When Makishima and Choe arrived at the apartment, both standing on either side of the door, Choe nodded and entered first, pointing a gun forward as Makishima followed him down the main corridor, hands in his open white jacket, until they reached the living room. There was a round table broken and overturned, with a white tablecloth lying on the floor and glass everywhere. Choe stared at the female body lying next to the small table between two sofas, which had a pool of blood around her head, still holding the gun in both hands, while Makishima just walked past it, avoiding stepping in the blood, to look at a broken window for a second and then continue inspecting the room.

While Choe stood behind the wall next to a back door that was wide open, gun pointed at the floor, Makishima crouched in the corner of the room with his forearms on his thighs. Choe stepped outside raising the gun again, but since no one was there, he walked over to the railing and looked out at the other building complexes, which were filled with neon-lit signs. Makishima's golden eyes narrowed, frowning, and his lips curved downward as he grabbed a black pistol lying on the floor.

The shots echoed until one of the last two target sheets fell to the grass with perfect, accurate holes. They were spread several meters apart, held in place by a metal post. The sun was bright in the sky at that time of the morning. They were far from the city, where nothing could be heard but the wind rustling the leaves of the trees.

"If you wish for peace, prepare for war," Yashiro removed her black earmuffs and lowered her gun, which she held in one hand. "I know nothing would thrill you more than seeing me hit a person."

"You are suggesting that I'm more fascinated with the gun than the man," Makishima pulled his binoculars away to look at her with a serious expression.

"Are you?" she turned to him.

"No. Guns are like money. They will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but they will not provide you with desires."

Yashiro walked towards him with the corner of her mouth lifted, and handed him the black earmuffs. He placed it over his long white hair and then grabbed her gun with both hands, pointing it forward. Yashiro shook her head and grabbed his left forearm, so that he used the gun with one hand just as she did.

Yashiro's narrowed eyes resembled those of a shooting instructor as she studied how he held the gun, and passed behind him to see both the gun's standard sights and the target sheet in the distance. Makishima did not complain, and waited for her to finally move away to use his binoculars. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, then pulled the trigger a couple of times, waiting a few seconds after each shot, frowning and feeling his hand tremble from the movement of the gun.

When he finished and raised his head, Yashiro laughed with her mouth half open in a smile that showed her white teeth, without taking off his binoculars. Makishima did not practice as much as she did, especially one-handed, so he had missed the center of the target sheet. But he took pleasure in defeat.

There was a longing he had never allowed himself to acknowledge. If emotions were one's response to a fact of reality, dictated by one's standards, as he loved books and skyscrapers, and his love for them, there was still a greater response he had missed. A feeling that held the purpose of all the things he so valued in life. A consciousness like his own, that would be the meaning of his world. Not one of the many women he had ever met in his life. A woman who existed only in her knowledge of her capacity for an emotion he had never felt, but would have given his life to experience. He felt the longing in his muscles, in the nerves of his body. There was a link between his love for them and the desire of his body, as if one gave him the right to the other, the right and the meaning, as if one were the completion of the other, and the desire would never be satisfied, except by a being of equal greatness who could live and act for himself.

Makishima blinked and raised an eyebrow for a second, feeling the weight in his hand. Placing his right finger on its trigger guard and tilting it to the side, he pressed a button to release the magazine, then put it back and released the slide with a clicking sound, which stayed backwards as he raised the gun to check it was not empty. Makishima released it again by holding the slide firmly, and pulled it back letting it fly forward in a swift, accurate movement. As Choe entered the apartment again, Makishima stood up, stowing the gun in his lower back and hiding it under his jacket.

"The police will be back soon. We must leave," Choe lowered his gun, which he held in one hand next to his green pants and blue jacket.


Standing on a step of the stairs leading up to the floor of the complex building, the sun brushed Yashiro's face, and her pale silver eyes narrowed looking straight ahead. Hurried footsteps echoed in the night, as she saw herself running down some stairs similar to her own, then entering a nearby alleyway. But she walked quietly up in black derby shoes that echoed down the next hallway. One of the doors was wide open and she stepped into the apartment.

