Notes: Once in a blue moon I'm reminded by someone that I actually have an FFN account and that I should actually post my (long completed) AO3 things on here so I don't look like a lazy bum. Here's the rest of the fic in one go, fam. :*

"I've spent my entire life looking at Tokyo from inside a perfect, sheltered sphere. I grew up in the playground of the rich, and I often stood at the gates of the preparatory academy that I attended, looking out onto the streets of Tokyo beyond, wondering what life outside was like. I never found out, because students were forbidden to leave the school grounds. I would be lying if I said I wasn't jealous of the 'ordinary' schoolgirls who passed by the academy with awed whispers, before they hurried away from its gates.

Even when I was at home, I had people who served me day and night. I'd never been outside to buy anything for myself. In fact, I'd never even seen what the streets of Tokyo looked like outside the glass of a car window. I've never had friends my own age, because the academy I went to wasn't designed for its students to make friends—it was to prepare the daughters of the rich and affluent for the roles they were born into.

When I became Tokyo's head of state, I don't think I've ever been more terrified than I was then. How do you begin to rule a city you don't even know?" —Toujou Nozomi

Nozomi rested her chin on the backs of her hands as she stared at the door to her office, the polished oak offering her no solutions to her current dilemma. The data that Ayase Eli had managed to obtain off the computer servers of the waterfront factory hadn't given her the answers she wanted—not that she had expected them to. For a group that had somehow managed to construct the factory in question without attracting the attention of a private military company or two, she didn't think they would be so careless as to leave anything behind.

Looking through the datapad, she scanned the inventory lists and production rates over again, but they gave no more information to her than the first time she'd read them. Nozomi pinched the bridge of her nose with two fingers, fighting the migraine that she was sure was coming soon. Pushing back dark bangs off her forehead, she mentally prepared herself—she had a meeting with Osaka's head of state in less than thirty minutes and she knew from experience that she needed to at least look like she was in control. Tenjoin Ryosuke may not have looked nor sounded like it, but he had a knack for picking at any signs of weakness and Nozomi had no intention to bow to his indomitable will this afternoon.

There was a knock at her door. "Come in," she called, giving her head a little shake to dislodge the sweaty strands of violet hair stuck to the back of her neck.

Her chief advisor, Fujiwara Hayato, swept in front of her secretary in his haste to enter the room. She noticed that he was as abrasive as usual, barely acknowledging Koizumi before he closed the door in her face. Out of forced habit, he bowed after he stopped in front her desk, but it was cursory at best; he barely jerked his head forward two inches before snapping it back up.

She put on the small, knowing smile that she had been taught her entire life to deal with men thirty years her senior. "Yes?"

"The assault on the factory down by the bay was a mistake," he began without preamble.

"How so?" Nozomi tilted her head slightly to side for effect, slipping easily into the tone that she had also been taught to use; the fake, glass emotions in the subtle lilt provided the false impression that she was nothing more than politely curious, whereas inside, she knew exactly what it was Fujiwara wanted to say.

Even for a man who had known her father for longer than she had lived, Nozomi could never be sure of his intentions. Like her, Fujiwara had mastered the ability to display a limited range of emotions while concealing his true intent; she just didn't choose to include anger and irritation in the list of emotions she chose to display.

"They got away. You've read the reports and the data—there's nothing there. If you'd waited, we could have prepared more. We could have planned a better assault than those incompetent bounty hunters and mercenaries. Instead, by being so hasty, you gave them the chance to get away," he accused her, long past caring about the feigned politeness that most politicians employed when speaking to her. He had employed this particular tone ever since she had inherited her position from her father, on the assumption that she would be as amicable as her father had been with his terms. It hadn't taken him too long to realize that she was far from it.

On a good day, Nozomi might've chastised him for it, purely for the sake of her own personal amusement, but today, she wasn't in the mood for fake manners. She had had enough of those from the senate meeting earlier, in which she knew perfectly well that there were at least a few senators who would've loved nothing better than to replace her with someone who suited their agenda far better. "And if they continued manufacturing weapons illegally, Fujiwara-san? Do the lives of civilians caught in the inevitable crossfire mean nothing to you?"

She purposefully neglected to the mention the bullet that had nearly taken her own life.

"That's not what I meant," he growled at her. "If we'd planned more carefully, we could have caught them!"

