"You betrayed your own division. You chose to follow your dark impulses over us. Over your job. Over the law. I am angry and disappointed. But most of all, I am worried that for blurring the line this way so often, it may be especially hard for you to see."
Yashiro did not say a single word. Aoyanagi's voice was a little deeper than usual. They were completely alone in their office, and her senior was looking at her with narrowed eyes. She had her hands on her hips in a reprimanding posture, but finally, after a minute, she sighed and closed her eyes. Then, they left the office. That afternoon, Kasei Joushuu read each inspector's report herself. She strictly reprimanded Yashiro for using a vehicle without Aoyanagi's consent, for causing an accident, and for going after a serial killer without waiting for reinforcements. Yashiro was warned that she had to learn how to rely on her colleagues, so from then on, she would have to bring at least one enforcer with her when investigating a crime scene, and she would always have to consult Aoyanagi before making a decision.
"You are dismissed," Kasei stated with cold detachment from behind the desk. Both inspectors turned to leave, but again the voice echoed in the room, "Not you, Inspector Takahashi."
Yashiro stopped short and closed her eyes for a moment. As soon as Aoyanagi walked through the door, she took a deep breath mentally preparing herself. Seconds ticked by, as did her patience. She turned around and decided to walk forward. However, Kasei's piercing gaze stopped her when she was near the desk. Yashiro herself was unable to move any further.
"Inspector Aoyanagi must have warned you, but I will refresh your memory nonetheless. As inspectors, your job is in high demand in this society, and it requires you to constantly balance on a fine line that separates your future from failure. Your job also consists of drawing that line in your mind, coloring it with the consequences of diving too deeply into crime. Have you stopped to think that your stress levels could have gotten so high... that you could have jeopardized your hue? Do you ever think about your psycho pass, Inspector Takahashi?"
Yashiro opened her mouth to involuntarily raise her voice, but only then did she remain silent, and pursed her lips.
"I do," she continued in a soft, measured voice. "But I had to stop that man, so I acted accordingly."
"Reports show the opposite—that you were unable to pull the trigger."
Yashiro blinked and looked away for a moment. A name popped into her mind—Kougami Shinya.
"I was told that is the job of an enforcer, not an inspector."
"And yet you did not authorize an enforcer under your supervision to act."
"I was buying time until reinforcements arrived. Besides, we still needed him to find accomplices," Yashiro responded with ease.
"You were willing to use lethal force against someone who did not commit a crime nonetheless," Kasei's voice echoed throughout the room, dangerously.
"She was not innocent," Yashiro squinted for a second. "And the Sibyl System approved the use of violence."
"Not at first, but you were patient. Did you expect her crime coefficient to rise?"
Yashiro knew that a database was supposed to store the data collected by dominators, but it struck her that a person like Kasei Joushuu had access to it. And she wondered what else she would have access to.
"It was an extremely stressful situation and she felt guilty about the crimes committed by her son. I think it was quite reasonable for her to break down under such pressure."
Yashiro took a step to one side of the room, putting her hands in the pockets of her black pants. She stood with her back completely straight, not looking her in the eye. She was still dressed in a black suit, without her coat, minding her speeches and mannerisms inside that room. Kasei looked her up and down for a second.
"It does not change the fact that you were driven by the intent to kill," she squinted under the yellow corrective lenses, with a few gray strands over them.
"Inspectors and enforcers have legal authorization," Yashiro lowered her head a bit. "Dominators are considered Sibyl's eyes, and at that moment, mine labeled her as an individual to be eliminated."
Leaning her elbows on the desk, Kasei clenched her hands in front of her chin.
"You were moved by a moral authorization of your own."
"Which happened to agree with Sibyl's own convictions of justice," Yashiro responded instantly, with a tired tone, and looked up at one of the columns.
"Then why are you hiding behind the Sibyl System?"
"I am not—hiding," Yashiro blurted out, and took a few steps to the other side of the room. "Maybe I wanted to feel what it was like to pull the trigger—to feel responsible for a death. But she was a latent criminal, not a serious threat to society."
"Then you were lucky Inspector Tsunemori was there," Kasei tilted her head and smiled with narrowed eyes, making Yashiro stop in front of the desk. "Do you know the problem with crossing mental borderlines? That you may never find your own again."
"I know who I am."
