Chapter 1

A different kind of species


I'm sorry, you were right…

He couldn't take Gino's words out of his mind. The superior man swallowed his pride and apologized to him, the former Inspector, now a mere dog of the Bureau. He wished he could feel relieved or even happy that all his old conjectures weren't crazy thoughts of his mind, however, it left him in a crossroad: how lunatic could someone be to influence such a disparate number of people to succumb to their most animalistic desires…

"Kougami-san…" someone called and he jumped, feeling a presence beside him.

He turned and saw her, his owner, the Inspector Tsunemori Akane, observing him with a veiled expression.

"Are you worried about Makishima?" Tsunemori asked when he spun again and returned to his city-gazing.

"Hum…" he answered, non-committedly and the woman puffed her cheeks for some instants, controlling her annoyance with his answer.

"Ko!" a male called from behind them, the word transported through the roof by the cold wind. They turned to see Kagari wave at them to follow him.

Akane started walking first, but with his long legs, Kougami quickly reached her with two strides.

"I am…" he said, when he outstripped her and entered the warm building.

"What?" Kagari asked, following the older man's descend with his eyes.

Akane shook her head, showing he shouldn't worry about that and quickly followed the black-haired man, leaving the other one behind with a curious expression plastered all over his face.


"The team has been seeing the traffic records around the school's campus, but until now, no one was able of finding Makishima, it's like he is a ghost, disappearing from a place to another…" Kagari said with a grin, his hands inside his pockets, while walking beside the woman.

Akane looked at him again, wondering, not for the first time, how this man's life, so easy-to-go, so apparently happy, could have been different if the Sybil System was never developed, could he turn into a psychopath or would he choose the path of justice? It was something that always made her feel low-spirited whenever she thought about that: the way an apparently innocuous system changed radically all those people's life… and not necessarily for the better…

"Stop thinking about that!" someone said harshly, and Akane found herself face to face with Kougami, that apparently decided to stop without warning and turn around to look at her.

"What?" she replied, feeling her cheeks flaming a bit.

"Pitying us… I hate it. We are what we are and there's nothing you can do to change that!" Kougami said and the woman felt her skin go pale; his eyes were burning into her soul and she felt like her lungs couldn't move fast enough to keep the correct oxygenation of her brain. He scoffed and then, from nowhere, patted her hair. Turning around once again, he left her dumbfounded, until a laugh from their third party, that she had forgotten entirely, brought her back to the present.

"I think you should rethink your answer…" Kagari said, while whistling.

"What answer?" Tsunemori asked, but the only reaction she got was a loud laugh. "It must be a male thing…" she grumbled, following the two odd man into their office.

The team was all there, their eyes red with the continuous observation of the monitors, searching, through the crowds, someone that could assemble the blurry image of their fugitive.

Kougami was already in his post, his screen on and a multitude of boxes and identities' scans running. Even with all their technology, the retina scans, the termocollection, the recorded phone conversations and even the ability to track anyone through the planet, they still couldn't find a mere human… It was driving all them crazy, especially Kougami that lost everything he had because of that bastard…

Akane sighed and started typing, searching for the millionth time any connection, any thread, between the puppets and their puppeteer…


I know it's short, but I want to set the mood before jumping in the action. And this story follows the anime until episode 10, after that I will use some ideas from the future episodes, but the interactions and the situations will be different from them on...