The profile of Touma Kouzaburou, an individual who had been taken into custody without having his crime coefficient measured, appeared on the screen. Division 2, which captured the culprit in the specimen case, was issued a gag order. Yashiro's lips twitched slightly and her eyes narrowed. He was dressed like the last day she saw him—brown vest, light red dress shirt and black tie. He looked very relaxed and satisfied, something that did not match his real demeanor. Yashiro read the report again and closed it. Her gaze drifted to the keyboard on her desk.

"I always convinced myself that what I was doing was right, and I still want to believe in the effectiveness of the system, but that guy, Touma Kouzaburou… will continue to kill as long as he is free. And if the Sibyl System cannot stop him… there is no choice but to go back to the old ways. Unfortunately for him… prisons ceased to exist long ago."

Yashiro raised an eyebrow for a second as a familiar face came to mind. It was Sasayama Mitsuru. She was sure he had pointed his dominator at Touma, realizing that he could not be judged, and since the crime coefficients were stored, the report in front of her could only mean that it was tampered with.

"And who are these judges going to be, Yashiro? Don't you find it strange that they want to capture him alive? Since when does the chief throw out such an order? No, it seems twice as strange to me: you will call me paranoid, but my sense of smell tells me that, if I give them Touma Kouzaburou, I will never see him again. It is like you say: that guy can turn this society upside down and throw away the principles that shape it… there are people who are going to be harmed, and it won't do them any good if chaos reigns on every corner…"

Then Yashiro recalled that Kasei Joushuu, head of the Public Safety Bureau, transferred the case to Aoyanagi's division and issued an arrest warrant herself. Another profile popped up on her screen with a minimalist transition. Yashiro read it with an indifferent look. Her crime coefficient was standard, neither too low nor too high. Kasei Joushuu seemed like an ordinary person.

"Not at first, but you were patient. Did you expect her crime coefficient to rise?" Kasei's voice echoed in her mind.

Yashiro frowned. Kasei was not only the one who decided what to do with people who could not be judged, but she also had access to the Sibyl System itself, or at least a part of it, being able to see the crime coefficients measured by the dominators. Suddenly she heard footsteps, it was Inspector Aoyanagi entering the office. Yashiro raised her head smiling at her and stretched out on the seat, while the fingers of her left hand danced on the keyboard. When her senior walked towards her and stopped beside her, she shot a glance at her screen. However, the windows that had been open until then, were gone. Aoyanagi smiled back.

"Abe Asuka is here. She says she knows something about the man we are looking for," she informed.


"Ten years ago, I was in my last year of law studies at the university when I met a guy in the common room," Abe Asuka explained.

Division 2 was gathered around a young woman, no more than 35 years old, who had been offered a cup of coffee. She was sitting with legs together and one hand on her thigh, dressed in a white blouse and dark blue pants. Her long brown hair hung wavy behind the chair, a rich color that matched that of her eyes, which were completely relaxed. Yashiro was not surprised when Kozuki and Daiki stared at her dumbfounded for a moment.

"He was a student too?" Aoyanagi asked.

"I think so," her voice was soft, and much gentler. "He always had a bunch of old books. I never knew where he got them from."

"And how old was he, would you say?"

"24, 25. We spent a couple of nights together," she shrugged her shoulders, and looked down for a moment with narrowed eyes. "Until a strange thing happened. We'd been drinking. Maybe too much," she started fiddling with a bracelet on her hand. "I woke up to find his hands holding a gun."

"Did he try to kill you?" Katashi tried to guess.

"No," she slightly raised her voice with a frown. "He told me I shouldn't worry about my hue. My father had recently died in a car accident, but the culprit was still at large. He never stopped his car to call an ambulance, he just continued on his way," she gulped and looked away. "I didn't work out what he meant until a week later."

"What happened?" Aoyanagi tilted her head.

"He was found dead in the same way as my father."

For a moment, all they heard in the room was the soft, soothing sound of the fan spinning on the ceiling.

"Did you meet with him again?"

Asuka stared at her bracelet, until she finally nodded, "Just once."

"Did he offer any kind of explanation?"

"He said he wanted to feel like…" her voice trailed off as she slowly shook her head. "The Sibyl System."

Yashiro's eyes widened a bit, and she finally turned her head towards the woman. She was the only one standing with her hands in her coat pockets, a little away from them.

"And you haven't seen him since?" Aoyanagi continued.

"No."

"Even glimpsed him around town?"

"No."

"And you know of him as Agawa? Anything else?"

"I know it sounds crazy—being in bed with a guy when you know nothing about him, just his last name," Asuka spoke in a slightly lower voice, looking Aoyanagi in the eyes. "I learnt my lesson."


"She is telling the truth," Karanomori stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray on the desk. "Her father's murderer died in a car accident."

