Ending the Omnipotence Paradox

Chapter 18

He'd carried her out of the battle-worn Peacebreakers' base, Ginoza behind him as an armed lookout for enemy stragglers, with one hand cuffed to hers like she was the one in control of the situation despite the bullet wounds weakening her lithe body. Truthfully, perhaps she was in charge this time, of how this mission had ended and of the decision he'd made to finally let her arrest him.

While Tonami had been a different foe, the situation left the same stench of murderous intent lingering between them as Makishima had all those years ago. And while he had no choice other than to shoot the man who was moments away from ruthlessly killing her, he knew this time his selfish retribution would have a cost that he wouldn't try to escape from. He was done running from his penance, done running from her. And she'd known it the second his eyes had met hers after his most recent prey fell by her side.

It's not like he had a choice - his aim never faltering as it had with Makishima; having already been shot twice, he'd be damned if that poor excuse for a man would deliver the last, fatal blow to her with Kogami standing right there watching. It didn't matter that she had been trying to talk the murderous zealot from the ledge in hopes of bringing him to the righteous judgment she had been striving toward. The moment the first shot hit her, he was branded a dead man in Kogami's book; placing the muzzle of the gun against the smooth skin of her forehead had been the last straw for her former Enforcer. And the decision to pull a trigger had never come easier for him.

The blood that pooled on her leg just above where his arm cradled her might have been temporarily abated by the makeshift tourniquet he'd fashioned, but its offending presence reminded him yet again of his failure to protect her. She shifted slightly, turning her head into his chest as she winced in pain. He inadvertently tightened his hold on her, gently pulling her closer to him in comfort, relishing the feel of her petite, capable form against his.

"I got you," he murmured with a concerned glance down at her, squeezing her hand in reassurance as she took a shuddering breath.

Climbing aboard the copter Sugo was manning, he hardly took notice of the looks exchanged by their comrades as he carefully laid her down on a padded bench; his leg serving as a makeshift pillow for her increasingly weary head. She glanced up at him with a weak smile, her eyes silently conveying the gratitude she felt as the aircraft lifted off the ground beneath them. She lulled in and out of consciousness as they flew; Kogami's attention intently monitoring the rise and fall of her chest with each labored breath she took, his hand still resting against hers.

The moment they landed back at PSB headquarters, an oxygen mask was put over her face as she was hurriedly placed on a gurney and ushered away to the infirmary where Shion and a surgeon waited to properly evaluate her injuries. Once she was safely in the building, Kogami turned back to the transport, suddenly met by a line of armed PSB drones and the scowling face of Division 1's Junior Inspector, Mika Shimotsuki.

"I received orders to arrest you upon your return, Officer Kogami," she told him as Hanashiro and Ginoza rushed to his side.

"What is the meaning of this, Inspector? You are aware that you have no jurisdiction over SAD agents," his superior interrupted, clearly perturbed by the indignant smirk playing on the brunette's young face. Before she could respond, Kogami took a small step in front of Hanashiro.

"I gave Inspector Tsunemori my word that the PSB will no longer have to concern themselves with chasing after me," he told them docilely. "I'm ready to pay the long overdue price for my crimes."

He could hear Gino's sharp gasp behind him as he resolutely extended his arms for the Inspector to place the cuffs around his wrists. Turning his head toward his old friend after his hands were bound together, he was met with a bewildered gaze, interrupting the Enforcer before he could speak up.

"Keep taking care of her, will you?" he asked with a resigned smile, the intensity in his gaze making clear exactly who he was referring to.

"As if I have a choice," Gino confirmed magnanimously as his brow furrowed in concern.

The drones surrounded him then, Shimotsuki throwing one last smug look in Hanashiro's direction as she pivoted and escorted her unobjectionable prisoner into the very building he had run from four years ago.

---

Nearly a week had passed and the cell Kogami now called home hadn't changed in the slightest. The prisoner barracks were much different than the rehabilitation rooms he had been familiar with; the dark, unforgiving reality he was now surrounded by reminding him how fitting his current penance truly was. His thoughts had threatened to consume him on countless occasions already and the basic accommodations afforded to him - access to only Sibyl-approved literature and television, the meagerly apportioned communal gym, and the tattered sudoku book perpetually in his hand - hardly helped to pass the time. When the ubiquitous drone brought his lunch tray at its usual time that day, he was surprised to see the corner of a correspondence letter sticking out from underneath.

He would recognize her handwriting anywhere, a detail that had somehow escaped his prior awareness; the ever-proper moniker she had branded him with when they'd first met taunting him from the surface of the paper. The weight of the envelope seemed to suffocate him for a moment as he traced the pad of his finger over the indentation left by her writing. Swallowing his fear of what she would have to say to him, he turned the parcel over in his hand, hastily breaking the seal and sliding the letter out. His hands seemed to tremor slightly as he unfolded the unassuming piece of stationary, the official MWPSB header in stark contrast to her flowing script.

As he read the words, his emotions shifted quickly from the remorse he had felt since the moment he'd lifted her injured body off the cold ground of the Peacebreakers' base to an unexpected indignant anguish at what he could only guess she was planning next. This tyrannical regime they had the misfortune of living under had torn so much from them already, would they ever be able to find their way out if Akane resorted to the very nihilistic measures she'd always warned him against?