A/N: This a loose head canon I created after watching the Psycho-Pass movie preview and decided that Kougami became a little amnesiac following the Makishima Shogo incident and he flees Japan. Hope you enjoy, reviews and feedback are appreciated.
He cannot recall where the lines began and ended; it was all a jumble of pencil marks on paper and notes taken with ballpoint pens. He does not remember names very well; just their faces: a shade of brown, maybe a pair of glasses and a smile.
At night time, he becomes more aware of the people he's left behind. Still no names, just faces. Tonight they are more blurry than ever; just a dash of black and a hint of a smile.
The words and phrases he writes are different from what he is used to. His handwriting loops over the vowels as he crosses each t and dots each i. Day by day, the exercise becomes effortless and he is able to be more flexible with his often rigid and small letters.
This evening, he lets his guard down a little, the faces are a little clearer now, complete with eyes. There are touches of light brown, sea green and charcoal grey. But the eyes are not twinkling with joy or sorrow, they are emotionless and dead – like the eyes of a shark in a tank, luring in for kill.
There's stubble growing on his chin, he does not bother shaving. It is a waste of effort and time; he relishes in what little free time he is able to have. Besides, he likes looking a little different.
He wears contacts now. They're blue and cast his mind back to the land he fled. He does not know it anymore; he does not the language very well either, it's like a foreign tongue and he curses himself for having lost it.
There are voices the next night, neither faces nor names. A deep throaty laugh echoes in this pitch-black dream, a rich, baritone yell emits from somewhere and a high-pitched wail of his name brings him back to his senses.
Powder blue, the two words flash across his mind almost as though he needs to remember them. He dismisses them and shelves them in a corner of his mind.
Hours and days pass in a monotonous cycle, like clockwork.
More dreams. The faces become clearer, occasionally blurrier. His mind maps out the contours. There is a man's face and a woman's.
They soon fade against his will as his mind focuses on other matters. The voices remain though. Low baritone and high pitch merge as one voice that constantly torments him. He knows that he's heard it before.
Shots ring out; the echoing noise that emits from the rifles ricochets off the walls and slips into the fighters' ears. They bounce off the walls as well; the glass barriers that confine them hold the image of the sun disappearing under the horizon just as he shields himself.
But he is not here to admire the beauty of the glass barriers that had once caged them; he is here to fight a war against those barriers.
People surround him on all ends, as though wishing to ensnare him in a cage – they are the predators and he is the prey. His eyes focus on a woman with a gun pointed at him, a determined expression on her face, her eyebrows were creased into a frown.
He manages to force two words out of his mouth. His voice is dry and raspy, coupled with that is his sudden inability to speak his native language. For too long he's been gone and grown accustomed to other sounds, phonics and words.
"I'm back,"
He levels his gaze with this "stranger". But she's not a stranger, is she? He knows that he has seen her before, he doesn't know where but her name sits on the tip of his tongue and it does not take him much courage to allow it to roll off.
"…Akane."
The woman, Akane, nods at him. "So I can see," She responds coolly. She points a gun at his chest."Kougami Shinya, I'm arresting you."
Even she's changed.
He allows himself a smirk. "I'd expect no less from you, Inspector."