Author's Notes: Hello again everyone! Writing TGoS took a bit of a backseat there for a while (balancing MPBT:TF, TGoS and real life can darken hues, i tell you! Don't tell the MSWB though!). Nonetheless, it's here! I managed to finish it alongside MPBT:TF Chapter 10's revision, hehe. So, Merry Christmas to you all!

Here's TGoS Chapter 2!

The Goddess of Sibyl

File 03 - Therapist Mukojima

Kyouko Sakura was escorted into a consultation room by a pair of drones. She was sat down on an upholstered chair that was much more comfortable than the bed in her cell. There was a plain white table before her at the end of which was another chair. Strangely enough, they didn't put on any handcuffs, but the retinas of the two drones that escorted her was giving her chills.

A young man with wavy hair then walked into the room and sat down at the other end of the table from Kyouko and introduced himself.

"Good morning, Inmate. I'm Therapist Mukojima from the MSWB." The therapist said as he started tapping on the device on his wrist - a device similar to hers but much sleeker and less imposing, "Your name is 'Kyouko Sakura, yes?"

The red-haired woman's brow crumpled when she looked the therapist in the eye, thinking of some sly remark to say. Before long, though, she heaved a disinterested sigh and said,

"Yeah, I'm Kyouko."

"A straightforward answer. You're more straight-laced than I thought." The therapist seemed amused with himself as he chuckled. Kyouko felt the urge to bash the therapist's smug head into the table - but the mechanical hum of the drones beside her made her reconsider.

"Alright then, Sakura-san." Therapist Mukojima's un-bashed face mellowed down into a businesslike mug as he finished fiddling with the device he wore on his wrist. A formless screen emerged from the face of the device displaying an MSWB data file with a picture of a 14-year old Kyouko. The therapist swiped left and sent the formless screen across the table.

...

Name: Kyouko Sakura

ID: 00558-KKRF-51088-P

Age: 25 (as of October 2110)

Born: 2085

Hometown: Kasamino, Kanagawa Prefecture

Latest Crime Coefficient: 197.05 (10.31.2110)

Latest Hue: Crimson Red

...

"Eugh..." Kyouko grunted as she looked at the bored look of her 14-year old self on the screen. The sight of it ticked her off. Wasn't this place supposed to lower crime coefficients?

"Let's start with updating the databases." The therapist then said, "I would just like to confirm a number of things about your past."

"Do I have to?" Kyouko lazily raised an eyebrow before she leaned into her seat.

The therapist didn't answer. Instead, he wore that sickeningly plastic smile he had ever since got into the room.

"Alright, Sakura-san, let's start with your history from before the crisis." The therapist said as he folded his arms, "You were registered at Mitakihara Junior High School back in 2098 but you didn't attend until 2099. Records showed that you used to hang out and got along really well with one of your schoolmates. Does a name come to mind?"

"Hmm..." Kyouko hummed as she rubbed her chin in thought, "I wouldn't go so far as to say that I 'got along really well' with this person, but I did hang around this girl who transferred into school in the Spring of that year. Her name was Homura Akemi."

"Homura Akemi?" The therapist reacted with a kindly tone, "Well isn't this a surprise - Akemi-san is a common acquaintance of ours."

"I didn't think that mysterious, quiet girl would make friends with plastic-smiling freaks like you." Kyouko honestly spoke her mind.

"Well, Akemi-san is a mystery after all." The therapist laughed lightheartedly. This young man knew that he was being insulted, right? It ticked Kyouko off even more - especially since she completely agreed with him.

Kyouko's memories of 2099 were still hazy at best, as were her memories of Homura Akemi, but there was always a sense of mystery about her. She and Homura were technically both newcomers to the school then, so the two of them more or less got along - but Kyouko never really got a read on her, until the very end.

"I never saw that girl again - after the incident, that is." Kyouko then said. She then glared at the therapist across the table and asked, "Does that answer your question?"

"Yes it does - quite well, thank you." The therapist projected a formless keyboard onto the table from the device on his wrist and then started to type, updating the entry, "So moving on, Sakura-san, could you tell me a little bit about your after-school activities?"