"A victim to your own mind. When you cannot stop thinking, you overthink. It must be very lonely up there in your thoughts. You thus must prevent yourself from becoming your own worst enemy."
Yashiro frowned and curled her lip, looking her straight in the eyes slowly, cautiously, as if it were their first time meeting each other, "Who are you… psychoanalyzing?"
Kasei broadened her smirk for a moment, until her expression became solemn and strict again. She leaned back and closed her eyes, swiveling the chair to one side and resting a forearm on the desk.
"I am sorry, inspector. Observing is all I do. You are a profiler—but the only one you cannot profile is yourself."
"Please don't psychoanalyze me," Yashiro warned in a louder voice than she had intended, widening her eyes and shaking her head. "My thoughts are often—nasty."
"Mine too," Kasei looked at her out of the corner of her eye. "You may leave now, Inspector Takahashi."
The sky was already quite dark, but the city was beautifully illuminated. With a right foot more forward than the other, and an empty clean glass in a hand, Yashiro faced the wide window of the break room, which was set aside for employees and almost empty at the moment. There were many tables and chairs around, and a small white drone circled the room making a sound similar to that of a fan. She watched the colors with strange detachment and sighed. Distant footsteps made her arch an eyebrow.
When Yashiro spotted a short brown-haired woman making her way to a table, her eyes slowly widened and she blinked a couple of times. Her feet were quicker than her mind, and after a minute she found herself walking towards the woman who had not noticed her, and who was sitting alone at one of the tables in front of the window. She stopped next to her table keeping some distance, not at all aware that a smile lit up her entire face.
"Inspector Tsunemori, aren't you?" Yashiro guessed, tilting her head to one side as if she could not see her well.
The young woman looked up with her mouth half open. She was sitting with her back leaning forward, her left hand next to her plate full of pasta and the other holding the chopsticks.
"Eh? Uh, yes, Ts-Tsunemori Akane. I was recently assigned to Division 1," she replied in a lower, more hesitant tone, shy compared to what she remembered.
"Good. Then, Tsunemori Akane… would you mind if I join you?" Yashiro asked with graceful ease.
"Not at all. You are... Inspector Takahashi, right?"
Yashiro broadened her smile for a second and sat across from her in a more casual, relaxed position. She looked her up and down and pulled a small bottle out of her black coat, settling her small glass down on the table and crossing one leg over the other, as if they had known each other all along.
"Yes, Takahashi Yashiro."
Tsunemori watched her pour the whisky into the glass, and blinked as she put the bottle back into an inside pocket of her coat.
"I've never seen you at this hour before. Aren't you off duty?"
"I can leave a little later for a conversation," Yashiro shrugged her shoulders. "I hope I am not interrupting your dinner."
"Uh, no, you're not," she made a quick gesture of denial with her hands.
Tsunemori then swallowed the noodles with a funny sound, while the other took a sip of the drink.
"Ikeda Sara," Yashiro narrowed her eyes, making her look up all of a sudden like a scolded child. "I heard she threw herself from the window of the hospital room where she had been transferred."
"W-what?! That can't be true. Why would she do something like that?"
"I think it's quite simple—mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things. The choice to let her live was worse than killing her. She couldn't bear moving on with all the guilt after her son, Endo Seiji… murdered many people using her name as a flag."
"You knew this was a possibility," Tsunemori muttered, looking down at her pasta. "That she would commit suicide."
"I was just curious about her," she shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.
Tsunemori widened her eyes and raised her voice, "You almost killed her."
Yashiro let out a short, soft laugh. It was a cold, distant sound, though her eyes narrowed with genuine warmth as she studied her growingly confused features.
"I won't deny my personal desire to elevate her crime coefficient, so she would become a target for enforcement action. You were trying to do the opposite. But in the end, I didn't shoot her. I changed my mind."
"Why?" Tsunemori's voice echoed in the room with a grimace of horror.
"Because I thought death would be too easy an escape. And I didn't want her to cheat the system. I wanted her to be punished for abusing her own child," Yashiro confessed in a louder voice that made the other lean back slightly.
"How can you… talk about whether someone deserves to live or die? Are you saying that you decide their value and judge them?" Tsunemori frowned, clenching her fists on either side of her plate.
