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Phoenix doesn’t think he’d ever been more nervous before in his life. Which, all things considered, was impressive.
After all, Phoenix Wright was known for being nigh unkillable. He’d survived falling hundreds of meters off of a burning bridge into a ravine with currents so fast they were known for disappearing dead bodies, and walked out with a cold. He’d been hit head-on with a speeding car, flew thirty feet, crashed into a telephone pole, and suffered nothing but a sprained ankle. He’d once finished defending a case while the Royal Guard of the Kingdom of Khura’in had rifles pointed at his head, and he also dethroned the country’s queen in the process.
So after all that, it truly was impressive, and a little ridiculous, that the most nervous he’d ever been was standing outside the door of a prosecutor’s office.
In his defense, it was not just any prosecutor’s office. It was the office of the famed prosecutor Franziska von Karma. Or at least, the temporary office of famed prosecutor Franziska von Karma that she used when she was in the area, and not in Europe taking on cases for Interpol. And as anyone who has ever met Franziska before can attest, she was, for the lack of a better term, absolutely terrifying.
It wasn’t just the thought of meeting with Franziska that had Phoenix sweating bullets, though. It was also the thought of what he was here to ask her.
Oh well. Might as well get it over with. After all, Phoenix has been on the receiving end of Franziska’s whip many times in the past, and he hasn’t died yet.
Yet.
Releasing a deep breath he didn’t know he was holding, Phoenix raised his fist and gave the door a few quick knocks.
“Enter,” ordered a voice from inside the office.
Bracing himself, Phoenix turned the doorknob and swung the door open.
Stepping inside the room, the first thing that Phoenix noticed was that Franziska’s office was very sparsely decorated, to the point where it could almost be called barren. The room was illuminated by the sunlight streaming in from a single, large window on the opposite wall, that could be cut off with plain white curtains. To his left was a small bookshelf, lined with nothing but law books which, Phoenix noted, had not a single speck of dust on them, unlike the ones in his own office that he never bothered to read. The centerpiece of the room, however, was of course, the simple wooden desk, where Franziska presumably did her work, and the chair behind it where she would sit. There was not a decorative element in sight; every single thing in the room served a practical, functional purpose. Phoenix wasn’t sure whether the room’s lack of décor was due to the fact that it was almost never in use anyway, or if it was because Franziska was just like that. Probably both.
By contrast, the desk itself was busy beyond belief. Every space on its surface was occupied, either by documents, pens, photos, or folders that Phoenix assumed were filled with case files. All of it was organized meticulously, stacked into piles or sheafs, and presumably separated by case. In the week and a half that she had been here, Franziska had somehow already amassed what would amount to half a year’s worth of cases for the Wright Anything Agency, just going off of the amount of stuff that Phoenix could see.
The woman herself was seated behind her desk, currently reading through an open folder, presumably another case file, in her hand. As the door opened, she glanced up from her work. Her eyebrows raised slightly in surprise as she recognized the person who entered.
“Mr. Phoenix Wright,” she addressed him, dryly. “How unexpected.”
“Good morning, hi,” Phoenix said, rubbing the back of his head. “Uh, guess I’ve never really been here before, have I?”
Franziska levelled him with an icy glare.
“Get to the point,” she said, curtly, looking back down to the files in her hand.
“Well,” Phoenix started, coughing into his hand to clear his throat. “Franziska, I—”
“Prosecutor von Karma,” she corrected, not glancing up from her work.
“…Right,” Phoenix said. “Prosecutor von Karma, I’ve uh…got something important to ask you.”
“Then ask it, fool,” she responded.
“Right, well,” Phoenix began, “I’m planning to marry Edgeworth.”
Franziska stilled at that, for a moment.
“Really?” she asked, looking up from the files she was reading.
“Yep,” Phoenix confirmed.
“Hm,” Franziska said, “I see. I assume you’ve come to invite me to the ceremony, then.”
She snapped the folder shut, and placed it on her desk, before pulling out what was probably a planner from her pocket. She flipped it open and grabbed a pen from her desk.