"I find that difficult to believe," she replied evenly, purposefully keeping her voice light and non-accusatory. "Based on all the reports that I've received, they were well-rehearsed in case we decided to assault the facility. I don't believe that losing that factory was a major blow to their operations nor did they intend to let their entire operation base fall just because we found a single factory. No, we'll just have to be more vigilant in the future, and continue to monitor operations in the arms sector."

Nozomi could tell the man wasn't completely satisfied with her decision, but he couldn't find another bone to pick with her on the topic, though he was still annoyed. "Ayase did the datamining of the computer in the factory?" he asked her suddenly.

She raised a purple eyebrow delicately at him. "She did."

"And how do you know you can trust her? Wasn't the bounty hunter that got her hands on a computer in their server room one of the people she lives with?"

"That is true," Nozomi acquiesced. "But Ayase-san hasn't given me any reason to doubt her findings, nor did she make any attempt to hide anything from me at the time. Surely it doesn't matter who helped her access the data?"

Fujiwara glowered at her from his spot three feet away from her. Nozomi didn't back down from his angry gaze, however, and settled herself an inch or so back in her seat as she waited for his response. "I still don't understand why you even bother with her," he told her as he tightened the fingers of one hand into a fist, an unconscious motion that did not escape her notice.

Nozomi felt the corner of her mouth quirk into a smile, though the topic of discussion was far from entertaining. "I don't expect you to, Fujiwara-san," she replied sweetly, knowing her tone would only serve to anger him further, though at the moment, she wasn't particularly interested in appeasing his feelings.

The taller man let out a snort as he turned on his heel, though he couldn't resist one last bit of impromptu, unwanted advice as he let himself out. "Don't slip up in front of President Tenjoin later."

She followed the man's retreating back with a slight frown as he closed the door to her office with a snap.

If truth was told, Nozomi was more irked than she thought she would be by how frequently her advisor liked to bring up the topic of Ayase Eli, if only to berate her at every turn for choosing to hire her. She had understood from the start that he had wanted her to hire someone he approved of, which was precisely why Nozomi had gone behind his back to find someone else. The fact that Eli did not work for any of the companies that he approved of was a constant thorn in the man's backside, and it didn't help her case that the young woman in question hadn't been intimidated in the slightest by his usual irascible demeanor.

Which, of course, was what initially had intrigued her the most—but as Nozomi came to learn more about the blonde, she realized that she hadn't been surprised that Eli was someone who cared deeply about the people she loved underneath the icy, recalcitrant attitude.

It was refreshing, and also a big part of what had drawn her so strongly to the young woman, Nozomi mused to herself, as she pulled out a deck of tarot cards from a drawer in her desk. She had grown up surrounded by people who always acted like puppets on a string—trained to say and act in a way that was deemed socially acceptable in front of her, never deviating from a pre-written, pre-calculated script unless there was something they desperately wanted from her. Showing emotion was not part of the life that she had been raised to live, and even now, Nozomi could remember her father's dire warning to her that emotion, or even showing pity, would only make her look weak.

"And mark my words, Nozomi, looking weak is the last thing you want to do in the political world."

She finished shuffling her deck, and set it up, closing her eyes as she flipped over a card.

Nozomi narrowed her eyes at the outcome: the Tower in reverse.

She replaced the Tower back in her deck and put it away just as a timid knock came from the other side of her door. She looked up, wondering who it could be.

Koizumi appeared again a few seconds after her greeting, holding something under her arm as she entered. "T-Toujou-sama," she stammered timidly. "I-I know you have your meeting in a few minutes, but this came back from the investigation team you hired to look into the outer district just now." She held out a large, brown envelope and Nozomi took it soundlessly in suddenly less-sure hands as Koizumi bowed low before leaving the room.

Nozomi played with a strand of dark violet hair as she settled herself in a large chair. She had been taught never to fidget in the presence of other politicians, but frayed nerves roiled just below the surface as Tenjoin Ryosuke settled himself in the chair opposite her. Although his visage was familiar to her from the numerous conferences that they had held over the years, she had never actually met him face to face.

In person, he looked every bit as much like the snake she'd always personified him as, with purposefully bushy facial hair and a single monocle that was there purely for show.

