"Togayama is demanding that you and only you go in." Masaoka was giving Kogami the run down when he made it outside of the Satori building.
"If it's a fight that he wants, I'll fight." He said, taking a Dominator that Kagari handed him. "I'll take the other damned ear if I have to."
"That's our Ko." Kagari laughed. "Saving his girl and ripping ears off of latent criminals."
"This isn't a time to joke, Kagari." Ginoza said, glaring over his shoulder.
"I'm not. Just merely stating the facts is all."
Ginoza stopped Kogami before he walked away from the group in to the building.
"I don't agree with you going in alone."
"He has Inspector Tsunemori in there." Kogami said, shaking his former partner's hand off of his shoulder. "I'm going to make sure she comes out unharmed, no matter the cost."
Ginoza sighed. There was no use in trying to get the enforcer to reason.
"Just don't die in there."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
—-
"It's a shame that this didn't work out differently." Togayama said to Akane as he ran a finger down her spine, causing her to shiver. "You are quite adorable, I must say. That look in your eyes shows that you're pretty dangerous under other circumstances."
Akane glared daggers at her kidnapper.
"Well, I suppose you have to be, considering who you have chosen to be with." He rolled his eyes as he came around to face her. "Terrible idea, really. Have you seen what he has done to me? It's only a matter of time until he does worse to you… Or your daughter."
Akane tried to spit at him, but was unable to reach because of the cage around her head.
"Oh, come on!" He laughed. "It's obvious that you are unsure about your relationship with him. You heard your stats the S-Reader picked from your brain when we took you."
Akane looked down.
He was right. She and Kogami had never said that they loved one another. Ayaka's birth was the result of something that had been purely physical.
They always went to each other when they were stressed. At first it was just Kogami agreeing to teach her to fight, but it turned intimate during one session and remained that way in secret until they found out that Akane was pregnant.
Akane knew that she loved Kogami the moment that she heard Ayaka's heartbeat. He had helped create that life. He gave her the most precious gift she could ever have.
She didn't dare to say it, though. She was afraid that he would distance himself if he didn't feel the same way.
He thought of himself as a dog that was there for her assistance and companionship, but she saw him differently.
He was a human being to her. A person with real thoughts and feelings. She wanted to prove that to him, so she decided to wait for him to say it to her first.
The door to the auditorium squeaked open, causing both Akane and Togayama to jump in surprise. Togayama got behind Akane and pulled out a remote from his back pocket. She was unable to see who entered the room.
"Get your ass away from her right now!"
Kogami had his Dominator pointed towards Togayama.
"Target's crime coefficient is 28. Trigger will remain locked."
He threw the Dominator to the side, knowing that it would be useless in this fight.
"Still clear, right?" Togayama laughed. "A dog can't chew on his prey with out his teeth!"
Kogami started to run towards the stage when his enemy put his knee straight on Akane's spine and pressed in. He stopped when he saw the pain her body was expressing
"No no no." Togayama said, wagging his finger in the air as his knee continued deeper in to Akane's back.
She did her best to try not to show the pain, but her body betrayed her. All she wanted was for him to leave and get out of danger. Ayaka couldn't grow up in this society an orphaned child as the result of an inspector and enforcer's physical affair.
"Come any closer, and I'll let the machine do its job." Togayama threatened. "You do know what this is, right?"
Kogami looked at the device with an analytical eye.
There was a cage around Akane's head, restraining movement to her neck. She was hunched over on a steel contraption in the shape of a crucifix. Her arms spread out and restrained as far from her body as possible, and her feet had been restrained at the bottom where it was all anchored in the floor. It was something he had only encountered once before as an inspector.
"This is Suzaki Keiji's invention, isn't it?"
"Ding ding ding!" Togayama applauded as he took his knee out of Akane's back. "So you do remember."
"How could I forget?" Kogami said, a shadow coming across his face. "That's the most deaths in one case that we've had in Japan since Sibyl was established."
Yes. There were 100 people that had gone missing when Kogami Shinya had just started working as an inspector for the MWPSB. All of them varied in age, some of them as young as 5 years old, and records showed that they all had problems keeping their psycho pass clear.
Kogami's division had gotten a lead to a psychiatric research facility that was creating new methods to keep Japan safe from latent criminals.
When they had apprehended the suspects involved in the disappearance of the 100, it was discovered that the newest invention had needed guinea pigs to test it out. They had paid someone on the inside of the bureau to access the needed info to choose people with the right qualifications to proceed with the trial.