“Very well,” she said, flipping through pages with her thumb. “If I am free and in the country on the day of the wedding, I will see if I will attend. Though I must commend you on coming here to invite me in person; from a fool like you I would have expected just an email.”
“Wait, no, uh,” Phoenix interrupted her, “there’s no wedding date yet. I haven’t even asked him yet!”
Franziska stilled once more. She turned slowly to face Phoenix.
“You haven’t asked him,” she repeated.
“No,” Phoenix replied.
Franziska's eye twitched.
“Foolish fool who foolishly dares to fool around foolishly!”
Phoenix yelped as he felt the sting of a whip on his arm. When did she even get that? He didn’t even see her pick it up!
“If you haven’t even asked him yet,” Franziska glowered, now standing, with her whip in hand, “then what are you doing here wasting my time?”
She wound her hand back for another crack of the whip.
“W-Wait!” Phoenix yelled, holding out his hands in front of him defensively. “I wanted to ask what you thought about it!”
Franziska blinked.
“What I…thought about it?” she asked, confused, as she lowered her weapon.
“Y-Yeah!” Phoenix said, lowering his hands, “like, what do you think?”
Franziska only continued to stare at him.
“What foolishness is this,” she asked, deadpan.
“Like,” Phoenix tried to elaborate, “what are your thoughts?”
Franziska raised her whip again.
“Wait, wait!” Phoenix yelled. “I meant I wanted to ask for your blessing!”
Franziska narrowed her eyes.
“What.”
“Your blessing,” Phoenix repeated, “like, to marry Miles.”
Franziska simply stared at him, incredulously.
“You are asking,” Franziska said, “for my blessing to marry Miles Edgeworth.”
“Yes,” Phoenix replied, nodding.
“…Why?”
“Well,” Phoenix began, his hand finding the back of his head once more, “it’s a tradition to ask the family members for their blessing when you want to marry someone, right? And you’re, well, family to Edgeworth. You two consider each other siblings, right?”
Phoenix gave a nervous smile and a shrug to Franziska. She only continued to glare at him.
“And so I wanted to ask for your blessing,” Phoenix continued rambling to fill the silence. “To marry Edgeworth. Because you’re important to him and he’s important to you, and so I wanted to have your approval.”
Franziska held her icy gaze for a moment, before sighing. She sat back down in her chair.
“You are a fool,” she said, massaging the bridge of her nose.
“…Right,” Phoenix replied, “but do I have your blessing, or—”
“No.”
Phoenix blinked.
“Wh—”
“No,” Franziska repeated. “No, you do not have my blessing.”
“But…” Phoenix began, at a loss for words, “but why—"
“You truly are a fool,” Franziska said, cutting him off, “if you walked here, to the office of Franziska von Karma, a third rate, once disbarred lawyer, and expected my approval."
"Franziska—"
"Prosecutor von Karma!" she yelled, standing up and slamming her fist onto her desk. The pens on it rattled from the impact, and a few of them rolled off and clattered onto the floor.
Franziska took a deep breath.
"The von Karma name means one thing, and one thing only," she said. "Perfection."
"My father was a less than stellar example," Franziska continued. "He brought shame to our family name. And so the last thing I need is someone like you dragging our reputation down even further."
"What?" Phoenix responded, indignant. "I—"
"You rely on nothing but luck and bluffs to win cases," Franziska cut him off once more. "You've only been practicing law for a few years, after being inactive for almost a decade, and you don't even have a law office. You work for a talent agency."
"And you expect me to welcome you, a lawyer with no skill and nothing to show," Franziska said, "into my family?"
She scoffed.
"Foolish."
"I…" Phoenix tried to respond, completely at a loss for words. He just stood there, dumbfounded at Franziska's outburst.
Franziska continued to stare Phoenix down. All of a sudden, however, she relaxed and sat back down in her chair.
"If that were my answer," she asked, "what would you do?"
Phoenix blinked.
"If…what?" he asked, confused.
"If all of that," Franziska replied, gesturing vaguely with her hand to indicate her previous tirade.
"Was really what my answer to you asking for my blessing was," Fraziska said, "what would you do then, Mr. Phoenix Wright?"