"What are values to you? I choose friends based on them. And I have great respect for those who hold their own. Don't you think one of the fundamental problems in this city... is that people lack solid principles? They ask Sibyl what their own beliefs and feelings are, without reflecting on it for themselves. How can I value and measure someone who doesn't even value himself as an individual? Moreover, does he have any value left?"
"Of course he does!" Tsunemori raised her voice without reaching a shout. "People can still find happiness and meaning in their lives at any time. How can you consider one life more important than another?"
"Not all people are worth the same. The love you may feel for your parents you don't feel for other people's parents. The secrets you share with your close friends, you wouldn't share with someone you've just met. And you certainly wouldn't marry everyone. These are—and have to be—selfish acts, because you choose one individual above all others," Yashiro spoke with complete ease, raising the palm of her hand. "You consider that person to be more important than others. We all constantly judge and value what surrounds us. In a world where everyone is doomed to be equal, human relationships would eventually lose their value."
"That's not the equality I'm talking about!" Tsunemori shook her head.
"You mean equality before the law," Yashiro looked down with a thin smile for a moment. "The only equality I would accept in a society. When you pointed that dominator at me, you came to that decision yourself because you thought Ikeda Sara deserved to live. You judged her life... as well as mine."
"I was going to pull the trigger," she pursed her lips in disappointment. "When I realized the gun wouldn't work. Was my decision right, justified?"
Yashiro slowly curved her lips. It was a genuine smile, and her silver eyes instantly narrowed in the process.
"It doesn't matter what I think. You did what you thought was right. You didn't have the means, but the intent. Nothing else matters. Right then and there, you came to the decision to shoot yourself, mulled it over and finally accepted it, rather than letting Sibyl decide it for you. I am glad Division 1 has an inspector like you. And I am sure you will get along well with the others. Especially… Kougami."
"T-thank you, Takahashi-san. May I ask you one last question? And I need you to give me an honest answer."
"Go ahead," Yashiro nodded, and her face slowly hardened with polite calm.
"Were you going to let that man kill his mother?"
Yashiro blinked and frowned for a moment, then turned back to the window and placed both hands on her thigh. There was a dreamy look and an enigmatic smile all over her face.
"Yes."
Tsunemori widened her eyes and put the chopsticks down on the table.
"You are wrong about… condoning justice by one's own hand," she replied with a frown and pursed her lips.
"Ah, revenge… over so quickly. I don't approve of it, but I understand when people are driven by the intent to kill," the words escaped Yashiro's mouth as she shrugged her shoulders.
"You accept it! You say you are against murder out of revenge, but you don't prevent people from becoming killers."
"I didn't force them to commit a crime," Yashiro lifted her chin a bit, and squinted for a second. "I have no moral responsibility for their ultimate deaths."
"Yes, you would! You had the opportunity to save their lives and chose to do nothing. You would be killing them by omission, because you had a duty to act, and chose not to when required to do so by law. You would be morally responsible."
Yashiro smiled without looking at her, indifferent to those accusing and furious brown eyes.
"I see—you are one of those who try to do the moral thing all the time."
"Is that wrong?" Tsunemori raised a perfect eyebrow.
"Depends on who you ask. I find people like that boring—though in your case it's quite intriguing."
"Why?"
Yashiro was still gazing at the sky and the tall buildings of the city. Tsunemori relaxed the features of her face and watched the other inspector more closely than before, sitting there so calm, aware of the world and the people living in it, but at the same time strangely detached from them. Tsunemori lowered her gaze, and observed that barely visible smile on her face.
"Because of how passionate you are. People live in a moral way because it is the custom, the right thing to do, not because they freely choose to. Most would simply want to be honest, virtuous citizens to avoid being locked in a cell or ending up dead. But if Sibyl were gone, or they somehow managed to cheat the system… you would surely see them killing, stealing and looting from each other. You instead… are a very self-aware person who loves the moral life back."
Tsunemori blinked a couple of times with her mouth slightly open. Then Yashiro turned to her with a gentle and kind expression that lingered for a whole minute, though her voice had sounded rather solemn and almost cruel. It was only when she finished her drink and stood up with the glass, that her face suddenly darkened and she stared down at her with narrowed eyes, ready to leave.
"And that's why you couldn't be more different than me. I am so used to crossing the line between what is moral and what is not, sometimes I no longer see any."