Walking into its living room, glances followed her as she passed a body lying on the floor, pausing for a moment to raise an eyebrow at the sound of shattering glass, then turned her head towards the broken window. Shoes against the wooden floor and the sound of a thump made her blink. She turned her head towards the small table between two sofas, which was stained in one corner, and the carpet on the floor that was covered in blood and littered with glass. Taking a few steps forward, she stopped and turned around, staring at the woman lying on the floor.

Her silver eyes were narrowed, oblivious to the room she was in and the people around her. Nothing else mattered but the body before her. Until she heard footsteps coming in, and looking up, she came to see a smaller woman by the entrance to the living room, pausing behind a couch to watch the body and then her. Yashiro raised an eyebrow for a second, meeting Tsunemori Akane's widening brown eyes.

"Inspector Takahashi," a male voice echoed. "This is unexpected."

Ginoza Nobuchika stood with his chin slightly raised and green eyes narrowed, wearing the usual black suit, white dress shirt and black tie with a coat over it. He studied her under his corrective lenses, with long black locks over them. He adjusted his glasses and looked up, remembering that she was an inspector as well. In black pants, vest and derby shoes, a white dress shirt worn rolled up at the forearms and a dark purple tie, she looked more like an executive and businesswoman, not so much in appearance as in how naturally she wore that outfit, as if the clothes were merely an accessory that was no substitute for the person underneath.

"Aoyanagi-san is heading to the suspect's house with Kozuki-san and Daiki-san," Yashiro explained with ease, lifting a corner of her lip and widening her eyes.

"I'm glad to hear Ryogo-kun is out of the infirmary," Masaoka Tomomi smiled.

"Why does everyone you try to help end up in a hospital or dead?" someone asked in a rough voice.

Yashiro's nose wrinkled at the smell of cigarettes. Kougami Shinya was leaning against a wall in the living room, one hand in the pocket of his gray jacket.

"Like when you helped your friend?" Yashiro asked, raising her eyebrows for a moment.

Yayoi Kunizuka, who was crouched near a sofa, raised an eyebrow without turning around. Kagari Shuusei opened his mouth a bit and looked at Ginoza. Kougami frowned, blowing out smoke, and threw his cigarette on the floor, but as he was about to approach her, Ginoza stepped between them, staring at the enforcer. Yashiro smiled at him for a moment, and looked at the body on the floor with a blank expression as soon as Ginoza turned to her again, putting her hands in her pants pockets, and standing with one foot more forward than the other.

"Chief Kasei has given Division 2 a free hand to continue this," Ginoza frowned.

Yashiro raised an eyebrow and blinked.

"My division will handle this," Aoyanagi nodded to Ginoza. "Chief Kasei has given you a free hand to continue the investigation."

"A scanner recognized the suspect in an alley, that's how we were able to identify him," Ginoza continued to explain, making her blink and lift her chin. "We haven't been able to locate him yet, but a search is underway. No one can hide forever in this city."

Later, as Division 1 began to leave the building, ready to face another case, Yashiro turned her head towards the remaining enforcer.

"Akiyama-san, have you checked outside the apartment?" she asked, looking at him for a moment.

"I'm on it," Katashi nodded and walked through the open door to a metal railing.

Only when he was out observing other apartments, did she walk with cold precision to the broken table on one side of the room, and lean forward without touching any surface, taking a step and crouching down. There were two broken cups and a stain on the wooden floor from dropped drinks. They were somewhat hidden by the tablecloth that had fallen. Her eyes focused on the one with black lines as a pattern, and she picked up its broken pieces tucking them into her pants pocket.

A drone started to enter the apartment with a whirring sound, traveling down the main corridor until it crossed the living room entrance and stopped in the center, deploying other smaller spider-like drones, which began to survey the floor around Yashiro, who by then was standing with her hands in her pants pockets and a serious expression.

As the Division 1 enforcers got into the paddy wagon, Tsunemori Akane craned her neck with her hands clasped in front of her body, searching for something in the distance. She focused on the black-haired figure sitting with narrowed eyes, staring at the empty seat across from him. Kougami Shinya had been the first to enter the van, something they were not used to seeing. The inspectors stood behind the vehicle until its door closed.

"What happened between Kougami-san and Takahashi-san?" her voice was weak and low, the question weighing on her shoulders, as well as the doubt of whether or not she wished to know the answer.