Division 2 was by then gathered in the Comprehensive Analysis Laboratory.

"And the cause?" Aoyanagi asked, crossing her arms.

"Alcohol-impaired driving crash."

"How convenient," Daiki remarked from the couch.

"And since the scans had reported that he had an above-average psycho pass, no one gave the matter any more importance," Karanomori swiveled in her chair to look at them.

"Now we know he may have started his killing spree in his last year of university. What worries me is that he may have killed more times than we think—they just went unreported."

Footsteps echoed in the room, as Yashiro walked towards the other inspector, her eyes fixed solely on the screens. A strange, barely visible smile appeared on her face, which lingered for a moment, just long enough for Aoyanagi to see it.

"I find in his murders and in the way of exposing the bodies a certain similarity to the tortures that were carried out in the Middle Ages," she commented, receiving puzzled looks along the way. "He is punishing these people. They are sinners to him. He must have read old books about torture, Dante Alighieri…"

"Maybe we can find him based on that," Karanomori suggested, starting to type.

"What do you mean?" Kozuki furrowed his eyebrows.

"For years, the PSB has been hooking into the library system keeping records, monitoring the reading habits of the population. Certain books are flagged. Books about… let's say, nuclear weapons, illicit drugs, and so on. Anybody who checks out a flagged book has their library records in the PSB computers with them."

"Is that legal?" Kozuki's mouth dropped open as he stared at the screens.

"That term doesn't apply," Aoyanagi rolled her eyes and shook her head.

Yashiro suggested some names to the analyst, who used them to filter a database, and they all looked up as soon as a couple of faces popped up on the screen. There was a familiar one among them, whom they looked at in the office. Yashiro did not seem to notice, or care, about being the center of attention. She was on the list as well.

"Our killer must have a high crime coefficient, but may be under the influence of suppressants and have another identity," Aoyanagi continued slowly, hesitantly, without taking her eyes off the other inspector.

All of them looked like ordinary people to Yashiro, who read their profiles with dull eyes.

"They look fine to me," Daiki shrugged and waved his hand. "But these records may be outdated."

"All right, let's split up," Aoyanagi turned around, making Yashiro glance at Daiki. "Kozuki-san, go with Inspector Takahashi. Concentrate on the last two. We will check the other three."

Aoyanagi raised an eyebrow and glanced at the new inspector out of the corner of her eye as she sighed, turning around and heading for the exit. As standard procedure, Yashiro would be investigated as a suspect, but no one doubted her healthy, outstanding psycho pass.


Kozuki Ryogo had a strange habit of sitting with the dominator on his thigh, while holding it with one hand. Sometimes he would stare at it, his eyes glowing light blue. Leaning forward in the seat to look out the window, he broke the dull silence of the police car, "Shiro-san, you were supposed to turn left. Where are we going?"

They got into some narrow streets that Yashiro had to drive through manually, as people walked in the middle and would not let them pass. Kozuki looked around wide-eyed, he had no idea where they were while Yashiro was driving calmly, dodging every person and every restaurant or bar table as if she had known them all her life. The car they were using was completely black, with no police lights activated.

"The records Shion checked are from regulated bookstores and libraries. But a criminal wouldn't have a chance of getting into one of those in the first place. The man we're looking for must have gone to others where there are no scanners, and certainly not… a system that tracks reading habits."

"You don't agree using it."

"The question of whether or not the violence seen in books contributes to real-life crimes falls outside the state's sphere of action. But outlawing violent books because they might one day induce someone to commit a crime implies a denial of free will, and an absolute violation of the right of those who will not commit crimes by reading them."

Yashiro finally parked the car and they walked across a high street that was crowded with people, and there were many stores around. Kozuki had put his dominator away.

"Why are they looking at me like that?" he muttered, tilting his head towards her. "It freaks me out."

"Because you look like an enforcer."

Kozuki followed her to a fast-food restaurant. There was only one man eating breakfast by the window, and the place was narrow, large at the end.

"Two coffees, please," Yashiro asked with ease, then leaned forward. "I am looking for Miura-sensei."

"I told you not to call me that. I haven't taught for years," a quiet male voice spoke.

A small man entered the restaurant wearing a brown hat and a long coat over a blue sweater. Both his hair and mustache were gray, and his dark eyes were almost closed giving him a friendly, peaceful expression, though he was not even smiling. Inspector and enforcer turned around, but it was Yashiro who smiled as he motioned with his right hand for them to sit at a table, sitting down across from them and removing his hat.

"We're looking for a man we think to be one of your clients," Yashiro was the first to speak.

"Are you here as an inspector, or as yourself?" he cut her off. "Because I will only talk to one of them."

