The first memory she has – or at least that she can remember – is of a door being slammed shut, and the room being plunged into darkness.
Her childhood has very much been like that room: a short, sharp shock, followed by solitude. The cycle repeats, until the sound of the doorknob turning automatically strikes fear in her nascent heart. It becomes instinct, second nature – the door symbolizes pain, suffering, and the perils of the world without. All she wishes is for it to never open.
The door opens.
"How are you?" asks the woman who took her here. She is out of her uniform, instead sporting a vest and jeans, her flowing long hair tied casually in a ponytail. She looks young enough to be the girl's older sister, but her kindly and soft eyes are framed in a lean, steely face embellished with a scar tearing across her right cheekbone. Evidently, she has been through things that most people of her age could only dream of experiencing.
"I'm fine." The girl looks down at her knees. Between her chest and her legs, which she has tucked towards her body, is the book she has been carrying this whole time, never once relinquishing it from her grip.
The woman squats in front of the girl and inches towards her, hoping not to scare her, as though she were approaching a wild animal. She gestures towards the book. "What's that book you have there?"
For a while, the girl does not move. Then, slowly, she lifts the book up for the woman to see. As she does so, the slippery cover of the tome slides in her grasp, and the woman moves quickly to hold it and prevent it from falling on the girl.
The woman takes the book and stares at the cover. She squints and frowns, clearly not quite believing what she is seeing.
"This is… an interesting book," she says. "Not something I'd expect someone of your age to read. Why do you have it?"
The girl's lips quiver. "My dad… gave it to me." She holds her arms out, silently asking for the book to be returned. The woman acquiesces, and the book is soon back in the girl's uneasy embrace.
"Where's dad?" the girl asks.
"Look…" The woman bites her lip, unsure how to break the news she has to bear to the girl. "Your father… you can't live with him anymore. The same goes for your mother. You'll be taken into our care – we'll find a custodian for you. We've confiscated most of the belongings from your bedroom, and you can have them back once you move into the new place. Is that okay?"
A hundred questions threaten to burst from the girl's lips. Why did they take her father away? Where is he going? What will happen to her home? Will she ever see her parents again?
Yet abruptly, the urge to ask these questions is quelled. Something unspeakable, something transcendent, places its hand on her heart, stilling its hurried beating, easing her myriad concerns. A voice in her head tells her that this is the course her life has taken, and that there ought to be no need, nor any desire, to question it.
Slowly, the girl nods.
The woman, her job here now done, smiles, stands, and departs without another word.
Two silhouettes stood on the balcony, staring down at the streets below, observing the people milling about. The view directly in front of them was largely blocked by another office building, from within which they could see workers going about their business, scurrying up and down the corridors, tapping away at their keyboards.
No matter which era humanity lived in, humans were born and bred to work, to toil and sweat in exchange for survival, subsistence, and eventually personal elevation within the echelons of society. Some things never changed, even if civilization evolved at such a rapid pace that humanity often found itself struggling to catch up.
The Sibyl System was the all-encompassing present, and also the reasonably foreseeable future. Yet those that lived under its watch were still individuals, with their own individual hopes and dreams, even if their senses were dulled by years of stress care and other means of emotional suppression. And as long as there was life, there was hope to be found.
"So, why'd you come to see me?"
The taller of the two figures pushed back the strands of hair tickling his forehead and blew out a breath of smoke, tapping the cigarette lodged in his fingers. "Do I need a reason to see my former boss?"
"Yeah, you do." Shimotsuki, the one standing beside him, scowled. "I'm a busy person, Ginoza. You should be grateful I'm taking the time to entertain you – I don't have the luxury of kicking back and waiting for cases to come to my desk, like you and your department do."
"You wound me. I assure you we're equally up to our necks in work." Ginoza Nobuchika continued staring into the distance, puffing luxuriously on his cigarette, seemingly oblivious to his companion's irritation.
"Then what are you wasting your time here for?"
For a while, Ginoza remained silent. Then, just as Shimotsuki opened her mouth to press him, he spoke again.
"How's Tsunemori doing?"
Shimotsuki's brow furrowed. "You called me out here just to ask me that? Why don't you visit Senpai yourself?"
"I can't do that without permission from my boss, and she won't let me see Tsunemori without a valid, work-related purpose. I was here for some other business, so I thought I may as well come and ask you."
"Oh, I see." Shimotsuki rolled her eyes. "I thought you had an actual reason for seeing me, but you just wanted an update on your beloved Tsunemori." She paused. "There's nothing I can tell you that you wouldn't already know. You have your fight, and she has hers."
