AN: For those of you have read the originally published version of Chapter Three, I had forgotten that Sho Hinakawa doesn't actually show up with Division One until the beginning of Season 2, which is eighteen months after the events of the conclusion of Season 1. So I have edited him out for now and put Daikichi Akabayashi (my own OC) in there instead, with just the mention of another OC to come, Kaguya Fukuin. But for those of you who read Chapter Three and are only aware of Akane having a conversation with Akabayashi (and not Hinakawa) then you can ignore this whole note and pretend it never even happened. :)
Chapter Four
Bottle Green
"Akane?"
Akane turned around, and across the dark negative space, she saw Yuki standing there, looking at her with deep concern.
"Akane!" Yuki dashed over and closed the distance between them, taking Akane by her hands. "Akane, what's wrong?"
"Yuki…" Akane croaked. "But…you're dead…."
She couldn't help it. In her shock, all her mind could think to do was spout the obvious.
Yuki however smiled like Akane had just told her that they'd have to cancel an outing because of the weather. "You think I'd let something like that stop me from being worried about you? Now more than ever?" she added, turning strangely serious.
Then she pulled away, turning towards a window, a square of light, staring out of it with a faraway look in her eyes.
Akane though had this urgent sense of needing to keep her from slipping away, a desperate, nagging feeling that something bad was about to happen all over again.
She reached out a hand to her. "Yuki…."
So many words quivered on her tongue. The most prominent ones were those that strung together to form: "I'm sorry I couldn't save you."
Yuki turned to her though and smiled again, as though she'd seen something quite pleasant, looking out of that square of light. "Akane, no matter what, we'll always be friends. What happened, well…even you can't save everyone. I understand that."
"Wait…that sounds…familiar…."
"Just make sure Kaori doesn't go too nuts, okay? What am I saying, I know I can count on you. I always could. I knew that even when I died, underneath all that fear."
Yuki's hand trembled, just for a moment, and she put a hand to her throat, where a marring line marked where it had been slit.
"These things happen," she said, a little more detachedly.
Akane was reminded of the "conversation" they'd had when she'd been questioning herself after the Sibyl System had revealed its true form to her.
And, as if on cue, a new voice answered, "They do indeed."
With the gracefulness of a dancer, Shogo Makishima slipped an arm around Yuki's waist and pulled her to him, leaning into her ear like a lover. But in that cool, emotionless way he always did, with that smile that was empty apart from a vague amusement.
Yuki yelped and tried to get away, but Makishima held fast, lifting his eyes to Akane as he did.
"Hello again, Inspector," he greeted silkily. "Welcome, to our little meeting of the dead. Tell me…how does it feel to think that I and your friend have both crossed over into a place you can't reach? Would you like me to lie and tell you that Yuki Funahara is in bliss, while I'm burning in some storied inferno?"
"M-Makishima…." Akane felt herself go taut with anger, and suddenly she found herself gripping her Dominator in her hands, her finger on the trigger.
Makishima chuckled, Yuki wriggling like a frightened cat in his arms, begging him to get away from her.
"No, lies don't suit you. You prefer the truth, and I must admit, you are admirably one of those people who can swallow the ugliest of truths and move on. I did like that about you. So…I'll let you in on a little secret that only those who've died know: there is no Heaven or Hell, there is only the Void, and we all go there, good and evil alike. For you see, all are equal in the eyes of death." Makishima pressed Yuki closer to him with one arm, while with his free hand he snapped out that little blade of his. He lifted it to Yuki's throat, pressed the edge of it against her flesh. He was going to slit it, cut through her trachea like he did before when he'd killed her.
Yuki cried out. "Akane!"
"Yuki!" Akane lifted the Dominator an aimed.
But as it had before, in real life, the gun-shaped hunk of hardware refused to give a reading on Makishima that matched the atrocity he was committing.
"Are you going to make the same mistake again, Inspector?" he goaded, his words slithering into her ear like a serpent's. "Tsk, tsk. And here I thought you'd grown as a person."
Then his empty eyes flickered at something over Akane's shoulder.
Akane followed his glance, turning around to face who had appeared behind her. "K-Kogami…."
