MIDNIGHT PRINCE: Empire of Sin



The sound of the gavel filled the entire courtroom, and the suspect was finally released as she had been judged innocent by the jury.

The case involved an accident where a family of four had their car run over by another woman who was seemingly driving while drunk out of her wits. The result of the accident was, expectedly, a tragedy.

Out of the four passengers of the crashed vehicle, the parents who were in the front were not able to make it through this disaster. The big brother, one of the kids, lost an eye and was bedridden after an intense surgical operation. As for the youngest child, she was found to be unscathed. There were not even the slightest wounds on her body, despite the car being half destroyed and folded in due to the violent nature of the crash.

The doctors could only attribute this to a miracle. Sadly, while her body was completely intact, it was hard to say the same for her mind. She had been left alone in the car and while her brother was in a coma, she had been awake and had witnessed the mangled bodies of her dear parents— devoid of any signs of life.

After a long court session and the presentation of many, many proofs, it was discovered that the cause of the accident was different from what was initially thought.

The final result was that no signs of alcohol or other substances that could affect her mental capacity were found in the woman's blood. However, such substances were found in the father's blood instead. It was a complete turnover from the initial circumstance.

Clearly, he had been somewhat drunk as he drove the car. Some eyewitnesses even affirmed that they had seen the parents having a dispute inside the car, causing the steering wheel to veer off the track and leading to the tragic accident.

There was no CCTV footage as the cameras in the area were found to be malfunctioning.

The woman was innocent.

The dead were the culprits.

As her sentence was relayed by the jury, she stood up and smiled at the young girl who was looking at her with an expression full of incomprehension at the absurdity of what she was witnessing before her— the injustice of the world.

"Though I was finally found innocent, what happened is a tragedy beyond words. As such, I will make sure to bear all the medical bills and even pay for the counseling sessions of this poor young girl."

The girl could not speak. Young she may be, but she was not stupid. What she was watching was not a judgment.

There was no fairness in the decision for it to be deemed a judgment, in the first place.

This place was a coliseum, the jury was the spectators, the judge was the King, and her family… nothing more than helpless gladiators thrown in front of a giant lion they had no chance against. The result— they had been devoured till not a single trace of them existed…

She was young… nothing but a kid who should have still been bathing in the innocence of her childhood while playing with her friends.

In the end, she realized one simple truth.

Justice was not blind, and the scales of justice were not equal.

The simple reality was that money could quite easily tilt that balance in the greatest bidder's favor.

ƥandas.com ———

[Present Day — Los Angeles — Richard Riordan Central Library]

"Miss Smith, you should wake up already. We are about to close down."

"Ugh…"

Waking up with a tired expression on her face and heavy bags under her dull eyes, the dream, or rather nightmare, she had been experiencing in her sleep left a very bad taste in her mouth as it brought back the memories she had thought she'd completely buried deep in her heart by now.

Shaking her head to chase away the last remnants of her living nightmare, Themis blinked her eyes a few times as she looked at the librarian who was gently shaking her awake.

It was an old woman wearing a pair of glasses, but she recognized her in an instant. After all, during the last three days, Themis had become a recurring client of hers inside this grand library.

"Sorry. I was a little too tired today and dozed off before I knew it."

The librarian gave her an encouraging smile as she nodded her head in understanding, "I perfectly understand. Would you like to borrow some books?"

"No, it's alright. Thanks."

Carefully raising her upper body, after making sure she hadn't damaged the book she slept on, she stood up from her seat and stretched her arms and shoulders slightly before observing her surroundings.

She immediately notices that there were still many people present in the library, outside of her, though they were clearly all university students swiftly rummaging through the books— indicating that they might have some exam sometime soon which warranted their current numbers and behavior.

Sighing, she looked down at the book she had been examining and thought about her progress over the last few days.

She had been a little naive.

The Central Library's Rare Books Department had over 16,000 volumes, dating from the 15th century till modern history with a majority from the 18th and 19th centuries. Even if she used the rest of her life cooped up inside the library, while not eating, sleeping, or doing anything other than reading, she would not be able to finish reading all the books in just the Rare Books collection.

But even so, those few days had allowed her to rest her mind.

"Sorry, I will be leaving now."

"Don't hesitate to come back later."

Waving her hand, Themis left the library and observed the lively city once again. She trudged on the streets with an absent-minded expression.

Ever since the 28th, what Kirishima, her teammate and mentor told her kept turning in her mind.

Every time she thought of his words, something tried to make her forget or instill distrust in her.

But… she knew Kirishima. She knew that he was not crazy and more than anything, what he had told her was too significant to simply be the ramblings of a mentally ill man.

At the same time, she knew that this was an opportunity for her. A chance to bring true change and have a greater impact on society.

All she needed for that was to truly enter the supernatural world.

She knew a little bit about the different factions that comprised this new world she had become privy to and realized just how much was hidden from the eyes of the 'normal' public.

This brought a new sense of paranoia in her heart. A bunch of criminals that she could not see and could not even stop were moving all around her without her even knowing their identities.

This made her feel like she was about to go mad and she did not even dare to sleep in her own home.

'Hah… Kirishima really gave me some shocking news, didn't he?'

While her paranoia was running at full power, something else was swirling in her heart.

A desire for power.

She didn't just want to observe… she wanted to act.

Becoming a hunter was impossible for her, but she knew that this was not the only path to power.

In fact, it was the slowest, unless you were some kind of genius of the century.

Themis didn't believe that she was a genius.

This was why she needed to form a contract.

(AN: One last side story and tomorrow, a new month starting with a new Book and Volume.)