"I'm guessing you still don't know why the government keeps her locked up."
Shimotsuki snorted. "Even if I did, I wouldn't be at ease to tell you. Being Chief Inspector comes with a lot of baggage, which means a greater duty of confidentiality."
Ginoza couldn't help but chuckle. "I'm sure. Though maybe in another universe, it would have been Tsunemori who became Chief Inspector. The Sibyl System has always been quite fond of her, after all, and she actually has the skills needed for the job. She just ended up being more trouble than she was worth. But I suppose that's why I admire her."
"It sounds like you're saying she'd be better at being Chief Inspector than I would," Shimotsuki commented, a heavy hint of causticity in her voice.
"Does it? I didn't mean it that way." Ginoza shrugged. "I look up to her because she believes in the importance of principle. She has her own set of personal rules by which she abides and orients her life, and she won't give up on them just because it's convenient, or just because following them puts her in danger. However, that's also what made her a terrible Inspector, and would make her an even worse Chief Inspector."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I don't remember if I've told you about this, but… on Tsunemori's first night as an Inspector, we were sent to track down and arrest a kidnapper. Kougami dealt with the kidnapper without too much trouble, but there was a problem with his victim, a woman who was otherwise innocent. She kept running away, and it took a while for us to corner her."
It was now the Chief Inspector's turn to shrug. "That doesn't sound like a complicated situation, even if it was Senpai's debut case. Just send the victim in for stress care and counseling and she'd be alright – assuming she didn't turn into a latent criminal."
"That's the problem. Her Crime Coefficient had risen so high that the Dominator marked her as a target for elimination, instead of merely paralysis." Ginoza smirked. "Want to guess what happened next?"
Shimotsuki frowned. "Knowing Senpai, she would have tried her best not to kill the victim. But what could she have done in that scenario? It would take way too long to restrain the victim and bring her to an isolation facility. It wouldn't be worth the effort. Did she knock the victim out some other way?"
"Not quite. Kougami was going to eliminate the woman, but Tsunemori turned her Dominator on Kougami to stop him. Then, she spent a few minutes talking the woman into calming down and lowering her Crime Coefficient, before blasting her with the Paralyzer. Sounds like something she'd do, doesn't it?"
"It does." Shimotsuki's expression darkened. "What a waste of time that must have been. Now I see what you mean – she must have been a horrible fit for the job from the start. If the Dominator marks someone for elimination, there's no merit in going through all that just so they can be spared. They're going to be latent criminals anyway, so what's the point? I'd never have done the same."
A small smile crept across Ginoza's face, though Shimotsuki noticed, to her chagrin, that the smile carried a tinge of pity.
"That, Shimotsuki, is why you're the ideal candidate for the position of Chief Inspector," he replied.
As Division 4 completed their walkabout inspection of the Tokyo Dome and returned to the Public Safety Bureau's headquarters, Kokonoe watched as her Enforcers entered the building and disappeared into the elevator. Then, she retreated out of the lobby and into the street, which was now basking in the ochre glow of sunset.
She was on her own, for now. She had told her Enforcers that she had some personal business to attend to, and though they were within their rights to ask what sort of business it was, considering they were still at work and it was still several hours before their shift ended, they ultimately decided not to. She hadn't lied to them, really – the investigation had become much more personal than she had ever bargained for. Neither the existence of the killer nor the existence of the criminally asymptomatic could be revealed to her subordinates, for varying reasons.
With the next step now firmly in her grasp – assuming that the next step wasn't, as part of her suspected, a fantasy born purely out of a desire for progress – she might finally be able to figure out what the faceless man really wanted from her, and make some headway before anyone else caught on to her. Obviously, he wanted her to do something or find something, or he wouldn't be leaving these secret trails in the path of blood he was painting across the city. Maybe he was just toying with her… but why would he hint at her past if all he wanted to do was to string her along? She was already confused enough as is about this whole state of affairs – if he merely wished to disorient her, he had already succeeded.
Ota, and the nightclub she was heading to, was only a few stops away by sky-rail. Without her cerulean Criminal Investigation Department jacket, Kokonoe blended easily into the crowd of people who were just getting off work. As she boarded the packed train, she made sure to keep her briefcase close to her. Its brass latches were clamped shut and unlockable only by her fingerprint, so she had no reason to worry that it might be opened inadvertently. The wrist-link she normally wore would give her identity away, so that was now also stored inside her briefcase – alongside her Dominator, which she could not holster on her back for similar reasons.