"It's a long story," Ginoza Nobuchika blurted out, adjusting his glasses.

Tsunemori's lips parted as she watched him walk away, heading for the police car.


When Yashiro opened the door, she entered the house followed by Katashi, who raised his dominator with both hands. It was away from the city, a bit hidden by trees and no other houses around, and despite being old it had been very well maintained. No holographic system was installed. There was no food printer like in any other house. Walking down the main hallway they came to a spacious, tidy living room with a piano and a large window to the side, which showed real trees outside. Drones were already inspecting the wooden floor and the brown carpet under the piano.

The faces of the rest of Division 2 turned as they saw Yashiro cross the living room, until she stopped behind the dark grand piano seat and watched it for a moment. When she looked up at the large window next to it, she seemed to be looking for someone. Then she took a step back, but her eyes focused very close to Aoyanagi, who opened her mouth to say something. Yashiro walked towards her with hurried steps, but simply passed by her. When everyone turned around again, they found Yashiro standing in front of one of the many pictures hanging on the wall of the room, her head slightly raised.

"What is this, an art gallery?" Kozuki finished walking down the stairs and folded his arms.

Yashiro focused on one of the most iconic Romantic era artworks depicting an explorer, a young man, from behind perched on a rugged outcrop as he looked beyond to a dense sea of fog. Yashiro raised an eyebrow for a second, and her eyes closed a bit, very relaxed. She thought it was the portrayal of an emotional state, one that depicted ideas of roaming and infinity. Many people considered that Friedrich's masterpiece presented man against an eerie and mysterious backdrop, demonstrating his diminished power in the vast magnitude of life.

Yashiro thought it was an ode to man. The depiction of the creator whose goal is the conquest of nature, not the parasite whose goal is the conquest of men. Men give the world a meaning that did not exist. That is the reason why Yashiro could not help but lose herself in that painting, and think of the man who had come to buy it on the black market. It was unusual in Yashiro's generation, where everything was absolutely digital.

Yashiro frowned and turned to the adjacent painting, which deviated from the other by exploring the darker depths of the human psyche. The artwork depicted a seemingly spellbound woman in deep sleep draped across a divan, with a demon-like incubus crouched on top of her. Partially hidden behind them, was a mare with bewitching white eyes and flaring nostrils. It had a wide-reaching influence and changed the art world, as well as inspiring writers with its combination of sexuality, horror, and death.

"It was one of the first paintings to be banned," a quiet, male voice echoed in the room. "After the Sibyl System was officially implemented, more than a dozen hues were clouded by the very sight of it. Isn't it fascinating… how a work of art can destroy a life?"

Yashiro shuddered and turned around. Touma Kouzaburou was watching Fuseli's painting with a smirk and narrowed eyes from a few feet away. He wore a white dress shirt under a black vest and black tie. She had broken into an old closed museum, and the room they were in looked like the attic of a house because it was quite dark, covered with dust and completely cluttered. There were many pictures leaning against the walls and old collectibles that cost a lot of money, among them an old sword he took from a cabinet.

"You shouldn't be here," Yashiro frowned and shook her head.

"Nor should you," his voice was deeper.

"Are you following me?" she took a step to the side, staring at him.

"I wanted to warn you that this is not the way a student should behave," Touma frowned and lifted his chin, watching his reflection in the blade. "You could be expelled."

"Only if they find me."

Touma lowered the sword, grasping it by the handle and resting the blade horizontally in the palm of his left hand. He then turned to look into her eyes with more relaxed features and a slight knowing smile.

"Why did you sneak out of the academy?" he asked in a much softer tone.

"I was bored," Yashiro shrugged and folded her arms.

"Why would you come here?"

"So that I can be alone. It's the most intimate. Just me and the pages. Books can be a medicine for this brave new world. But the more I read, the more I feel like I'm losing my mind. And I can't go back. It's like an addiction. I'm addicted to finding the truth, one that might drive me to madness."

There were a bunch of books on the floor, most of them about philosophy, economics, and some dystopian and science fiction novels. They were books Touma would not find a fifteen-year-old reading. And he could tell that all of them were banned.