Kozuki frowned. He was about to say something, but Yashiro was quicker, "I'm not supposed to be here as an inspector. I wouldn't come if I could figure this out on my own, but I can't."

"You know I take great care of my clients and do not disclose information."

"You must have something—an address."

"I don't."

"Please, help me find this man," Yashiro leaned forward in her chair, looking at his hat. "Trust me, you don't want him shopping around here."

Kozuki watched as the man's features grew dark all of a sudden.

"The PSB must be desperate to find this man if you have to come here," he pointed his hat at them.

Yashiro pulled out a sheet of paper and handed it to him, "I think he bought and read these books."

The man she called Miura took the paper very gently, his hands slightly wrinkled with age. His brown eyes, barely open, stared at what she had written as if he wanted to burn it.

"I see," he nodded. "About half an hour."

Saying this, Miura got up, put his hat back on, and walked away towards the kitchen.

"Tell me this is money well spent," Kozuki rested his cheek on his fist, leaning an elbow on the table.

Yashiro slid over to the bench opposite, right where Miura had been.

"If you want to know who's reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra and any other book, his computer will tell us. It might give us a name. He is a major book distributor."

"Really? I thought he was a drug dealer. How do you know this?"

"I don't," Yashiro responded sharply, suddenly looking him in the eye. "And neither do you."

"Right," Kozuki rolled his eyes and turned his head to the side.

After a couple of minutes, the young man serving customers at the counter approached with the two coffees Yashiro had ordered, and she paid him in cash on the spot. The smell of the drinks was so intense that Kozuki's eyes opened wide.

"This is real coffee!"

Yashiro lifted the white cup slowly and took a sip. When she set it back down on the table, she blinked a couple of times and looked at him more carefully, "I thought Aoyanagi would like to go with you."

"Why is that?" he shook his head.

"It's obvious there's something between you and her."

"No—well, it's complicated," Kozuki opened his eyes wider for a moment and ran his fingers through his hair.

"I never would've thought. After all, she has a strong sense of justice, a desire to protect civilians from criminals… by any means necessary. She firmly believes in the Sibyl System and its judgement… something you certainly don't."

Her voice was lower, softer, but strangely cold. Kozuki's face became serious as he sipped his hot coffee. He did not understand how a person could be so many things at the same time. Yashiro was like an embracing sun and a cold winter afternoon all at once.

"There was something odd about the Specimen Case. Those murders… how could someone evade the law after committing them? The more I thought about it, the worse my hue got. And I don't want the same thing to happen to her. I don't want to jeopardize her hue."

"How can we be in an honest relationship when you keep things from me?" a male voice echoed in her head.

"I don't want to cloud your hue," was Yashiro's response.

Yashiro blinked a couple of times and looked down, staring blankly into her cup.

"I understand," she nodded."But denying or repressing your feelings will eventually cloud your hue and hers."

"Then she'd better start forgetting about me."

Kozuki was sitting with his forearms crossed on the table, and when he set the cup down on it, he stared at the remaining drink with his eyes narrowed and dull. They were silent even after a few minutes, when Miura returned with a piece of paper and handed it to Yashiro.

"He buys a significant number of books every month. But he never hangs around. He always arrives knowing what he knows. Name's Sato," he informed.

Kozuki raised an eyebrow. He had just taken the last sip of his coffee.

"Do you have an address?" Yashiro asked with ease, tucking the paper into her coat pocket.

"It's there. He doesn't always come, and pays for delivery. I got him watched for a while."

"I really appreciate your help," she smiled briefly and stood up. "I owe you one. After all, there is no such thing as a free lunch."

The man's face lit up completely, making him look younger than he really was.

"I'm glad that even though you weren't my student you still remember my lessons."

"Maybe someday… you will teach economics again," her eyes slowly narrowed, and her features turned dark.


Kozuki and Yashiro arrived at a huge apartment complex and asked for the man's room by showing their ID. Then they went upstairs.

"I'm dying to know what you expect to say—excuse me sir, are you a serial killer?" Kozuki asked, waving his right hand. "What should we call him, by the way? Agawa-san or Sato-san?"

"Kozuki-san," Yashiro muttered.

He stopped when he realized that Yashiro had done it first. She had her eyes on a man coming out of a room at the end of the corridor, like a predator watching its prey. Kozuki looked straight ahead, and saw the tall figure staring back at them. He had just come out of his room. The place was quite dark and they could not see his face, though his hair was black. He wore a long open gray coat with a black dress shirt underneath tucked into his dark pants, and a blue striped tie. Slowly, he walked towards them, his black derby shoes echoing down the corridor. He brought his right hand to his chest, lowering his head and reaching for something in his coat.

