On a Friday afternoon, a few hours before her workday, Yashiro left the Faculty of Letters of the University of Tokyo with several classmates. She was always surrounded by students who were or were not in her own class, sometimes even some professors would chat with her for a while. It was not so much her defiant yet cautious gait, but her unquestionable convictions that most attracted their attention, for while the university was expected to encourage critical thinking, the truth was that there was little it could do if the majority preferred to renounce to it.
Between laughter and anecdotes about strange things that had happened to them in class, Yashiro narrowed her eyes when she saw a black car parked several meters from the entrance of the faculty. Three male faces got out of the car looking for something, until they stopped at her group and closed the car doors, heading toward them. Her classmates did not notice the prominent figures, but fell silent and frowned as soon as Yashiro walked past them. Only then did they turn to the sudden figures without moving from their places, reluctant to leave her alone in the presence of those strangers.
"Inspector Ginoza," Yashiro instantly walked forward to greet the men, her black derby shoes echoing with natural grace. "I did not expect to see you back so soon. I must assume that you have found something."
If Yashiro had wanted to shake their hand, it would have remained extended in the air, as the three men lined up in front of her like soldiers getting ready to shoot. On the right of the inspector was Kougami Shinya, while on the left was Masaoka Tomomi.
"Takahashi-san, I am going to have to ask you to come with us."
Yashiro stopped in her tracks and was silent for a while; both his deep, authoritative voice and his then narrowed green eyes, had prevented her from refusing to follow them, since his mere raven presence affirmed that she had no choice but to give herself to them.
"I understand," she nodded her head.
As soon as she took a step forward, she heard a shoe resounding on the pavement.
"Wait," someone grabbed her arm. "Who are these people, Takahashi-san?"
She glanced back. A young woman with dark brown hair neatly tied up, fixed her almost black eyes on hers. The grip was not strong, yet seconds passed and Yashiro was still like a teddy bear about to be torn apart from both sides.
"They are from the Public Safety Bureau. Don't worry."
Yashiro turned to the inspector again, but could not move. One of the young men who was also studying with her took a few steps toward the strangers, placing his hand on his hips and slightly raising his face. Yashiro pursed her lips as he grumbled, "Who are you? You can't take whoever you want like this."
The inspector arched an eyebrow at him as if hearing a sudden mosquito in the air, and Yashiro realized that some other students had started gathering around—all of them knew her.
"As your classmate said—we are from the Public Safety Bureau."
"Then identify yourselves."
Although Ginoza displayed his identification hologram, another group of students began to form around them as they passed by, and stayed to watch what was going on.
"All of you," demanded another.
The enforcers ignored them, Kougami being the only one who reacted by showing his dominator extending it in the air. When her classmates finally checked that they were not ordinary people, contrary to what they would have imagined, they began to exchange glances and whisper among themselves.
"What do you want from her?" a young male voice dared to ask from behind.
Someone else grabbed her arm very gently and tried to pull her backwards away to no avail. Suddenly she felt a breath above her head, and she stood still for several seconds as a new voice whispered in her ears, "Got your back, miss."
It took her a while to realize who was right behind her.
"You are a long way from your hole," she softly stated with her eyes fixed on the men.
Yashiro could easily recognize the smirk on those female lips.
"Right," another man stuttered taking some steps forward. "She hasn't done nothing wrong."
There were already many people in front of her then, including professors. Some started talking to the inspector about the danger of suddenly raising students' stress, which was gradually becoming noticeable among them. Yashiro was pulled back even harder than before and turned around. There was a tall young woman with black short hair and brown eyes. Yashiro had seen her before though she did not remember her name—she only knew she was at least a year older than her.
"We got to go now," she asserted without releasing her arm.
Yashiro shook her head, "I am not going anywhere until you tell me what this is all about."
"There's no time. It's all set up."
Yashiro came to see a familiar van rounding the corner. The same which had picked Sasayama Mitsuru some time ago. She frowned unable to move, and suddenly her words came out weak, barely audible, "Tell them to back off."
"I'm afraid I can't do that, miss."
"That's not for you to decide. Now step aside," ordered the inspector.
Getting a step closer, Yashiro even recognized the face behind the wheel.
"You don't have enough dominators to take us all down."
"Let's see," Kougami muttered with a cigarette in his mouth.
All of a sudden, just as he was about to point his dominator at the young blonde woman, Yashiro broke free of the grasp and made her way toward them.
"Takahashi-san, what do you think—"
Crime coefficient is 43. Not a target for enforcement action. The trigger will be locked.
Kougami arched an eyebrow but it took him a while to lower his gun again. By then both the inspector and the other man were pointing the dominator at no one, for they could not take their eyes off her. Not even Kougami—his were narrowed in a dangerous way.
