"In his poem, Invictus, William Ernest Henley writes about a life surrounded by darkness:

"Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

"In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

"Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

"It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul."

There was so much calm and confidence in the deep sound of his voice, that anyone would even find it persuasive. Makishima Shougo wasstanding at the edge of the building. The night was a little cold and a soft breeze stirred his messy white hair at his back. He was wearing a wrinkled white shirt, that was on the left tucked into his light purple pants. He finally closed his book.

"They say I cross the line between right and wrong so many times that I may not see it anymore. I agree," her voice was soft and distant, the same way her confession weighed down upon her shoulders.

Yashiro was next to him in a beige coat over a black dress shirt, with her hands in her dark pants pockets. Her brown hair fell down her back except for several long strands of bangs that were blown by the wind. They were looking at the cars below with bored indifference. Yashiro's eyes were more narrowed than his own, with clear dark circles beneath them.

"They see you're a person of conviction, someone who is not loyal to a country but to your own principles, and they're afraid because you can't be controlled, nor bought. You don't see through the eyes of others, you hold onto yours and stand on your own judgement, without letting anyone tell you otherwise. A man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone. For you must judge yourself before judging others. Descartes said that… you have to conquer yourself rather than the world."

"I hesitated. I was willing to let a man kill his mother, because I could have ended the same. I could have been like him. Blinded by…. anger," Yashiro lifted her head to the black sky.

"Anger is not an unhealthy emotion. It's followed by passion. The desire to cross a line. I'm drawn to that. You are too. In this world people suppress their emotions, their nature," Makishima stretched out his palm to the sky, as if trying to find the moon in all that black. "Reason possesses the will and the ability to make decisions. These people don't think, judge, or desire—they allow others to direct them. Having renounced their mind, they are devoid of individuality.

"The freer a society is, the greater will be the diversity among men, since the unique and individual personality of each of them will be more developed. On the other hand, the more despotic a society is, the greater the restrictions on the freedom of the individual, the more uniformity, the less diversity there will be and the less developed will be the personality of each man. Meaning that… a despotic society prevents its members from being fully human."

They could see the reflection of the drizzle in the night, as Makishima slowly lowered his hand again, leaving it next to his body. His amber eyes were dark and gloomy.

"I overstepped my bounds. Dominator or not, I was ready to kill his mother because I felt it was right. I still do. But once again, when an inspector pointed a dominator at me… someone else was denounced as a serious threat, whereas I was legally allowed to kill with a personal motive—to disregard the law just like he did," Yashiro gazed down and sighed. "What was the difference between us? Because I didn't—can't still—find any. I am no longer able to see where to draw the line. What does it mean to be a criminal? What is the nature of right and good, according to Sibyl's standards? This city doesn't make any sense to me—it's a bad joke I'm getting tired of listening to. I feel like I'm starting to fade away. That's why I need… I want to know..."

Yashiro frowned and pulled a small bottle of aspirin from her coat, then tapped it in her palm to pull one out and swallow it. Swiftly, she put it in her pocket again and widened her eyes for a moment.

"Are your headaches becoming more frequent?" he asked quietly as if he had known it all along.

Yashiro blinked a couple of times as she scrutinized the skyscrapers, then blurted out, "Yes—and I dream more than I used to. My mind is playing tricks on me."

"I find you clear-eyed," he turned his head towards her, no eyebrows raised and his jaw relaxed. "Yashiro, you don't look at others for guidance and advice, you don't make decisions based on how that will make them think of you, in order to be accepted. You don't let society nor Sibyl carry the load of responsibility for you. Everything you've done so far has been an end in itself. You don't seek self-esteem through others. That's something you're born with. A drive to do the things you like, without caring about the rewards or the reaction of others. And that fascinates me."

Yashiro raised an eyebrow and met his gaze, "Is that a compliment?"

"Only a fact," he admitted in a calm, relaxed voice.

Yashiro let out a brief smile and walked along the edge in the opposite direction, gazing at some huge buildings. He followed instantly, keeping his distance and paying attention to the same places she was looking at. When she stopped again, he mirrored the movement behind her. Once again, they were oblivious to how close they were to each other.