It was really him. Pointing a gun. A real gun. Right at her.
No.
At Makishima.
"Wait…" she tried to say.
Kogami though gave her a humorless and pitying smile. "I'm sorry, Inspector," he told her in that gruff and blunt way of his. "I'm afraid I can't do that. Unlike you…I can't forgive people. Certainly not him."
Then Kogami fired. The images of Makishima and Yuki shattered and disappeared, Makishima laughing into nothingness.
Akane fully round on Kogami, aiming her Dominator at him this time.
Rather predictably though, Kogami put up no resistance against this. He raised his hands and dropped the still-smoking gun in surrender.
"I'm done," he told her. "Now, you do what you have to do. And everything will balance itself out again."
Akane's finger shook on the trigger, and her mind went numb even as she heard that calm and collected female voice in her ear…Sibyl's voice…she could almost feel the vibrations of the thoughts of two-hundred-plus disembodied, criminally asymptomatic, psychopathic brains computing their final judgement.
"Crime Coefficient…over three-hundred…Lethal Eliminator…aim carefully, and eliminate the target…."
Akane's heart was about to burst in her chest. It hurt so much to do this, she didn't think she could survive. Everything inside her would rather fling the Dominator away, run to him and fling her arms around him, try to bring out the warmth she knew he still had inside him, the warmth she had peeked at when he'd look at her a certain way, if only for a moment and only when he'd seemed to think that she hadn't been able to notice.
Bring out that warmth and hold it close to her, a light that she could hold close to her heart and protect.
But even as she cried out to stop herself, cried out as fiercely as she had that first day when she'd fired on Kogami for the first time to stop him eliminating the hostage they'd rescued, she remembered her words to Chief Kasei, the conviction in them as she proclaimed that she would accept whatever judgment Sibyl passed upon Kogami.
"I'll point the Dominator myself…."
Her finger squeezed the trigger.
And she fired.
"Kogami!" Akane flew awake, bolting up in bed and reaching out into the darkness of her bedroom. After she came to terms with the fact that she'd just been dreaming, her first impulse was to find Ginoza and talk to him.
But that wasn't an option at the moment. After the way things had ended when she spoke to him the day before, the idea of trying to talk to him again turned her stomach like it had when he'd acted so cruelly toward her. Sure, Ginoza could indeed be a hard-ass, but he wasn't cruel either. At least not on purpose, not at his core.
No, he was just angry. And upset. And it was more than obvious that he hadn't had the chance—or perhaps hadn't allowed himself the chance—to properly grieve for all that had been taken away from him.
Perhaps she herself hadn't even properly grieved Yuki yet, even as she had experienced a kind of catharsis in that moment when she'd had Makishima unconscious at her feet in Nona Tower and could've bashed his head in with that helmet at any time. How she had seriously considered it, just for a split-second.
If old Masaoka were still alive, it was him she'd have turned to instead. But if he were here, then Ginoza wouldn't be where he was now. Who else could she talk to about this? Who else would understand?
Well, Kogami. But with him it was the same problem, more or less. He wasn't dead, like Masaoka, as far as she knew anyway, but he wasn't here either. And again, she had a feeling that if he was here, then maybe Ginoza wouldn't be struggling in the sucking tar pit of his own clouding Psycho-Pass. She herself was half tempted to join him, right as even now she was trying to reach out a hand to pull him out, because the loss of Kogami opened a painful canyon in her chest.
She didn't know it was possible to want someone to be with her so badly, but there it was. Struggling against the burning pain in her chest, she threw the covers off of herself, swung her legs over the edge of the bed, and went to where she was keeping the letter he had written her in the drawer of her little desk. She took it out and read over it, even though she'd memorized the words by heart. It was more that she felt a momentary comfort to trace her fingers over his writing. She swore she could almost feel him in every stroke of the pen.
The aches became more awake inside her though. She lowered the letter and spotted the Spinels she was keeping with the letter. She set the letter aside and picked up the pack of cigarettes instead. She pressed the package to her nose, deeply inhaling all that she had left of Kogami, that heavy smell of those cigarettes.
