Chapter Text
Akane doesn’t recognise him at first.
He’s quiet, soft-spoken. Unobtrusive with his dark hair and darker eyes, hidden behind a pair of modest spectacles. He talks in fluent English, his discourse convincing without being forceful. He doesn’t intrude, doesn’t speak unless spoken to, and he moves as a subservient does, not a man who seeks to topple a regime in the most dreadful way possible.
In fact, she notices him only because Colonel Wong does. The good colonel doesn’t like him, hates him even, and the fact strikes a discordant note in her. There must be a reason why such a self-assured military man would feel so threatened by a mere civil servant, no matter how trusted by the Chairman.
Or perhaps it’s exactly because he’s too quiet. Too unobtrusive. He never looks her in the eye whenever their paths cross, exchanging nods and bows at most. For three days, she meets any number of officials as they try to untangle all the diplomatic knots that come with her request to leave the floating city, and there he will be, in the background, the same way he lingers at the peripheries of her mind, barely noticed but undoubtedly there.
Realisation, however, doesn’t come until they are fleeing together from Wong’s deadly drones, bull’s-eyes painted on their backs. It’s in the way he moves, evading shots and physical attacks alike—nimble, fluid, feline grace suddenly evident under the ordinary grey suit.
Then she knows.
–
Akane strikes as soon as they are hidden from sight.
A well-placed kick sends the man to his knees. At once, she puts some distance between them and draws her gun. It’s a small piece, much smaller than a Dominator. The lighter weight settles uneasily between her fingers, but this close, it poses no less threat than its bulkier sibling.
Still on his knees, he slowly looks up. Their eyes meet—and what remains of her doubt vanishes.
“Makishima Shougo.”
Even the name burns her tongue. He smiles, dark eyes and dark hair and yet still unmistakably Makishima that bile rises in the back of her throat.
“Inspector Tsunemori.”
His voice is smooth, controlled. There is no attempt to disguise himself this time. Akane feels the surge of an old panic flooding her system, clawing her insides, until every drawn breath leaves her trembling, her stomach churning. No other criminal affects her like this.
“It’s really you.” Even her voice has gone faint, faded, as if swallowed by his presence. She has the gun, of course. She also has a knife hidden in her right boot, the kind that tears into muscles and leaves a clean deadly cut—and at this point, she is trying not to think of how much better he is at wielding one.
Makishima is unarmed and on his knees. Neither of these facts, she knows, mean much of anything. Not in his case. Not with what he can do.
“I was wondering when you would recognise me,” he says mildly, voice warmer than it has any right to be.
“Is this country your next target?” she demands. It takes her entire self-control to keep her hands from shaking. “Are you going to do here what you did in Japan?”
“Is that what you think?” Smiling, head tilted slightly, he looks harmless, almost innocent. It must be the eyes, Akane desperately grabs at the thought. The dark lenses; they lend him a human quality he doesn’t actually possess. That must be it.
“Why else would you be here, working so close to the chairman?”
He shrugs—again, a painfully human gesture. “I’m afraid being in this country wasn’t even my choice.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means, Inspector Tsunemori.” He pauses, lips curved, eyes never leaving hers, and suddenly she knows, with perfect horrifying clarity, that he’s about to crush her. “It means a certain someone who couldn’t bear to let me out of his sight made the decision to come here.”
The hammer falls silently, almost gently. They’re words, just words, but it’s their meaning that shreds her. Just as Makishima has always been able to reduce her hard-earned fortitude to nothing simply by existing, Kougami has the same effect on her, just on a different spectrum. They are always two sides of the same coin.
This, however, is not even the worst of it. The worst is the fact that she barely feels any surprise. She has harboured the same formless aching doubt for the last three years. It was only after Chief Kasei had shown her pictures of Kougami that it coalesced into suspicion. And now she understands. His silence. His decision to disappear without a word. The fact that there was no body to be found. Suddenly everything makes sense.
“You’re lying,” she hisses, hating the weak tremor in her voice.
Makishima says nothing. He knows he doesn’t need to—his obscenely serene expression says what his mouth does not. Akane stares, heart in her throat. The hard curve of the trigger is tempting on her finger. A light press, a squeeze, is all it takes. After all, her finger might slip, and she can wipe that look off his face.
A rain of bullets put an end to that temptation.
She sees his eyes widen, his expression shift into astonishment. She recognises the moment he feels the shot. Then he falls, crumpled like a lifeless doll. A scream is stuck in her throat. For one horrifying moment, she is certain that he is dead, here, now, a victim of a mindless drone instead of a perpetrator of evil punished by true justice. The idea is so abhorrent that it shakes her out of her trance.
“Get up!” Akane screams, moving in front of him to take down a lurking pair of drones. Resolve burns hot under her skin. It keeps her aim steady, her mind clear despite the frenzied cacophony inside her chest. She will arrest him—bring him back to Japan. He will not die here, like a hunted rat. His sins are bigger than that.
“Not yet.” His voice is faint, but the quiet words still pierce the pounding silence around them. Eyes still fixed on their surrounds, Akane feels, more than sees, him stir. He moves slowly, rising by scant degrees until he can support his weight on one arm. The bullet hit his other arm, she realises with a sickening rush of relief; his left arm and not somewhere else potentially fatal.
