up inches in front of his body like a lifeguard catching and pulling him to the surface. The timing of it all was too perfect. The life vest was too perfect, because without it, the violent midnight current would have swallowed him whole, and even in his fever-muddled state, he can imagine why Sissel may have found an item like that. He knows of only one other person who survived a fall from Hazakura bridge, after all.)
.
.
.
Seven years later.
.
“Again?”
Sissel doesn’t feel the acute passage of time the same way other humans do, but even so, Phoenix’s appearance is more than a testament to it. His spiky hair is stuffed into a beanie, figure hidden beneath a bulky tracksuit, jaw covered in stubble. His eyes are shrewd, almost unrecognizable, but as always, there’s still a flame aglow.
“I don’t recall making any promises,” Phoenix says cheekily, the corners of his eyes crinkling with mirth.
“You didn’t,” Sissel agrees. He pauses, taking in the scene, at his body on the road, bleeding out from wounds hidden from view. A trail of skid marks paves the road in front of him, proof of his assailant.
“Are you finally going to tell me who you are?” Phoenix asks, hands in his pockets, nonchalant even though his question betrays his curiosity.
Sissel supposes he has nothing to lose.
“This face isn’t mine, for one.” When he speaks, his form has changed. A black cat blinks up at Phoenix, pawing at the red bandana around his neck.
“Oh.” Phoenix blinks. “That’s the last thing I thought was going to happen.”
“I keep that other appearance so people don’t freak out too much when they see me. Being saved by a ghost is one thing, but being saved by a cat ghost… Can you imagine?”
Phoenix has recovered fairly quickly, with the face of a man who’s apparently seen many stranger things. “I guess I can.”
“My story is exactly what I’ve told you until now. I have these powers, I can rewind time to alter someone’s fate and save their life. It was by chance I found you in the courthouse, but I knew who you were.
I saw your trial and couldn’t leave things that way.”
“You said I was needed,” Phoenix says, sharp, not missing a beat. “You never said specifically why, but I’m positive you knew. You knew I was going to become a defense attorney.”
“I overheard your conversation,” Sissel answers unabashedly. “I can tap into any conversation on a phone. One of my powers.”
Phoenix nods. “I see. So you saved me because I could save others.”
“Sure, you could put it that way.”
Sissel watches as Phoenix’s gaze bores into him. He can tell something is bothering him. When he opens his mouth to speak, the voice that comes out is stretched taut with heartache.
“Well, just look at me now. Am I still worth saving?”
Sissel doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Phoenix smiles wryly like he’s said something very funny, even though it’s not funny at all. Without a gleaming badge on the lapel of his suit, it seems he’s lost a piece of his soul.
“Would I be here if you weren’t?” Sissel answers his question with another.
Phoenix’s expression sours. “You don’t get it, do you? You don’t know what I’ve done.”
“I don’t need to. I’m a pretty good judge of character. Your getup might fool someone else, but you must remember I’m not exactly a person.” He flicks his ear and gives a swish of his tail. “Life isn’t so black and white. We aren’t good people or bad people. We do good and we can do bad, too. Whatever you’ve done, Phoenix, you’re not a bad person.”
“…” Phoenix doesn’t say a word.
“And you assume my motives are entirely for the greater good. But can’t I want to save a friend? Or is that too selfish of me?”
Something in Phoenix gives way, like a mask that crumbles, and a smile pierces through like a glowing light. “So you really are my guardian angel.”
Sissel goes silent for a moment, just staring. “I don’t really like how you put it.”
“Thank you, Sissel.”
Sissel bumps his head against Phoenix’s leg, rubbing it a few times. Phoenix crouches and runs a gentle hand along the silky black fur of his body, petting him as circles around his feet.
“Thank you for saving me. It’s nice to know I’m not alone.”
“You’ve never been alone.”
“… True enough. But the real world is complicated. I still… feel alone.”
Sissel’s wide yellow eyes lock onto Phoenix unblinkingly.
“It’s because you’re used to chasing, Phoenix. I think you tend to forget…”
He steps back, bracing himself to rewind the clock of time. Phoenix’s eyes are filled with an emotion he recognizes well.
“We’re all right behind you.”