"You can take madness as another form of medicine," he stood in front of Fuseli's painting, watching the incubus with a smile and the sword in his hands. "Overdose may have unfortunate side effects, but they are temporary, and a booster for your psychological immune system, helping you fight existential and identity crises."

Yashiro opened her eyes and raised her eyebrows, as if waking up in the morning, and turned around.

"Someone with a high psycho pass like his own can't even dream of finding a job," Kozuki was saying, as he stretched out a hand, then folded his arms again. "But how can you be unemployed and still pay taxes?"

"He's a criminal," Katashi cut him off with a frown. "He must be into drug or arms dealing, where you make a lot of money. Besides, it's the best way to stay hidden from scanners."

"We can't rule out the possibility that he doesn't commit the crimes alone," Daiki noted.

"Latent criminals can also make money legally," Yashiro turned her head slightly to the side, putting her hands in her pants pockets. "As long as they avoid scanners and look for people willing to buy their products or request their services, regardless of their psycho pass."

"That's difficult, nearly impossible. Who would choose a latent criminal?" Katashi shook his head.

"I would," Yashiro responded with ease.

"That's not good business. Your company would be ruined. They wouldn't let you compete against the others. You simply can't hire latent criminals. I'm sure you'd become one yourself. Besides, everything depends on public opinion."

"I don't care about public opinion. Not what you mean by public opinion, which is generally made up of looters who want to prevent new companies from appearing if they can't take advantage of them. I care about consumer opinion. So although the chances are slim, it seems to me entirely possible that a latent criminal could find legal work. He could, for example… be a self-employed law professor. Receiving transfers as payment through platforms that can't be regulated by any government."

"How do you know?" Kozuki raised an eyebrow.

"Because that's what I would do. Even if the Sibyl System exists, you can always find loopholes to exploit."

"Sometimes you talk like a philosopher, and now like a businesswoman," commented Daiki.

Aoyanagi had been studying the suspect's profile on a hologram of her wristcom the whole time, but she turned it off and looked at them.

"Let's not get off topic," she raised her voice and turned to them. "We need to collect every flash drive, every hard drive, every file, if it so much as mentions his source of income, his clients, or a possible target. Shion can help us analyze them."

"Nothing on Janet's family?" Yashiro frowned.

"We interviewed her relatives. Not a word about Agawa Hajime. They have no idea where he might be. They did not seem like a very close family," Aoyanagi frowned and folded her arms. Daiki raised his eyebrows for a second, exchanging a glance with Kozuki. "We have nowhere to start with him either. He has no living relatives, "Aoyanagi took a step towards the other inspector. "You went to the crime scene. Anything off to you?"

Yashiro raised her eyebrows, looking back at her. She remembered two drones inspecting a teacup on the floor, while she still had the pieces of the other one in her pants pocket. She smiled for a moment and shook her head.

"That's unfortunate," Aoyanagi narrowed her eyes. "I can't find a reason why he would go there in the first place. She was not a criminal—her psycho pass was stable."

"Maybe she found out who he really was, and when she tried to tip him off, he silenced her," Kozuki shrugged his shoulders.

Katashi looked at Yashiro, who was standing in front of the window by then.

"Much like Abe Asuka's murder," he remarked with a raised eyebrow.

They were silent for a moment until Aoyanagi turned around, and walked to the window, looking at some trees outside.

"You were right about Abe Asuka's killer," Aoyanagi blurted out. "And now both crimes are connected."

Yashiro widened her eyes, but they did not look at each other.

"We were both right… in our own way. You believed in the Sibyl System and its judgment. I acted on emotions."

"That's what worries me," Aoyanagi finally turned her body to look directly at her. "Sometimes I feel you're like him."

"Like who?" Yashiro frowned for a second.

"Kougami Shinya."


When Yashiro entered the office, gray eyes looked her up and down under yellow corrective lenses. Kasei Joushuu stretched in her seat and lifted her chin with narrowed eyes, almost nostalgic about her outfit, as the inspector approached her desk and stopped in front of it. They remained silent for several seconds.

"You visited your counselor," Kasei's voice echoed.

Yashiro sighed and gently shoved her hands into her pants pockets, looking to one side of the room, "Sometimes I wonder who the counselor is, if one can call this counselling at all."

"Shima Seigen is a better fit. Your relationship is not personal."