"Yashiro, this makes no sense. You can't go on with them," the same blonde woman complained behind her.
Only then did the van parked on the other side of the street. Yashiro instantly recognized the barrel of a gun sticking out of the window.
"Watch out!" she pointed at the van with her index finger.
Before she could do anything else, someone grabbed her from behind forcing her to duck for cover. At that very moment, hearing the clamor of multiple people exiting the van, a burst of gunfire riddled the surrounding space. The agents took cover, and among so many students scattering all over the place, she quickly lost sight of them.
She managed to see Kougami acquiring his target—a man in his thirties who was trying to hit Masaoka. Inspector Ginoza positioned himself at the corner of a vehicle instead, and aimed his dominator at a man she remembered almost immediately. It was the one who had taken Kirino Touko in his own arms—now he was nothing but the remains of flesh mashed on the floor.
Yashiro was grabbed tightly by the arm and this time she let herself be guided by the woman, lowering her head at the sound of gunshots. She saw the black short hair ahead of her, yet when they were about to turn right in the courtyard, she stopped in her tracks before they could be seen by the only camera in that area, and slightly tilted her head to point at it.
When the woman checked that they were alone, she took a compact out of her pocket and as she opened it, suddenly the overlay of that outfit started to fade away over the actual clothes, and the real face of the man appeared beneath. For a moment it left her speechless. Then she remembered why she always cried when the Public Safety Bureau mascots were near her as a child.
They were drones designed to relieve the tension of the populace by having a non-threatening, childlike appearance, and they gave agents a tactical advantage when used as a sophisticated holographic projection over themselves, when questioning people or approaching a criminal. She could never forget the day she first saw an enforcer turn off the projection in front of her. Her mother told her that she started to cry, and from then on avoided being near one of them. It was to this day, that Yashiro stayed away from all holograms.
"This is nuts! What do you think you're doing Yashiro? These are Makishima's men," Choe Gu-sung raised his voice, restraining himself from shouting.
He was still holding her by the arm as if he thought she was going to slip away, though not as tightly as before. She raised her head looking into his eyes.
"I know. I've seen them before."
His jaw tightened and he extended his free hand in her direction, pointing to her face with his index finger.
"You dug their own graves!"
Yashiro pursed her lips, then hit his forearm with her own to push him away, and yelled at him, "They did it by themselves!"
He stepped back to give her space, and silence fell upon them. They both looked at each other like two animals about to rip one another apart, but little by little their faces softened.
"Why you're helping the police?" he demanded, crossing his arms.
His then calmer voice, sounded like that of an adult scolding a child.
"I will help you find answers Choe," promised Yashiro. "But not like this. Now turn that creepy holo back on and let's get out of here."
He slightly opened his eyes at her, then turned on the hologram and soon the same outfit overlaid his black jacket and green jeans. He was an ordinary student again—even his voice sharpened. Yashiro led him to another area of the university not far away that had another exit, but she stopped and he arched an eyebrow turning back to her. Yashiro shook her head and mumbled, "He put you in danger by bringing you here."
He lowered his gaze to meet hers again.
"He never places my life on the line intentionally."
Yashiro was silent for several seconds. There was an honest truth in those simple words but she needed to confirm them herself, "You did."
She looked deeply into his eyes for a couple of seconds. He might be fleeting and blunt when talking to people, but that was not how he interacted with her, and she could finally see it through his then different yet attentive, enduring eyes.
"You may live as a fugitive and a rat but here you are nonetheless—out of the shadows with death around the corner," Yashiro deduced with frank admiration.
Suddenly his phone rang, but he did not even take a look at the screen, for his smile was entirely reserved for her.
"It's Makishima," he replied in a whisper. "He wants to make sure you're safe."
"Let me speak with him."
He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out his phone, handing it to her with a brief pause in the process. When she put it to her ear, she received silence in response for a few seconds—he was a man accustomed to others giving him what he wanted, and she enjoyed being the exception every now and then.
"Your men weren't that lucky today," she uttered with a sneer.
He emitted a deep, fleeting breath with something close to boredom.
"What a pity," he finally answered.
Yashiro frowned unable to say a single word for a moment. She walked slowly imagining him wherever he was at that time, shaking his head in mock regret—which he was precisely doing in one of the classrooms of Ousou Academy, as he moved to the window to look outside, picturing her in his mind as well.
"You used them to make an attempt to kidnap someone from the bureau, but you do not show an ounce of concern for their failure?"
A long chuckle purred in her ear as he put his left hand on his beige pants pocket.
"You were my one and only concern. Have you come to realize that now... they have no reason to suspect you?"
Yashiro slowly looked around as if searching for something or feeling trapped.