"You were right," she commented looking to the side. "Seeing the skyscrapers from up here is entirely different than from the ground. Typical examples of the actions of a tyrant are the construction of pharaonic public works that, like the pyramids of Egypt, are always financed by slavery. These buildings, on the other hand... were built through contractual bounds, that is, voluntary rather than coercive exchanges. The architects who designed them were moved by their own happiness, they were not forced, and certainly did not obey anyone… or anything. The moral is what we choose."

Yashiro was slightly shaking her head, watching the city. Her voice was so dreamy and serene. There was such natural passion in her words every time she spoke.

"The following generations will not create because it is their purpose and based on their own personal interests and desires, but according to custom or what is recommended. Happiness is no longer the moral purpose of life. The moral has become betraying oneself for the common good. Even if they understand that and choose otherwise, their crime coefficients will rise because they are stepping out of line, and the Sibyl System can't afford that. Still… Yashiro, don't you think most of them don't want to pursue their own happiness anymore?" Makishima asked in a low, soft tone, studying her features.

"The best way to govern people is through psychology, not repressive acts," Yashiro responded with a dark look and a slightly deeper voice. "Don't burn books, or you will scare men away. Encourage the reading of your own, and you will have destroyed literature. Don't persecute your opponents, or you will be labeled a dictator. Polarize society, so that they create a war among themselves and demand your intervention. It's all about eliminating freedom little by little so people don't realize it, especially by denigrating it ideologically in all areas of life. Take that old analogy of the elephant… which is, of course, banned today.

"You hold them by the same size rope tied to their front leg since they are very young and much smaller, conditioning them to believe they can't break away, so even when they grow up and become stronger, they make no attempt to get away, for they believe the rope can still hold them. Some leaders in the past have taken this analogy to the extreme, using people as guinea pigs. After many years of being repressed, they allowed the government to continue to have the repressive apparatus of the State."

"For they have lost all notion of freedom," Makishima continued, lowering his head to look at the distant streets. "Today, if you want people to realize how strong they are, you can't just give speeches of rights and freedom, nor deal in books banned by Sibyl. You have to give them power and let them find the truth for themselves. Whatever they do with it... will show you who they really are."

"Chaos theory. Give men guns and see whether they kill or put them down. Impossible to predict," Yashiro looked at him and he did the same, turning around. "You know someday, I will be put in a position to chase you, and eventually hunt you down."

"Are you sure you can, inspector?" he lowered his head a bit with a smirk and his eyes narrowed.

Makishima stepped off the edge of the building. When Yashiro finally turned around to jump off, he offered her his right hand in a firm, warm grip, then let go and they both walked off the rooftop side by side, not feeling small at all under the colorful buildings and advertising holograms.

It had been a while since Yashiro had entered that building. As she began to take off her beige coat, Makishima picked it up to hang it on a coat rack in the entrance. When Yashiro walked into the dining room, she heard a deep voice humming a song. There was a smell of fish and vegetables that she could not quite recognize. A very tall man was opening a bottle of white wine at the table, and she could not help but smile as she realized it was set for three people.

"Honestly," Yashiro commented in a casual voice. "I can't follow a single recipe to the end without getting bored or breaking something in the process."

"Yashiro," Choe Gu-sung guessed, raising his head. "You're just in time."

He turned around. Only then did his eyes meet hers and widen slightly. He was wearing a blue jacket, purple shirt and dark green pants. Yashiro raised her head for a second as she asked, "To play shogi?"

"Oh, no," Choe chuckled and waved his hand.

"Why? Afraid I can beat you again?" Yashiro smirked and tilted her head.

He poured wine into a glass and handed it to her as she sat down at the end, so that Choe and Makishima were on either side of her.

"God, I missed you," Choe sighed, then studied her features. "You look awful by the way. Getting enough sleep?"

Yashiro laughed and looked at the glass, gripping it gently with both hands and staring at the drink. Her face slowly hardened until she raised her head again, "You live as a shadow in anonymity, but someday you will have to come out into the light and expose yourself, getting your hands dirty. You know that, right?"

"Sure," he shrugged his shoulders. "There must always be a bit of social engineering."

"How about you stop right there? You are a target for dominators," she raised the glass and pointed it at him. "You wouldn't last long in front of one."

"Are you telling me as an inspector?" his voice was deeper, almost dangerous.