But it only widened the chasm inside her. Her knees shook and gave beneath her, and she sank to the floor, much in the way Ginoza had earlier, and she clutched the Spinels to her chest and shook. More desperately than ever, she just wanted to fall back and have Kogami catch her in his arms.
Thinking of this, her heart settled on the last hazy memory she had of Kogami before he disappeared on her. She knew…knew…that after Makishima had run off after failing to kill her…Kogami had picked her up in his arms and carried her to where she'd be safe…. She focused on everything she could remember, how warm he'd been, the sound of his heartbeat against her ear, of his breathing. And then, the way he'd gently laid her down, and then she'd looked up at the sound of empty bullet shells clanking on the paved ground as he snapped a freshly loaded cartridge into the revolver.
"No…don't do it…please…" she pleaded with him.
Kogami looked at her one last time, and in his eyes, she could see…it was like he knew Makishima had tried to shoot her, and that had there had been at least one bullet left in that gun…she'd be dead now, just like Masaoka was.
"Sorry…this is between me and him now…."
And then he was gone.
"Kogami…Kogami please…. Damn you…."
Stop this. Stop it. You're stronger than this, remember? Kogami saw that. You hold onto that. Hold onto it.
He was out there. She could almost see him in front of her, crashing desperately through the wilderness, probably exhausted, adrenaline running high, but alive. Though she hoped that by now he had already somehow gotten out of the country and that whatever wilderness he was braving was elsewhere. And although "elsewhere" was a death trap of its own with how dangerous it was in other countries, most systems out there broken and hemorrhaging, Kogami didn't go down easy.
He was free now, free of a system that he no longer had a place in, that had failed him, anyway, when you got right down to it. A hound broken from its leash, who had made a dash for the chain link fence where he'd dug underneath and wriggled his way out.
So she didn't cry. She managed to get herself under control when she focused just on her breathing, and eventually she was able to relax enough that she could set the Spinels and the letter aside and crawl, if a bit depressedly, back into bed. In the morning, Candy woke her up with a cheery, "Rise and shine, Akane!", and the pink jellyfish floating above her declared that she had a nice and lovely hue in the shade of Powder Pink.
For some reason this made Akane's face grow warm, and then she thought for a moment about the dream she'd had the night before, and then how badly she wanted to help Ginoza and helpless as to whom she could turn.
She threw her blankets over her face and curled into herself, even while Candy shrieked at her that it was time to get up or she was going to be late.
"Ugh, I screwed up." Akane felt like she was back to that morning she'd woken up after her very first assignment and she got rammed with the truck of regretful recollections.
But, as she was wont to do, she processed how she felt about this, and, knowing that dwelling on it wouldn't change anything about it now, and that the best thing she could do was figure out what she could do now to make it better, and deciding to focus on that, she huffed and threw the covers back off, waving a hand at Candy and telling her, "Okay, okay, I'm up, I'm up."
Before she went in for the morning shift, she stopped by Ginoza's apartment to feed Dime, and to water Ginoza's plants. Since her first visit, after she'd fed Dime, she'd discovered further in that Ginoza kept a few little potted plants—a small fern in the kitchen window above the sink, and then bigger pots of daffodils and irises and other grassy flora on a deck outside.
So after she fed the yipping husky, she went into the kitchen, filled a glass, and tipped a bit of water into each of the plants. She noticed however with some disappointment that the daffodils were looking a bit…withery.
"Oh no," she moaned under her breath. Maybe she was watering that one too much? Or not enough? She wasn't sure. Plants weren't her forte. But she'd feel terrible if any of Ginoza's plants withered. She really wanted him to come home to a happy, healthy dog and plants that were still beautiful and thriving.
She delicately touched the petal of one of the droopy daffodils, and she thought again regretfully of the way Ginoza had collapsed when the aide had hit him with the sedative.
Then she decided to err on the side of caution and not water the daffodils anymore, seeing as how the soil was already still pretty moist from when she'd last been here. With that, she heaved a resigned sigh and drew herself up, reclaiming her resolve as she always did.