Since he had stopped in Tokyo on his way back from Sapporo to meet her in person, no one else was present in the room apart from the security guards—in return for not bringing his own advisors, he had requested that hers remain absent as well.

"Toujou-sama," he greeted her, smiling thinly from under his goatee as they shook hands. Nozomi noticed the amount of force he used in the handshake, as though he was trying to crush her slender, gloved fingers in his large, meaty grip. "It's nice to finally meet you in person." His sharp gaze raked her over once, from the single braid arranged down her left shoulder to where the hem of her dress met the floor.

Making sure her face was impassive as ever, Nozomi gave him the tiniest of half-smiles. "Likewise, President Tenjoin."

As meticulously as he was reading her, she had been trained to do the same. He had come here to intimidate her with firstly his larger stature, then with his age and experience. There was the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth when she met his small, beady eyes behind the monocle equally. "As you know," he began, "I'm here to discuss the proposal of a rail gun module with you."

Nozomi tightened her hands in her lap, the fabric of her gloves hiding the motion. "I am aware. But I believe I have already discussed my reasoning for being against it with you previously?"

Tenjoin leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his large paunch. "You lack vision, Toujou-sama."

"How so?" She twisted her head by a small margin innocently in a gesture of mere curiosity and maintained her delicate tone, though she knew Tenjoin detected the ice in her tone the moment she spoke the words.

"We now have the resources to construct a rail gun module and transport it to the moon's surface, so we can target and destroy the Ceresis on Earth. Do explain to me how you perceive that as a bad thing." He made a show of sitting up straight again as he waited for her response.

"But… you don't intend to just target the Ceresis, do you?" she asked him calmly, watching him underneath violet bangs.

He smiled at her—genuine, in the sense that he truly believed in what he was saying. "Ha! We have to consider what will happen after we exterminate the Ceresis. Believe me, my dear, the country that recovers from this disaster first will be a leader in the new world. That's what I'm after."

Nozomi pressed her lips together in a thin line. She'd known for years that Tenjoin was power-hungry, that he only made moderate attempts to make life better for the citizens of his district as well as Edenra victims alike for the sole purpose of staying in power. But this…

"I'm afraid I can't agree to that," she said, keeping her voice delicate but firm. "Tokyo doesn't have the necessary funds at the moment to contribute to a rail gun module, much less commit to the program of transporting such a weapon to the moon."

Tenjoin laced his fingers together as he leaned closer to her, resting his chin on his interlocked fingers. "Ah, yes, I forgot. You intend to give those victims citizenship rights in Tokyo, do you not?" He laughed, a bitter, derisive sound that echoed around the mostly empty chamber. "Let me tell you something, Toujou-sama. You cannot possibly placate the needs of those pieces of trash. They'll keep demanding more and more from you, until they'll run over your district again. Or have you forgotten the events of Bloody Valentine already?"

Nozomi fought the frown that was threatening to make an appearance, though slow anger curled in her stomach at Tenjoin's nerve in bringing up Bloody Valentine so casually to her face. "No, I have not," she replied, chastising herself internally when her crisp tone brought a faint smirk to the older man's face. "But I strongly believe that Bloody Valentine would not have happened if this was not the social structure that we have put into place."

"You're living in a damn dream world," Tenjoin told her, mirth evident in every syllable. "I imagine this is why your advisors have such a difficult time with you, Toujou-sama." The corners of his mouth quirked into a wide smile that did not reach his cold, emotionless eyes at all. "Tell me, have you ever been to the outer districts of your city?"

When she did not reply, he laughed again as he got up. "I think it's due time you did so, Toujou-sama. Before you think about raising the social status of those who aren't even human enough deserve it, I suggest you pay them a little visit and see for yourself if it's worth your time and effort. We'll chat more once I'm back in Osaka."

With that, he summoned the three bodyguards he'd brought with him, and showed himself out the door without so much as a backwards glance.

Eli gripped her phone tightly in one hand as she made her way around knots of people in the streets of Tokyo. After a few long weeks of rain, summer was beginning to take hold of the metropolis, a prospect that normally would've suited her just fine if it hadn't been for the massive demonstration in the streets that day.

Usually, she would've also made it part of her itinerary to avoid demonstrations, but that wasn't possible today as unfortunately, she was headed in the same direction the demonstrators were.

