Oracle of Bloody Prosecution: Conclusion
In the Lay room, fitted with slotted drains to collect the blood of the executed, Shizuka Hashimura squeezed her eyes closed and screamed with all of her might, desperate for an outcome where she's peaceful and alive. A red beam from Sybil's pillar eye traced her brow. Before she entered the Magistrate Hall room, she was given the simple directions to never ever run, or else, she would be determined guilty without question and shot dead on the spot. She kept her cool until now, but within, she pleaded for understanding.
Akane watched the data on the screen, the psycho pass level going up from the frenzy, and then stared at Kougami. She had put all her faith in the wisdom of Kougami, and the senior Inspector watched in quiet content at not swaying Sybil's judgment.
Black and White. Zai (sin) and Baku (white). With an acquittal of 10%, the goddess's frigid soul emerged to show her finest judgment – rid of the city of anything that perhaps had contact with any criminal or one with a fluctuating psycho pass. The killers and abusers of women and children, and those who stood by them had no room in the world. Biker gangs, thieves, drunkards, addicts, cannibals, liars, the jealous, the envious, rapists, selective listeners, the mentally deprived, fuck them all. They all had to die to cleanse the streets and prevent potential offenses, even petty misdeeds. The goddess was mad.
"It's been decided, huh?" Kougami said with a smile.
Akane was perplexed by her senior's smile. Was it the smile of an animal that killed evil, she wondered. However, she could not connect her thoughts to an expression that gave forth warmth. A soft face and smile that showed ease; Akane looked through the window leading into the Lay room and saw the needle on Sybil's scale. It was tilted to the right.
Akane fluttered her eyes. "Baku?"
"White," said Kougami. "I guess she's clear."
Akane's mouth moved but no words came out. Her mind froze. Glaring through the window, she saw that the red beam from Sybil's eye had rescinded. The room was silent.
"Mercy?" It was the only word that came to her. Baku was on the opposite side of zai.
Kougami turned to the young, perplexed Tsunemori, "Akane, the law is not prescribed or delineated through text. When I say that the people protect the law, it's because we as human beings sought for a correct way of life. Seeking for that life, and detesting vice, brought upon law."
He sighed and leaned towards to the microphone, looking into the Lay room. "Miss Hashimura? This is Inspector Kougami. I've been working on the case with your husband. It looks like you were offered a reprieve."
Opening her eyes, Shizuka Hashimura pulled in her breath and held it. She twitched and slowly turned on her neck to look over to the Inspector. Despite the result, her face was still in shock as nothing registered yet. She expected to die, and wondered why the eye of Sybil was inoperative, why she could hear Kougami's voice, and why she was still able to move.
"First, we'll put you through therapy, and then you can return home. However..." Kougami paused to watch Hashimura. The hollow, metal room she sat in caught a gasp that left her mouth, a hint of her registering the situation being within reach. But, there was also a complex chill one felt being fixed on by a prowling beast; Kougami behind the glass pane stared back at her with a grim look. His voice reflected the same look.
"Next time," Kougami continued, "you may not be so lucky. Think of your future, and your child's future."
Shizuka's face quivered. She tightened her jaws and tears dribbled from her eyes. She clasped her face, and her cry wailed through the iron-surrounded jury room. Sybil was silent.
Vibrating within Shizuka Hashimura's sobs was a low mumble. "He's such a fool."
After Hashimura's visit in Magistrate Hall, and leaving alive, 1st Division cleared the HQ and was set on another mission - Assuring legal custody of the Hashimura family's daughter. In other words, while the only living parent was in a rehab facility, she had to be given to a caretaker. It took a drive south to a close relative.
"Believe it or not, Kogoro was cheating with her," said Kougami, who sat in the driver's seat of his car. Speaking with Akane, he looked through the car window, watching Sasayama take the daughter up the apartment complex's steps to her aunt and uncle's home.
"Before Kogoro and Shizuka were married, he was having a fall out with his girlfriend Miyu Yoshida. However, there is no evidence that she influenced the death of her husband's former girlfriend. When we saw Yoshida's body, none of Kogoro's prints were on her; none of Shizuka's. But when we spoke to Kogoro, he claimed about meeting someone at a club."