As the sky-rail trundled through the gaps between Tokyo's endless rows of skyscrapers, the waning sunlight flashing in her eyes whenever a gap appeared between buildings, she felt a strange itch welling in her lungs. She thought it might be a holdover from the cold that she had not quite recovered from – her limbs still ached slightly, though the pain was much more manageable than it was last night – but when she withdrew a tissue from her pocket and spat a wad of phlegm into it, she was shocked to find a small red speck seeping into the pale white of the tissue.
The trip to the Tokyo Dome had meant that she had forgotten to take her pills for the day, but she was confident that wouldn't cause a reaction in her body this quickly. Maybe all the coughing she had done the night before had reopened old wounds in her throat. She didn't feel any different from usual, but one never knew when their body might crumple under the burdensome weight of chronic illness.
She would take a quick look around the nightclub, she told herself, then visit one of the nearby clinics. No harm done.
The station loomed into view, and the announcer's static-laden voice crackled over the speakers. Kokonoe stepped out as the doors hissed open and hurried to the turnstiles, before winding through the web of small roads and alleys that led to her destination. She had already memorized the way there, but looking at lines on a map was very different from staring up at the imposing, derelict gray walls, pocked with graffiti and unwashed in decades – and all this in a place where the omnipresent cameras located at every street corner, ostensibly watching for any heightened pre-criminal activity, might occasionally malfunction or go missing. As long as she had her Dominator with her, Kokonoe had less need to worry, but one could never afford to take the darker reaches of the city lightly.
She rounded the corner and found her target: a niche in the wall with a flashing neon sign above the entryway spelling out the name of the club, "Club Exodus", in green. The secluded location of this nightclub was already sending warning bells ringing in her head – what would three respectable, well-to-do members of society be doing in a place like this? – so she unbuckled her briefcase as a precaution, letting the Dominator's grip jut out slightly under the flap so she could grab it at a moment's notice. Taking a deep breath, she stepped through the entrance and made her way down the stairs.
It was still early by nightclub standards – around half past six – but there was already a sizable throng of partygoers present. No music was playing yet, so they simply stood or sat around, chatting happily to each other, lounging about on colorful sofas, closing their eyes and bathing in the spotlights dancing around their heads.
"Evening, Miss," said a guttural voice.
Kokonoe turned to find a tall, heavy-set man staring down at her, glaring out from underneath his bushy eyebrows.
"Evening," she said.
"You waiting for someone?"
Kokonoe was about to shake her head, but thought better of it – she would have an excuse to stick around if she pretended to wait for a friend. She nodded. "Yeah. They said they'd be coming in half an hour or so."
The man grunted and pulled his lips back in an attempt at a smile, though it looked like more of a leer. "Enjoy your evening," he said, and shuffled away.
Kokonoe sighed, and made her way to the bar. She ordered a shot of whiskey from the bartender, who seemed somewhat bemused at her choice of drink for this time of day.
"Where's the bathroom?" she asked as the bartender prepared her drink.
The bartender pointed to the back of the club. She thanked him, and after downing the glass' contents and paying via her virtual wallet, she made her way there, avoiding most of the crowd by sticking close to the walls.
As she slinked towards the bathroom, she took note of the rest of the club's interior. It was quite a large space considering how small the entrance was, the main room being roughly two stories high, and the floor being the width and length of half a swimming pool. The stage took up a quarter of the floor space, and the remainder was matted in glass and carpet, beneath which lights of varying colors shone through.
There were four doors in total. One led back up to street level, and one led to the bathroom. The other two were unmarked, though she could see staff members going in and out of one of them, with the last remaining one being unused.
If there was anything clandestine going on, it would most likely be inside the last door. The door would probably be locked, but she had just the tool for a job like this – a miniature laser used to melt locks in situations where breaking the door down would be ill-advised, which was stitched onto the inside of her sleeve.
Her first port of call, the bathroom, was a musty, grimy enclave that, hygienic matters aside, was not altogether suspicious. She peered closely at the ceiling, the floor tiles, and the insides of the stalls, but she could not find any hidden rooms or contraptions.
As she made to leave, the door creaked open, and Kokonoe instinctively hid herself in one of the stalls, hastily pushing the stall door shut. She wasn't quite sure why she was hiding, but she preferred not to be seen by anyone here. Who knew if one of them recognized her – or worse, was working for the killer she was chasing?
