Hello everyone! I'm not your daddy, I'm your grandpa.

This week has been pretty busy. I'm feeling better, but my lungs are still very congested, but I don't wish for death anymore so yay!

Shoutouts to: E., Kudos4U, shiroazchan, they-call-me-Squire, and missmidgetelmo. Thanks Guys. Also, to shiroazchan, I hope you enjoyed your vacation.

Last time on Defense Mechanism: Haruhi couldn't sleep because of the nightmares of being attacked so she got in bed with Kyouya, only to be found in the morning by the host club and Fuyumi. Kasanoda has Tetsuya following Haruhi to keep her safe and we found out that McCoy knew the case was a set up before he took it, but has to win or they'll kill one of his ex-girlfriends.

- Chapter 12: Checkmate -

z.z.z.z.z.z.z.z.z.z.z Present Day z.z.z.z.z.z.z.z.z.z.z.z

Dark rain clouds blanketed the New York City skyline and Tamaki looked at them miserably. "It's supposed to rain today with isolated thunderstorms." He reported to no one in general, but everyone's eyes turned to Haruhi.

"I'll be fine." She looked out her window at the clouds too. She'd grown up a lot in the last couple of years and even though she still hated thunderstorms, she wasn't as terrified by them anymore, but they still distracted her terribly. Once she'd had the bad luck to be presenting a case when a storm raged right outside the courtroom windows. She had almost jumped out of her own skin when a stray lightning bolt hit one of the trees letting out an unnaturally loud roar as thunder instantly followed, gripping her in panic as the shattered pieces of the tree blew out one of the windows.

That had been like one of her worse nightmares come true. She'd been a mess after that and completely unable to continue and that in itself was unacceptable by Haruhi's standards. After that she'd resigned herself to change, forcing herself to face her fears head on. It was almost impossible at first, but with every storm she'd gotten stronger.

"What's wrong?" Fuyumi's expression couldn't hide her confusion. "Do you not like the rain, Haruhi-chan?"

The question caught everyone as odd until they realized that Kyouya's sister wouldn't know of Haruhi's astraphobia. Kyouya went to answer but was cut off by the little brunette's blunt "no," followed by a question that hadn't dawned on anyone else. "Fuyumi-san, where have you been? I tried calling you several times when we had to get Kyouya out of jail."

The female raven's face burned with a bright blush. "Sorry." She turned to hold her brother's hands tightly as if begging for forgiveness. "I asked father a few times where you'd gone and he just told me that you were in New York and when I tried calling you I told him that I couldn't get in contact with you and he said to mind my business because you were attending to business matters and I had a husband to look after and I couldn't be entertaining myself with my little brother's life." She said very animatedly in one breath.

"It's okay Fuyumi-nee-chan."

"I never imagined that it could be something like this. I was beside myself with worry just thinking about if you were eating or if you were working yourself too hard and that's why you'd never answer my calls."

"It's okay Nee-chan. I'm just fine."

"You're not fine." Fuyumi and Tamaki both wailed out at the same time. If it wasn't for the female Ootori's long black hair and black eyes that matched the rest of the family, everyone would think that she was the blonde's sister.

"Haruhi's going to keep me out of jail, so I'll be fine." The raven looked up at his friends, each of them looking at him quizzically.

Hikaru was the first to say something with an eyebrow quirked suspiciously. "That's another thing." He demanded. "Since when are you and Haruhi so familiar?"

That started another loud debate and when they reached the courthouse they practically spilled out of the limo still fighting. Haruhi, Honey and Mori were the only ones not phased by the argument and quickly made their way up the stairs to find Kenpachi by the doors.

"Where're the rest of your friends?" He looked at the three that had made it through security without making a scene.

"The twins and Tama-chan are mad because Haru-chan slept with Kyou-chan and Fuyumi-chan is upset that she didn't know that Kyou-chan was in jail." Honey offered as way of explanation.

"You slept with your client?" Kenpachi raised his exposed eyebrow playfully.

Haruhi blushed under his one-eyed gaze. "It wasn't like that. I didn't have sex with him." She explained in a raised whisper. "I kept dreaming that I was being attacked again and I got in bed with him so I wouldn't be alone." She brushed past the larger man and purposefully hit his side with her shoulder before turning back and walking back up to him so she could continue in her hushed tone, "and he's not just a client, he's my friend and if I want to sleep with a friend so I don't feel so alone I can when I want to."

When Kenpachi raised his eyebrow again she blushed at the insinuation that could be drawn from such a statement. "Argh! I hate you." She threw her hands up in exasperation just in time to see the rest of her group join them. She walked away from them with Kenpachi right behind her telling her that as a "friend" he'd be happy to make sure she never felt alone again.