Every face has a story. Akane sighed and held her stomach. She couldn't decide whether this small level of relief was sufficient or not. She remembered what Sasayama told her after Shizuka's Magistrate Hall scene. He had checked the internet; in these days, news was easily obtained, and law enforcement emphasized exposing crime data and dissuasion.
"Hey Kou, she would've been toasted if it wasn't deliberated carefully," Sasayama had said about the net. "The Anonymous comments are horrid.
"Aren't they, usually?" asked Kougami dryly.
"Man, they called her a 'dirty whore' and said 'kill her' and "fucked him to manipulate him.' All of it dirty. "She showed an example by protecting a criminal."
"These could influence a choice too."
Sybil had such access to such information, including the records of those tried, associates and potential witnesses. Ayane knew and prompted well to everyone she knew and met to never act or speak rashly. Both Kougami and Tsunemori watched Sasayama greet the parents and pay the daughter on the back. They noticed the daughter talking to the Enforcer. Moments later, Mitsuru Sasayama went down the stairs and instead of heading for the car, he went to the wall side of the apartment.
The passenger door side flew open and Ayane rushed out. Sasayama stumbled, and then dropped in a crouch, holding his head. He mumbled words simmering under a whisper. "Aw, fuck! Fuck!"
Akane ran up to her reckless Enforcer, clearly concerned. "Are you OK, Mr. Sasayama?!"
"Yeah, but I feel like shit."
"What's wrong?"
"I was talking to the girl to relax her. I said 'Okay young lady, for now you stick with your next of kin until mom returns okay?' I rubbed her head and she smiled at me too. Her fam opened the door and before I turned to leave, he tugged on my pants to tell me something."
"What did she say?"
"She said 'Officer, he didn't mean it. He lost his job.' Ayane, any kid who says that has obviously seen this situation before."
"He lost his job?"
"Yeah. Kogoro Hashimura recently lost his job, and has a record of drinking and getting into violent fits." Kougami also got out of the car to check on the two. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, taking a puff. "Unfortunately, anger is used to cleanse your anxieties. Alcohol amplifies that to release it, making it easier to put it in the open. It's difficult; it should be a relief but it often turns out to be dangerous. In the end, Kogoro chose suicide by cop. Shakespearean tragic waste."
Still in his crouch, Sasayama stomped his foot. "Why are children fuckin' targets of frustration?! They need to stop that shit!"
"Yo." Kougami patted his friend's shoulder. "Late lunch on me. Hamburger?"
"Oh. Oh yeah, your favorite."
Ayame Tsunemori also agreed to lunch, but was silent during the car ride there. Even Sasayama tried to perk up the atmosphere, trying to change the topics to "get them ready for chow". She laughed easily, but in her mind, Kougami's words left a scar that wouldn't stop pulsing. Rather, the more inquisitive she was about the cases she was issued on, the more it affected her. At a lunch table, she told her senior that she couldn't help it and Kougami only felt that was the only way to strengthen her as a rookie.
When Sasayama went to the bathroom, Kougami further elaborated the time he interrogated Kogoro after his girlfriend's death. "He said at the bar 'She is such a bitch, and I wish she would fucking die sometime.' And 'why do women complain so much?!'. He was probably drunk at the time too." Then, he smiled.
"Maybe try not to drink too much, Ayane."
Tsunemori smiled back, wryly. "S-sure."
"And, don't worry so much. I get that ethical decision making is always back and forth. We don't always make the right choices, but it's not our intention to use our law, our force, to deliberately make the wrong decisions. We want to encourage what is right. We have to respect some choices made too. I have a feeling that you don't find Kogoro that bad of a person?"
Ayane said nothing, but nodded her head.
"Well, we can't ask him now. He seemed rash, like someone I know, but a family man. Who doesn't have demons and skeletons? Some have too much. You have to think ahead and not cling. John Stuat Mill said that we all are capable of improvement and have a desire for perfection."
"Thank you for clarifying, Mr. Kougami. Maybe I'm too hard on myself. I'm sure I'll see various cases similar to this in the future."
"If you want me to clarify more - you may be a greenhorn, but you seem alright to work with."
The two smiled at each other; in the bathroom, Mitsuru Sasayama sneezed at the urinal.