☆ oh end her ☆
“Seriously?”
-2/10
Ailani had absolutely 0 opinion of Michiko prior to the merge for fairly obvious reasons. She might have heard Holly bring her up at one point, but never remembered. Then she rapidly came into focus during the 5th trial, and... Ailani was suspicious. Meech was never that high up on her suspect list but wasn’t ruled out at all, as an accomplice could have been involved. Still, as the truth came out she felt a bit sorry for her as being involved in such an incident without wanting to. Ailani could understand.
However, the biggest thing Ailani took away was that - well, Ailani stares at people to lipread them. It’s how she understands communication, especially in a loud trial room. And staring at Michiko’s face, and staring at Tomiko’s face? She immediately caught on that something was up between the two, and that they were likely at least related if not direct twins. And Ailani softened the slightest bit towards her, seeing how she was related to Tomiko and several people appeared to have high opinions of her.... her being a medic a helpful bonus.
As Ailani became closer to Yuka, she knew that Michiko was close to Yuka too and by proxy this further softened Ailani to the girl. So what if she was a little dodgy about her identity? So was Ailani. No biggie. Seeing Michiko’s performance in trials endeared her further, but... well, it got to the point where she became very, very fearful of what would become of her if she was caught lying by Michiko regarding the robot claim during the sixth trial.
This was in fact why she kept the farce up for so long, because Michiko seemed so upset over potentially having her time wasted that she didn’t wish to risk being caught in her lie. She was anyways, but.
The confirmation that Michiko was Tomiko’s sister didn’t come as much of a surprise to her, and she was grateful there was yet another competent person on the job. When it came to her trial, though, Ailani was fully aware that Michiko provided an adversary she would have to wheedle her way out of being suspected by, because she was 500% sure things would turn out badly if she did.
And they.... didn’t. Rather, Ailani was utterly indebted to her for not having revealed what went on. And when it came to the mastermind trials, things utterly came crashing upon her head. Ryan not being the mastermind left her to scrabble for someone else to accuse, and unfortunate they were Tomiko. At the time her mind was working at 3000 miles a minute, and she normally wouldn’t have thought to accuse Miko because Ailani was worried she’d ruin what they had built up until then.
As it was her crush’s trial, unfortunately, it did not. Tomiko was the result of her trying to find someone to pin it on to finish things up, so hopefully, they could leave. Ailani was thinking very irrationally at the time, and after the fact she intended to apologize to Miko and Michiko, but.. never did.
The last trial, her opinion very rapidly plummeted as she didn’t know what was going on and was pissed off that Michiko tried disturbing the crime scene. Didn’t she know that was unnecessary? The mastermind was still at large. The opinion she ended up with is very much influenced by how she feels right now and inevitably it will soften, but in the end she was more irritated than anything and how even this level-headed good-at-trials individual could still bend to the force of friendship.
Final Thoughts: eternally grateful but also Whomst
