Kogami stumbled out of the building and into a dirty, and thankfully empty, alleyway. The riots sounded like they were nearby, but he wasn't close enough to actually make out any of the words people were yelling - just general screaming, punctuated by the occasional sound of shattering glass and the even more occasional sound of gunfire.

This alley wouldn't be a safe place to hang out, but it was at least…a safe place for him to currently be. Even Kogami couldn't hold an entire map of the city in his head, and he didn't have one on him anymore. But based on the low angle of the sun, he could follow the alleyway more or less West, which should take him out of the city quicker than another direction would. He would head that direction, and as soon as he made it out of the radius of the riot, he would find a place with some semblance of safety. At which point he could actually remove the knife and stop the bleeding, rather than stumble around with a weapon still inside of him.

That sounded nice. Kogami missed a step and bounced gently off the wall of the building, sending a shockwave of pain radiating outward from the knife all the way to his fingers. He grimly pulled himself upright and staggered onwards, knowing from experience that ignoring the lightheadedness wouldn't make it go away, but would make it easier to deal with.

It took him longer than he would have liked to make it to the end of the alley, and even longer to slip into the surrounding maze of streets that would lead him away from the violence. Kogami was an expert at fighting his way through pain, but there was only so much he could force his body through. At a certain point of blood loss and agony, he just…couldn't make his legs move any faster.

Kogami followed the sun through the streets, ducking into doorways or narrow alleys any time he heard the telltale sound of shouts or gunfire. The riot was spreading, much faster than Kogami could move. At this point, his best (his only) option was to make it past whatever cordon the local police were setting up, hopefully before they managed to seal the gaps.

Not for the first time, Kogami found himself grateful that this time, at least, he wasn't on the run in a country run by the SIBYL system. The MWPSB probably already would have had drones circling the site of the disturbance, and escape would have been next to impossible, especially with whatever Kogami's crime coefficient was up to by now.

Kogami reeled against the wall of his current alleyway and decided that this line of thought probably wasn't productive at the moment. He needed to focus on breathing, and walking, and not on the few and far-between merits of his assignment.

But focusing on his situation meant focusing on the pain, and that made it even harder to breathe, somehow. Kogami gnawed on his lip to keep from whimpering, feeling the slight texture of scar tissue from biting back the pain of previous injuries. He drew in a breath through his nose, and worked his way further.

He was almost out, now. The sounds of the riot were further behind him, and he could hear the sharp retort of gunfire from the weapons of trained combatants joining the scattered, erratic sound of the amateur revolutionaries. The local government had sent out their riot suppression squads, which had to mean the streets would be quieting down soon.

Kogami was just going to take that at face value, rather than think too much about the certain death toll his own bullet had initiated.

And then, Kogami turned a corner, and heard a noise. Instantly, the pain was shoved to the back of his mind, along with his more philosophical musings about the riot itself. Adrenaline crashed through him, and he stiffened and drew against the wall.

The stab wound must have been making him sloppy, because apparently, he wasn't quiet enough.

Immediately, Kogami heard a male, angry-sounding voice from a little ways down the narrow street. Kogami couldn't understand most of what he was saying, since he of course wasn't speaking Japanese. Kogami fought down a wild, almost delirious urge to check the translation dictionary he'd carted over from Japan, but it was in the outside pocket of his backpack. Far from accessible, and this wasn't the time anyways.

Kogami did catch "show yourself" and he also caught "armed." He peered out from the shadows and saw a man stagger out from another side street. He was in fact holding a gun, although Kogami doubted he knew how to use it. He was also wearing a suit, although it was crumpled and torn now. This city wasn't like Tokyo, and only a top city official would have been wearing a suit - this man definitely wasn't one of the peasants who had spearheaded the riot.

Okay, that made things easier. This man was the enemy. At least according to Japan he was, which opened a whole other can of worms - Kogami wasn't known for his fondness of SYBIL. But that wasn't worth thinking too hard about right now. Right now, he needed to move.

Kogami highly doubted this man had training, and even with a stab wound, Kogami thought he might be able to put him down without much of a fight. The key would be disarming him. Not taking the gun - that would be way too easy to track, even in a low tech community like this one. But if the suit didn't have the gun, Kogami could…knock him out, maybe, or break his leg to keep him from following.