She tried to block out the sound of their chanting as she stuck to the smaller avenues, wondering why Toujou had chosen last night of all times to call her. All Koizumi would say over the phone was that Toujou wanted to see her and refused to give any further details, which only served to increase her anxiety levels; if ruling the district was up to her, her first priority would've been dealing with the rioters protesting just the idea of her latest policy instead of worrying about other things.

As she crossed an intersection, a man slammed into her from behind. Whipping around, Eli almost reached into her boot for her trench knife out of habit. She was about to snap at him before she realized he wasn't even paying attention to her; he was too busy shouting about how the Edenra victims in the outer districts didn't deserve any rights to even notice that he'd run into her.

She snorted, and increased the pace that she was walking at as she neared the district building. Fluffing her messy blonde bangs as she approached, she slipped through the gates once there was an opening in the crowd that was trying to squeeze itself onto the district building's grounds.

She cast them a sideways glance as one of the protestors tried to shove a pamphlet into her hand—scrunching it instantly, she kept that hand balled into a fist as she stalked forwards, keeping her gaze singularly focussed on the door to the district building in front of her, knowing any attention she paid the demonstrators wouldn't end well.

Eli pushed past the horde of people milling at the entrance to the district building and dodged several security guards who seemed intent on searching her before she reached Koizumi's desk. The young woman looked up at her as though she was surprised to see her there, even though she'd been the one to place the phone call in the first place.

"Ah, A-Ayase-san, you're here. I'll just… go let Toujou-sama know. Please feel free to h-have a seat."

The restless twitch in the brunette's movements did not escape her notice. Although it wasn't a large deviation from her usual behaviour, there was something about her skittishness that Eli couldn't put her finger on.

Koizumi got up and turned to make her way down the hall, almost too eager to escape her presence. Eli watched her go, frowning slightly. Is it just me, or does she seem more nervous than usual? She couldn't figure out whether it was because the massive crowd out in the grounds was making her uneasy or something else entirely.

Having no outlet for her own apprehension though, Eli sat, perched on the very edge of the hard plastic, if only to find something to occupy her limbs for the time being. Walking had helped, but now that she was standing still, nervous energy threatened to consume the control she had over her arms and legs.

She didn't realize how tightly she was holding her phone in her right hand until she caught sight of her white knuckles against the metal casing. She forced herself to relax as she waited for Koizumi to return, but it was nearly impossible. Rising anxiety churned her stomach in waves and she could actually feel herself sweating in the balmy air. She didn't have time to chastise herself before Koizumi reappeared, looking more nervous than ever.

"T-Toujou-sama says she can see you right now, Ayase-san," she reported.

Eli got up, grimacing at the way her jeans unstuck themselves from the plastic of the chair, before following Koizumi down the familiar hallway that would eventually end before Toujou's office. She hadn't met Toujou one on one since their conversation in the garden, and the memory of it still made her slightly uncomfortable. Maki had narrowed her eyes in an expression that Eli hadn't been able to read when she had recounted the story to her friends and had muttered something under her breath. "You better watch yourself out there," the redhead had warned her, poking a latex-gloved finger against her sternum. "Before Toujou takes advantage of you."

But is that what Toujou wants to do? Eli found that she couldn't come to that conclusion as easily as Maki had, and though perturbed her that at least one of her friends thought that way, she had chosen to withhold her own judgment.

For the time being.

Koizumi raised a hand to knock on the wood of Toujou's office as they approached, and a few moments passed before they heard a response. The brown-haired young woman opened the door for her, and took a step back, clearly indicating to Eli that she was supposed to go in.

She took a shallow breath before stepping over the threshold, wincing a little at the temperature in the office as Koizumi closed the door behind her.

Toujou was seated in her customary chair, dressed as usual in a floor length gown, complete with a wide brimmed hat. Given the temperature, it had to be uncomfortably warm in that outfit, but Eli was well aware of the fact that that particular observation was not hers to make aloud.

Motioning for her to sit, the violet-haired woman glanced out the window behind her once before she spoke. "You must be wondering why I called you here today." Her voice was hesitant, but strangely detached, as though she was trying to sound as emotionless as possible.

Eli noticed a brown envelope on her desk that looked strangely out of place amongst the neat stacks of pristine white paper.