"I'm not comfortable with anyone inside my head. And therapy doesn't work on me."

"Because you won't let it, as people normally do."

"And because I know the tricks," Yashiro widened her eyes for a second.

Kasei looked at her screen. She was reading Yashiro's psychological evaluation, which stated she was totally functional and fit for duty. Closing the tab, she fixed her eyes on the desk, gripping the black pen with both hands by its edges, and resting her elbows on the armrests.

"Where were you last night?" Kasei asked with ease, looking at her.

Yashiro heard her own footsteps in the apartment, saw her tall figure entering her room and picking up the gun on her bedside table. Flickering neon lights came through the tempered glass door to her balcony, illuminating her and the living room.

"I came home, fed my cat… and then went to a bar," Yashiro shook her head in a casual remark, not at all overdone, looking at her for a moment.

Kasei narrowed her eyes, testing her, not by the answer, but by the reaction to her question. Yashiro's body remained completely relaxed and her voice was calm. When a person went into too much detail, it often meant that they had prepared for an interrogation and had had time to make up their story. Yashiro avoided going into detail. But the most believable lies are partially true, Kasei thought.

"On whose authority did you get a copy of the medical records?"

"My own."

"How?"

"A friend got it for me."

"Meaning he stole it for you. You may not agree with us keeping records and monitoring the population, but you've acted on the same basis using private information," Kasei tilted her head. The twirling of the pen between her fingers was the only thing heard in the room, which made the inspector blink and frown. "This isn't the first time you step out of line as an inspector."

Yashiro glanced at her. She was now absolutely sure that dominators could hear everything when they were active, because Kasei was aware of her conversation with Kozuki Ryogo in the car.

"In order to get information about a suspect. I thought we'd come to terms with stepping outside the lines," Yashiro shook her head.

"Don't get saucy with me Yashiro," Kasei stopped moving the pen and sent her a sharp look, which made the inspector's lips part in a smile for a moment, showing her white teeth. "You disobeyed Inspector Aoyanagi's orders. You were willing to stop Division 1 from executing a suspect to get information first. And you stole medical records to find the identity of the criminal force behind the murders. But in the end, you didn't tell your team. You didn't tell anyone."

"Well, not anyone. Someone must have told you," Yashiro slightly shook her head, not taking her eyes off the side of the room. "What did the counselor say about me? That I am… obsessive, ruthless? That I am a danger not only to myself but others, therefore unfit for duty?"

"No need to make rash assumptions and stress over it, Yashiro. If your intentions are good, you don't need to gain people's trust or convince them that they are," Kasei let out a thin smile looking directly at her.

Yashiro frowned and blinked a couple of times. The words echoed in her mind and made her hold her breath for a few seconds, feeling a pressure in the middle of her chest. Kasei's narrowed, relaxed gray eyes were warm and mocking all at once. Her calm and soothing voice was cunningly dangerous in equal measure. Yashiro's lips parted for a moment, then she averted her gaze again.

"And your counselor didn't tell me," Kasei raised her eyebrows. "I asked him."

Yashiro stared at her with pursed lips. Cheating swine, she thought. A psychologist was authorized to lift professional secrecy when given the patient's condition, it could inflict harm on himself or others, or when it was to avoid the commission of a crime and prevent damage that might derive from it. But this had not been the case, and Kasei was simply studying her reaction. Yashiro's fists were clenched inside her pockets by then, but she forced herself to think about something else. She began to wonder how Kasei figured she would pay Shima Seigen a visit.

"You are an inspector, but you did not even draw your dominator when you were supposed to enforce a man… or stop Kougami Shinya from completing the enforcement," Kasei continued, reading her mind.

Yashiro frowned as Abe Asuka's husband flashed in her mind like a blur. She heard glass shattering on the ceiling. She closed her eyes for a moment and sighed.

"I wasn't part of that investigation."

Kasei raised an eyebrow, "You're only part of an investigation when it suits you, Yashiro?"