"Are you saying that you let them all die... for a misguided notion of protecting me?"
"Now they are going to believe that these men targeted the last witness. They will eventually blame them and stop this meaningless search."
"But then they will suspect someone was behind it all."
He tilted his head to both sides, but did not respond. She remained speechless with her mouth half open for several seconds.
"You would be willing to put yourself at their mercy... so that they would not accuse me of crimes I have not committed..."
Her voice trailed off again, and his eyes squinted for a second at her then smooth tone, which eventually rose finding his ears, "But I am also guilty... Shougo."
She let silence come between them, yet she did not give him a chance to respond and cut the communication, handing the phone to Choe after a brief pause. Far away, in her past academy, he remained with his gaze lost in the sky, as if the conversation were repeating on a loop, and he found it hard to take his eyes off that blue. When he turned around, he remembered that he was not alone. Ouryou Rikako had stopped drawing in order to look at him.
She never meddled in his affairs, but he would not have told her about Yashiro, even if she dared ask him who had been on the phone nonetheless—it was something he wanted to keep to himself. And then he realized that it was the first time Yashiro had ever uttered his name. A faint smile brightened his face as he walked out of the classroom.
"You're going back," Choe Gu-sung blurted out with a scowling glance.
Yashiro stopped short and sighed, her eyes narrowing as she looked at him, "This is what I wanted. Neither he nor you are going to take it away from me."
"He would come out of the shadows if he found out."
She shook her head, "We will not let that happen."
"You're asking me to lie to him?"
"I am asking you to be my secret-keeper as well."
Yashiro could tell that he did not really want to let her go, but he would never force her to stay either. Finally, he bid farewell with a deep, confidence-inspiring nod of his head and each went on his way without looking back. On the other side of the faculty, a dozen broken bodies were scattered on the street and the sidewalk, and shards of glass from car windows covered the floor.
When Yashiro arrived at the place, she stood there for a while as if scanning the horizon without looking for anything at all. The three agents were also there, one of them communicating with another person while the other two were inspecting the men who had attacked them. There were no survivors.
Yashiro walked around as if she were working with them, and she did it so naturally that even they did not realize that she was actually at a crime scene. The drones that were often deployed as visual roadblocks restricting access had not yet arrived, though she would have ignored them one way or another to get a better view. Kougami was the first one who noticed her, and looked her in the eye throwing his cigarette on the floor, "You slipped away."
Yashiro suddenly stopped by a young woman who was also a student as her. She was from her class and had prevented her from going with the men. She was probably shot to death during the confrontation by accident—there was a bullet hole in her abdomen, and her body was lying on the floor face up covered with blood. Yashiro knelt down close to her. Masaoka's voice was a whisper as he approached her, "You shouldn't be here, miss. Your hue is going to get clouded."
Kougami slowly aimed his dominator at her again.
Crime coefficient is 40. Not a target for enforcement action. The trigger will be locked.
Yashiro was staring at the bright color of blood. There was only a man on her mind by then, and she closed her eyes in order to imagine him standing next to her.
"You could have prevented her from dying if you had just gotten in the damn car. How does it feel when people die because of you?"
She opened her eyes softly at those mocking words. Masaoka instantly frowned, "How can you say that Kougami?"
She stood up again, and turned to them. Her eyes were also narrowed as dangerously as Kougami's, and for a moment they remained silent staring at themselves, as if trying to tear one another apart.
"You are used to killing not only latent criminals but innocent people, so I would ask you the same question."
It was not the first time she had ever spoken out loud about her rejection of the justice system in that country, yet it was the first time that for saying what many would not even dare to admit to themselves, they raised their dominators at her, making her smile. However, they all remained static and as useless as water pistols, and she had the same unreadable expression again.
Crime coefficient is 35. Not a target for enforcement action. The trigger will be locked.
"We're sorry about this misunderstanding miss," Masaoka lowered his gun. "It's part of our standard procedures."
For a moment the three of them looked right through her as if she was not there. But suddenly another black car had arrived, and other people she had never seen before got out of it. One of them was a tall, slim woman with short brown hair styled into a blunt cut on both sides. She walked toward them with her gaze up and her brown eyes slightly narrowed. There was no doubt that she was also an inspector.
"My division will handle this," she nodded to Ginoza with an air of authority and professionalism. "Chief Kasei has given you a free hand to continue the investigation."
Yashiro's eyes widened at the mention of that name. She remembered Sasayama complaining that his case had been transferred to another division, when he was the one closest to the truth, and his rejection of the clear interest in capturing Touma Kouzaburou alive. She would never forget the confusion and disappointment in his every feature.
