#god fuck the Naruhodo line's name actually they're hell to tag-

[despair-ninja-everything-agency]

God, reminds me that I wrote a (currently unfinished) fanfic for my Ryuenix AU. The idea was that Karuma has been in the Naruhodo line's possession up until Phoenix and, around after Dual Destinies, he decides that he'd give it back to Asogi's descendant (I named him Gisei Asogi), only for him to be killed and Phoenix to be framed. Apollo had to defend him in court.

In context, before this trial, Ryunosuke being Phoenix's ancestor was NOT common knowledge due to past prejudice he and his family faced in the area he lived in when he was little so his parents decided to ditch the Naruhodo name and became the Wrights, trying their hardest to be accepted in the American society and not mentioning their Japanese heritage (despite how famous Ryunosuke was). I figure that, despite the anti-Japanese sentiment and anti-immigrant were not enacted in Japanifornia as it is irl, there'd still a bit prejudice against Japanese people due to WW2. Because of this, Phoenix has an internalized fear of rejection if he were to out himself as Ryuichi Naruhodo (an unfounded fear in the current state of Japanifornia but still).

So like, in trial, Apollo initally managed to capitalized on the fact that the supposed killer was someone named 'Naruhodo R.' and not Phoenix thus having little to no motive on the case, only for the prosecution (I wrote Simon in the fic) to reveal his birth name, pulling him back as the suspected culprit.

That's as far as I wrote, but I remember the actual killer was Gisei Asogi's Western wife Mina Discree. I forgot her motive but given the pun in her name, I think it has something to do with xenophobia. Or that she viewed the Naruhodo as unworthy of Karuma but has little love for Gisei that's why she killed her husband to implicate Phoenix idk

Afterwards, Phoenix wasn't found guilty and ended up sending Karuma back to the living Asogi family members in order to maintain good relationship between the two. I can see that the Naruhodo-Asogi relationship started to deteriorate after a certain generations, only rekindled recently by Phoenix and Gisei's generation.