Hikaru looked confused and Kaoru mirrored his expression. "What was that about?" They chorused in unison.

Honey looked at them with a bright smile and announced. "Haru-chan said that she can sleep with Kyou-chan whenever she wants because they're friends."

That left Kyouya looking a bit smug as he and his sister walked off into the courtroom, but left Tamaki and the twins seeing red again. "Like hell she can!"

"Maybe I should have worded that differently." Honey looked up at his stoic cousin an expression of sheer innocence.

"Ah."

"I can't believe that after all these years they're still so much fun to play with." Honey shrugged as a huge smile played at his lips.

Mori had to smile o. "Ah."

z.z.z.z..z.z.z.z.z.z.z.z.

McCoy was at his wits end. This case was practically over and there was nothing he could do about it. He sat staring at the empty witness chair. In a few minutes the medical examiner would be sitting in it and he knew he'd be seconds from an acquittal. The jury was full of doubt and his rock hard evidence had melted into circumstantial mush. He didn't bother to look up when he caught Haruhi slide into her seat from the corner of his eye.

He'd won and lost a lot of cases in his career. He'd faced off against defense lawyers that were nothing more than sewer trash, but this one little girl, this slip of a woman, had filled him with so much rage he thought he'd launch himself at her throat. If Sabrina was killed it would be all her fault. It's not that he was still in love with her. It's not that he felt he owed her anything more than the right to live. He knew he should have gone to the police the second he got the call, but he didn't and reporting it now could mean his disbarment.

He had to come up with something or he'd have Sabrina's blood on his hands too. As the judge walked into the room a steely bitter determination took hold in his stomach. He was Jack McCoy damn it. He'd forgotten more about the law than this "judicial toddler" ever knew. When he'd had to win before he always did, and right now he had to win.

z.z.z.z.z.z.z.z.z.z.z.z.z.z...z.

Dr. Warner was called in to testify again and this time Haruhi was prepared to slaughter her testimony. The little brunette was out for blood after such an embarrassing morning and she was uncharacteristically vicious when she needed to clear her head.

Seconds after she'd been reminded of her oath the attack began. "Dr. Warner, your office was provided with new evidence yesterday, because we heard from the maid that found the body that the room was found at a considerably higher temperature then when you first arrived, but we'll touch base with that in a second. The defense presents People's 32, 33 and 34." Haruhi walked over to the judge with pictures in her hands, she handed them to the tall blonde who handed them to the examiner. "Are these the autopsy pictures you took?"

"Yes." She scanned the photographs in her hand before looking back up to the brunette.

"If you would, did you find anything peculiar with the body?" Haruhi inquired knowingly.

"When we examined the body there weren't any abnormalities or anomalies, no." She'd heard from Abernathy that this attorney could get pretty nasty, and all the hard work and extra hours he'd put into this case were burned up in smoke in just a few minutes. She didn't want to be facing the same insecure looks that her colleague was now facing.

"Doctor, People's 32 is a picture of what?"

"The victim's stomach."

"Were there any abnormalities there?"

"No, I just told you we didn't find any abnormalities."

"Then what's the People's 33 a picture of?"

"The lining of the inside of the stomach." She was getting annoyed with this line of questioning. It was clearly labeled what the pictures were.

"Doctor, are there normally white spots on the stomach's lining?"

"What?" The question struck her as odd. "White spots could mean a number of things; it depends on the size, shape, and severity."

Haruhi walked over to the wall beside the judge's quarters and the bailiff handed her an enlarged picture of People's 33. "What about these spots, Dr. Warner? This is a blown up copy of the photograph in your hand, enlarged for easier viewing. Can you see the spots now?" She leaned the oversized poster board on an offered easel.

"Objection, argumentative." McCoy shot up from his chair after having stared away most of the exchange.

"Over ruled." The judge practically rolled her eyes, which did not go unnoticed by the district attorney.

"There was no reason to examine the tissue lining of the stomach. This wasn't a poisoning case. There were no signs of blood in the esophagus or any GI tearing. No medical examiner in the world would have looked for spots in the stomach."

"One medical examiner did, but that is neither here nor there, I just want to know what these spots are." Haruhi demanded.

"I've only seen those spots in cases of extreme torture. Some countries don't use direct physical stimuli to get what they want. They use indirect methods, like forcing someone to sit in extremely cold conditions: a freezer naked or sitting in ice water, to then deposit them in an extremely hot condition: a sauna or under a heat lamp. It causes the lining of the stomach to contract and expand, like a pothole, but this isn't a torture victim. She was a wealthy Japanese socialite-"

"With ties to the yakuza." Haruhi interrupted, but withdrew when she saw McCoy shoot out of his chair. "Her lifestyle is not what's on trial here." The little brunette deflected. "When you originally testified, you said that the body was covered in water. You said that it looked as if she'd been washed. In light of this evidence, could that water have been condensation from defrosting?"