If he died of exposure, or was found by one of the rioters…well, that wasn't Kogami's problem. What Kogami needed to do was get out of here, and this man was in his way.

Kogami melted out of the shadows. He lacked his usual surety and grace - he'd lost way too much blood for that. But he'd been fighting to stay alive for the better part of his life, and he was way faster than one government official's trembling trigger finger. He lunged forward and snapped the gun sideways before the man had so much as aimed it, and he heard a crack as the force broke the man's index finger.

But then, instead of politely going down, the man pulled out a knife.

At this point, Kogami was out of options. This man was standing between him and making it back to Japan, and besides, he'd seen Kogami's face. There was nothing else for it.

In the time it took the other man to begin moving, Kogami ran through his options. Usually, Kogami would be easily capable of disarming the man and using his own knife to kill him. But he was injured, and he was moving slowly, and he couldn't afford another mistake, and the man was faster than he'd expected, stabbing the knife downwards towards Kogami's neck. He was out of time.

Kogami stepped in close, knocking the man's knife hand aside with a sharp elbow to the wrist. He needed a weapon, or this fight would go on long enough for the suit to get the upper hand, and then Kogami would die.

He had a weapon. It was currently duct taped inside his stomach, but it was still sharp enough to wound (as Kogami knew from every painful step he'd taken). And, perhaps even better, it was a local make, maybe even owned by one of the revolutionaries Kogami was trying to frame.

Kogami wrapped his free hand around the knife inside of him and yanked, screaming with the pain as the blade sliced the hole bigger. He tugged harder, ripping through the duct tape, and the knife came free with a violent arc of his own blood. The other man's eyes widened and he reeled backwards, and that was all the opening Kogami needed. Then, the man was on the ground, Kogami's knife buried in the side of his neck. He went slack.

Kogami stepped forward, intending to check to make sure he was dead, and his legs gave out on him. He hit the ground with a strangled moan, feeling blood wick up the side of his pants and what remained of his shirt. He wasn't sure if it was his, or from the man he'd just killed.

Bleeding. He had to stop the blood, again, before he left the alley. And he had to do that quickly, because he didn't know if this guy had friends, or if he'd managed to call them before Kogami had jumped him. This was his chance to get away.

Kogami got his arms underneath him and forced himself to his hands and knees, feeling the blood tacky on his palms. He wiped it off the best he could on his pants, and found his backpack.

Getting to his feet was hard. Kogami crawled to the corner of the alley and clawed his way up the wall, leaning against it until he could breathe without nearly screaming on every exhale. He knew he needed to get moving, but he also needed to wait until he was a little less likely to pass out as soon as he did anything with the wound. So Kogami put his head down and breathed around the agony, trying to get used to moving with the pain.

He was almost afraid to look down, even by the time he thought he could move without immediately crumpling to his knees. The wound had immediately started bleeding again when he'd pulled the knife out, and it didn't seem that the lunging and twisting he'd had to do had helped any. His side was slick with blood.

Kogami grimaced. He needed to get the blood stopped now, or he was going to pass out. If he passed out, that was basically the equivalent of a death sentence - he would be discovered for sure, and everything he'd done so far to escape, including killing this man, would be for nothing.

Grimly, Kogami stuck two fingers into the wound in his stomach. It hurt like hell, and Kogami blinked back sudden dark spots at the edges of his vision and swallowed down a wash of bitterness at the back of his mouth. He was already so bloody that he couldn't really even tell how effective the stopgap was at stopping the bleeding, but it wasn't like he had a ton of options. And inserting something solid into an open wound had been known to work in SEUN, when that was literally the only choice they had. It also did untold internal damage, dramatically increased the risk of infection, and made it hard to move. But that was all better than bleeding out in this alley right now, and so Kogami could endure.

He thought briefly about retrieving the knife. All his other weapons were made in Japan, after all, and he was a little wary of using them - they might make him easier to identify. The knife was EENA-made, and that made it useful. But it would also be useful as a red herring - if anyone did discover the official's body, and it was somehow linked to the assassin, it was another piece of evidence that the assassin was someone from EENA.