By the sounds of the footsteps, there were two people present. After a few breathless, silent seconds, one of them started to speak.
"Did you get everything ready?"
"Yeah." A pause, then the sound of the faucet turning on. "The meeting's in twenty minutes, right?"
"Mhm. We can just chill at the bar until it starts."
The water stopped, and the footsteps drifted away. Only when the air had settled, and the only sound she could hear was the music starting up outside, did Kokonoe depart from her stall.
It seemed that going to the bathroom first was the right idea. Maybe they were talking about a different meeting, such as a meeting for work – though that was unlikely seeing as it was almost 7 o'clock. Nevertheless, she would keep an eye on the bar until the hour struck.
She snuck into one of the booths near the bathroom exit, making sure to face the bar. She could see a number of people sitting there – the amount of partygoers had almost doubled in the few minutes she had been away – but a pair of women seated side by side caught her attention. Both wore suits, meaning that they, much like Kokonoe herself, stood out from the much more casual garb adorned by the rest of the club. No one approached them, and they made no conscious effort to mingle either.
Roughly ten minutes passed, and the two women got up and headed towards, as Kokonoe had predicted, the unused door. Kokonoe also rose from her seat and eased her way around the crowd, clutching the briefcase near her chest. One of her hands dipped into her briefcase, wrapping around the grip of her Dominator.
She darted behind one of the pillars near the door, observing as the two women slipped into whatever space was inside. At least she now knew the door wasn't locked, so her lock-breaking laser would not be needed. Counting out sixty seconds, she inched towards the door, turned the knob, and quickly made her own way in.
Kokonoe found herself face to face with a long concrete corridor, lit only by sparse fluorescent tubes lining both walls. As the door closed behind her, the blaring music from the main room was immediately silenced. Whatever happened outside could not be heard in here… and vice versa. This hadn't been the case in the bathroom. The things that went on in this place were obviously secretive enough that the door had to be soundproofed.
The heightened anxiety she felt, coupled with the sudden coldness of her new surroundings, triggered another round of itching in her lungs. She puckered her lips together and coughed as quietly as she could, but as she did so, a faint taste of iron crept onto her tongue. After opening her mouth and scraping her tongue with her fingers, she withdrew her hand to find it completely coated in crimson liquid.
Something was definitely wrong with her. Her instincts screamed for her to leave, to run to the nearest hospital and seek help, but who knew if she would be able to return here? What if the door was locked the next time she came? What if the mysterious women never held their meeting here again?
Gritting her teeth, she wiped her fingers on her jacket and continued down the hallway. Yet as she trudged forwards, she could feel her feet beginning to drag, and her vision swam with every step. She fought for as long as she could, but ultimately the nausea proved too powerful, and the world spun into darkness.
Just before she faded into unconsciousness, she glimpsed a pair of black dress shoes, and a figure leaning down towards her, arm outstretched.
Then, nothing.
When Kokonoe woke up, the first thing she noticed was that her hands were behind her back. The second thing she noticed was that she could not bring them forward – they had been tied together.
The third thing she noticed was that someone was staring at her, scrutinizing her as she roused herself awake and took full stock of her current predicament. She stared back up at him, willing herself to give nothing away. Clearly, whoever had captured her did not intend to let her go without extracting something in return – assuming they would let her go at all.
She was in a small room, built of the same concrete as the corridor where she had collapsed. A single lightbulb dangled from the ceiling, but the room was otherwise empty save for herself, the man in front of her, and the thick chrome steel door to her right.
The man tossed something at her feet. Her heart sank as she realized what it was.
"Why's an Inspector snooping around here?" he asked, pointing towards the Dominator.
Kokonoe's lips remained sealed. The man sighed.
"Look, lady. I'm not here to kill you or whatever. Not yet, anyway." He spread his arms in a supposed gesture of goodwill. "To be honest, I was expecting you. The boss told me an Inspector would be looking around. Once I saw you walk through the door, I knew who you were, so I got the bartender to spike your drink. You weren't really fooling anybody, sneaking around suspiciously like that. No-one wears a suit to a nightclub."
Kokonoe raised an eyebrow. "No-one except for the two women who walked in here."
"Maybe, but you're not one of them, are you?"
One of what?, she almost asked, but something told her that it would be wiser to play along and see how far it got her. It wasn't as if she was going anywhere fast. Plus, it didn't seem like this person knew too much about "them", whoever "they" were. Maybe she could uncover a little something of her own.
