Standing back-to-back with her colleagues, Akane found herself at a stalemate. They had miscalculated – grievously. It was obvious now that the entire thing had been a setup, because as always, Makishima was one step ahead. Around them, the emergency lockdown mechanics from within the factory had been triggered, sealing the exits and passageways and trapping the four of them in the central area over which Makishima himself surveyed them from the second floor railing. Along the upper perimeter, Kagari and Masaoka had glimpsed others, too, their identities obscured by gas masks, but they were making themselves scarce...and for good reason. All the PSB officers still had their Dominators.
Makishima seemed unperturbed, however, as he looked down upon them, and despite the fact that she already knew what would happen, Akane aimed her weapon at him anyway.
"I'm almost disappointed," he called down to them. "I prefer chess, but what you've given me is a game of checkers. A hop and a skip and it's the end of the line...but I suppose it was bound to come to this eventually."
"Do not engage!" Ginoza snapped, though his voice was wrought with bitterness...Akane could tell from his tone that he blamed himself for their predicament. "Focus on an escape route."
"There isn't one, where you are," Makishima dismissed from above. "It wouldn't be a very good trap, if there were."
"Yeah, bite me!" Kagari retorted, earning a sharp glare from Ginoza. "You shouldn't have showed your face around here, trust me!"
The man chuckled in response and Akane ducked her head a little, eyes still darting around the area. Surely a mechanism of some sort, or an emergency switch that would shut off the lockdown...something. Anything. She didn't want to hang around to find out why Makishima wanted them confined to the room like rats in a cage, appreciating the fact that Kagari was (somewhat unintentionally) buying them some time with his protests.
It was short-lived, however, and her attention was drawn back to the tyrant standing above them as he held up a gas mask of his own.
"The human body is a curious thing," he lamented. "Susceptible to so many things...solids, liquids, gasses; almost anything can be used against it, even the things that are intended to be beneficial. Too much, or too little, and even the most benevolent of resources can become deadly."
Akane lowered her useless Dominator, drawing herself up in what she hoped was a defiant manner to address him.
"So that's your purpose for luring us here?" she demanded. "Just...to kill us? How un-creative for someone like you."
Makishima smiled slightly.
"It appears that way," he mused. "But at the same time...I so often find that you are the ones who attempt to stifle my creativity. If I were to find a thorn in my side, why would I not remove it? Or should I say...you are the hands and feet of Sibyl, the ultimate dampener of all things creative. A dictator's reach can only stretch so far without the use of his limbs."
He gestured around them. "Can you at least appreciate the irony? These lockdown mechanics were installed as emergency safety measures in the event that factory conditions became...unsafe. Intended to keep the results of any chemical spills, equipment malfunctions, and the like, contained, while shielding those on the outside. But it seems...you all find yourselves on the inside, instead. An unfortunate predicament indeed, what with the ventilation system full to bursting with arsenic-based gas compounds just waiting to be unleashed."
Akane pressed further into Ginoza's back, gripping the weapon at her side and holding the man's gaze defiantly in spite of the fact that her pulse was racing. She could feel the tension in her colleagues, too, and yet...there wasn't a thing she could think to do.
"Like hell you'll get away with something like this," Masaoka grunted. "You think getting rid of us is gonna take care of all your problems? Typical for your generation, with the quick fixes."
"Prattle on with your last breaths if you wish," Makishima smiled, lifting his gas mask again. "A man's only hope is that his final words are good ones-,"
A shot rang out across the high walls of the factory, and Akane's eyes widened as Makishima lashed out to grab his hand, the mask falling from his grip onto the ground floor far below. For a moment, she couldn't imagine what had happened, the noise still echoing inside her head, but she heard Ginoza speak beside her.
"Kougami..."
