What can I say? With the end of KHR, I've needed something (acceptable) to fill the void left by Amano Akira-sensei and what better than Psycho-Pass, of which she's helped to create the character designs? Check it out people, seriously.
Rest assured, the next chapter of Old Habits Die Hard (for those who follow that) is in the works, but it'll probably be another few days until it's ready. Sorry. After that, I will also be going on a semi-hiatus of sorts until January-February *with a break over the hols, but barely* because of intense amounts of work during this time. I hope you will all understand.
This is the first Harry Potter/Psycho-Pass xover in the archive I understand, and I hope it's up to expectations. I apologize for any technical mistakes or canon errors I've made writing this one-shot, which takes place in Episode One.
Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter nor Psycho-Pass as they belong to each of their respective creators. Good day.
From the Eyes of the Old
Horns blared and the clicks of heels along with conversation of hundred if not thousands of people on the streets filled the air, signs and giant screens displaying everything from advertisements to TV shows and news anchors. Lights flashed and on occasion, music and exotic smells would drift through the air from stores and shops of this strange, but not completely unfamiliar new world.
Walking at an unhurried pace amongst the hustle and bustle of the crowd, he reached out mentally to probe the surrounding civilians for the information he needed, disregarding everything else with ease. Once finished, he relaxed slightly as he now knew his way around and how this world was run.
What a… beautifully plastic world…
The thought came from nowhere, but took root in the depths of his mind as he gazed around his surroundings with lazy but sharp, bright green eyes.
It made sense; the city itself- at the peak of technological development and quite modern was indeed beautiful and regarded as so by the populace, but devoid of actual life. What most people went through wasn't so much as 'life' as 'existence', and it amused a darkly cynical part of him.
Technology was so very advanced these days, enabling people to even psychologically analyze another with the right piece of equipment that determined whether a person would live or not, simply depending on several variables put together that could easily be influenced in the heat of the moment by outside factors.
It was 'perfect', in a sense; most threats were eliminated before they could even culminate and develop, and the others would generally rapidly removed as well by well-trained Inspectors and Enforcers. And it also created such a fake world of hollow feelings and emotions where people had to hide what they really thought and wanted to do because it would effectively sign their own death warrant as per the judgment of a computer system.
A snort escaped him as his mind immediately began drawing parallels between his old world and this new one.
In both, the people thought that their conditions and way of life were the greatest and best, not requiring anything of themselves to better their environment or world, content to remain stagnant while a select few strained with the burden of advancing an entire population. In both, the mind-set of the general populace was foolish and naïve, so close minded. In both, while in his old world, a person couldn't be analyzed to such a degree, if the basic idea or variable was in that person, then they would be killed ruthlessly by 'enforcers'.
Only, in his old world, you were killed if you were a mudblood, half-blood, muggle, or Light-Supporter by Voldemort's enforcers, the Death Eaters.
The Sibyl System, named after the name given to women prophets or oracles by the Ancient Greeks and Romans from way back when.
How fitting.
A frown tugged as his mouth as he felt the sensation of power being released and a spark of life vanishing. It was very peculiar, especially considering that he'd felt the sensations of death of many different kinds. For example, if someone drowned ( only if he was in close proximity with them, anyone dying from further out he wouldn't feel or else he would be overwhelmed by people dying around the globe every single minute), then it would feel as if there was a phantom sensation of water rising above his head and brief suffocation before a little spark of heat would appear in his chest and be snuffed out.
The feeling from just a moment ago was… simply energy overwhelming the victim and a myriad of sensations in the span of not even a second until what felt like an explosion from the inside out.
Interest piqued, Harry James Potter veered an alley corner as if he took this route every day, following his instincts to lead him to the scene of the incident, picking up speed until he was almost flying over the ground.
Barely a minute later, he arrived in the little back lot of a section of run-down buildings in the shopping district, the sound of rapid footsteps fading into the distance. He ignored it for the moment.
Other than a few broken bikes and dumpsters, the most notable thing was the mass of disfigured human flesh and blood splatter that painted the ground in front of the stairs leading down to another alleyway.
Harry blinked. That was certainly new.
"His soul is rather foul."
"Do elaborate Death." he requested casually, inspecting the corpse, manifestation of Death floating in the air behind him with tattered black cloak rustling in the wind.
"Seeing as you've figured out the gist of how this world works, the mortal was too unstable, stress levels too high and did not manage it well. The…Sibyl System detected that, encouraging him to seek help. He refused, and sis mind and logical reasoning rapidly crumbled, causing him to take a young woman hostage, sexually assaulting her before fleeing again as the mortal authorities began pursuing him to where you see now."
The Master of Death raised a single dark eyebrow in a droll expression, uttering a single, "Quaint."
A dip of the head was Death's only reply before vanishing without another word. Harry, done with his observations merely gazed in the direction he'd heard the footsteps heading towards before sighing.
"My curiosity will result in much more pain one day."
The walls blurred together into a mix of a dark coloured tunnel, occasionally interspaced by a fading neon sign when he came upon the scene of a panicked woman (most likely the hostage, his mind supplied) looking like a cornered animal on the ground in a puddle of gasoline with an Inspector and Enforcer in front of her on his other side. With their weapons pointed towards her.