The red-haired woman leaned back into her seat and thought a little bit harder this time around. She did quite a lot of things after school back then, after all, so she couldn't put a finger on exactly what to say. Then a crafty grin grew on her lips as she said,

"Well, I didn't become a therapist, that's for sure!"

"... that... kind of hurt, you know." The therapist, for once, was fazed.

"That's exactly what I was going for." Kyouko crossed her legs and leaned back into a lazy, unladylike position.

The therapist sighed and then updated the file.

"Now then, one last question about the past." The therapist finished typing then turned towards Kyouko with a more serious face and tone than before, "Tell me - what were you doing on that day? Where were you at 8:00PM on May 1, 2099?"

Hearing that question made Kyouko's brow crumple in displeasure. Her red eyes shot from the retina of the hue scanner trained on her to the pair of drones that flanked her in her seat. She then looked at the thick, metal device she now wore on her wrist and clicked her tongue.

"Say, therapist - why don't you tell me where I was? You've got all that surveillance technology, so you probably already know where I was so why the fuck do you have to ask me!?"

The therapist paused for a moment as the smile on his lips waned ever so slightly. He then finally said,

"I'm asking because this surveillance technology is nowhere near perfect." The therapist adjusted his seat and then laid his hands on the table, "You of all people should know that. You have been on the run for quite some time now, after all - until a little over a year ago, at least."

"That so?" Kyouko didn't seem to be all that interested in the therapist's explanation, "Well too bad for you, bud - I don't know where I was, exactly."

"That... will suffice, for now." The therapist got back to typing, "We've now got the pre-Crisis files covered. Let's move on."

"Whatever..." Kyouko sighed.

"Sakura-san, after the crisis, you were transferred to the Shinjuku Ward here in Tokyo and went to school here." The therapist browsed through the files with a sharp eye, "There are some discrepancies here regarding your education. Care to enlighten me?"

"School, huh?" Kyouko seemed to be bored by the topic, "Well, middle school was mandatory for all the refugees from Mitakihara Junior High so I did that at Shinjuku. I even stayed a while and finished High School since I had nothing better to do."

"You're a High School graduate then." The therapist noted as he started typing again, "'You could have taken a technical course', is what most therapists would say in that situation, but I sort of understand why you would choose to leave after High School."

"Isn't saying 'I understand how you feel' something most therapists would say too?" Kyouko poked with a crafty smirk.

"You caught me red-handed." The therapist laughed, "I do notice that you have quite a way with words, Sakura-san."

"Don't tell me you like getting insulted." The red-haired woman raised her eyebrow, "Are you one of those people?"

"Of course not." The therapist replied, but he didn't sound all that convincing. He cleared his throat and then continued, "What I was trying to get at was what you did after High School. Records show that you started to come in contact with the anarchist group 'Movement' sometime in 2106 - that's two years after you finished high school." The therapist faced Kyouko with an appraising look and asked, "What exactly did you do in Movement?"

"Well, to put it simply, I was a con-woman." Kyouko said, speaking with a hint of pride, "I tricked people into giving donations to 'the cause', and I was pretty good at it."

"From the data we've gathered, most of your victims were Mitakihara and Kasamino City refugees." The therapist then said as he finished a flourish of keystrokes, "Testimonies from victims said that you were raising funds for the evangelical mission of a church back in Kasamino."

He then brought up a new formless screen with a news article and the photo.

"However, the priest of that church broke away from their main liturgy and was branded a heretic way back in 2097." The therapist then added, "That same year, he took the lives of his youngest daughter and his wife before taking his own."

Kyouko felt her heart sink as the therapist prattled on about that incident and a shadow formed over her eyes. The therapist noticed Kyouko's change in expression as well as her sudden silence, so he brought his lecture to a halt.

"Apologies, Sakura-san. I seem to have gone on a poorly-chosen tangent. Let me get right back to business." The therapist tapped the face of the device on his wrist and dissolved the formless screens that were floating over the table, "I think you know why I came here to see you today."

"You didn't come here to congratulate me for my improving hue?" Kyouko gave a snide remark, regaining her livelier spirit.

