"You're the one who gave them power," Yashiro deduced in a casual voice.
The white-haired man was near a window that came up to his head, and if he took a few steps back he could fall out of the building. Behind him was a vertical pink neon sign that blinked constantly, and revealed a black shirt under a white trench coat, dark pants and brown boots. He smiled down at her with a calm, serene expression even though she could push him out the window.
"The hive man is rewarded for following the rules. The better the hive man, the less it matters what the rules are. In your hive, the rules called for you to sentence all these people to death," he spoke with a deep, cold voice.
"They call themselves young idealists. But they're just a bunch of gangs and killers," she shrugged her shoulders, her voice seemed distant and tired instead. "They don't seek individual freedoms and limit the role the government plays in our lives, but overthrow Sibyl and become the men in charge."
"You live in a world where the rules are already established. In my world, no rules, no laws remain. Only men. And it's only when you set them apart from the moral society, that you can see their souls. Much like now."
His golden eyes looked up, and they heard the clicking sound of a slide pumping the shotgun when it's pulled back, and then the sound when it's moved in a forward position. Yashiro yanked her forearm out of his own to turn around. A man with a green jacket fired at them, missing as they both melted into darkness, running in opposite directions. She took cover behind a column and drew her dominator, raising it forward. As soon as the weapon changed shape to execute him, she pulled the trigger first, and a flashing light illuminated the entire room. The floor was bathed in a deep red as his body stretched and exploded, and his legs fell to the floor.
Breathing heavily from the recent fight, Yashiro turned on the flashlight of her wristcom and looked around. There was a shadow of a man lying on the floor, and she ran towards it, finding the enforcer unconscious. She crouched down and laid her dominator on the floor, shining the flashlight on the body in front of her to check for a pulse. Several messy strands of her brown hair fell across her blue jacket, and her silver eyes drifted from the bleeding arm of the enforcer, to the new hologram on her wrist.
"This is Inspector Takahashi Yashiro, can anyone hear me?" her composed voice broke the silence, echoing throughout the room.
"Loud and clear," Aoyanagi Risa responded after a pause. "What is your status?"
"Enforcer down. He has a real deep laceration to his forearm… with arterial bleeding. I require immediate medical assistance!"
The other members of her division were checking her position, for they had already detected that her dominator had found a target for enforcement action, which could be seen through their wristcoms.
"We are heading over there to assist you right away," Aoyanagi assured in an authoritative voice.
A gunshot rumbled in the distance, followed by a woman's scream, and Yashiro looked directly at the door. She clicked her tongue and jumped to her feet, her dominator at the ready and flashlight off, to run for the exit. There was a group of men at the end of the corridor staring back at her, and as she raised her dominator, one man shouted something in Chinese and fired in her direction with a revolver, forcing her to duck for cover, then ran down the stairs with the others.
"Help!" a woman shouted.
Leaning her left hand on the wall, Yashiro gulped and stood up to cover herself with its surface. She felt her heart beating fast and her right hand gripping the dominator tightly, which she pulled away to raise her hands in front of her. She heard the group running and the Chinese man shouting something halfway up the stairs. Her hands were relaxed, as the man slowly moved up. Suddenly he pointed the gun forward, but Yashiro slipped out of his range of vision, grabbing his wrist and arm to pull him into the corridor.
In one swift movement, using his own strength, Yashiro swung his arm and pressed his finger three times, to make him shoot himself in the neck. His whole body shivered at that moment as well as hers, and she grimaced as droplets hit her face. He fell to the floor and Yashiro staggered backwards. Panting, she finally went down the stairs and jumped the last two steps. The group was near the end of the corridor with a hostage, and she chased after them as fast as she could, pulling the dominator out and lifting it forward.
Everything became a blur as a tall young man stepped between the group and her, grabbing her wrist and punching her in the arm, to pull the dominator away. Yashiro gasped and stumbled backwards. She looked at the gun in the middle of the corridor, then at the brown-haired man smirking at her. He instantly pulled a short knife from the back of his black pants, and Yashiro brought her hands forward, close to her waist. His eyes strayed to something behind her.
A black-haired man approached from the adjacent corridor, with a weapon consisting of a short length of chain with a weight attached to each end. Yashiro could not catch a glimpse of him in all that darkness. He started spinning the chain with his hand, and as he raised his arm to whip her, someone stepped behind him and grabbed his forearm tightly. The man looked back, then released his grip and tried to elbow him in the face, but he ducked and stepped back.
The man whipped forward, yet he slid to the side and then to Yashiro, stepping between her and the man, who kept spinning the chain in front of him, feet apart and body slightly bent. Yashiro glanced over her shoulder, only to find Makishima Shougo doing the same. His eyes were narrowed at her, and there was a cocky smile on his face. When Yashiro looked forward again, he focused on the man in front of him, as if mirroring her. He was so quiet that Yashiro could barely hear the sound of the chain spinning fast. Makishima began to walk to the side, staring at his opponent.