Releasing a pulse of magic to stall for time and distract the other group of people (probably also Inspectors and Enforcers) he felt coming, Harry stepped from his position amongst the shadows, hands in pockets and on his wand. Not that he needed it, casting a wordless spell to put the woman to sleep and catching her as her body relaxed before fluent Japanese escaped his lips. "It's rather rude to threaten a lady you know?"
Immediately, the male had his gun pointed between his eyes. "Who are you?"
"Me? A curious passerby."
It wasn't completely a lie, but the male- a Kougami Shinya he learned from his Legilimency brush of his mind, the female behind him a Tsunemori Akane - evidently (and wisely, he thought, as the roar of "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" rung out somewhere deep inside him) didn't believe his words. "A passerby wouldn't have gotten into a sealed off area and investigate something like this. Not to mention this is an abandoned district where only the homeless go, while your dress and mannerisms don't resemble that of a homeless man."
Apparently their Dominators (he learnt of it from the scan on this Shinya Kougami-san's mind) had registered something, because the girl's eyes widened. "Kougami-san-!"
Narrowed gray eyes met serene green. "When was the last time you had a Psycho-Pass Hue Check?"
Harry's mouth curved into a faintly amused expression. "Never."
Doing another scan, he picked up on the rapid thoughts of widely fluctuating Hue, sometimes so low that it can't even be counted and other times higher than anyone I've ever seen and who is he- he's immeasurable from the two minds. The confusion was evident on the girl's face, more thoughts and feelings of Eliminator Engaged, set- Target Status re-evaluated and updated; Paralyzer Engaged, set- Target Sta- coming through.
The Master Of Death smiled at the two, causing them to tense slightly. "Immeasurable am I? Why am I not surprised?"
A sway to the side caused the energy-trailing shot from the male Enforcer's Dominator to miss him by mere centimetres, instead colliding with a metal dumpster behind him. Sparks burst from the contact point, just missing the edge of the gasoline puddle.
The girl inhaled sharply, the sound almost ridiculously loud in the silence that followed the rapid fire exchange. "Kougami-san, what are you doing?"
"You heard it too. His Crime Coefficiency is off the charts." Gray eyes never left green, and Harry mentally noted amusedly how much the man resembled…a predator having just discovered a particularly interesting but dangerous prey.
"But it's also staying below the limit. Innocent until proven guilty, Kougami-san."
"Just barely anyways, and what good is innocence if it's on the verge of guilty?"
Harry pulled away from the male Enforcer's mind as some unusual memories floated up to just below the surface of the conscious mind; he was interested in what they were, of course, but for all a mistreated man he was, he would not be pulling a Snape. Besides, his prevalent curiosity had been satisfied, and so he made to leave.
But being Master of Death for so long seemed to have bestowed upon him the urge for dramatics as well, prompting him to leave the two with a few last 'words of wisdom' as it were. Or that could just be the exhausted, barely there hero-complex wanting them- especially the girl- to understand that Life was a bitch (didn't he know that) and going in looking as they were would not work out well.
"Let me tell you right now that it's a strange world that people live in today, especially you Miss- and nothing is as it seems. Going in with preconceived notions of black and white is going to break you in the most terrible way possible when you find that your world's tilted on its axis and all the rules you once knew are worthless. Take it from a guy who's been there." Harry smiled dryly, green (impressing on her that she had to understand) boring into the wide brown (so innocent, that would change soon if she wasn't broken by then) of the girl.
(Friends, bright-eyed and smiles mowed down in a light show of rainbow beams, losing limbs and lives, a rain of blood and thundering, echoing screams-so young with so much potential for the future, all lost until he was the last one, cursing the world around him on a battlefield of corpses, ground soaked read, Death watching on silently-)
There was no reply from either of them and he didn't expect one, simply switching his gaze to one Kougami Shinya as he saluted them with two fingers and a nod. "Constant Vigilance."
Stepping into the shadows once more, he turned soundlessly, Apparating away with the hopes that the two would take his words to heart.
The chances for that though…
Harry closed his eyes as air rushed around him, disappearing.
.
"Shinya! Missy!"
The two in question turned as the other group joined them, along with their missing third member, all looking alert and wary, dispersing quickly to follow standard protocol.
Akane blinked, lowering her Dominator as her fellow Inspector approached, "Ah, Ginoza-san."
"Inspector," Nobuchika Ginoza greeted her shortly, casting an analytical glance around his surroundings, pausing at the immobile form of the identified hostage, "I apologize for not having arrived earlier, we were…held up. What happened here?"
The young woman opened her mouth to speak, closed it as she searched for the right words to describe things before sighing and looking up truthfully. "…It's probably better if Kougami-san and I explain back at HQ, Ginoza-san."
Her superior officer accepted this with only a slight hesitation, sweeping his gaze over the quietly working Enforcers. " Acceptable. I expect a report on my desk afterwards as well."
"Yes sir."
As the rest of the team quickly finished up, she cast a last glance at where the strange, foreign man with such old, green eyes had disappeared, along with his words to her and Kougami, who walked ahead without a word.
Akane sighed as she quickly followed, tired body on autopilot as she leaned back to stare at the sky.
What a day.
This is also a ONE-SHOT, STANDALONE. I just want to make it clear so that no one is disappointed if they thought this was a prelude to another story; I don't have the time for that right now.
I hope you enjoyed this- any Concrit you have to give will be much appreciated.