"Who says I'm not one of them?" she said defiantly.
The man squinted at her. "Don't play games with me, lady. What would an Inspector with the Public Safety Bureau be doing with that lot? They're freaks. Outcasts. Weirdos. Not supposedly upstanding citizens like yourself."
Kokonoe shrugged. "We come in many shapes and sizes. An Inspector's free to do whatever she likes after hours."
"No, you don't get it." The man shook his head. "These people hate exposing themselves. They work for tiny companies, they only really move around at night, and they rarely visit… Why am I telling you all this?"
"Why indeed?" Kokonoe replied cheekily, even though she knew that probably wasn't the best thing to do right now. She just couldn't help herself.
The man's features shifted uneasily, as if he were contemplating the moral weight of what he was about to do. "Man. I really didn't want to do this, but I guess I have to. The boss said I should if you weren't going to talk." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a syringe filled to the brim with orange liquid, flipping it idly in his hands. "Unless you have something you want to tell me."
"About what?"
"About what you're doing here. And…" The man leaned towards her, until his eyes were inches away from hers, his foul breath tickling her nose as he spoke. "A question from the boss."
"What would that be?" Kokonoe asked tentatively.
"How much does Chief… Kasei? Is that her name? How much does Chief Kasei know about them?"
"About who-"
Kokonoe stopped mid-sentence. She cast her mind back to her report, to her ideas regarding the murder cases, and to what Chief Kasei had told her that morning. To the hypothesis that she'd postulated, and the facts she'd used to confirm it. To the nature of the murders themselves, and to the identities of those who had been murdered. Certain thoughts were clicking into place, like a mechanism whose cogs were fitting together piece by piece, their teeth interlocking, turning on their axes until they moved as one unified entity, driving her deliberations, slotting square pegs into square holes.
The man noticed her change in demeanor and held up the needle in his hand threateningly. "Hey. Don't go quiet on me, lady."
"Sorry about that. Just give me a couple seconds."
"Huh?"
"And… done." She retracted the miniature lock-breaking laser back into her sleeve, which she had secretly been using to burn through the plastic strings binding her wrists whilst the man was interrogating her.
Her hands now freed, she lunged for the Dominator and snatched it away before the man could react. Rolling away and backing into the far wall, she pointed the Dominator's barrel at the man, who seemed so dazed at her abrupt emancipation that he dropped his needle and began to step backwards to the door, holding his hands up.
Her trusty weapon purred into life, unfolding itself and whirring as blue energy surged through its metal veins.
Crime Coefficient is 323, announced a voice in Kokonoe's head. Enforcement mode: lethal eliminator. Aim carefully, and eliminate the target.
She duly obliged, tugging on the trigger with all the force she had left. The man, realizing his fate, dropped his arms and stared forlornly at her.
Then, he disintegrated.
His remains splattered against the walls, onto the floor, and matted the lower hem of Kokonoe's trousers. The sickly smell of iron immediately filled the space, causing her stomach to churn in protest.
She calmly wiped away the few droplets that had splattered onto her face, and rose to her feet. Immediately, a great drowsiness overcame her, and she almost sank back down onto the ground again, thrusting an arm out onto the nearby wall for support.
Finding her briefcase nestled against the wall, she picked it up and headed for the exit. Stepping over what little was left of the man's body as the blood squelched under her shoes, she peered around the doorway. She was back in the corridor, or at least one that looked like the previous corridor, though she found herself smack in the middle of it; neither going left nor going right looked particularly appealing. In the end, she decided to go left, running a hand along the wall as she navigated the hallway just in case the dizziness returned. One corner begot another, and the network of hallways soon transformed into something of a labyrinth.
But just as the twists and turns were beginning to lull her into dropping her guard, she turned the next corner to find a group of men trudging towards her, dressed in similar attire to the one she had just dispatched.
It was too late for her to slip away unnoticed. They spotted her and, with sudden cries of surprise and anger, they dashed towards her with unnerving haste. She swiftly turned and ran back down the corridor from which she had come, the men chasing her hot on her heels.
As she ran, her beleaguered lungs dry, cold and throbbing painfully with every breath, she pointed the Dominator backwards over her shoulder, relying on the automatic aim to find her targets. The moment she heard the mechanical voice locking onto someone, she pushed the trigger, caring little for whether she had shot to paralyze or shot to kill. Yet the Dominator's key weakness in combat was rapidly exposed – Crime Coefficients each took several seconds to calculate, and she could not let off a succession of shots in the way she might be able to with a conventional weapon.