"What would I…" Phoenix repeated, still a little lost.
"Well I'd…probably walk out of here dejected," he answered.
Franziska rolled her eyes.
"And then?" she asked. "Would you give up on marrying my brother?"
"Um," Phoenix said, "no, I wouldn't. I'd still ask him to marry me."
"Then you see how pointless this is," Franziska responded.
Franziska sighed.
"If you are going to proceed with marrying my brother, regardless of what I say," she said, "then why even come here to ask?"
"Well," Phoenix said, awkwardly, "what you think is important?"
"It is not," Franziska retorted, "it is what Miles Edgeworth thinks, that is important."
Franzsika considered for a moment, before continuing to speak.
"I can not believe I am telling you this," Franziska said, "but Miles is…happier, when you are around.
"Oh," Phoenix said. "Oh?"
"Be quiet," Franziska snapped.
She considered for a moment more.
"I have never seen him quite so… content, before," Franziska continued. "He has always had a hunger, of sorts I suppose, in his eyes. He was always searching for nothing more than further perfection. Him and I both, really. We were raised that way."
Franziska frowned, as if upset with herself for sharing so much, but she continued anyway.
"When I saw him for the first time in years after he supposedly 'died'," Franziska said, "that was the first time I've ever him without that hunger. Instead, there was a different look in his eyes; one I did not recognize at the time."
She turned to meet Phoenix's eyes.
"I believe I can name it now," she said. "It was…peace. It was the peace of a man who, for the first time in his life, could be satisfied with who he was."
"I do not have to be the genius prosecutor that I am to know that you contributed largely to that," Franziska finished.
"I…see," Phoenix responded, unsure of what else to really say.
"If you truly do see, then you see why my opinion does not matter," Franziska said. "What weight does what I have to say have, in the face of all that you are to him?"
"B-But still," Phoenix insisted, "your approval matters a little. I mean, you're his—"
"Family?" Franziska answered, scoffing. "Both me and Miles have spent far too much of our lives letting what family thinks dictate what we do. It is time for Miles to decide for himself."
"You," Franziska said, pointing at Phoenix, "will ask Miles Edgeworth if he will agree to marry you. If he does, then he will. Simple."
She then makes a shooing gesture out the door of the office.
"Now leave," she said. "And do hurry. I will only be in this country for a week more, and I expect to be informed of the date of the wedding in person before my flight back to Europe."
"…Yeah," Phoenix said. "Yeah okay, you're right. Thanks Franziska."
"Of course I am right," Franziska replied, before pulling up her case files once again. "Now please show yourself out. You have interrupted my work."
"Alright, alright, I'm going," Phoenix said, turning around and heading towards the door.
He placed his hand on the doornknob and turned, before pausing.
"Uh, Franziksa?" he asked.
"What," she replied.
"I know we just agreed it didn't really matter," Phoenix said, turning back to look at her, "but still, I'd like to know, you know?"
"Would like to know what?" Franziska asked, looking back up from her files. "Do be more specific."
"If you approve or not," Phoenix clarified.
Franziska only glared at him.
"You really, truly, are the most foolish fool," she said, "if you can not determine the answer to that question already."
"Yeah, that's fair enough, I guess," Phoenix said, giving her a sheepish smile. "So you didn't like…mean any of that mean stuff you said, right?"
"Of course not," Franziska replied. "As if I could ever be so disparaging towards Trucy's office."
Phoenix gave a short laugh at that.
"Yeah, no, should have known it was a ruse just from that," he said.
He turned the handle and stepped outside the office.
"Well then, goodbye Franziska," he said as he turned to leave. "Or should I say, sister in—?"
"Do not push it."
"Okay."
Phoenix shut the door behind him. He then slumped against the wall and let out a sigh of relief.
Man, that was stressful. At least it should be smooth sailing from here…he hoped.
Smiling despite himself, Phoenix began the walk back home, already planning out details for the wedding to come in his mind.
Of course, he'd have to return here to invite Franziska to the ceremony in person soon enough.
After all, he didn't actually know how to send an email.