Toujou reached for it, opening the flap and pulling something out. "I… received this from the investigation team that I sent to the city's outskirts last night." She held it out; the single sheet of paper was turned face down so that its glossy back was facing the crystal chandelier above them.

Wordlessly, Eli got up, motions almost mechanically robotic, and wordlessly, Toujou handed it to her.

She flipped the photograph over, fingernails digging into the smooth surface.

The image was grainy—it had clearly been taken from a distance sometime at night. The girl in the photograph was talking to someone, hands gesturing to something, but the dull blonde hair that was half-covered by a hood was unmistakeable. The dim lighting in the photograph hid the majority of her features and surroundings, but had managed to catch something else: the bright reflection of a hairpin clipped to the left side of the girl's bangs.

Eli could feel her hands shaking.

The room was almost suffocatingly silent as she stared at the photograph.

"Is… that her?" Toujou's query was quiet, and had it been spoken any other way, Eli might've thought it intrusive.

She willed herself to calm down; the rapid beat of her pulse was suddenly hammering too hard against her chest and her throat felt like sandpaper and cottonballs. "I… think so," she finally replied when she found her voice. "But… I'm not—I can't be sure."

There was a brief pause. "My team offered to take you to where they took that photograph, if you would like."

Eli looked up sharply, hardly remembering how to breathe. "Really?"

Toujou nodded. "Although… I have one request, Eli-san." The syllables of her own name sounded strange coming out of the district ruler's mouth, and she resisted the involuntary response to flinch by biting down on the inside of her lip. She had had some time to get used to the idea, but she still wasn't sure how long it would take for the fact to actually sink in.

"What is it?" she asked after a moment.

Toujou met her gaze with a serious, verdant one. "I'd like to come with you."

Eli was beginning to regret her resolve not to fidget as she sat in the seat across from Toujou, trying to look anywhere but at the woman across from her. The darkened streets of Tokyo flicked by them in a blur of light and motion; occasionally, loud voices or music would drift in from the curbside, but the words were indistinguishable and did nothing to distract her.

She watched the streets pass by in silence. Eli had never actually ridden a car through downtown Tokyo, and the experience was new to her. Briefly, she wondered if, after a lifetime of looking at the city behind tinted, bulletproof glass, she would care as little about the people that actually inhabited the city as the politicians that currently ruled the city did.

She couldn't resist the brief glance that she cast in Toujou's direction. The purple-haired young woman was not paying attention to her; instead, she too, stared outside the windows at the streets beyond.

Are we even looking at the same city outside these windows? Eli found that she didn't have an answer to that question.

She surprised herself by breaking the silence first. "Can I ask… Why do you want to come with me?"

She wasn't sure if the question would offend Toujou or not… or if it was even appropriate for her to ask. If she had been asked that particular question a month or two ago, Eli would've told them that the answer was yes. But something had shifted between them since their meeting in the garden; although she wasn't sure of what it was yet, she found that she didn't feel intimidated or awe-struck enough by the woman sitting across from her to withhold it.

Toujou looked up, distracted from whatever thoughts had been going through her head at the sight of an ordinary night in Tokyo now that they had navigated past the demonstrators that were still out on the streets around the district building. She opened her mouth and then closed it, pausing before she finally spoke.

"You're aware of the New Edenra Policy, correct?"

Eli looked down at her hands that she had placed in her lap. "Yes," she said.

"Do you think it's a good idea?"

She glanced up from beneath her bangs, taken aback at being asked that particular question. "I… don't know," she answered truthfully, thinking back to her own, albeit limited, experiences in the city's outer district. She remembered the desperation that had been etched into the faces of nearly every person that she'd run into out there. When it wasn't immediately obvious that she had the means to defend herself, a few of them had been brave enough to approach her, not to ask for assistance, but to actually try to assault her for any valuables she might've been carrying. The sight of the trench knife in her hand was enough to make them back off, but the encounter had left her rattled, so to speak, and she had decided that it was probably in her best interest not to revisit Tokyo's outer district unless absolutely necessary.

It's just… hard, when my first instinct is to help them, only to realize that they don't want my help at all. At least, not in the way I can give it.

"I'm not the best person to ask," she clarified quietly, when Toujou held her gaze, clearly expecting a more elaborate answer. "I don't go to the outer districts very often."