Suddenly the man pulled out a pistol and shot them a couple of times with cold precision, forcing them to fall to the floor. His aim was accurate and the bullets passed through where their heads had been, smashing the windows behind them. The sound left them both stunned for several seconds, sprawled on the floor, but it was hurried footsteps that brought Yashiro back to her feet, staggering forward with her dominator in her right hand.

"You okay?!" Kozuki asked in a shout, lying on his side with his head against the wall.

Swaying, he stood up and drew his dominator. His eyes glowed light blue as a mechanized female voice echoed in his head, authenticating him to validate that he was an authorized user. Yashiro darted down the corridor where the man had turned, and came to hear Kozuki call for reinforcements.

"We have a situation," he spoke with bated breath. "The suspect is armed…"

"He's going down from the other corridor!"

Yashiro approached the wooden railing and pointed down with her dominator. She went down a few steps, but then a silhouette loomed next to the wall of the corridor below, and two shots ruffled her skin, forcing her to duck and cover her face with one arm, as the window behind her shattered and glass fell on her head.

"Sixth floor!" Yashiro warned, coming down the stairs with her dominator raised.

A man opened the door to his apartment and looked at the enforcer with frightened eyes.

"I'm an enforcer from the PSB. Is there a back way out?" Kozuki asked him almost in a shout, his heart pounding.

The man pointed him in the direction and Kozuki ran off down the corridor, "Lock the door!"

Yashiro turned right, pointing her dominator at some people gathered in the corridor, who had come out of their apartments because of the gunshots, and were a target for enforcement action.

"Get out of the way!" she yelled with a grimace on her lips, lowering the gun.

Suddenly she heard a door slam open, and she ran in its direction grabbing the gun with both hands, and pointing it downward in a safe position, a habit that other inspectors and enforcers did not have. When she reached the apartment she heard glass shatter, and paused for a second by the door, then stepped inside with the gun pointed forward and her head tilted slightly to one side. A woman grabbed her son by the shoulders placing him behind her, and pointed to one of the rooms. Yashiro ran towards it and slowly looked out the window.

Another burst of gunfire drew her back among broken glass, it was a brief second in which she could see the man standing by the wall, as if he had been waiting for her, with the gun pointed at the window. Then she stood up again and aimed outside, but the man was quite far away, running across the rooftops. Yashiro left the apartment and continued down the corridor, until she rounded a corner and found a window leading outside, which joined the roof where she had seen the man. Jumping onto the steel surface, she almost slipped and dropped the gun. A flock of pigeons flew in fright, and she staggered forward.

For a moment she stopped and looked around, until she saw the man several meters ahead, jumping onto the narrow wall of a roof and then onto the ground. Yashiro followed him across the roof, leaping over a wall by grabbing onto it with her hands and pulling herself up, then dropping down and continuing to run. Her heart stopped when she saw him jumping towards the other building, separated by a distance of two meters, and continued jumping over a wall and over some black wires.

Yashiro reached the building and ran over a small wall to jump onto another rooftop, grabbing the edge with her hands. The man was further ahead, covering a distance of another two meters from rooftop to rooftop and running along the edge of the building, slipping over the small wall that prevented him from approaching the border and jumping over other small rooftops. Yashiro reached the terrace of an apartment, where a couple of freshly washed garments were hanging dying in the sun, and jumped over a wall clinging to the edge.

Yashiro recognized the long gray coat on a rooftop, but when he jumped down, she could not see him again. She tried to pick up her pace until she finally reached where he had been, but the rooftop was empty. She looked around, catching her breath with her hands on her knees, until on the ground she saw an open square hatch next to a small wall. Yashiro grabbed hold of the ladder and let herself down, for it was not very high. She heard a door burst open in the distance, and ran down the corridors, she had no idea where she was.

Turning to the right, she came across an escalator where a few people were going up and down, distracted by their cell phones. Her gaze drifted down, where she saw the man slipping between the empty space of both stairs and reaching the floor with ease, disappearing from her sigh as he turned into a hallway. Yashiro followed suit and slid down the same place, causing a woman to scream in surprise, almost slipping as she reached the bottom. She was in a shopping mall and could see the street ahead.

There were so many people coming and going, that she could not see the man. Only at one point did she hear a woman shouting and insulting someone, and when some people turned away, she saw her lying on the ground, her purse dropped and her young daughter crying loudly. She pointed forward and Yashiro headed in that direction with the dominator in one hand, ignoring the group of people who stopped around her.

A car suddenly slammed on the brakes and another honked at her, as she raced across the street, avoiding traffic and people. She slowly slackened her pace as she reached the alley across the street, her chest rising and falling from her heavy breathing. Pushing aside a lock of hair that fell in the middle of her face, she grabbed her dominator with both hands and pointed forward. There was a closed dumpster and some vertical holographic signs flickering. Ahead was a staircase, but the place was empty and silent.