Taken aback, Akane followed Gino's gaze up to the other side of the second floor railing behind them, short-lived relief flooding her before she realized that the Enforcer was barely standing. Kougami had never struck her as one particularly concerned with his appearance, but his suit was even more disheveled than usual, his messy hair clinging slightly to his stark-white features as he wavered where he stood, knees shaking slightly in an effort to keep himself upright. He held the early-millennium revolver steady across the divide at Makishima's head, but his aim was off in his current state...judging by the look in his hazy eyes, the bullet that had left his weapon was clearly meant as a fatal one.
"Kougami!" Akane called, anxious. He looked as though he were about to collapse, and if he would just throw the revolver down to her, she could...
To her surprise, Makishima looked just as taken aback as she felt, though it was only for a moment before he recovered himself, gripping his bloodied hand.
"Well, well...I never expected to find you on your feet," he mused as he looked Kougami up and down, and Akane frowned suddenly at the comment. "You never cease to amaze me."
"Kougami!" Ginoza interrupted. "They're about to release an airborne hazard through the ventilation system..."
Not a moment later, there was a resounding hiss of releasing pressure as an opaque gas began to stream into the surrounding area through the air ducts...Kougami brought part of his coat up to cover his mouth and nose and took off in a sprint around the perimeter of the second-floor walkway, in hot pursuit of Makishima as the white-haired man, too, fled the vicinity in light of the incoming gas.
The four officers trapped down below brought their jackets up to their faces as well, though there was little else they could do for the time being.
"We're sitting ducks," Kagari muttered vehemently.
Masaoka shook his head. "Give Ko a minute, huh? He'll find a way to either shut it off or disable the lockdown system..."
Makishima was faster than Kougami had anticipated, but he could still hear his prey's footsteps echoing up ahead. The distance between them made his blood boil, but he knew he had to find a way to help the others before he pursued the other man too deeply into the factory warehouses...gun still clasped in both hands, he rounded another corner in time to see a flash of white hair before it disappeared from view.
Damn it-!
He lunged forward in an effort to stay on Makishima's trail, but then slumped back against the wall again, his breathing ragged. The corridor up ahead blurred and then doubled, and Kougami tugged absently on the unbuttoned collar of his shirt, the material clinging to his heated skin. The fever was making him dizzy, his limbs refused to cooperate, and his stomach was killing him...but the majority of Division 1 was still trapped in the main area of the factory and running out of air. Kougami pushed away from the wall again and stumbled down the corridor, following the sounds of Makishima's fading footsteps. He passed by a sealed door labeled "Control Room" and did a double-take...with his wrist comm tech, it didn't take long to override the security and force his way inside. Upon the wall of camera monitors within, he could see a smokey image of the other PSB officers on one of the screens, and slammed his fist down onto the override for the lockdown. A few moments later, he saw the exits slide open again on the same monitor to free the rest and turned on his heel, pausing briefly to catch his breath before taking off in pursuit of Makishima once more.
Whe re did you go?
He hastened down the hallway, checking into the row of offices situated there, then bolted around the next turn...a foot colliding with his head so hard that for a moment or so, he could only see stars. His body and the gun skidded across the polished floor in opposite directions, and felt his back hit something hard, gritting his teeth for a few moments as he waited for his vision to clear. The first thing that came back into focus was the same foot swinging up to kick him while he was down...he managed to raise his arms to partially block the blow at the last moment, sweeping his own leg under Makishima's to trip him up. The white-haired man jumped backwards, giving Kougami enough time to stagger to his feet, his breathing ragged with the pounding of his head. The discomfort did little to deter his bloodlust, however, and he lunged at Makishima...the two of them grappled for a time before Kougami finally managed to throw all his weight into slamming the other up against the wall. Makishima coughed, grinning at him, and knocked him away...Kougami wavered, but then moved forward and struck the other man hard across the face, sending him reeling.
"Heh...so you've still got some fight in you."
Rubbing his jaw, Makishima struck out in retaliation...Kougami blocked, but the impact had him stumbling slightly on already-shaky legs, and Makishima hit him hard in the stomach as a result.