Also, Kogami really didn't want to bend over. So the knife would need to stay where it was.

Kogami stumbled out of the alley, fingers still inserted painfully into his wound. Even through the blood, he could feel the edges of his flesh - the ragged place where the knife had torn his skin, the thin layer of fat and smooth muscle just inside.

Kogami wasn't squeamish, but he really hoped he wasn't going to throw up. That would bring a level of pain he didn't even want to imagine.

He was getting really lightheaded now. It would have been great if he could run, but at this point, he barely even thought that he could walk. He mostly just hoped he could stay on his feet long enough to make it out of the city. Otherwise…otherwise….

Kogami was barely aware of his surroundings. He didn't know how long he'd been walking, and he didn't know how far he'd gone. All he knew was he needed to keep going. He would keep going until he physically couldn't anymore, and he would try not to think too much about anything but that.

Ginoza stood outside the door of the Analytical Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and took a deep breath. Not too deep, because he didn't want to seem suspicious, but deep enough to hopefully lower his heart rate - looking nervous would also seem suspicious, and he didn't want his psycho pass to spike.

He was overthinking this. Ginoza took another breath, not bothering to think about how deeply, and knocked on the door.

"Who is it?"

The voice came through the PA system connected to the room inside, and Ginoza couldn't place which analyst it belonged to. He had worked with most of the MFA's analysts in the past, but not as closely as the people who belonged to his own division. Luckily, that would probably make this somewhat easier on everyone involved.

"It's Ginoza, from the Suppressing Actions Department." He wasn't sure if they could see him, so he made sure to keep his right hand unobtrusively inside his jacket, where he could feel the outline of Kogami's gun. "I've come to check up on-"

He didn't even need to finish the sentence before the lock on the door beeped and retracted. Ginoza had somewhat expected this, seeing as how he came to check up on the analysts' work quite frequently, but it was still a major lapse in protocol. In this case, one that benefited him, but the MFA really did seem to be letting things slip.

Ginoza walked through the unlocked door, the gun heavy against his hip. He felt the weight of it shift and settle as he turned, pulling the door shut behind him.

"What was it you wanted to check on? Just so you know, we've been swamped, and we're working as fast as we can."

Ginoza eased Kogami's gun into his hand, laying his finger gently over the trigger. He vaguely remembered Kogami telling him that this sort of gun came with a "safety," the kind of thing completely unnecessary on a Dominator. Ginoza wasn't entirely sure what that entailed on a regular gun, or how to…turn it off, or deactivate it, or whatever one did. He was at least confident that it wasn't immediately visually apparent, and that was about all he felt he needed.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to interrupt you," Ginoza said calmly, pulling the gun out and raising it as he turned back from the door. "This is now a hostage situation. Please raise your hands and step away from your computers."

"Is that a gun?!" This was the same analyst who'd spoken earlier, a young man who Ginoza had worked with in the past. Ginoza liked him well enough, in a professional setting.

"Yes, it is," Ginoza informed him. "I would prefer not to use it."

In truth, Ginoza wouldn't use it - his current plan, which was definitively less well-formed than he liked his plans to be, involved an awful lot of bluffing. If he was actually called upon to shoot his coworkers, he would probably allow himself to be arrested, and then go back to the drawing board. And that wasn't to mention the fact that he still didn't know if the gun had a safety on or not, and there was a very significant likelihood that it wouldn't be able to fire at all.

Since he was trying to threaten people who he had known for years, rather than strangers who just saw a man holding a dangerous weapon, he thought there was a fair chance his coworkers suspected this. There was little he could do to control for this aside from hope blindly that they would follow his lead anyway. Ginoza hated plans that relied on humans acting with a certain set of behaviors. Kogami was supposed to deal with things like that - Ginoza didn't like anything that messy.

But Kogami wasn't here, so Ginoza kept the gun level and narrowed his eyes.

"Wh-what do you want? We don't know…."

"I want to know who has the highest security clearance in this room," Ginoza said.

The young man pointed a trembling finger at a middle-aged woman with a black bun. Ginoza recognized her, but hadn't interacted with her too much directly - she was likely someone who worked behind the scenes rather than meeting with other departments, like Shion had for Division One.