Yashiro turned sharply into the next alley, but no one was there. Suddenly, she heard something heavy fall behind her back, and when she wanted to turn around it was too late, for the man who had jumped from a not very high roof, made a perfect turn and hit her in the head with his leg. She did not know when her body hit the ground, as the pain she felt next in her head made her dizzy. She had dropped the dominator from the blow and it was out of her reach, but as she crawled on her forearms and knees, trying to catch it, she stopped and closed her eyes, feeling her vision blur.

"Inspector!" Kozuki's voice approached from another alley.

Yashiro raised herself up on her hands, staying slightly on her knees, when she felt something solid touch her head. Her breathing stopped, though her heart was beating faster than ever. The man held the barrel of his gun to her hair for a moment, until he decided to run off into the adjacent alley, making her breathe again. She heard the echo of his shoes on the stairs, but she could no longer chase him. She felt that her body did not belong to her, as it was strangely heavy, and she stayed in the same place with her eyes narrowed. After a minute, someone grabbed her arm and helped her up.

"Are you okay?" Kozuki asked. "Aoyanagi and the others are on the way."

Yashiro nodded and leaned against the wall, feeling her head where the man had hit her. However, she blinked a couple of times and squinted to look at Kozuki, who grimaced and brought his left hand to his shoulder, just below his black suit. There was blood on his white dress shirt.

"We need to get to his room," Yashiro muttered, closing her eyes tightly for a moment.

They left the alley and headed for the building. The rest of Division 2 arrived fifteen minutes later, and they were parking the car in front of the building entrance, when Yashiro and Kozuki were already walking up the stairs.

"Shouldn't we confirm with Aoyanagi-san the fact that we are entering his apartment?" the enforcer asked.

"He shot first. I think that's reason enough to go in. We don't need authorization."

"Yeah, but think about how we got here. She's going to ask questions."

"I wasn't going to answer any," her voice was utterly confident.

They finally reached the door and Yashiro tried to open it, pushing the knob frantically for a few seconds.

"May I?" he approached, and when Yashiro stepped aside, he kicked the door open with a loud creak sound and wince of pain from the wound. "I always wanted to do that."

"Well, unless you can fix the door by the time Aoyanagi-san arrives, there's no need for us to argue anymore."

Kozuki's face darkened as he pulled out his dominator again, holding it in his free hand, and entered the room first. There was a wooden double bed with matching green upholstery with two pillows that had sheets of the same color. Three other smaller pillows were white. There were two bedside tables on either side with lamps off, and a large window in front, where one could sit and look out.

The gray curtains were half open. For decoration, there was a brown and white square rug and a simple flower painting above the bed. The bathroom was small and had the bare essentials. No toothbrushes or personal utensils were found. To one side of the room, there was a wooden desk Kozuki approached, putting his dominator away. Yashiro, for her part, picked up a closed black notebook on the bedside table.

Kozuki slowly, hesitantly, picked up some photographs that lay cluttered on the desk. His eyes widened as he studied them. They had been taken the day they went to Endo Seiji's apartment, as he could see the black car of the Public Safety Bureau and their division.

"We had him. Fucking pedestrian across the street," Kozuki grunted.

However, he put them all down on the wooden surface when he saw one underneath them, which he grabbed more gingerly than the others with a deep, sudden frown.

"Who the hell is this guy?" he commented, more to himself.

It was a man with brown hair and glasses, who seemed to be in his forties. He had never seen him before, and the photo appeared to have been taken when he did not know he was being watched. Then, Kozuki blinked and put it back down on the desk, as another one caught his eye. Yashiro was reading the first page of the notebook, which she was holding with one hand, pacing near the window. When she noticed that Kozuki was looking at a certain photograph, she closed the notebook and turned her head towards him, without moving from her place.

"What is it?" Yashiro asked.

Kozuki shook his head and glanced at the inspector, then back at the photo in his hand.

"Just, uh…"

"What is that picture of?" she raised her voice, walking towards him.

"It's of you."

Yashiro paused for a moment, raising an eyebrow. Then Kozuki handed her the small photograph, which she took in one hand. She was standing in front of Endo Seiji's house, hands in her coat pockets, chin slightly raised. He must have taken that picture when the case was over, just after Yashiro left the house to meet Aoyanagi. She looked up at him, tucking the photograph slowly into her coat pocket.

"Put it back. Now," Kozuki's body flinched at the acidity of the new female voice. "Or I'll be forced to report it as tampering with evidence."

Yashiro closed her eyes for a moment, and turned her head towards the woman storming into the room. Inspector Aoyanagi stopped in front of the bed with narrowed, piercing eyes. The other two enforcers entered after her, their footsteps barely echoing in the room, as if the look they were giving each other automatically drove everyone away. Finally, Yashiro sighed and pulled the photograph out of her pocket, taking a few steps forward to set it down on the desk in one smooth motion.