"Sorry," he mused as the man grunted and slumped. "Are you a little tender there?"
Kougami's blazing eyes narrowed, wavering for a moment until Makishima got close enough for him to lash out, then jamming his elbow in an uppercut to the man's angled chin and then kicking him to the ground. Makishima coughed, wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, then grabbing Kougami's arm and wrenching it behind his back so that he could slam the Enforcer up against the same wall he'd been pinned against himself just moments before.
"You humor me," he murmured against Kougami's ear. "You shouldn't even be standing."
"Yeah, so what did you do to me?" Kougami relented, his voice a low growl as Makishima twisted his arm. "I take it it's your fault that I feel like shit..."
Makishima yanked him away from the wall long enough to spin him around to face one another before slamming him up against it again. Kougami felt his eyes closing for a moment against his will, his vision tunneling, and shook his head to clear it. Makishima placed a hand to the side of the Enforcer's feverish cheek, smirking as he jerked immediately away from the touch.
"Nothing that has had much of an impact on your reflexes, clearly," he murmured. "Just...a little experiment, is all."
His wrists pinned to the wall in Makishima's grasp, Kougami jerked a little in vain attempt to free himself.
"What kind of 'experiment'? How long do I have?"
Fair eyebrows lifted in mock-surprise, and Makishima shook his head. "How long? Do you really think that I would do that...kill you, in such a mundane fashion? And you, of all people?"
Bitterly aware that most of what was keeping him on his feet was Makishima's grip, Kougami held his glare fiercely. "So then what?"
"I just...needed to keep you out of the way for a little while, that's all." Makishima chuckled. "Though I have to admit, I underestimated your bull-headed nature. In this great orchestration, your fellow agents are the most inconsiderate of audience members. I expect your opposition, and I welcome it...but for the rest of them..." He shook his head. "Chess is a two-player game, Shinya Kougami."
Kougami lashed out as Makishima released one of his wrists in favor of moving his hand down to the Enforcer's side, but before he knew it, he was being slammed up against the wall again and hit in the stomach.
"Ahh..."
Makishima smirked, releasing the other man and allowing him to slide down the wall to the floor with his arms wrapped around his middle.
"The contagion entered your system a few weeks prior...I watched you as you went with your precious coworkers to Club XOXO downtown..."
Kougami clenched his teeth, the name conjuring the memory of a case they had been investigating a few weeks prior...afterwards, they had stopped for drinks at the club. It had been a day or two later that he'd first started to feel unwell...
"So you were there," he muttered. He'd told Ginoza that the case had Makishima's stench all over it, but the Inspector hadn't believed him.
"The concoction is something of my own creation...I had someone slip it into your drink, yet as I'm sure you realize now, it is completely undetectable. And through such an innocent means...even someone as shrewd and discerning as yourself had no idea, so how could anyone else?"
Kougami's eyes narrowed tiredly. "...Anyone else?"
Makishima kicked him hard onto his back, his foot pressing carefully, warningly into the Enforcer's stomach to deter him from trying to move.
"Anyone else, everyone else. Sibyl's blind, deaf followers. They have been fed nothing but lies their entire lives, so much so that they cannot taste the truth. And so...they will be fed another lie; a lie that the food and drink that is provided to them on a daily basis, that they put their trust in so unquestioningly, is no longer safe. Even the blind can see an entire population falling ill. And once they finally start to question the resources that Sibyl provides...at last, they will open their eyes and start to question Sibyl as well..."
Kougami closed pale, shaky hands around Makishima's ankle to try and force his foot off his stomach, but he didn't have the energy for it, his head arching backwards as Makishima pressed the heel of his foot deeper into his belly in retaliation.
"You've gotten a little soft," the man observed, his grin shark-like as he leaned his weight into Kougami to look down at him. "Hm. Can you believe it, Kougami? I've finally caught you. Perhaps this will be fun after all."