Bête noire
For the second time that year, he wished that Akane would use the Dominator sparingly. Be a little less trigger-happy. Domintators hurt like the fucking blazes.
Oh, Kougami tries to take out a latent criminal? Better shoot him! Ginoza is going to decompose Kougami? Better shoot him! Kougami tries to kill Makishima? Better shoot him!
Okay, so in some of those situations, the use of the Dominator was inevitable. It had even saved him. But he felt that this time, the use of the Dominator was rather un-justified. This was a grudge between him and Makishima. It did not involve her in anyway, and he meant that with utmost respect. He had meant to take Makishima out with one shot with his revolver, and suddenly a sharp pain had blossomed in the back of his spine, and he had fallen over. Makishima probably would have escaped, seeing how the Dominators did not work on that bastard, and Akane was too soft to kill him with the gun. He would probably have gone back to continue reprogramming the virus, or made his escape.
With a pang, he remembered how Masaoka had died. He had been blown apart, probably by a bomb or grenade. The image of the old man's grotesquely disfigured chest area had been stuck in his mind, and Kougami had sworn to pay Makishima back in full. Blow off his head. Tomomi had always been like a father figure to Kougami, ever since his own father had died. He had not deserved this horrid end. Certain death was part of the package deal of being an Enforcer, but Kougami had never thought about how his squad mates would die. He always assumed that everyone on the First Division would never die during a mission, because he believed in their power. He believed that his squad mates were strong, stronger than the thick-headed criminals they were going to capture. They wouldn't end up like Sasayama. They could not, would not. Death was a distant thing that didn't require immediate consideration. Because he didn't want to think about it, losing another one of his colleagues. It was painful.
Now he could never thank Masaoka fully. For all those years he had taken care of him like a second son when he was an Inspector. The old man had advised him to watch his Psycho Pass. Even when he had been demoted to an Enforcer, the man had always been looking out for him in slight ways.
Damn it, now was not the time to reminisce about old times. What was going to happen to him? He had defected from the MWPSB and defied a direct order. The Sibyl would not judge him kindly for that. He would probably end up in the despicable place they called the Rehabilitation Centre. Execution was another possibility.
Either way, he did not want those outcomes. He still had to kill Makishima. For Masaoka, for Ginoza and for Sasayama. Sasayama. He had almost forgotten about him during the chase.
'I have to wake up and escape.'
He wearily forced open one eye and found the brightness overwhelming. He was probably in a hospital room, just like the times before when he took a shot from the Dominator in Paralyser mode. There was the incessant beeping commonly associated to the heart monitor in the hospital room, and also that disgusting sterile smell from using too much bleach. Essentially, he was back in civilisation. Where humans were under the rules of Sibyl.
Which kind of sucked. Because he truly realised how useless Sibyl was now. A seemingly perfect system, yet one full of loopholes. A system where everyone could be rightfully judged, but yet there were still exceptions. The criminally asymptomatic. A useful, yet useless system. He wondered how many before him, before Shogo, had managed to circumvent their judgement because of the special state they were born in, as human beings not recognised by Sibyl, ultimately having their existence denied.
He also wondered why it was that he was able to understand this particular criminally asymptomatic man so well. The man he had fantasised about killing for about three years, since Sasayama's death. It was almost like they had some kind of special connection or bond. But the idea was laughable. Why Makishima? He was a deranged psychopath who couldn't deal with loneliness.
Sometimes, Kougami wondered, if he and Shogo had been normal people with a healthy Psycho Pass (pft), would Sibyl have deemed them a good couple, since there seemed to be this understanding.
'Solitude? Does that apply only to me? Who isn't alone in this society? The time when our connections to others was the basis of ourselves is long gone. In this world where everyone is watched over by the system and live within the system's standards, a community isn't necessary. Everyone just lives in their own little cell, and the system tames them by giving them each their own personal serenity.'
He wish he would stop remembering everything Makishima said. It was almost like he was obsessed with that man, remembering every word he had uttered. But then again, was he not. Was he not morbidly interested to a point of having a fanatical obsession with Makishima Shogo, the man who had worked together with Kouzaburou Touma to display Sasayama like a gruesome anarchist artwork delivering some kind of point about life? Nobody had believed in him about Makishima's existence, but he had refused to think otherwise. In a way, he believed in Makishima. Makishima Shogo had been the only thing that had constantly plagued his mind for the last 3 years.
'You're the same too, right, Kougami Shinya? No one accepted your justice. No one understood your anger, either. So you turned your back on trust and friendships, and you even abandoned the only place you could belong to in order to come this far.'
Makishima had been right. He had always been. For some reason, he understood Kougami better than anyone did. Which angered Kougami. He wanted nothing to do with that maniac, which was why he had lunged at Shogo when he had offered that ludicrous explanation.
'You don't deserve to understand me this well, bastard.'
'Today, I came to know the true form of the Sibyl System. It's not something worth you putting your life on the line to protect.'
Why had Makishima even cared about him enough to alert him through a call. For the first time, he wondered if the silver-haired man could be right.
'Hey Makishima, maybe one day when this whole thing about protecting the Sibyl System by killing you blows over, I'd like to have a good talk with you. Not as Enforcer and criminal, but rather as human beings, my dearest bête noire.'
-End-