"What? No, it would take hours to defrost a body and there would be other signs that the body had been frozen." She was floored by the logic being presented.

"You testified that the victim died from sodium pentothal poisoning, which can also be administered as a type of truth serum in low doses. You also testified that you didn't find a needle mark, but that they can shrink in cases of extreme cold, and just now you said that these spots can be caused by a body that has been chilled to the point of freezing and defrosted repeatedly. If a body is chilled to a semi-frozen state and defrosted, can it alter or even fool a time-of-death test?"

"What you're asking, no suggesting is highly improbable?" The M.E. rubbed at the bridge of her nose agitatedly.

"I'm not asking you to give me the statistics of how often it happens, just could it have happened?"

"If the room was hot enough before the body was found and it hadn't been completely frozen to begin with." She started tiredly, almost dejectedly because she didn't want to admit it. 'This must be what Abernathy felt like.' She thought miserably. "With this evidence, I would say that it is possible. Improbable, but possible."

"Given this hypothetical situation, what would the time of death then be?" Haruhi felt like she was jumping on the balls of her feet.

"It'd be almost impossible to say. It all would depend on how long she'd been frozen and at what temperature she'd been kept. She could have been dead for weeks, but the body would have had to be very well taken care of to make sure that there were no other signs of freezing." She looked over at the jury as if to dispel the theory from their minds.

"Your Honor," Haruhi turned to the judge, "in light of this new testimony-"

"Objection, the prosecution has not had a chance to redirect." McCoy slammed his hands on the table shocking his assistant in the second chair.

"You can't be serious McCoy!" Haruhi turned with an incredulous look gracing her simple features. "There's no way my client could have killed the victim."

"That's just one of many theories that can be offered, your Honor." McCoy continued ignoring that Japanese attorney. "You can't request a dismissal on hypothetical situations."

"Order." The judge slammed her gavel to get quiet as the little spat between the lawyers had gotten everyone else in the courtroom riled up. "There are no grounds for a dismissal, Ms. Fujioka; you're going to have to see this all the way through."

Haruhi's eyes narrowed as she turned to McCoy with irritation lacing her tone. "Your witness."

McCoy stood and adjusted his suit. "Dr. Warner, have you ever seen a case where someone was frozen as delicately as the defense would like us to think is possible?"

"No." She shook her head as if it had been a brilliant question. "Never."

"But you have seen murderers try to cover their tracks, like washing a body to hide any evidence that might prove they killed the victim. That better explains the water on the body, right?"

"Objection, leading the witness." Haruhi had a sinking feeling in her stomach. McCoy was a proud man, maybe proud enough to use ugly tactics. She hoped he wasn't doing what she thought he was doing.

"Sustained." The judge raised an eyebrow; she'd been in court many times with the prosecutor before he became District Attorney. She knew he played dirty, his track and disciplinary records spoke for themselves. He wasn't afraid to go to jail for a cause, she just hoped he wasn't trying to force her hand, until she heard the words come out of his mouth. She never thought she'd be so disappointed in a colleague before, but as she heard him ask the examiner if since the semen found on the body matched the DNA of the defendant could rape have been a motivating factor in her murder.

It was as if everything stood still at that moment. The defense shot up from her seat red with fury screaming that she demanded double jeopardy be attached. McCoy almost looked smug as he waited for the bailiff to escort him to jail. The jury looked confused as if they didn't know what was going on.

However, she knew. McCoy had chosen a mistrial over an acquittal, that way he could try again later. The media buzz would have died down by then and the defendant would be branded by that point guilty until proven innocent, which his lawyer had done a good job of doing. All of it would start from square one, and the worse part would be that it could take years for another trial, which could hurt or help the defense, since memories get fuzzy with time and evidence gets "lost" in wait.

With an apparent sadness in her eyes she called the bailiff to arrest Jack McCoy in contempt of court before turning to the jury. "By the stipulations set forth at the beginning of this trial I have no other recourse but to declare this case a mistrial. I thank you for your service, but you are all dismissed."

Kyouya looked over at Haruhi who slammed her fist onto the table repeatedly. He didn't have to voice anything because Hikaru practically flew over the divider. "What happened? Did you win?"

"No!" Haruhi was angrier than any of her friends had ever seen her. "That jerk knew if he brought up DNA the judge would declare a mistrial and he didn't want to lose, so he did it on purpose."

"So!" Hikaru didn't understand what was going on, wasn't this a good thing?