"That makes two of us," said Toujou, almost wistfully. Eli noticed she was staring out the window again. "But I want to know. Even after all of these years, there are times when I feel like I don't know this city at all. But I do know this. Once upon a time, we were kin, staring up at the same sky we were born under. What has happened in the past and what may still happen in the future shouldn't change that. That's why I wanted to enact this policy, to give rights to those of us who had no control over our destinies."

Eli looked up, lifting her head this time as she watched Toujou speak. In that moment, she found that she was not surprised at all to hear those words from the young woman seated opposite her. Perhaps it was because she was fairly sure she had seen her without the charismatic mask she usually presented to other politicians and the media alike, but whatever it was, it was the cause of the shift in atmosphere between them. For the first time, Eli realized that she was looking at Toujou with genuine respect.

She had walked into this particular job utterly uninterested in Toujou's agenda, assuming the woman was just like every other politician that strutted through the streets of Tokyo, and it was only now that she realized that Toujou had never been that way at all.

Toujou caught her looking at her and met her gaze. "Of course, my advisors don't agree with me. They tell me that I've spent my entire life shut away behind Tokyo's political doors and that I've never seen what goes on in the backside of this city—that I don't understand what brought about Bloody Valentine." She paused. "That's why I wanted to go with you tonight. I don't want to hear these stories second-hand, or listen to exaggerated half-truths that seem to be all they can tell me. If I'm going to pass this policy, I have to see these things for myself."

Eli held her gaze, reading the intent behind the emerald eyes. "Okay," she said, watching the ghost of a smile flit across Toujou's face at her agreement.

Summer wind blew gusts of gritty dirt in her face as Eli stepped out of the car, followed by Toujou and several of her bodyguards. An officer, dressed in khakis, was waiting for them a few feet away, hands stuffed in his pockets. Despite the breeze, the night air seemed almost still as Toujou led the way to where the man was standing, unaware of the dust that tangled with the hem of her dress.

He bowed low to her as they approached, before leading the way up a small incline. Eli didn't know the outskirts of Tokyo well enough to know where they were, though she could spot Tokyo Bay in the near distance, its waters glimmering faintly in the moonlight. There were plenty of fallen buildings and loose rubble, but at least the place seemed to be deserted. "This way, Toujou-sama," the man informed her as they continued up the incline, crabgrass and an assortment of other weeds poking up through the cracked concrete.

Once they reached the top, Eli became consciously aware of how exposed they were in the open; even if there were a multitude of collapsed and abandoned buildings around them, she felt her skin prickle uncomfortably. She cast a quick glance back at the pair of bodyguards following them, as well as the one leading Toujou over some rocks—they seemed unconcerned, but the apart from the wind, the night felt too quiet and Toujou seemed too relaxed for someone who had almost been assassinated few weeks ago.

She kept her mouth shut, though, as she clambered over a fallen boulder.

"Here," the man pointed towards his right, stopping behind a large rock that was balanced precariously at the edge of the incline, providing at least some cover for them. "The girl was down there when I took the photograph. I've seen her here a few times in the past, but I wanted to make sure of what I was looking at before sending back a report."

Eli looked down from the overlook, spotting a few lights here and there, their glow too inconsistent to be from electricity. It was enough for her to see by, though, and she could pick out the movements of several people beneath her on dirt-beaten paths.

She heard Toujou come up behind her, but the violet-haired woman did not speak as she too, looked out over the outer district of Tokyo that lay before them. The expression in her eyes was unreadable, and it was impossible to tell what she was thinking as she took in the same sight Eli did.

They stood there in silence for a while, though there was no sign of the person she wanted to find, gazing out into the ruins of what had once belonged to Tokyo, Toujou's bodyguards a respectable distance away from them, though close enough to intervene immediately if there was trouble.

Eli had not expected to find her sister on the first attempt nor was she stupid enough to believe that her search would be over so quickly and easily, but she couldn't help the feelings of frustration that welled up inside her. She quashed them quickly though, tightening the slender fingers of her left hand into a fist.

There was the crunch of gravel underneath boots behind them as a bodyguard approached them. He made a hasty bow in front of Toujou, but it was clear from his face that something was wrong.

"Toujou-sama, we need to go. There's been a massive riot on the streets protesting the New Edenra Policy."