In a theoretically criminal-free society, there was no need to consider a scenario like this ever occurring. Nevertheless, a little extra foresight would not have gone amiss… not that Kokonoe had the time or will to think about such things now.
The footsteps thudding in her ears grew louder and louder, even as she squeezed off burst after burst with whatever strength she could muster into her fingers. A hand scrabbled at her jacket, but she pulled free and aimed a pulse towards where she had felt the touch, hearing with some satisfaction a loud crash as another body fell to the ground.
But it was not enough.
More hands grabbed her shoulders, her arms, her waist, dragging her away into the abyss, beating and bruising her until she had no choice but to relinquish all control. Already enervated from her prior exertions and from the sedative in her drink, her limbs succumbed to the exhaustion, her overwhelmed muscles slacking and loosening even as her brain continued to struggle for an escape.
The mind fought, but the body had long since given up.
Her soul began to prepare for the inevitable. It would end as it had started: pain giving way to resignation; a slow descent into the darkness; the world closing in around her. A perennial cycle of hopelessness and agony.
If it ends like this… then it is the least I deserve.
She closed her eyes and awaited the end.
"Kokonoe!"
Her eyelids burst open.
A familiar face swam into view. Fresh footsteps sailed forth, and she was thrown unceremoniously onto the hard concrete floor. The azure glow of one, two, three, four Dominators burned into her retinas.
And they were not alone.
"Catch them!" called a voice. "Don't let any of them get away!"
Her head rested on something soft. She looked up to find a worried and frustrated face yelling orders at some silhouettes close by, then gazing back down at her.
"What the hell were you thinking?!" chided the Chief Inspector crossly, who Kokonoe slowly realized was holding her head in her hands. "Were you trying to get yourself killed?! Coming into a place like this with no backup at all is tantamount to suicide, especially considering your condition! Why would you do something like that?!"
Kokonoe winced, and Shimotsuki pulled up her wrist-link, opening a holographic link back to headquarters. "We need a medical team here as soon as possible," she barked. "Also, get us eyes and ears on the area around this place, and look up a map of the underground tunnels if you have any. The drones have the building surrounded, but I can't have anyone getting away."
"How… did you find me?" Kokonoe croaked.
Shimotsuki let out a heavy sigh. "You didn't think we wouldn't notice you slipping out of headquarters on your own, did you? The Chief's been keeping a particularly close eye on you, apparently. She told me to follow you here. Also, we used the tracker on your Dominator to pinpoint your location."
The Chief might have let her off the hook for her lackluster report, but she clearly still harbored her own suspicions about Kokonoe's motives. "I see. That's… a relief."
"Come on. Can you stand?" Shimotsuki hefted Kokonoe onto her feet. "The medics should be here shortly. We'll get you to the exit, and they'll handle it from there."
"Thank you… Chief Inspector. I owe you one…" Kokonoe took a step, but her legs gave way, and Shimotsuki was forced to catch her before she crumpled into a heap.
"Leave the pleasantries for later," Shimotsuki replied. "Just try and keep walking."
Slowly but surely, they hobbled out of the crossfire and back towards the main room. The party having been well and truly crashed, the club was now largely empty save for a group of drones and her two Enforcers, whose faces broke into relieved smiles upon seeing their Inspector alive, if not at all well. They rushed over to her and guided her up the stairway, one arm around each shoulder. The medical team arrived just as they reached street level, and she was quickly lowered onto a stretcher.
It all felt like a dream, as though she were drifting through a scene in a play that was simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar to her. She had been dead, and had already come to terms with her inevitable demise. Yet here she was now, battered and broken, but with life very much still left in her. It would take considerable time for her to heal and return to some semblance of normalcy, but it was enough for her to be freed from the jaws that had been seconds away from swallowing her whole. A second chance had been bestowed upon her, and she was more than happy to take it.
She had survived her ordeal in the belly of the beast, and, recalling the words of her captor before he had been effectively erased from their plane of existence, she had gained valuable information in the process. If this was the price of progress, then to her, it was well worth paying.
As Shimotsuki followed the stretcher into the ambulance, she caught Kokonoe's eye. Kokonoe managed a small smile, assuring the Chief Inspector that she would be fine. Shimotsuki did not return the expression, instead turning away and, with a wave of her hand, vanishing back down the stairs again.
Whatever questions both of them had could wait. For now, as the ambulance trundled towards the hospital, Kokonoe could finally rest.