And now she was resolved that no matter what happened, she wasn't going to leave Ginoza behind. Even if they locked him away in iso, if he got slapped with the Latent Criminal label, she'd be sure to look out for him in any way she could. Even if he didn't decide then to come back as an Enforcer.
After that conversation they'd had when she'd first seen him in his recovery room after they'd fitted him with the arm, she had felt a friendly chemistry awaken between them, an amiability that hadn't been there before because he had been so stiff, save for those rare moments when he would tell her that she did well while on the job, like after they'd closed up the Drone Case, or when the two of them would briefly put their heads together as fellow Inspectors, like when they staked out Talisman's CommuField during the Talisman Case.
But she was getting ahead of herself.
He wasn't a Latent Criminal. He hadn't crossed that line, not yet.
She hoped not, anyway.
Later at CID headquarters in Nona Tower, Akane went in to see Karanamori in the analysis lab.
"Oh, good morning, Inspector." The analyst looked up from her massive block of computer monitors, a lit cigarette in the corner of her mouth. She took it out and held it between her fingers as she flicked some ash off into an ashtray. As she leaned back in her chair, she crossed her legs and gave Akane a genial smile. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Mmm, I thought I'd procrastinate actually getting to work for a bit," Akane managed to joke. "Do you have a minute?" she added, discreetly peeking around to see if Kunizuka was here.
"Sure, I've got lots of minutes. Got something on your mind?" the analyst asked perceptively.
"Yeah." Akane dropped down onto the leather couch behind Karanomori. She caught a glimpse of Akabayashi's headshot on one of the computer monitors, and guessed that Karanomori had taken it upon herself to read over his file now that it was available in the MWPSB database.
Then she cleared her throat.
"I uh…went to see Mr. Ginoza yesterday."
"Oh yeah? How's he doing?"
"Not so good. And I…think I might've made it worse."
Karanamori stared at her and then snorted a laugh. "You? Make it worse? I find that hard to believe."
"Well…would you believe that we…had a bit of an argument? And I don't mean just the way we constantly bicker about how to do things. I mean…." Just remembering it, Akane's throat closed up and her eyes stung. She stopped speaking altogether, surprised that something like this would affect her like this.
Karanomori watched her carefully, her burning cigarette poised in her fingers.
Akane's eyes welled up before she could stop and she hastily wiped at them. "Sorry," she croaked quietly.
"Don't worry about it," said Karanomori with a soft and sympathetic smile. Then, with the hand that held her cigarette, she ran the pad of her thumb across her forehead as she thought for a moment. "I can see how that would upset you though. He's always been the prickly sort, so…well, getting too close runs the risk of getting yourself pricked."
"True," Akane admitted, remembering the confrontation she and Ginoza had had out in the hall during the Drone Case, and she had (perhaps rather heedlessly in hindsight) asked him if there was some bad blood between him and Masoaka, back before she knew either about Ginoza's father being a Latent Criminal or about that father being Masaoka, and the look he'd given would have frozen Hell itself.
Then Karanomori snorted another laugh, which made Akane knit her brow in mild confusion amid how upset she still was.
"What?" she asked.
"I just had a thought. Gino's rather like a cactus. Which is even funnier when you think he used to own one."
"Own one? A cactus? You mean like…he kept one…to like…have one?"
Karanomori raised her eyebrows at Akane and then outright laughed. "God, you're cute. All due respect, Inspector," she added. "But yes, Gino used to have a little potted cactus."
"Oh?"
"Then Enforcer Sasayama did something to it. I don't exactly remember. But yeah…that didn't go over well for him. Only time I saw Sasayama sincerely respect Gino like a good Enforcer should."
At this, Akane managed a small smile. She felt a nostalgic warmth curl into her heart at hearing about such things about Ginoza, and hearing mention of Sasayama again, Kogami's good friend and who's cruel and gruesome death had catalyzed his spiral into a darkness he was unable to shake off.
"That's…kind of adorable," she said. "That Ginoza had a cactus, I mean. I did notice he kept quite a few plants in his apartment. I've been…trying to water them. Sounds like he likes plants as much as he does collecting coins."