"Well, there is that - that is no small feat, after all." The therapist conceded, "But more than that, I am here to offer you a chance to leave this facility."

"Leave this facility...?" Kyouko raised a brow.

"Yes." Therapist Mukojima said, "The Sibyl System has chosen you as a candidate to become an Enforcer of the MSWB. Your Crime Coefficient has made a lot of progress since you were apprehended after all. Are you interested?"

"Now wait a goddamn minute, Mukojima." Kyouko gave the table a firm, resounding knock, "I can't help but get the feeling that you're taking me for a ride here. What the hell is the Sibyl System anyways? And what are these Crime Coefficient and Hue things, exactly?"

"You really don't know, Sakura-san?" The therapist looked dumbfounded, "The Sibyl System - as well as the metrics it uses - has been in place since 2096, well before the crisis."

"Well, no one really explained it to any of us when it appeared." Kyouko folded her arms with dissatisfaction, "I was 11 years old back then - and my memory of that time is still quite hazy - but none of us understood what it was. Then it faded into the background - gone as quickly as it came." She then crossed her legs and leered at the therapist, "So will you answer my question or not?"

"I guess it can't be helped." The therapist sat upright and heaved a sigh, "You have been out cold for more than a year, so there might still be some gaps in your memory. Allow me to enlighten you then."

The therapist tapped the device on his wrist and then brought up a few formless screens one again. The screens floated over to Kyouko, displaying a mix of pictures and literature. The photo that caught Kyouko's eye, however, was the symbol of the Sibyl System.

As Kyouko was glancing through the screens, the therapist gave his explanation.

"The Sibyl System is, to put it simply, a system that analyzes and measures criminal tendency in this country. They measure criminal tendency as a 'Crime Coefficient' ranging from 0 to 999. The higher a person's coefficient is, the more likely they are to commit a crime. When a person's coefficient reaches 100, they are deemed a 'Latent Criminal', or somebody who is already considering committing a crime.

The same goes for hues. People are assigned a color that represents their mental health - the lighter their color is, the healthier their state of mind is. The darker it is... well... I think you already have an idea what that means now. To simply put it, Crime Coefficient and the color of a person's hue often goes hand in hand. When a person's coefficient reaches 100, or if their hue darkens considerably, then that person must surrender to the authorities for therapy and counselling."

"My coefficient's 197.05..." Kyouko hummed, "And my hue is..."

"Crimson red." The therapist said, passing Kyouko a formless screen with her statistics, "It's an improvement from what you had when you were first checked in to the facility, but it's still dark. Regardless, when it comes to coefficient or to hue, you're a Latent Criminal." The therapist then folded his arms as he said, "As a matter of fact, you already have committed crimes - fraud and extortion mostly. You refused to surrender yourself to authorities - so the authorities captured you and brought you here."

"How nice of them." Kyouko clicked her tongue with displeasure.

"You are fortunate though, Sakura-san." The therapist cautioned.

"Why is that?" Kyouko asked.

"If your Crime Coefficent reached 300, then that means that the Sibyl System has deemed your existence a threat to society." The therapist faced Kyouko with a grim expression and said, "The police would have permission to kill you on sight."

Kyouko didn't reply, falling into a contemplative silence. Slivers of memories surfaced in her mind - she remembered a blur of a police raid, the violent fire of molotov cocktails and the horrifying sight of a person's head expanding grotesquely before it exploded in a bloody mess. Sweat formed on her brow as the hazy memory fluttered in her head and her imagination ran wild.

"Sakura-san?" The therapist noticed his patient's silence.

"I'm fine. Keep going." The red-haired woman stubbornly spat, but she was still visibly rattled by her own thoughts.

"No, you're not." The therapist refused, "Let's end it here today. The drones will escort you back to you cell."

"But what about the offer...?" Kyouko tried to argue, but the therapist was adamant.

"People from the MSWB will visit you in a few days or so." The therapist then reassured, "Be sure to give it some thought - but don't push yourself. Your condition has stabilized and you have recovered magnificently, but your recovery is still far from over." He then dissolved his screens and stood up from his chair, "Farewell, Sakura-san."

To Be Continued