The neck restraint kept the subject's eyes on whatever form of therapy was necessary to help their psycho pass recover. It was also designed with a crucifix shape to keep the hands away from the body to avoid self harm, and so that access was easy for doctors to inject meds intravenously.
There was a hinge in the center of the steel the subject's torso rested on, that if released, it broke the subject's back and severed the spinal cord, causing instant death.
There were two ways to release it: Remotely by another person, or when the subject's psycho pass became too clouded to save.
The invention with the mix of drug trials made for a lot of dead bodies in the end. Not a single person was alive when the test lab was raided.
Seeing those kids with their backs broken in half like that…
That was enough to give Kogami nightmares for the first few years on the job. Even then, he occasionally had a hard time getting those images out of his head when the case was brought up.
"So this is what you stole from us." Kogami finally said. "You used your clear psycho pass and your access to all construction of the PSB to get to it."
"Yes. I deemed it an appropriate way to gain revenge on Sibyl, after what it did to the families of those people that had gone missing."
Akane looked to her kidnapper in confusion.
"Oh? You don't know?" Togayama sneered. "9 years ago, Sibyl mysteriously lost track of 100 people."
"Don't. She doesn't need to know about it." Kogami growled.
"Can you imagine? The world we know is surrounded by scanners constantly monitoring our mental state, and they just happen to misplace 100 living beings as if they were packages!" Togayama continued, waving his hand that had the remote to the machine in the air. "All for what? Just to die meaningless deaths to enhance the hold this government has on us."
"It wasn't approved!" Kogami shouted.
"But it still happened!" Togayama snapped back.
"What do you care, anyway? This isn't just some statement that your making to defy Sibyl, right? You're not that kind of guy."
"No, you're right. I'm not." He answered. "I'm doing this for my family's revenge."
"Revenge?" Kogami asked.
"My little sister was one of the 100 to be slaughtered with this damned device." Togayama admitted. "She was 8 years old. Do you have any idea what that did to our family?"
Kogami's stomach churned at the images invading his mind.
"'Think of her death as a sacrifice for the greater good.' The leaders of that institution insisted. 'She died to improve our world.' They said to us." Togayama stomped his foot on the ground in anger.
"They wanted to make her look like she was Jesus! Saving us all from mental insanity because of the results research on her had gained them! What a joke! She was innocent!"
"So is Inspector Tsunemori!" Kogami yelled.
"Because she chose you, she isn't." Togayama glared down at the enforcer. "You played a huge role in the death of all of those people."
Akane couldn't believe her ears. The father of her child couldn't be a murderer.
She remembered how he looked the first time he held Ayaka. He looked nervous and totally innocent.
But then another memory had flashed in her mind.
It was of her first night on the job. The look on his face when he was about to shoot his Dominator at that innocent woman was just as real as the one he made when Ayaka was born. He was definitely able to kill innocent people.
"You knew who it was that leaked the files of the 100 subjects to the institution, and you didn't tell anyone about it." Togayama pointed his finger at Kogami.
"YOU KILLED THEM!"
"I didn't know that she was the one responsible! I was a naïve rookie back then!" Kogami yelled back.
"Oh, don't act so innocent." Togayama scoffed. "You didn't tell anyone because you didn't wanna let go of your little sex toy."
"That's a lie." Kogami glared.
"According to the files I read when I was snooping around the PSB, it's not."
"Those files stated that we had an intimate relationship, and SHE broke it off before she even made contact with the institution." The enforcer corrected.
"Well, it's obvious that you can hide that kind of relationship from your superiors." Togayama said, indicating Akane.
Kogami glared daggers at the man, who clearly enjoyed the look on his face at that moment.
"I thought that this would be a fare game for us." Togayama said. "We knew that it was just a matter of time until you tracked me back to Satori. So, we waited for a chance to grab someone from the PSB to show you guys the horror our family went through. I never imagined that we would be so lucky as to get two birds with one stone.
We were able to make you suffer the most because of this inspector. How does it feel to know that you will be responsible for her death?"
"LEAVE HER ALONE!" Kogami yelled, taking a revolver out of his back waistband as Togayama's hand went to press the button to kill Akane.
He pulled the trigger, and shot him in his head. As his body fell to the floor, a button was hit on the remote he was holding.
A gunshot sounded at the same time Akane's restraints were released. She looked up as Kogami fell to the ground, the revolver skidding to the bottom of the stage away from him.
"SHINYA!"