Yashiro drank half the glass and then shook her head, "No, not as an inspector."

"Don't worry about me, miss," he teased with a smug smile, then leaned his forearms on the table to get closer to her and tilted his head. "I've been evading the police and law enforcement for decades. Do you honestly expect me to believe a bunch of enforcers can make me nervous?"

Makishima smirked and took a sip of his drink. Yashiro rolled her eyes.

"They've adopted collectivism so fully they can't even see themselves as individuals, only as members of a group. And by embracing this as an ideal, they've become accessories to their own enslavement. You can't change that. And you won't," Kasei's voice was mocking and menacing at the same time.

"They're not what worries me," she slowly shook her head and gulped, her gaze lost in the portion of fish on her plate. "These guys… the ones behind Sibyl… are capable of anything."

"So are we," Choe assured her and waved his hand towards her food. "Please, help yourself. I hope you still don't mind eating meat and eggs. If I remember well, last time we had dinner you mentioned this was your favorite dish."

Makishima instead only served himself vegetables and legumes, avoiding meat except for eggs.

"Thanks, Choe. That's very thoughtful of you," Yashiro smiled and looked at her plate. "I always end up using both of you to… recharge myself."

"It's okay," Choe nodded. "Can't imagine what it must be like for you to work in a place as crazy as the Public Safety Bureau."

"I want to apologize," Yashiro closed her eyes for a few seconds and then took a bite of the fish. "I forget how drained you must end up. Words can be like knives… ideas can kill. I always had that effect on people," she turned to Makishima as if she had not fully seen him before. "Well, not on everyone. Not on you. And certainly not on..." her voice trailed off and when Makishima narrowed his eyes, she looked at Choe again. "Now, I wouldn't mind clouding other people's hue—"

"We talked about this before, Yashiro," he cut her off, causing Makishima to raise his head in surprise and curiosity. "Don't worry about my hue—it's been cloudy for a while now."

"Well, I was just curious…"

"If you ever clouded mine? Maybe," he shrugged his shoulders and lifted his chin towards Makishima. "He probably did, too."

"And yet you still want to have dinner with us," Yashiro frowned.

"More than ever," Choe shook his head with a smile. "My kitchen is always ready for friends. Enjoy."

When they finished dinner and cleared the table, Choe Gu-sung said he had to work on a code and left the room. Yashiro instead went back to sit in the chair next to Makishima's, where he sat with a cold, distant stare. When Yashiro pulled out her own little bottle that she had kept in her beige coat, he finally looked at her.

"You know... ever since you told me Touma was captured, three years ago, I thought they made him disappear," she poured herself some whisky in the small glass with her shoulders relaxed, and her voice very calm. "Well now I'm sure of it."

Makishima crossed one leg over the other, leaving his white moccasin in the air. He frowned and stared at her drink.

"Touma Kouzaburou," his voice was much deeper, he did not look her in the eye. "All he cared about was the thrill of killing. Sometimes I feel I understood him completely. Other times I just think that man couldn't be more different from me. I used to enjoy his anger, his laughter instead… made it clear to me that he wasn't a man to be reasoned with. I was worried that by toying around with your enforcer, he would dare kill you in the end."

"Yashiro? What a pleasant surprise! How did you know I was here?"

Standing on the second floor, and leaning on the railing, Touma Kouzaburou greeted her with a smug smile that sent a shiver down her spine, and took her breath away. She felt paralyzed, her body growing stiff and cold as she tried to bear his narrowed, firing eyes staring down at her. He was a few years shy of his thirties, yet he always looked younger with that beauty mark under his left eye. His brown hair was shorter on his nape, with locks falling tousled over his forehead.

He always took care of his appearance, his mannerisms and even his behavior in front of people—this time his brown vest, red dress shirt and black tie were a bit wrinkled from the recent fight with Sasayama. Yashiro was aware there had always been this primitive, dangerous side of him. Touma curved his lips further up, as if he knew exactly how exposed and trapped that made her feel, even though they were far away from each other. She was not sure whether he would talk the night away with her, or turn her into one of his works of art.

Yashiro blinked a couple of times and gulped, oblivious to her surroundings for a moment. A strange shiver ran down her spine at the memory, and she fiddled gently with the glass on the table, until she stopped and blurted out, "I met someone who worked on the case… she told me Touma escaped. If he really did, what do you think he might have done next?"