"What the hell are you doing? She's from the PSB!" the man with the chain yelled at him, backing down the corridor perpendicular to hers.
Makishima moved forward calmly, removing his white trench coat as the other man slowly backed away. Standing with his arms on either side of his body, he waited for him to whip forward again. When he did, Makishima slid to the side and covered his head with the trench coat, delivering a fist blow to his head, and then a kick that knocked him backward. The man pulled the trench coat off his face with a grunt, and tossed it aside spinning his chain again.
When the other one lunged forward, Yashiro swiftly dodged him a couple of times, until she managed to catch his wrist, then elbowed him in the neck and grabbed it to swing him around. The man released a deep growl when Yashiro let go of him, and stumbled backwards as she hit him in the face. He shook his head and spat blood, pausing for a moment with the knife in his shaking hand. Yashiro looked at him with the same calm, almost oblivious expression, her hands inviting him to attack.
Makishima was then performing a graceful, swift turning kick that broke the man's nose and made him groan in pain, sending him reeling. As he started moving the chain back and forth again, ready to kill, Makishima ran and jumped on him first, driving his knee into his chest and slamming him against the wall. Grabbing his neck with both hands, Makishima bashed his head against the wall, and jumped again to elbow him in the shoulder.
When the man slumped to the floor, Makishima kneed him in the bleeding face and stepped back to stare at him. He did not even try to use his chain, for he spat blood and touched his broken mouth. His entire body was shaking and all he could see as he looked up, was a roundhouse kick that sent him to the floor. Gasping and watching the almost motionless body, Makishima slowly stood up and reached for his trench coat in the darkness.
The man staggered to his feet, this time without the chain, which made him turn around as he put his trench coat back on. As he approached him to strike, Makishima grabbed his wrist and twisted it with his forearm. He cried out in pain and let go of his grip. When he tried to hit Makishima, the latter shielded himself with his forearm and elbowed him in the neck, grabbing his head with both hands and spinning him around, but did not let go for a moment as he groaned, like swinging him between life and death, until he finally broke his neck. Makishima turned around, watching the body collapse.
The brown-haired man rushed at her again, but Yashiro slid into the wall, dodging his knife, and kicked him in the side of the abdomen, that slammed him into the wooden stair railing. The next time he tried to cut her, she gave him a roundhouse kick that broke his nose, and threw him to the floor with a groan of pain. Panting, hands outstretched, she looked down at the man on the floor. His eyes were closed and he was touching his bloody face. He managed to get up despite the dizziness and pain, and took a slow step towards her raising his knife. Yashiro stopped him with her forearm and kicked forward. The man rolled down the stairs, until he hit his head and neck against the wall.
Yashiro stood there, staring at the body. Footsteps echoed in the corridor, and she slowly turned around. Makishima stopped two meters away, with his hands in the pockets of his trench coat. There was a calm, peaceful expression on his face, and he gently lowered his head, narrowing his eyes at her. His upper lip was slightly raised in a smile that could not quite come out. Yashiro was looking at him with her eyes and mouth completely relaxed, an expression that made her face both graceful and cold at the same time. The dominator was still on the floor in front of them, but at that moment they were only focused on each other.
"The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom," she stated in a soft, measured voice. "John Locke."
Yashiro walked towards him, getting closer, until she stopped in front of him and looked up. Her eyebrows were slightly furrowed and her eyes seemed to stare right through him. A short deep laugh escaped his mouth, as he slowly shook his head.
"You still seek admittance. You keep striving to attain the Law like three years ago, when you know it can neither protect nor judge. What is the value of a law that does not maintain justice?" his voice was much deeper and gentler than hers, and a smile lighted up his handsome features. "Frédéric Bastiat said that when law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law."
"I value and measure the law myself. Since you can't accept a system that inhibits free will… you would destroy the fake order of this moral society. Rather than seeking the integrity of man, you just want to overthrow the very system that never acknowledged your thoughts, your feelings, or your existence. You're the one who hasn't changed a bit."
Recognition was drawn on his face as his golden eyes slowly widened, and his smile faded away.
"Inspector!" they heard a male voice calling her in the distance.
Another enforcer was coming down the stairs, and was running towards them from the perpendicular corridor, unable to see them yet. Yashiro did not take her eyes off the man in front of her, until she finally picked up her dominator from the floor, and turned around to rush to the stairs in front of them, the same one the group had used before, letting Makishima Shougo escape.
"We have a hostage situation!" she reported aloud, running down the stairs followed by the enforcer.