Chapter 20

Aftereffects

The city looked like a ghost town. Cars were parked indiscriminately, smoke floating from their motors or from the fires inside the buildings. The robots were putting down the flames when the Enforcers and Inspector Ginoza stepped out of their transports.

"Wow, this looks like a zombie Armageddon…" Kagari commented, kicking a trashcan still smoking.

"And they call us criminals…" Yayoi said, observing with veiled eyes the remains of the scene: the blood, the dead bodies being carried away and some witnesses crying and whimpering, while sitting against the buildings.

Ginoza looked like he wanted to say something, but stopped himself, choosing to walk around the place, instead. The Enforcers could see him talking with a small girl that apparently was rescued from under one of the smoking cars. They couldn't hear what they were saying, but Ginoza's grave expression and his tense nods told them it was no good. Only when Kougami's communicator biped, did they take their eyes from the two persons.

Inspector Tsunemori Akane is out of surgery. The blade punctured the liver, but the quick medical support kept her from being at risk. The patient will be transferred in one hour to her room: 2204. Visit hours: 11-13h and 15-17h, unless being the principal caretaker which will be permitted to accompany the patient all day.

Kagari read aloud the message over Kougami's shoulder, so Masaoka and Yayoi could hear too.

"Well, what are you going to do? Say you are her husband and keep her under surveillance 24/7?" the light brown haired man sniggered and Kougami scoffed, thinking how hard it would be to convince the doctors about that reality…

"Enforcers, we have work to do! Separate into pairs and search this area…" Ginoza said, returning to their side and sending a map to their communicators. "Blue area, Kougami and Yayoi-san, Red area Masaoka-san and Kagari and I will stay in the Yellow area with the robots… Your mission is to find any threat and eliminate it, as well as help any injured ones…" the Inspector said and the team went their separate ways, their Dominators ready beside them, as well as the electrifying sticks, in case the first ones didn't work like the street scanners.

"What do you think about those helmets?" Kougami asked, while walking through a dark alley, Yayoi backing him up.

"I watch the videos while you were at the hospital… It's horrible… People just stood there, watching… Someone was killed in front of them, for crying out loud and they stood there!" Yayoi said, her heart hammering inside her chest with the unfairness of the situation.

"And they call us criminals…" Kougami echoed her previous words, knowing it was what she was feeling. "What were the first crimes committed that way… before the riots?" he asked and Yayoi stopped.

"Do you think the first ones will give us a clue at how the helmets work?" she asked and he nodded.

"In the firsts, I bet there wasn't such confusion, so we can analyze their actions easier…"

Yayoi hummed under her breathe, recalling the report they read while waiting for Kougami to come from the hospital.

"Well, the first one was in a pharmacy, a crime of occasion, while the second was the attack to a woman in the middle of a crowd." Yayoi said and Kougami grumbled under his breath, while looking behind a dumpster.

"Hum, the first one looks like an experiment, but the second one... This person could have chosen any individual, why that woman? Could they have any kind of connection?" he wondered under his breath, cursing when a stray cat jumped from an alley.

"When we return we should see if we can find anything about that woman. Probably the pharmacy was just a test to try it out." Kougami said out loud and Yayoi smirked.

"Shion is already researching the woman. You are not the only latent criminal around here, you know?" Yayoi replied, and Kougami shook his head with amusement.

A couple of silent minutes stretched in front of them, until Kougami sighed and said. "You can ask it..."

"How did it pass through your mind that the two of you could keep a relationship? Did you forget the first rule they taught us? Any derivative conduct from an Enforcer concerning an Inspector will cease the contract between the Bureau and the latent criminal, sending him or her back to the Containing Unit." Yayoi said, her voice mechanical, quoting word by word what, for the first months, she always heard from her superiors.

"You wouldn't understand." Kougami grumbled and turning his back on her, walked back towards their meeting place. "That was the end of our area." After two minutes of silent walking he said "I love her." and he tensed, his shoulders showing that any kind of response was not welcome right now.

Yayoi sucked in a gush of breathe, surprised at his personal confession, the man she always thought would never be able of letting someone walk into his life and have an effect over his heart. He really did love her, she could see it now. The way his body acted around her, how he looked drawn to her… Even during their work, before all this mess, if she had been observant enough, she would have noticed their body language… but never in a thousand years she would think it was necessary to observe their relationship… if only she knew…

"Hey… how are you?" Shinya asked, when her eyelids opened completely and she smiled at him.

"Good…" she answered, noticing the dark shadows under his eyes. "Better than you, apparently…"

He shook his head, minimizing his own aspect and touched her body softly, feeling the bandages under his fingers.

"It doesn't hurt and in two, three days I will be able of going home…" Akane said, a bit impatient at his worry over her making him forget his own wellbeing.

He tsked, noticing her expression, but choose not to chase the matter, knowing it would only create an argument between them.

"Did you find out anything about the riots?" Akane asked and Kougami sighed at the change of topic, informing her how they found out the criminal was stalking the woman he killed and how they used Kougami's psycho pass to arrest him.

"So, those helmets copy another person's psycho pass…" Tsunemori wondered, after Kougami's narration. "It's like they took Makishima as an example…" and she gasped, understanding the implications. Kougami nodded, showing his concordance.

"Yes, it was probably Makishima that created those things and gave them away… just as a way to show how fragile our society is…" he said.

"And to destroy it…" Akane completed, feeling a shiver ran through her body at those words.

So, I didn't put the part about arresting the criminal, because it would be just like in the anime - I really liked those scenes and wouldn't want to change them...