"Is that true?" Ginoza asked. He had to concentrate to keep the gun level - it would be all too easy to start treating these people like his coworkers instead of his hostages. But at that point, he might as well give up on seeing Kogami ever again.

The woman nodded.

"Alright," Ginoza said. "I'm not going to hurt any of you as long as you listen to me, and do exactly as I say. I am trying to be reasonable here. I just need some information."

Nods all around the room.

"Everyone in this room is going to remove your watches and place them on the desk. If any of you have cell phones, those will also go on the desk. If any of you try to contact anyone outside of this room, I…I'll be forced to use this gun."

Everyone nodded again, more vigorously this time. Ginoza could practically feel his hue rising - at this point, for the first time in his life, he thought it was likely a Dominator would be able to take him out.

"You four will go into the bathroom. While you're in there, you can talk amongst yourselves, or sleep, or…whatever it is you want to do in there, but you are not to leave. You are going to log into your account, giving me access to as much of the system as you can. Then, you are going to join the others in the bathroom. Is that understood?"

Another flurry of nodding, and there was a flurry of movement as watches and cell phones clattered onto the desk. Ginoza counted five watches and five phones, which probably meant that he didn't have to worry that any of the analysts was holding something back. The four people Ginoza had told to go into the bathroom stood and began hurrying towards the back of the room. A little too quickly, in Ginoza's opinion - if he'd been truly trigger happy, he might have shot one or two of them by mistake.

Upon further reflection, he decided not to tell them that. Instead, he let the four analysts crowd into the bathroom, and nodded to the remaining woman.

"Log into your computer, please."

The woman nodded, looking scared, but not quite as scared as Ginoza would have expected. He'd probably assumed correctly, then, and she suspected that he wasn't actually going to use the gun.

"What…what are you looking for?" she ventured. "I…we work with your division, you know."

Ginoza stopped himself short from telling her that he knew that very well, and that she'd probably personally delayed a few reports he'd needed to be expedited. This was only about Kogami, and the fewer people who knew about that, the greater potential there was that Ginoza could get them both out of this.

"Just open the mission log database. I'll take it from there, thank you."

Ginoza watched over the analyst's shoulder as she logged in to the database where the MFA kept files on all its ongoing and past missions, complete with operative logs. Her fingers were shaking enough that she had to retype her password twice, which gave Ginoza a small sense of accomplishment. That, in turn, gave him a small twinge of guilt, and he decided that he'd thought enough about the analyst for now.

"Thank you," Ginoza said with dignity. "Go and join your coworkers in the bathroom now."

She left quickly, glancing back at him with something that looked like a mix of curiosity and fear. Ginoza had no doubt that if she was really interested, she could track whatever files he'd opened, but that was a problem for the future. Now, he just needed to find any information that he possibly could about where his government had sent Kogami.

Ginoza didn't know exactly what he was expecting to find, but he knew that he had a much better chance of finding anything with a higher security clearance than his own. He had limited access to the same database the analyst had logged into, but many of the ongoing missions were marked as "classified" when he used his own login information.

The organizational structure of this particular area of the MFA was a little different than what Ginoza was used to, and it took him a couple of minutes to determine where the records of any current ongoing missions were located. Once he'd gotten to the list of current missions, it took him only a few seconds of confusion to realize everything was identified using strings of numbers and the occasional codeword - he wouldn't just be able to skim through the files until he saw something labeled with Kogami's name.

The MFA was spearheading enough current ongoing missions that it probably would have taken Ginoza hours to click through each outstanding file manually. But he correctly guessed that the file that pertained to Kogami's mission would have been opened no more than a day or two before Kogami had vanished. This wasn't the sort of project that Ginoza thought could have a very long lead time - after all, if the Japanese government had had more time to prepare a response to the situation in EENA, they probably could have done better than sending in a lone latent criminal to solve the problem with violence.

Once Ginoza had narrowed down the date range to the three days before Kogami had disappeared, there were only about fifteen files to click through. After that, it was easy enough to click around until he found some uploaded paperwork that was clearly related to Kogami's transportation, and once he had the identification number for Kogami's mission, searching for all the details about his case that were housed on the computer became simple.