"You win," she simply replied.

A drone entered the room and when it opened, spider drones came out of it and began inspecting the entire room for evidence. Aoyanagi glided past her and looked at the photographs, watching them for a couple of minutes. Another drone, completely white, was for first aid. Yashiro noticed that there were no books in the entire room. She began to wonder if he would take them somewhere else, like his real apartment or home. It was precisely what she would do so that people would not recognize her.

"You needed help?" Daiki was next to the drone, looking straight at her.

"He does," Yashiro raised her chin towards Kozuki. "Gunshot wound to right shoulder."

Aoyanagi left a photograph on the desk and turned to the enforcer standing by the window. Her shoes began to clack against the floor until she was right in front of him.

"And you didn't tell us a thing?" she took his hand off his shoulder to see the wound, and looked up at him like a mother at her child. "You fool."

Aoyanagi rolled her eyes and shook her head, trying to help him before they could get back to the Public Safety Bureau. As she bent down to pick up a bandage, Kozuki shot a glance at the other inspector, who was reading the notebook with feigned indifference. When she finally looked up at him, she merely smiled and continued reading. The rest of the division studied the place.

"We've got nothing to go on," Katashi observed. "No pay stubs, appointment books, not even fingerprints. Not one."

"He had gloves. Maybe that's how he hides," Kozuki pointed out.

"Takahashi-san," Aoyanagi raised her voice, finally turning around. "I'm taking you off the field, for now."

Katashi suddenly placed a photograph on the desk, Daiki came out of the bathroom, and Kozuki frowned looking at the inspector. Yashiro, however, was still reading the notebook sitting by the window, one leg over the other.

"What?" Katashi blurted out in a deep and genuinely puzzled voice. "With all due respect, inspector—"

"Why?" Daiki asked, shaking his head.

"I think it's quite obvious," she tilted her head, placing one hand on her hip.

"Risa," Kozuki's voice was soft, but a little strict for the first time. "You can't be sure she's a target. We can't just take her off the case like this."

"We are not going to do that," she frowned for a few seconds, her face very serious. "She will just help us from a distance."

"She needs to be here, inspector. For all we know, any of us could be a target. Especially now, that he knows he fucked up and we're onto him," Daiki spread his hands on either side of his body, and shook his head.

"He had a photo of her, as well as that of a male we have not identified yet," Aoyanagi reminded them. "We should consider them as alleged targets."

"You don't trust her," Kozuki shook his head and folded his arms.

Aoyanagi raised an eyebrow and turned her head towards him, without moving from her place. Her sharp gaze met his own, which seemed, at that moment, slightly reprimanding.

"I am doing my best to take care of my partners, keeping them from…" her voice was a little deep, barely measured. She closed her eyes for a moment as it died away. "But you do seem to trust her."

Kozuki was about to retort, but blinked and frowned, staring back at her. Everyone remained silent, as if they felt a tension growing in the air.

"In this dehumanized world, there are no dreams. Only shadows and wandering souls, like empty shells. There is no longer need to cry, nor laugh…" Yashiro read aloud in a calm, distant voice, capturing their attention.

Finally, she closed the notebook with a light thump and remained with her eyes closed, sitting in the chair for a moment, until she looked up.

"Is that a poem?" Katashi raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, but it's not finished yet," Yashiro responded in a lower voice. "I think he wrote it."

"I always wondered if crazies know they're crazy," Kozuki commented, exchanging a glance with Daiki. "Or do they wake up on their own shit and get the idea of going out and killing someone?"

"I know it's easier and more comfortable to label him as insane. But I told you those terms don't make any sense to me. I don't understand your binary world," Yashiro gently shook her head.

"Right," he nodded a couple of times, placing his hands on either side of his hips. "I know that for you he's like a patient, an abused child, someone who deserves understanding and compassion, even. But to me, and to everyone in this room, he's a killer. And our job is to protect potential victims."

"I never said it wasn't. But even the most seemingly outlandish violence, has meaning in the mind of the person who commits it. I need to understand that meaning and learn from it to prevent further violence."

"You need, or want to?" Aoyanagi asked this time.

Yashiro looked at her and let out a thin smile for a second.

"You always focus on the crime scene, the gore, but not on the motivations that drive people to commit crimes," she did not respond to her question.

Katashi slowly shook his head, "No, because it's no longer usual to think…"

"Like a criminal," Daiki finished the sentence, tilting his head with a smile.

Everyone fell silent, eyes fixed on Yashiro.

"Just—don't underestimate the threat, the danger this man poses," Aoyanagi blurted out, closing her eyes for a moment.

Yashiro raised her chin, "I don't."