"I just wanted to find a serial killer and her husband was going to help me with that," she raised her voice without reaching a yell, taking a few slow steps towards her desk and pulling her hands out of her pants pockets. "Isn't that how Sibyl wants inspectors to act?" her voice echoed in the large room as she rested her fingertips on the desk, either side of her body. "We're here to maintain our reputation. It's not Sibyl's judgment people believe in, but rather the promise that she will always judge fairly. The system doesn't require people to operate it. You could equip drones with dominators and have them patrol the city. But inspectors and enforcers exist to be the eyes and ears of Sibyl. We are the ones who interact with the public… making the system easier to recognize and understand."

With her elbows on the armrests, Kasei raised the right hand with which she held the pen and rested the tip on her lower lip, with eyes narrowed and fixed on the inspector, who stood closer than before, towering over her in a position that conveyed confidence and power, slightly leaning forward with a few strands of hair falling in front of her. She was completely serious, and her silver eyes were keeping eye contact, something unusual. Kasei watched her stretching quietly in her chair, a smile on her lips.

"It's really strange how you manage to keep your personal preferences and desires and still act according to what's expected of an inspector. Your psycho pass hasn't even clouded. What intrigues me is why you did not even pull out your dominator to read his crime coefficient. Just like the other case, you anticipated he would become a latent criminal, even though you considered him innocent."

"There are limits to the lines one can cross coming back the same," Yashiro leaned back, putting her hands in her pants pockets again.

"Lines are easily erased and rewritten," Kasei turned her head to the side, detached for a few seconds. "You are making progress in understanding the mechanism of the Sibyl System."

"No. It's common sense," Yashiro frowned.

"He has been quite critical of your actions," she commented after half a minute, looking down at the pen she held in one hand. "Ever since you arrived, his crime coefficient has gone up. Reports state that he has been acting more violent than usual."

With her eyes narrowed, legs slightly apart and body leaning forward, Kasei spined her pen between the index finger and the middle finger, elbows leaning on the armrests of her seat.

"Don't pretend you care about him," Yashiro sent her a glare.

"I don't," she stared at her with her head tilted to one side.

"What does he have to do with me?" Yashiro shook her head.

"This isn't the first time you've come into the Public Safety Bureau building," Kasei remarked, holding the pen by its edges. "Have you forgotten that three years ago, you voluntarily turned yourself in for questioning?"

"I knew," the thought escaped Yashiro's mouth as she opened her eyes further. "I knew someone was watching. It was you."

"Yes, I was… we always are," Kasei let out a smile with narrowed, satisfied eyes. "You were lucky Inspector Ginoza was there. After his demotion, he had nothing to lose."

Yashiro frowned and stared at the desk. She heard hurried footsteps over puddles of dirty water, illuminated by the neon lights of building signs. Sirens of police cars in the distance.

"Sasayama? Sasayama!" his voice echoed down the alley.

"Oh… you didn't know," Kasei's eyes narrowed tenderly, her voice lowered with fake surprise. "Kougami Shinya was the one who found his partner's body, and he was demoted right after that night."

Yashiro blinked twice. There was something wild and primal in her expression. She seemed to be waiting for her opinion on the murder of Sasayama Mitsuru.

"Why did you bring this up?" Yashiro shook her head and folded her arms, walking to the side of the room. "It's been three years. The case was closed. It's over."

"It's never over for you," Kasei raised her voice, leaning forward in her seat and making the inspector stop. "And certainly not for the likes of him."

When Yashiro frowned and turned to her again, Kasei slowly leaned back in the seat.

"He never believed your story," Kasei continued in a softer voice. "Especially… the part where you were ambushed in an alley, and after seeing the other student being choked and the enforcer for the last time, you lost consciousness."

"Kougami is a man I understand," Yashiro slightly looked up with narrowed eyes. "I hope he finds meaning in his quest."

"Like his former subordinate?" Kasei raised a perfect eyebrow, taking a long pause. "How do you know they choked the other student unconscious, if you had said you were knocked out from behind, and the last thing you saw was the enforcer?"

Yashiro's dreamy, barely visible smile started to fade away as she lowered her gaze, without turning to Kasei, who curved her lips further up, no longer able to hide her longing.

"It's been three years," her face turned sour and her voice grew cold.

"A pretty traumatic experience for anyone to remember."

"I may not be able to perfectly."

"Speak plainly," Kasei nodded with a smile, and looked at the desk for a second. "You don't remember what happened, or you don't remember what you said about what happened?"

"I prefer not to."