"Call us to say goodbye and walk away?" Makishima smirked.

"He can't," she shook her head, her eyes fixed on him. "It's never over for a man like Touma. Not until someone stops him. He's like a dog chasing cars. He doesn't think about getting run over. He just runs."

Makishima widened his eyes for a moment and as he gently rested his cheek on his fist, a soft, deep chuckle escaped his mouth.

"And that's why I think there are two possibilities. The first one, which we already know, is that they killed him so people can't find out the system is flawed, or the second one, that they're keeping him alive somewhere."

"Alive?" Makishima turned his head to the side without taking his eyes off her, and frowned. "How?"

"By convincing him not to say anything about his hue. Now, I would keep an eye on him so he wouldn't even think of telling the truth. I would put him to work in the CID or some other ministry close to me. He has no family left, but if that weren't the case, I would use it to threaten him."

"Yashiro, his face would be easily recognizable. He can't still be alive. If I were Sibyl, I would opt for the simplest and oldest solution, which is to kill him. Dead people can't talk. Why keep alive someone who threatens your credibility and your policy? You're just chasing ghosts because you can't accept that he's gone."

Yashiro poured the scant remaining whisky into her glass. His expression turned sour as he watched her raise the glass to her lips.

"You drink to stick him to you, don't you?" his voice was deep, soft, mocking and resentful all at once. He looked away. "Well, that won't change the fact that Touma Kouzaburou is gone. You can't fix people and the past by imagining alternate endings in your mind."

"Oh dear," she widened her eyes for a moment.

"You're an inspector now, Yashiro. The PSB is not in the business of handling your personal affairs."

Yashiro set the glass down on the table audibly and turned to him.

"Jealousy is a basic human emotion," she tilted her head to one side and folded her arms. "But I assure you my quest to find Touma will not compromise our relationship."

Makishima raised a perfect eyebrow and looked her up and down with narrowed, dangerous eyes. His face became serious, almost indignant at her conclusion.

"I am not jealous," he said slowly.

Yashiro kept looking at him with a smug little smile and narrowed eyes. Then she looked straight ahead and her face turned serious again.

"Maybe I would keep him alive long enough to get something out of him, but what would it be?"

"The Gestapo," Makishima lifted his chin a bit with a twinkle in his eye. "The official secret police of Nazi Germany. It had the authority of preventive arrest and its actions were not subject to judicial appeal. Thousands of leftists, intellectuals, Jews, trade unionists, political clergy, and homosexuals simply disappeared into concentration camps after being arrested. My guess is that the only reason they would keep him alive is to use him to investigate any like-minded person or organization suspected of opposing Sibyl. Touma Kouzaburou wasn't smart enough to think of destroying it…"

"But he was still a threat because of his unusual psycho pass," Yashiro nodded.

"I bet he didn't even see it coming," he gently shook his head and smirked.

"I met our top brass the other day. If Sibyl had a human form… she would make a perfect representation as a politician. She thinks the same way we do and yet… so different. She read me so well I wonder if we ever met before," Yashiro let out a barely visible smile. "She was very interested in my articles. I have never felt so honored and… worried at the same time. I think she knows there are people out there evading scanners. And she is… eager to find out if I am one of them."

"You let them see you so you can get closer and see them as well. You are a bold one, Yashiro. But that's a careless move Touma Kouzaburou would make. I'm disappointed. This isn't like back then, when you toyed around with your enforcer."

"You like the game," Yashiro shook her head and leaned forward slightly for a moment. "It's a gambit—when you sacrifice a piece to gain advantage later in the match. A calculated risk."

"And what advantage are you hoping to get exactly?" Makishima raised his voice and frowned. "People like them snap their fingers and your life ends completely."

"Like I said—a calculated risk."

When Yashiro stretched out her arm to grab the glass again, he did it first, placing it far out of her reach. Their index fingers brushed for a brief second, but Yashiro rested her forearms on the table and looked up at him.

"I wouldn't mind if you were serving someone else up for the slaughter, but moving yourself as a pawn in this obsessive game of yours—"

"I like my chances," she shrugged her shoulders and leaned back in her chair. "If they haven't made me disappear so far, it means they don't know the truth."