Ginoza was pleased that virtually everything he'd pieced together from the news about where Kogami had gone, what he'd done, and why, was correct. Kogami had been sent by the Japanese Government to EENA as essentially a rogue agent to assassinate a popular but dangerous political figure. If he returned to Japan uncaptured, it was unlikely that EENA's government would realize that Japan had ever been in any way involved, and Kogami would be allowed to return to his normal life with the Ministry. If he was captured, Japan was positioned to disavow any knowledge that he'd been in EENA at all. He would be marked as a traitor to Japan, and presumably, EENA would be allowed to do with him what they would.

Ginoza very nearly opened his watch to message Kogami that his instincts had been spot on - there was little in this life that Ginoza loved more than feeling Kogami's genuine admiration. When he remembered that of course messaging Kogami was impossible, fear and grief nearly closed up his throat. If Ginoza could message Kogami, he wouldn't be in this position in the first place. Unless Ginoza could do something to help, Kogami was as good as gone, and Ginoza would never be able to message him again.

Ginoza still didn't have a clear idea of exactly how whatever information was hidden in these files would allow him to help Kogami. But when he had a better understanding of exactly where they'd sent Kogami, and what resources Kogami had at his disposal, maybe he could figure out some way to assist him.

Ginoza clicked back until he found an outline of Kogami's original plea bargain, with the terms of his deal. The paper trail only used Kogami's real name once, at the beginning, underneath his signature. After that, the file referred to him only by the codename he'd been assigned: Phantom.

Ginoza wondered if Kogami had gotten any say in what his codename was. It certainly sounded like the sort of thing he'd choose. But wondering made Ginoza's chest ache, and he forced himself to stop thinking and look back at the computer. If he got Kogami back, he could ask him then.

The sounds of the riot were quieter, here. Kogami didn't know if that meant that he'd made it out, or if it just meant that the local police were finally getting the violence under control, but he didn't really care anymore. He'd made it as far as he could.

His wound ached, the blood he'd been holding inside himself making his fingers slippery. He thought it had worked, or at least mostly. If he hadn't stopped the bleeding well enough, he would have passed out by now.

Kogami sort of wished he had. His legs were barely steady enough to hold him, and every breath brought with it pain so intense that it made his vision swim. He had no idea how he'd made it this far, and he wanted to stop moving with every shred of thought he had left.

He'd made it to a quiet residential street, far away from the city center. It looked like it had been hit particularly hard by the economic crisis that had affected all of EENA, and a lot of the small, shabby homes looked abandoned. Kogami couldn't read the local language, but he could guess at the meaning of the signs out front. The homes were for sale, or had been foreclosed on, or something similar.

Most importantly, they would be empty. Kogami's muscles relaxed, ever so slightly, with relief, and his stab wound throbbed in response. He gritted his teeth and pulled himself forward again. He couldn't let his guard down just yet, even if his hands were shaking badly enough that he didn't trust himself to hold anything, even if he couldn't see around the black spots swarming across his vision.

Kogami barely even remembered why he was trying to keep moving anymore. All that was left was the pain, and the drive to get away. That was all he'd been allowing himself to focus on, all he felt that he could manage.

Kogami dragged himself down a few more random side streets, until the sounds of the riot had all but completely faded behind him, and then found a strip of houses that all looked worn down and abandoned. Any of these houses should be relatively safe, with no inhabitants inside them and no neighbors to worry about either. If there were any squatters, Kogami was pretty sure they wouldn't risk their own safety to report him to any sort of authorities.

Kogami selected the house that looked the most rundown - he thought it would be easiest to break into, and attract the least suspicion as well. He curved around the back, gritting his teeth as the uneven ground sent pain spiking through his stomach with each footstep. There was a small set of cellar doors set into the backyard - they were padlocked closed, but the house had been abandoned long enough that the chains were rusted and weak-looking. Kogami stomped on them, hard. His vision swum in and out, and he had to swallow hard to keep from being sick, but the chains broke with a flimsy-sounding snap.