"Oh yeah. I suppose when you think about it, it is rather charming," Karanomori mused.
That warmth she was feeling curled around and around again, like a cat curling up for a nap in a warm patch of sun. And she found she was actually feeling a little better.
Even so, the thought of trying to talk to him again made her nervous, after the way they'd left things. And she explained this to Karanomori in no uncertain terms. But Karanomori was one of the best listeners Akane knew apart from Kaori and well…Yuki too, when she'd been alive…and when she'd finished, Karanomori's expression showed that she'd absorbed every word.
Then she sighed and tapped more ash off of her cigarette. "I know this is probably trite, but, I think in this case, it's warranted, and perfectly true," she said. "But everything'll be okay."
Akane took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders, her hands gripping the edge of the couch cushions. "How though?" And before she knew it, she was getting upset again. "I took it too far, hitting him the way that I did. We both took it too far, really."
"Akane, I know Gino can be cold and closed off, but he's far from heartless."
"But…well…I mean…given what I know about his relationship with Masaoka…he seems to hold onto things that hurt him. So he can protect himself but not letting himself forget how he got hurt in the first place."
"Mm. Perhaps in his father's case, the wound was just too deep. I mean, this was his father, we're talking about. From what I've patched together in bits and pieces of conversations here and there, Gino only held onto something like that so tightly because of how close he and his father had been before then, when Gino had been a child. I mean…when you feel like someone that important to you hurt you, and when you're only a kid at the time…."
Karanomori's voice tailed away and a rare film of sadness clouded her eyes.
Though Akane knew Karanomori was probably right, and given that her and Ginoza were hardly what you'd call "close" so even something like what had passed between them the day before probably wouldn't drive the wedge between them that had been there betweem him and his father, she didn't feel reassured much by what Karanomori had said.
However, before she could bring this up, the door to the analysis lab hissed open, and Kunizuka poked her head inside.
"Shion?" she called.
"Come on in, Yayoi," Karanomori beckoned, finishing off her cigarette and crushing the lit end of it in the ashtray.
Then Kunizuka noticed Akane as the door slid shut behind her. "Oh. Inspector. Good morning." She found Shion in the gloom by the luminescence of the computers. "Should I—?"
"It's fine, I should be going anyway," said Akane, getting hastily to her feet and gathering up her bag and coat. "Thanks for lending an ear, Miss Karanomori," she added, giving the analyst a gracious bow.
"Anytime, Akane," Karanomori told her with gentility. "Look forward to meeting that new Enforcer, by the way." And then she caught Kunizuka's quizzical eye.
On her way out, Akane paused at the door as it hissed back open for her, and caught a glimpse of Kunizuka, now settled on the couch, leaning in towards Karanomori, and Karanomori in turn rolling her chair closer to the couch. The intimacy of it pricked something in Akane's chest, and she turned away, her face warm and her insides crumbling a little.
On lunch, Akane didn't have much of an appetite, so she was just picking at her tofu when her phone buzzed.
It was Kaori.
Akane messaged her a hello, nudging her tofu away to the side.
Are you free to talk when you get off work?
I can talk now. For a bit. I'm on lunch. What's up?
Well, I actually wanted to know how you were doing.
Huh?
You told me one of your co-workers left. You know, the "bad boy".
It was hard to keep this going with the pang a reference to Kogami like this caused her. However, because of this, Akane was glad that they were messaging rather than talking, because right now she would've found it difficult to speak.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, because saying that Kogami "left" was putting it so very mildly, she typed back. But it was all she could divulge as far as what had happened without breaking the confidentiality of the MWPSB.
Yeah. But that happens. People shift around. They get shuffled. Go in different directions.
Sure but you had a thing for him, didn't you?
Akane took a deep breath, willing herself to get past this.
Anyway, the more she thought about it, it wasn't so much that she'd had a thing for Kogami. She admired him, of course, and he was undeniably well…hot. He was the kind of handsome, chain-smoking rogue you read about and prayed you might be able to find in a guy who would then fall for you. In reality though, a man like that, who could be so wild and savage…and break his promises because he couldn't let go of his anger…even if his anger, that need to put a bullet in Makishima even though by that point Makishima was on the verge of bleeding out…had been for her sake, as well as Masaoka's…that kind of guy wasn't exactly good boyfriend material.