After a few seconds, she stood up and slipped a hand into her coat pocket. She looked directly at her senior and suggested, "Let me be the bait."

"Absolutely not," Aoyanagi's voice was loud and clear. "You are an inspector. That is the job of enforcers. I shouldn't remind you, but it seems you still struggle to draw the line."

"Right," Yashiro widened her eyes for a second, and looked at the notebook. "Can I take it with me?"

"Yes," she nodded. "After we have analyzed the fingerprints further."

Yashiro lowered her head a bit and put it down on the desk, glancing at the photograph of herself.

"I'll be waiting downstairs, then."

"By the way—how did you know he was here?" Aoyanagi blinked and looked back at her.

"Long story," Yashiro turned around.

Aoyanagi raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips, as the other left the room.


"Buying and selling on the black market is prohibited by law."

Yashiro barely squinted. She realized that dominators were not only the eyes of the Sibyl System, but also the ears. She was standing with her right foot a little more forward than the other, and her hands in her black pants pockets, while Kasei Joushuu looked more like a teacher reprimanding a student than the head of the Public Safety Bureau, sitting in her chair with piercing eyes.

"You read banned books as well," she observed in a soft, gentle voice. "Am I in any way less innocent, therefore less deserving, guilty?"

"Careful now, Yashiro. The only reason you are still here is that I find your bluffness amusing."

"Thank you, but I find your arrogance annoying," Yashiro retorted, turning her head to the side for a moment.

Kasei looked at her seriously, until she let out a deep chuckle, showing her white teeth. Her eyes widened a bit in the process, and though the sound was completely mocking, Yashiro saw a certain peace in her features. She leaned forward and rested her chin on her clasped hands, concentrating solely on the inspector.

"Have you read Tsunemori Akane's report?" she squinted for a second with genuine interest.

Yashiro blinked and scowled. Sharp gray eyes grazed her face as she remained silent for a moment, maybe too long.

"Are you worried she might not be blindly loyal as Ginoza and Aoyanagi?" she smiled, making the other raise an eyebrow.

"Only you would have the nerve to answer my question with another question. Again, a bad habit you have when you feel threatened," Kasei closed her eyes a few seconds. "Youth often make these mistakes. I've always wondered if that confidence of yours is genuine or, on the contrary, an unconscious response to the fear of losing to someone like you."

"I could say the same about you. After all, you like to win too," Yashiro's smile faded, and she turned her head to the side as if searching for something. "I disagree with Oscar Wilde. Ironically, a former teacher once told me… that growing older is no guarantee of growing wiser."

Yashiro's voice was so serene, that anyone who heard it would accept her words without realizing that she was mocking her listeners. But that was not the case for Kasei Joushuu, who knew the trick so well. And she noticed that the inspector was, as usual, trying to change the subject and take control of the conversation. Getting ahead of herself, she used to think.

"The girl tried to stop you by pulling the trigger," Kasei pointed out with her hands clasped together, and rested her chin on them again.

Yashiro blinked and her gaze became dreamy. Her lips parted for a second in an unfinished smile. She did not look her in the eye.

"Tsunemori Akane," Yashiro raised her eyebrows lightly. "Soft… but unpredictable. Stronger than she really thinks. She did the right thing by trying to shoot me. Human action is far more important. All rational action is in the first place, individual action. Only the individual thinks, reasons, and acts."

"Sibyl's verdict shouldn't be doubted as this girl clearly did."

"If she hadn't shot Kougami, we would've killed an innocent woman."

"You don't know whether she was innocent or not. Right then and there, the only thing that mattered was that the oracle denounced her as a threat that needed to be executed."

"Strange how… fast this accurate system switches mode, considering it should predict the crimes perfectly, based on the foreknowledge provided by dominators..."

Kasei's eyes narrowed and her features darkened.

"I'm not surprised you support her choices."

"As should Sibyl," Yashiro raised her voice a bit and lowered her head. "I understand your wariness, nonetheless. You are worried there is someone who finally dares think for herself, refusing to follow the rules blindly and without question."

"You admire her," Kasei's voice echoed.

Yashiro blinked and looked to the side, taking a deep breath, until she finally turned to her.

"She intrigues me," the inspector preferred to say.

Kasei narrowed her eyes a bit and leaned back in her chair, resting her forearms on the armrests. She was silent for a while, watching the other with utmost attention, her chin proudly raised.

"Why?" her voice was filled with genuine curiosity.

She studied that relaxed, indifferent look as Yashiro approached her, for the first time too much, and picked up the finished Rubik's cube she had left on her desk, beginning to take it apart with narrowed, focused eyes. Normally, Kasei found it rude that anyone would dare to take her belongings, but she was all the more oblivious to Yashiro using her own cube, something so personal to her.