Kogami barely remembered the act of dragging the cellar doors open. He couldn't close them behind him - he only had one hand, and at this point, he frankly lacked the strength. He stumbled down a set of rickety stairs, and into a barren, dusty basement.

It wasn't warm, or clean, or particularly safe. But he was alone, and he didn't have to walk anymore. This would do for now.

Kogami settled himself on the wall opposite the set of doors. The light was best here, and he had the best chance of quickly seeing anyone who had managed to follow him. He knew he was still in very bad shape, but the relief from sitting down was immediate and overwhelming. His legs felt numb. He wasn't sure he was ever going to be able to stand again.

Carefully, Kogami extracted his fingers from the wound. Based on how wet his shirt was, he didn't think he'd lost too much blood during the walk over. But as soon as he'd removed his fingers, blood started flowing freely down his side again. He couldn't help but whimper.

Alright. He was probably going into shock. There frankly…wasn't a ton that he could do about that right now, but he knew that he needed to get the bleeding stopped. Kogami painfully leaned forward and slung his backpack off his shoulder, dumping the contents on the ground. He could find his first-aid kit, and take inventory on exactly what supplies he had left at the same time.

He pressed one forearm into the wound in his stomach, vaguely sorting through his supplies with his other hand. He didn't have much. Some water, some protein bars and dehydrated meals, some basic survival supplies like ropes and an emergency blanket, his first-aid kit, another knife. His translation dictionary, now splattered with blood from who knows what, the duct tape, the transponder - nothing useful now, injured and far away from home. He'd been traveling light

For the first time, Kogami couldn't banish the thought that he wasn't going to make it back. When he'd been moving, it had been easier to distill all his thoughts down to the pain, and the next step. But he could feel blood soaking his forearm, and he was getting shakier by the minute. Even if he managed to stop the bleeding, and then dress the wound, and then avoid infection, this hadn't gone his way. He'd planned on getting out of the city fast, before the alarm could go out. That was impossible now, and the major routes out of the city would likely be under guard. Kogami couldn't even wait for the alert levels in the city to decrease. He wasn't going to be able to survive that long.

Kogami closed his eyes and pressed his hands against his stomach. Usually, shutting his eyes helped him process, but the situation didn't feel any less overwhelming. Kogami had been hunted before, and he remembered the sensation of being backed into a corner. If he left now, he would certainly be caught. He'd barely managed to make it as far as he had.

He didn't want to get caught by EENA and end up on the news, only to be executed in a foreign prison. He didn't want to do that to Ginoza.

Kogami didn't want to disappear on him, either, but in a way, that seemed better. At least then Ginoza wouldn't be publicly tied to someone who was branded a terrorist. Ginoza loved him pretty much no matter what, Kogami knew that, but public opinion was important to Ginoza. Certainly more important than it had ever been to Kogami. Knowing that other people remembered Kogami like that would bother Ginoza, even though Kogami wouldn't have cared even if he'd been alive to see it.

He wished he could talk to Ginoza. Dying alone in a basement would be better than an arrest, but either way, Ginoza was never going to forgive him for disappearing. He wished he could explain, and tell Ginoza that he'd had a plan this time. It just hadn't worked.

Kogami choked back another whimper and pressed his hands harder into the wound. Even as he tried his best to stop the bleeding, he couldn't shake the thought that it wasn't going to matter in the end.

It wasn't like him to give up, or even to think about giving up. Kogami had survived more pain and danger than almost anyone else under SIBYL could even imagine, and that was thanks to a good amount of stubbornness, and even more luck. But it looked like his luck had run out, and stubbornness alone couldn't spirit him across national borders.

Then Kogami's transponder made a small buzzing, clicking sort of sound. Kogami felt separated from the world by a cloud of cotton, and so for a long few seconds, he didn't recognize the sound for what it was. Then, there was a moment where he was sure he must be imagining it.

Then, he realized his transponder really had turned on, which meant somebody was trying to contact him. The screen had lit up. Kogami couldn't even begin to imagine what Japan might want with him at this point - it had been pretty clearly explained to him that until and unless he got home, he was a liability at best.

But still. Someone was trying to reach him. So Kogami picked up the transponder and held it shakily to his ear. "H-hello?"