"This is between me and him now…."
And he looked down at her again, as if he wanted to remember her, already knowing it was the last time he would see her, and yet…at the same time…he was already so far from her. And she was too badly hurt to pursue him.
Moreover, what had developed between them had felt…like something that couldn't be put into words.
Still, there was something in the way Kaori was reaching out to her now. Something that made her feel less…shitty.
She replied back.
Maybe. But that doesn't matter.
Doesn't matter?
This was accompanied by a "worried" emoji.
It's fine, Kaori. Really.
Akane, this isn't like you. You never say things don't matter.
Akane bit her lip.
I just mean that there are worse things than a guy running off.
Why don't we meet up for dinner? Are you free later?
Not tonight.
Akane hesitated and then added: But tomorrow I am.
SEND.
Great! 6?
Yeah. Sure.
Smiley face.
Akane sent one back, just so Kaori might stop worrying a little. Then she laid her phone aside and speared her fingers through her hair. And then it occurred to her that she was sitting at the exact same table where she and Kagari had first talked, and he'd demanded to know why she'd chosen the MWPSB when she literally could have had any job she wanted. His indignation had sprung from a life where that kind of choice—most choices, really—had been denied him from since he was a small child. And he had never even once seemed to her like anyone dangerous and disturbed. He had been nothing more than a really fun guy, who liked his games and his sugar and junk food and his booze and making his humorous cracks.
"Are you in love?"
She recalled again the way he had teasingly asked her that the first time she had come to his quarters for dinner, talking about Kogami.
Was I in love? I'm not even sure. I always felt like…bright inside whenever I was around him. And fuzzy. Now it feels like there's this great big hole inside me, and its pulling me inward, and it hurts, but….
The alarm went off then, broadcasting an elevated stress level alert in the Shinjuku Ward, and Division One was on-call for it.
Back to work then.
As she tossed out her uneaten tofu in recycling and left the cafeteria, an imagining of Kaori's worried face kept flickering in her mind, and there it hurt too, because she wasn't sure what else she could tell her friend, if that would make herself feel any better.
In Division One's office, Kunizuka looked up from her desk and stood. "Inspector."
"Shall we head out then?" Akane asked, managing a smile.
"Right behind you." Kunizuka grabbed her coat and draped it over her arm.
As Akane did the same, she heard a chirp behind her and turned around to find Kunizuka with her arm out, index finger poised over the communicator on her other wrist. On the holo display was Akane's Psycho-Pass.
19.12. Cornflower Blue.
Akane's grin relaxed. In fact, she felt it more genuinely, seeing the concern for her in one of her Enforcers. "Making sure I'm still clear?"
Kunizuka lowered her communicator. "You just look…a little tired," she said quietly, gently.
"Well, I probably could use some sleep, but I'll be fine," Akane assured her. "Now, time we hit the pavement, yeah?"
Which actually amused Kunizuka such that the corner of her mouth curled, which for her was the equivalent of a more chipper person grinning or beaming.
Perhaps that was why Akane, even now, was managing her hue so well. Apart from the fact that, in truth, it had never felt like a cloud or a Sword of Damocles hanging over her head like it seemed to be with most people, but also because as the moments from that bloody, terrible day stretched farther and farther away into the past, Akane felt more and more determined to work harder at what she did.
Despite what he had done, breaking his promise, leaving her, leaving Ginoza, leaving them all behind, she would still make Kogami proud of her, like he'd been when he'd been here. Because whatever he had done, he had been proud of her, in his own way.
And with that, she and Kunizuka headed out to see what was up with Shinjuku.
"So, what do you think?" Akane asked on the other side of the glass in the visitor's room at the iso facility later that afternoon. She had a feeling that Kaguya Fukuin wasn't nearly as deductive as Daikichi Akabayashi was.
Even so, she had a playfulness that was reminiscent of Kagari.
