Hidan no Aria:Volume8 Chapter3

3rd Ammo: Silver-white ICBM

"The accused, Kanzaki Kanae--is sentenced to 536 years of imprisonment."

That verdict echoed within the 800th courtroom of the Tokyo high court.

I, seated in the seats of the defense, couldn't believe my ears.

The text which declared the postponement of the death sentence or life sentence wasn't spoken by the judge, so I had had a bad feeling, but...I can't believe it. Aria's mother, Kanzaki Kanae-san...

...was convicted.

And there wasn't even a delay before its execution. It's a heavy sentence. Too heavy.

"..."

Sitting next to me and dressed in a suit, Riko looked over to the prosecutors with sharp eyes.

Jeanne, who we had lost all communication with after Bandere, and Sayonaki Vlad, being held in a level 5 holding facility in Nagano, wasn't present, but I had thought that we would definitely win this trial.

--We lost. Completely.

The sentence was reduced from the first trial, but still, this high court trial's a loss for the accused.

Because, Kanae-san's actual life sentence hasn't changed.

(That's not right...! Something like this is...!"

Strange.

This trial is strange.

For some reason, there wasn't an audience, and there wasn't anybody from the mass media either--

I even feel that there's something that we don't understand lurking at the back of this.

"That's an unfair verdict!"

Aria stood up, her chair scraping on the floor, and she shouted in a high-pitched voice.

"This---Why!? I gathered so many testimonies, so much evidence--Why!? Mama is...Mama is innocent! Why!?"