"It means we're going to have to go through all of this again." Kyouya shook his head in understanding and all of his friends blanched. "It means that technically I'm still labeled a murderer."

When the jury had filed out of the room the judge had the bailiff hold McCoy still for sentencing. "Today was the most blatant misuse of the law that I've ever seen in my life. To see such a seasoned veteran of the judicial system purposely step on a landmine to postpone a case is disgusting to me. Since your position is elected, you work for the people, but please be advised that I will seek a review of this case by the bar and request that they make an inquiry into your actions."

McCoy didn't care. Technically, he hadn't won or loss the case, so Sabrina was safe. The bailiff made the motion to pull him away, but was stopped when the judge continued. "Mr. Ootori, please stand." Both Haruhi and Kyouya stood at the request. "Before this trail began the defendant was promised a fair trail by his peers. I feel that you, Mr. McCoy, made that impossible today. I also feel that the doubt that was laid into every shred of evidence gives me the authority to dismiss this case for lack there of. Mr. Ootori, you are free to go with the courts apologies."

The room erupted in cheers. The Host club, who had been as quiet as the dead while the judge offered her deliberations, couldn't be contained as they congratulated their friends. Kyouya's body acted on its own, and he hugged the brunette tightly, which was not appreciated by Tamaki or the twins who pretended they wanted to hug their friend and that was the reason they had to pull them apart.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

"McCoy loss the case, Boss. What do I do with the girl?" A haggard looking blonde sat at his feet, her hands and legs bound with duct tape, her once expensive suit ruined.

"What use do I have for her now? You've kept her drugged the whole time she was here, right? If you're sure she won't remember anything, drop her off somewhere. If you think she will kill her." With that he walked out of the room. He was pissed. He'd done everything he knew how to do. He'd messed up so badly by printing that story about Takeda, and now Emu was dead and her brother and it was just a matter of time until that family realized he was the one that was responsible.

He hadn't meant for any of this to happen. He was just a simple man, when people thought Komatsuzawa Akira, they didn't think yakuza. His first mistake was falling for the little yakuza princess. He knew he wasn't the type of guy that could let the opportunity for a scoop go. That's why he'd had to run to the Kasanoda family for protection. They had so much bad blood with the Mimasaka's that they'd actually help him. He just hadn't thought that it would come at such a high price. He loved Emu, but when they killed her trying to milk her for information, he'd lost his only bargaining chip, and now he had a bill over his head like a boulder and his family's printing company would fold trying to cover it.

The Ootori's, however, they had it in spades. He'd initially tried to blackmail Kyouya, but the heartless bastard didn't have any skeletons he could find. So he'd asked for some more of that "expensive" help, all he'd wanted was to get something he could use. He'd just have to use the arrest in his favor.

So, the plan was simple. If he kept the raven in jail, his father would pay to keep him safe. If he could convince the old man that his heir was going to be killed if he didn't pay up, he'd get enough money to pay off the protection and the favors, but that bastard old man was just as heartless as his son and he didn't care that the boy would die. He was sure, too sure, that it was all a show and that the man would fold, but as everything started to come apart at the seams he could only berate himself for his stupidity.

He'd been unable to steal the money from the Ootori's and now the ax was swinging closer to his neck. He pulled out his cell phone and waited for the answer. "You should have just paid me." Then he closed the phone, opened it and pushed another few buttons. When the line answered he sighed. "Take care of it."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

Despite the rain, the press was camped out in front of the courthouse waiting to the newly acquitted Ootori. Haruhi stopped and gave a small interview, stating that things like this happened and that Kyouya only hoped that the real murderer was brought to justice so the young woman's family could have some closure.

It was the type of sound byte that would make the evening news and could start the necessary public relations upheaval that he'd need to retake the president's seat. It was finally over. He'd be able to go back to a normal life and maybe he could keep Haruhi as part of it. He watched as four smartly dressed men walked to him and began to usher him toward the awaiting limousine. He recognized them as his family's secret police. He sneered at the thought, 'Good news travels fast.'

A rumble in the distance made them all thankful that the thunderstorm started later than had been anticipated. Kyouya made sure to grab Haruhi's wrist and pull her with him, but his grip went slack and before he felt the pain he heard the brunette scream. There was a white hot pain searing through his chest unlike anything he'd ever felt before.

Kyouya looked up from the ground, he didn't even know when he'd hit the floor, but he could see that Haruhi was covered in blood and she was yelling at him. He couldn't hear her, but he saw the tears rolling down her cheeks.

Everything went dark before he could even think clearly about the situation; before he could realize he'd been shot.

a.n..a.n..a.n..a.n..

I'm getting really close to the end. I had to do it. Akira means business. _ That's my mean face.