In fact, she seemed eager, which made sense, considering that from reading her file, Akane had had the sense that again, Fukuin was one of those people with a healthy amount of guts.
The girl had had her hair dyed bright yellow, which she had tied up in a big ponytail, and she leaned back in her chair so that it was balanced just on the two back legs, one foot on the lip of the table in front of her.
"Hmmm." Kaguya Fukuin seemed to mull it over, looking up at the ceiling as though it could give her some advice. Then she looked at Akane. "Would I get to see some action?" she asked.
Akane raised her eyebrows. "More than likely," she answered dryly.
"Hmm." Fukuin chewed her lip, looking up at the ceiling again. "Ah, what to do, what to do…?" The way she sucked on her teeth, Akane wanted nothing more than to give the girl a toothpick for her to chew on. Or a cigarette.
Then, at last, Fukuin took down her foot and let the chair fall forward back onto its front legs. She gave Akane a wide grin that was all teeth. "Yeah, I'm definitely down with this. I was getting bored out of my mind in here."
Akane managed a smile herself. "Good. Happy to have you aboard. I just need to run this by the higher ups."
"That means I get one of those gun things, right?"
"A Dominator? Yes, of course. That's standard for Inspectors and Enforcers both."
"Sweet." Fukuin made her hand in the shape of a pistol and pretended to shoot it. "Can't wait."
Akane tilted her head to one side. "It's amazing. You're so upbeat for someone in iso."
Something flickered in Fukuin's eyes before she answered, "Well…I didn't get a high Crime Coefficient because I was depressed. That and when they threw me in here well, my first thought was…at least I don't have to think too much about taking care of myself."
"Hm. Sounds like you're lacking some motivation skills then."
Fukuin looked up and Akane winked at her.
"We'll have to fix that, won't we?"
As she exited from the isolation facility with an amused shake of her head, the thought of Ginoza crossed Akane's mind again, and how she was going to bring this second choice of an Enforcer when things had gotten so awkward between them unexpectedly. Frowning, she supposed she'd figure out a way somehow.
She always did, after all.
When she got home later that evening, Akane sank into the chair at her writing desk. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her shins. Her wistful glance fell on the carton of Spinels on the desk, still sitting quietly on top of Kogami's folded letter.
She was just musing again on taking out one of the cigarettes when she got a call from the med ward at Nona Tower.
And they told her that they were in the process of taking Ginoza into custody.
His hue had clouded to Bottle Green, and his Crime Coefficient had spiked to 102.32, with now sounds of recovering back down to a regulation value.
Akane practically fell over jumping up from her chair. "Th-Thank you, for letting me know. Can you keep him right where he is until I get there? Don't move him to the isolation facility until I've had a chance to talk to him."
Once she got the assurance that they would keep him cuffed and stationary until she gave the order to continue with transporting him to iso, Akane cut off the call and then dashed over to her mirror, flicking open her wardrobe compact to find something to throw on. She ended up selecting from her tagged favorites, and the one she ended up going with, curiously enough, was the one she'd worn that day she and Kogami had gone to meet Professor Joji Saiga.
Though that day she had dolled up a little, at least glossed her lips and lined her eyes and lashes. Even if she had insisted to Candy that it hadn't been a date.
This time she needed to get to Nona as quickly as possible, so she forwent that.
As she raced down the stairs of her building in her heels with her bag in tow, her heart pounded in her chest, fit to burst same as she herself was fit to burst into tears, even though she easily held those tears back.
Ginoza, she thought desperately. Just hang in there. I'm coming.
She didn't know why, but even though it was too late to clear Ginoza's Psycho-Pass, or at least, there was nothing she could really do in all reality to bring that number back down before they had a chance to bring him into the iso facility (though of course she would still hold onto the hope that while in iso he would manage to do it with the aid of therapy), she still felt like she could give him some kind of light at the end of the dark tunnel stretched out before him…if she could just talk to him…and tell him how sorry she was that she'd failed him.
She had to do that…at least…for his sake. And for Masaoka's, and Kogami's too.
And her own.