"Speak, speak plainly Yashiro," Kasei frowned and turned her head towards her, an expression that did not match her calm and pleasant voice. "What happened that night?"

Yashiro curled her lip for a moment, then walked over to her desk.

"I'm not going to tell you what I already answered three years ago. But I assure you, if it weren't true, I certainly wouldn't tell you."

For the first time Yashiro was really aware of the soothing silence of that office. It was not like the others, where one could always hear the sound of a computer's cooling system or the purr of the air conditioner. Raising her arm, Kasei aimed her wrist at her. Normally, when people lie, their crime coefficients go up. However, when reading Yashiro's, the number displayed on the light blue hologram dropped from 24 to 23 and did not change any further thereafter.

"Outstanding," Kasei shook her head for a second.

The corners of Yashiro's lips drew down and her eyes narrowed, as Kasei gave her a much longer, intimate look by turning the hologram off and leaning back in her seat. She raised both hands to chest height and gripped the pen by its edges, resting her elbows on each armrest.

"The way you toy around with emotions and reason and still have a low psycho pass."

Yashiro frowned, looking from her wrist to her pen, and then back to her face. Kasei's eyes narrowed slightly, focused on her, and a smile covered her lips.

"Emotions? I can separate my emotions from duty," Yashiro raised her voice and glanced at her wristcom. She was supposed to meet with Inspector Aoyanagi and the others by then. "Now, if you'll excuse me… I have a case to work on, one you are… quite interested in."

Kasei frowned with a serious expression, watching her walk towards the exit at the end of the large office, along the red carpets on the floor. Yashiro stopped in her tracks for a moment, hearing Kasei's voice once again.

"Be careful where you stare into, Yashiro. There are places too dark… even for sharp eyes like yours."


As the black car moved through a huge avenue full of cars, under a blue sky that was beginning to hide in the clouds, Aoyanagi Risa turned her head to the side, where Yashiro was sitting, looking out the window with her eyes half-closed and her lips drawn down, her brown, straight hair behind her left ear, and some messy locks falling on her chest and behind her back. She leaned her head back on the seat and raised an eyebrow for a second, lost in the passing cars and colorful skyscrapers.

"Not fond of eye contact? Unexpected," Touma Kouzaburou stretched out on a bench in the academy courtyard, black pen in hand, looking straight at her.

Yashiro sighed and turned back to him, lifting her gaze to meet his own. She was sitting on the same bench with one leg over the other and a book resting on her thigh, but with some distance between them.

"Eyes are distracting. You see too much, not enough. You focus on appearances that can and do change according to circumstances. It's hard to tell what's under that mask when all you're thinking about is… are those eyes really brown or brown as crap?" she frowned and craned her neck to the side, studying his features, as Touma chuckled with his mouth closed for a second, then looked her up and down. "Oh, there's a beauty mark below his left eye. He may have melanoma. He can't stop spinning the pen. Must be a nervous tic," Yashiro finally looked away and he gripped the pen by its edges, resting an elbow on the metal armrest and a forearm on his thigh. "So, yes, I try to avoid eyes most of the time."

"We all have masks. The difference between us and them, is that they won't ever admit they have one. Not even to themselves. He who ever tells you otherwise and talks or thinks in terms of gaining your trust has dishonest intentions. But if he doesn't care because he trusts himself, then that is a man who has nothing to gain from you. If your actions are honest, you don't need the trust of others beforehand. The rational perception that what you do is honest will eventually make people trust you as much as you trust yourself."

"What do you want, if not my trust?"

"I want to learn to understand you."

"What for?" Yashiro shrugged and shook her head.

"For a personal reason of mine that you don't have to worry about at this time."

"What do you want to understand about me?"

"It's about appreciating what it means to be a man. Yashiro, I'm older than you. Believe me, men are not open to truth or reason. Not anymore. They can't be reached with rational arguments. The mind is powerless against them. But we have to deal with them. If we want to get something, we have to trick them into letting us do it or force them to let us do it. They don't understand anything else. And there's no honest way to deal with them. Greatness only exists in the minds of those who can recognize it when it's right in front of their eyes. You're young, so you have faith in the unlimited power of reason. In man as a heroic and rational being. Someday you will grow tired of believing that such men still exist."