Hi. I'm currently on hiatus, but a while ago, I wrote this little story and wanted to upload it here - so, don't be surprised. :)
This one-shot is based on one of the final scenes of Aldnoah Zero's season 1 (Episode 12 - Childhood's End). I just switched a few things, but overall, it's the same.
(Only worse.)
WARNING: Character death. If you do not like character death, probably you should proceed reading.
I hope you will enjoy this little one-shot! :)
(To some degrees, at least.)
At the Very End
With all his strength he got himself out of the destroyed car. He leaned against it as he walked one step forward, but he immediately collapsed and fell down the hard tarmac with a chocked scream.
Damn, he thought. I´m more injured than I´ve imagined.
He struggled to raise his head and to look forward ‒ and directly at the unconscious woman in front of him. Suddenly he felt cold inside his body, and Kogami Shinya put all his remaining strength into crawling towards the woman.
"This is Inspector Tsunemori Akane. From today on, she´s your second owner."
From the very first day, she had been able to utterly surprise him. She had looked so young and naive with her large, nervous eyes and shy attitude, that everyone believed that Tsunemori Akane would never be a real detective. But than, of all people, Tsunemori had disobeyed Sibyl´s orders and shot him ‒ Kogami.
"I´m very sorry!"
"It´s rare to see an Inspector who would apologise to an Enforcer."
"I guess you´re angry, right?"
"That was your decision. I have no right to complain."
"Was my decision wrong? Did I just stand in everyone´s way and put them in danger?"
"I´ve been an Enforcer for a long time. The hunting dog´s behaviour of following orders to take down prey with neither hesitation nor doubt is engrained in my hands. Obeying what the gun said, I´ve shot many latent criminals. It was the best for this society. I accepted such convenient logic without questioning it, and at some point, I even stopped thinking about it. I even forgot to look back and see what I was doing. It´s foolish. Being a detective isn´t about bringing someone down... rather, it should be about protecting someone."
"Kogami-san... "
"You decided what was right on your own. You were able to put justice before your duty. Under a boss like that, I may be able to work as a detective, not just a dog."
"Thank you very much!"
Kogami crawled a bit closer to her, slowly but at least steadily ‒ or as steadily as he could manage. Every movement pushed pain through his nerves, every movement sucked out more of his strength. But he couldn´t give up. He couldn´t.
"I let Yuki die without doing anything... I let Yuki die without doing anything... "
"What happened?"
"I met... that man. "
"That man?"
"Makishima Shogo... can´t be judged... by the Dominator!"
He would never forget Tsunemori´s face on the day Makishima Shogo had killed her friend Funahara Yuki. Never forget the moment Kogami had tapped on her arm and she had burst into tears, sobs shaking her petite body. This memory would always haunt him like the picture of Sasayama Mitsuru´s disgraced body.
Kogami crawled further. Over the months prior to that incident, Tsunemori had got closer and closer to becoming a true, even a great, detective. He had primarily worked with her, and it had been nice to have her around as she trusted his instincts, his assumptions, his conclusions ‒ something someone hadn´t done in quite a while. But on that day, seeing Tsunemori with this look in her eyes like Makishima hadn´t only killed Yuki, but also destroyed something essential in Tsunemori too, a strange feeling had run all over his bones. The feeling that, if she felt pain, he would feel pain too; if she felt sadness, he would be sad too ‒ as Kogami was heavily entangled with this girl, this woman not only in work, but in something more abstract, something far more great.
And for the first time since finding the sculpture which had once been Sasayama, Kogami had felt the urge to just kill Makishima so immensely great ‒ it even scared him himself.
"Tsunemori will work on a photofit picture?"
"Right. She´ll do a memory scoop... a process that visualizes people´s memories by reading them directly from their brain waves. I heard that Akane-chan´s trying to reconstruct what Makishima Shogo looks like. So far, she´s the only one who´s seen this Makishima guy´s face clearly, so... "
"It´s a forcible method of reliving one´s memories! Of all things, it´s the memory where her friend was killed before her very eyes!"
"I know! That´s why everyone tried to stop her. Even if it´s Akane-chan we´re talking about, there´s no way her Psycho-Pass will stay okay after that."
"Then why?!"
"She said she´d bring down Makishima next time for sure. In that case, you may not have the right to say anything about her."
This small, reckless woman...
"Inspector?!"
"I´m okay. But why didn´t the Dominator... "
"How careless of me. Makishima´s here. His Psycho-Pass is being copied to their helmets."
"So I was wearing the helmet for nothing, huh? Once I stop the bleeding, I´ll catch up with you. Please go on ahead!"
"But you are... "
"Don´t let Makishima get away! This is an order!"
... would definitely be the end of him. But of all ways Kogami had imagined how his death could be, this one was far the lightest, the most bearable.
This small, reckless woman...
At the thought of her, a thin smile crept upon his lips as he continued crawling towards Tsunemori.
"That´s not enforcing the law. It´ll just create a new killer, that´s all. Kogami-san... You told me one time that you want to work as a detective, not a dog."
"You sure remember some frivolous things."
"It´s not frivolous. It´s important. It´s thanks to those words that I didn´t quit this job. Say, Kogami-san. Will you always be a detective? Could you promise me that?"
"Yeah."
She had always trusted him ‒ and all he could do was betraying her. The only person who had ever had faith in him after his demotion.
And now ‒ due to his inability to protect her, Akane laid bleeding on the cold tarmac.
Akane...
Kogami´s thin smile widened a bit, and surprisingly he found enough strength to lift himself up a bit more and crawl faster.
Akane...
He had shouted her name when she had jumped on the back of Makishima´s truck. Not "Inspector Tsunemori" or only "Inspector" or only "Tsunemori," but "Akane." Kogami Shinya had shouted her first name in the moment he had believed his heart would stop beating.
This reckless woman... she had truly scared him to death by jumping on this damn truck.
Kogami´s smile widened.
My reckless Akane...
... you surprise everyone in everything you do.
Only a bit, only a bit more, and he would be hovering over Akane. Would be able to reach out for her and hold her.
"N-No..."
"This is between the two of us."
"Kogami-san!"
I´m sorry, he had thought after turning away from her and running through the cornfield. I´m sorry for everything I´ve done to you.
His sad smile widened again when he finally hovered over Akane´s petite, still body.
I´m sorry for everything I´ve done to you.
Kogami reached out for her hair ‒ wanted to brush the blood-soaked hair out of the way to see her pale, pale face. Her closed eyes whose beautiful, shining brown colour he possibly wouldn´t see again. Her little nose, her slightly pouty lips, her overall pretty face.
No words can describe how sorry I am, Akane.
He had just wanted to brush her hair out of her face.
And still, Kogami stopped in his movement when he heard a Dominator change into the Destroy Decomposer Mode.
"Don´t. That is far enough. Do not touch her, Kogami Shinya."
He struggled with himself to tear his gaze away from Akane, and to turn around, pain aching through his muscles. The eyes of Kasei Joshu glowed blue when the chief of the MWPSB pointed a Dominator at him.
Kogami smirked faintly at the sight of the robotic woman, before he pulled his handgun out of his suit pocket, pointing it directly at Kasei´s head.
I´m so sorry that I couldn´t protect you, Akane. I´m so, so sorry. Akane... I...
And then, Kogami Shinya was no more.