She found it almost a mockery that they were given the case again—they had been taken out of the equation ever since Sasayama Mitsuru decided not to follow the rules, and to be a threat to those who wanted to make Touma disappear, for he had discovered their secret—that some people could not be judged. And now his division was back to work on the same case that had been taken away from him a month earlier.
She was about to giggle but the corner of her lips remained slightly up. They were preying on the emotions of Kougami Shinya to find accomplices, and they would discard him as soon as he thought of revenge. Yashiro closed her eyes. No one would be willing to go that far on such a meaningless search—unless there were more people like Touma threatening their credibility. She opened them again, unable or reluctant to believe it. Perhaps she could not get to see the bigger picture, and her mind was starting to imagine things. But the thought was still there.
She wondered who these people were, for inspectors and enforcers were nothing more than a means to their ends. She always saw them as the eyes and hands of the Public Safety Bureau, but she had no idea who were part of the brain. Then she slowly shook her head. Something shattered within her and she gasped—after capturing Touma, she would interrogate him in order to find more people like him and possible witnesses, then kill them all. As simple as that. She did not believe he could have told them about Makishima Shougo, but she also knew that he was careless. He talked too much. He might have turned him in by accident.
Yashiro now felt a strange responsibility to warn Makishima. She realized how dangerous these people were, and that she was digging right into their hole. If she was not careful, they could figure out that someone was trying to grab them by their tail and pull them out.
"This was no ordinary robbery. We were targeted by these men for unknown reasons," declared Inspector Ginoza.
"Maybe it wasn't us," Kougami jumped into their conversation, then raised his chin at Yashiro. "Her."
The woman looked at the men and finally focused on Yashiro as well, "Who is she?"
"Our only witness," Ginoza confirmed in a lower voice, squinting his eyes and taking some steps toward her. "We need you to come with us."
With a smile gracing her face Yashiro went to the men, who led her to the vehicle. She knew then what it was like to be detained for police interrogation, yet despite what anyone would expect from a criminal, she walked alongside Inspector Ginoza as one of his many enforcers would. When they all sat in the car and started the engine, Yashiro looked out the window. As the car began to move, she came to see the holographic projection of Choe Gu-sung in the corner.
Inside the office, Kasei Joushuu returned to her desk and sat in her chair, leaning back in a smooth, deathly motion. She closed her eyes as the back of her head interconnected, and data began to fill the screen like shooting stars. Her hands slowly tapped the armrests with her index fingers in time to a melody—a slight yet visible frown was drawn on her face.
"Why did he let her live and wait all this time? It's not like him to be so careless. If he captured Touko because she knew about him, he should have captured Yashiro too—otherwise he would risk her incriminating him and that's something he can't afford."
Suddenly she leaned forward and when she opened her eyes again, she clasped her hands together with each elbow on its respective armrest.
"Of course—unless he's certain that she won't voluntarily incriminate him," she lifted an eyebrow and smirked. "Yashiro is protecting him. Even knowing that he's an accomplice of someone who kidnapped Touko, whom she wanted to rescue with the enforcer. These two definitely played a game I wasn't invited to. I don't know what her role was, but she wouldn't help a man like him without a reason."
Typing in the keyboard in front of her, a profile was displayed on the screen with its last psycho pass check. It was Yashiro's. She squinted and supported her chin with her thumb, while her index finger pointed vertically up her cheek.
"She's the only one capable of bringing Shougo-kun out of the shadows. That's why he sent his men—so that she wouldn't reveal his identity. But now she's in our hands."
After a whole minute, she suddenly leaned forward and searched for some information. Sasayama's image popped up on the screen and her face contorted into a smirk, "I didn't know he was precisely the one who killed her mother. One thing I'm sure of is that... if there's one person relieved by the death of this enforcer, that must be her. Yashiro? We have no conclusive evidence, but we'll have to keep an eye on her. That her psycho pass has remained stable so far is an indication."
Chief Kasei typed again and a live camera maximized on the screen. It was an interrogation room consisting only of a desk and two opposing chairs. There sat a woman in a dark red sweater with a black coat over it, her hands on the armrests as gracefully as if she were in the living room of her own home. When she looked up at the single camera in the corner of the room their eyes met, though she could not tell who was watching her from the other side.
There was something uncanny in that look that would not let the chief look away. This woman knew she was being watched, and seemed calm as if it did not worry her—she herself felt at ease in there. If only she would just fiddle with her hands on the table, or at least look around like many other suspects did, but none of that was the case with Yashiro.
As soon as Inspector Ginoza entered the room, her silver, finely narrowed eyes with long strands of bangs at the side, focused on him and then on Masaoka and Kougami, the latter pausing at the corners of the room as if they could not take another step toward her—both the peaceful and imperturbable expression of her face resembled that of an individual who relies on his mere conscience to prove his innocence.