They were keeping Ginoza in his room, which in this part of the medical ward, was a little homier, since this block was for physical therapy patients. Now that he was under arrest, they had a security drone parked outside in case he tried to bolt. Akane knew in her bones that he wouldn't even so much as a think it.
As it happened, Nurse Maki was on hand to lead her there as an escort. She gave Akane a wary, but at the same time, almost accusatory glance, and Akane wondered if she was remembering the day she'd come in with the box containing Masaoka's ashes.
She brushed this aside, as well as the way Maki also regarded what she was carrying in her hand.
Whatever Nurse Maki thought, Akane had no regrets where bringing Ginoza his father's ashes were concerned.
"He's in here," Maki told her quietly, opening the door for her and stepping back.
The nurse shut it behind her with a loud snap that made Akane frown before she turned to where Ginoza sat on his bed with his back to the wall, legs folded toward him with his cuffed hands between hanging limp between them. He was no longer wearing the hospital pajamas he'd been wearing the last time she saw him while he'd been working with his arm. Instead he was back in street clothes, which were, of all things, a pair of jeans and a sleeveless t-shirt that exposed his bare arms. Which quite frankly, something so rugged was rather interesting to see on someone so proper as he'd carried himself as.
This also gave Akane her first real look at his mechanical arm though. It gave her pause, seeing it there. It wasn't like it looked clunky or anything, in fact they had designed it to be quite lithe…but, as the solid reminder of the pain he'd gone through in the last few weeks, it filled Akane with the same sad sympathy she felt seeing someone limping with crutches. Physical proof of how broken he was.
He barely lifted his head, only enough so that he could see and make eye contract with Akane. And then he looked away.
"What are you doing here?" he asked in an ashamed undertone.
But then everything suddenly didn't feel quite so awkward. Or sad even.
Inspector Tsunemori was just glad that she could see her former Senior Inspector like this, just the two of them, just so they could talk, if only for a little while.
So she asked, stepping closer to the bed, "What do you think I'm doing here? We're partners, right? We're supposed to have each other's backs."
To which Ginoza snorted mirthlessly, still averting his eyes, which were blanked out by the way the light hit the lenses of his glasses.
"Here." Akane handed Ginoza a bottle of Highland Dark she'd pulled from Masaoka's personal stash still locked up in a personal effects storage unit that had yet to be thoroughly gone through (Ginoza was supposed to be the one to do that).
Ginoza lifted his head when he noticed the bottle of golden amber liquid, and actually managed to raise a quizzical brow at Akane as he finally met her gaze unflinchingly.
Akane simply smiled at him and reached over with her wrist communicator. She ran the scan over the cuff on his wrists, unlocking them.
"What…?"
Before he could really say anything else, Akane caught the cuffs in one hand while she pressed the whiskey bottle to him with the other. "Trade ya."
Bemused, Ginoza massaged his flesh wrist gently with his mechanical hand. Then, with a muttered word of thanks, he took the bottle from her, twisted the cap open and, after hesitating a moment, he knocked back a large swig. He coughed a couple times on its sting burning down his throat, blinked as though his eyes had even watered a bit, but then licked his lips with some satisfaction, no doubt now feeling the warmth of the alcoholic liquid settling like a merrily crackling fire in his stomach. And then, this time, he raised both eyebrows at his former Junior Inspector. "Giving a recently recorded Latent Criminal alcohol?"
"You deserve it, now more than ever." Akane went over and set the cuffs on the bedside table and dropped her bag in the nearby chair. "And it's the least I can do…after the things that I said," she added regretfully.
"Well, I said some pretty awful things myself," Ginoza said, equally regretful.
"But only because you were hurting," said Akane. "I should've considered your feelings more than I did."
Ginoza huffed and considered her again. He glanced at the beside table, where there were a couple of empty glasses next to a water pitcher. The corner of his mouth curled in that subtle way of his. "What do you know? I have two glasses." He looked back at Akane. "Join me for a drink?" he offered, raising the bottle. "If there's time, I mean. I'm guessing you've put their hauling me to iso on hold for the moment."
Akane's smile widened, and warmed to him. "Of course there's time. Thank you, Mr. Ginoza, I'd be happy to join you for a drink."