"You are the reason I'm giving up on society… she is the one trying to save it. Why would anyone want to save people who don't want to be saved, like scooping water out of a sinking ship?"

Yashiro barely shook her head, as if trying to solve a complex puzzle. Kasei's lips curved further up showing her perfect, white teeth for a moment. She looked down at her fingers, which danced around the cube, taking it apart again, as if she could not see it finished, colorful, but destroyed and messy.

"The problem with being a dreamer, is that you may forget you're living a lie," she raised an eyebrow gracefully. "And when it's time to wake up, you get easily disappointed and give up on life."

"Oh, I think she's wide awake," Yashiro narrowed her eyes with a thin smile. "If you can't see it, you're more arrogant than I thought. And that's why I think you're the one who's going to get… quickly disappointed."

"Yashiro," she closed her eyes, holding her breath for a moment.

"She reminds me of… when I was young," a brief, not at all cocky smile covered her lips as she turned her head to the side.

Kasei's features became strict and almost empty, but her voice was not as dangerous as before, "What changed?"

Suddenly, Yashiro stopped and put the Rubik's cube back on the desk. She had finished two sides, the top and bottom, and was completing two rows of each remaining side. Kasei knew she could have finished it if she spent a few more minutes on it. But she realized that Yashiro was the type of person who got bored easily with a new toy.

"Me," she sighed.

Her voice was lower, detached, even. Then Yashiro turned her head to the side, and put her hands in her pants pockets.


When Asuka returned to her apartment, she gasped and her body froze as she saw a figure sitting in the armchair next to her own living room window, legs wide apart, forearms resting on the armrests. There was a gun in his right hand, which he swung around inviting her to sit in the other armchair across from him. Asuka wanted to scream, but no words came out of her mouth. She wanted to run, but her legs acted on their own and she slowly walked towards him, until she sat with her legs together and leaned forward.

"Agawa," she gasped.

His pale blue eyes narrowed for a second, they seemed to be aimed at her as if she were his target for the day. A slight frown formed on his face, and his features were so relaxed, as if he were in his own apartment.

"You went to the police, Asuka," his voice was a mixture of whisky roughness and educated brogue.

"I didn't," she raised her voice and shook her head.

"You sat with the inspectors and told them about me," he was sure about it.

"But you're not the one they're after… are you?"

He looked out the window and then back at her, "No."

"Then you have nothing to fear. Please, I'm married now. I have a life. Don't make me call the police."

"You won't," he spoke in a deeper voice.

"Please, leave me alone. It wasn't me. Maybe it was some other girl who knew you from university…"

"There was no other girl," he raised an eyebrow, shaking his head. "Only you. And now you've betrayed me."

"I—I didn't," she looked down at her hands.

"The PSB knew exactly how to find me. Not many people know my particular reading habits. It was you."

"No. That must have been the inspector."

Agawa furrowed his eyebrows, silent for a moment.

"Takahashi Yashiro," he remembered. "You talked to her. That's how they were able to call me by my last name."

"They know nothing about you," Asuka clenched her fists on the armrests.

Tilting his head, he pulled a thin black cylinder from inside his coat, and began to attach it to his gun.

"For years, you have been the one to whom I am most vulnerable," his brows relaxed with genuine detachment. "Either a singular friend or a mortal enemy."

"What you're doing is wrong and that's why they're onto you," she gulped, raising her chin a bit. "If you think you're going to get away with murder—"

A bullet punched its way through her stomach with a muffled sound, causing a gaping hole in its wake that quickly filled with blood and gushed out. Asuka shuddered against the armchair and widened her eyes, staring at the ceiling and then at him. Her mouth was open as if trying to call for help, but she was struggling to breathe. For a moment, Agawa raised an eyebrow and watched her with relaxed eyelids and half-open lips, until he frowned and grimaced, pulling the trigger twice. A pool of blood formed around her and soaked into her clothes as she choked to death on it.

Agawa remained seated with his forearms on the armrests and the gun pointed in her direction, until he shook his head and stood up, stowing the gun in an inside pocket of his coat. He pulled the phone out of Asuka's pocket and turned on its screen. He then grabbed her wrist, and placed her right index finger on the back of the cell phone to unlock it. Getting up and walking quietly to the window, he put it on speaker mode to listen to a voice message Asuka had not heard.

"Abe-san, this is Inspector Takahashi. The interview you gave the Public Safety Bureau was mildly formal. I would really like to meet you again. Just the two of us. I have further questions for you. Please call me back and let me know when you will be available."

Agawa glanced at the body lying in an awkward position, its neck leaning forward, as if the body supporting it had not quite fallen off the armchair. The mouth was open and the eyes were staring blankly at the ceiling. He pulled out his own phone and saved the number in his contact list.