“We must leave right now,” Makishima says once he is back on his feet. There is a new tightness around his lips—a concession to pain, perhaps, except all she can see is the man with the razor. “I can’t die here.”
Akane swallows the myriad of retorts she longs to hurl at him. “Then let’s go,” she snaps instead.
He looks at her and smiles. He wears that same smile when he matches her running pace with ease; when he pushes her out of the range of yet another barrage of bullets; when he takes out two drones coming their way with one incapacitated arm and simply matchless speed. Once again Akane is reminded that this was the person who would have shot her dead if not for a chance lack of ammo.
The irony doesn’t escape her. Now, when he raises his hand, it’s to protect her—just as when she fires her gun, it’s to protect him.
.
The worst and most devastating irony, however, doesn’t find her until Kougami does.
What actually happens is that while navigating the maze of buildings, he has mistaken her as an enemy soldier. She returns the favour by forcing him down to his knees, gun pointed straight to that narrow space between his eyes. By that point, Akane realises, anger has thoroughly twisted her insides that even a glimpse of his shock when recognition dawns burns a vicious pleasure through her.
“You,” he rasps, eyes wide with disbelief.
“Long time no see, Kougami-san.” Had she been in any other situation, Akane would have been proud at how well she could control her voice. Sparring with Sybil constantly for the last three years seems to have its merits after all. He, in contrast, is clearly too rattled to exert the same degree of control.
“You’re here,” he says again, his own weapon hanging limp and useless from his grip. Akane makes no reply. Instead, she savours the moment as long as she can, finding this reversal in roles jarring but not unpleasant, until his focus trembles, splinters, shifts—and she knows that is the moment he sees Makishima.
Any hope she might still harbour that everything has been one giant ball of coincidence and misunderstanding crumbles then. There is no mistaking the look on Kougami’s face as he rises to his feet and approaches the other man.
“What happened?” he demands, and she follows him with her gaze, to where Makishima is leaning against a wall, his blood dark on the grey sleeve of his suit.
“It’s good to see you too, Shinya,” Makishima says, smiling faintly. The way he speaks his name makes Akane clench her teeth. “Well, we were ambushed, as you no doubt can guess.”
“You were shot.”
“A moment of recklessness. It’s nothing, though.”
Kougami clearly has arguments lined up on that front but keeps each one of them silent for now. Instead, he turns and addresses her, meeting her gaze squarely. “We’re getting out of here.”
“And talk later,” she declares, if only to remind him that she won’t stop until he gives her some explanations.
He nods, a brusque movement. “Let’s go.”
Kougami takes the lead, as silent and efficient as she remembers. She carries the rear, falling back easily into their old pattern. Between them, Makishima matches their pace with a less steady gait. His breathing is ragged, and Akane finds her eyes repeatedly drawn to the spreading stain on his jacket.
She doesn’t miss the frequent glances Kougami casts his way either.
They make their progress in silence, slipping in and out of shadows as the sun steadily declines. Akane estimates that an hour has passed before they finally meet a number of Kougami’s companions. The guerrillas, she realises. The rebels. The people Kougami is fighting with. There is a degree of familiarity here, in their hands on his shoulders, their tight smiles, their relieved eyes. They are more distant with Makishima, watching, keeping him at arm’s length. Akane files this away for further scrutiny. For now, her eyes trail after Kougami as he sits down on the ground, motioning for Makishima to follow him.
“Let me see.”
“It’s only a scratch,” comes the smooth protest. Akane has to wonder how he does it when every evidence of the contrary is obvious on his pale, clammy face. “We should move out at once.”
“A scratch doesn’t bleed that much,” Kougami retorts, unimpressed.
“Depends on where it is, actually.”
Kougami wastes no more time arguing and just pulls him down by his uninjured arm. “Take them off and shut up.”
Makishima rolls his eyes through a grimace of pain but obeys. After fumbling a few times with the knot of his tie, Kougami pushes his hands away and takes over the job himself. The tie gone, buttons yield easily. Akane finds herself staring. Makishima is pale and thin and seeing him bared like that makes her wonder how on earth he could ever terrify her.
And then there’s Kougami. His movements are quick, efficient as he attends to the wound, but they falter, fingers twitching at every pained sound Makishima makes. There is a rawness to his expression that turns her spine to ice. Worst of all, it’s the familiarity with which he touches him, as if he has spent the last three years acquainting himself with Makishima’s naked skin.
Akane isn’t sure when she looks away, but she makes a conscious effort to glance back at them when Kougami speaks again, “You should lie down.”
“Not now,” Makishima says, cracks finally evident in the drag of his breath. “Are we done?”
Kougami looks at him. The staring match goes on until a small smile twists Makishima’s mouth. Kougami snorts.
“We’re going back,” he announces to the rest of the group. Only then that he glances up and meets Akane’s eyes. “And then we’ll decide what to do next.”
The fire of her rage is gone. Now she can only feel the cold.
–
Their opportunity to talk doesn’t come until late in the evening.
There are people—hundreds and hundreds of them. They treat Kougami like he is something not quite human. She has seen that kind of reverence before, in those who followed Makishima. The comparison settles heavily in the pit of her stomach. The air, chock-full of smoke from burning incense sticks, doesn’t help.
Later, she is introduced to Sem, their leader in name if not wholly in fact. His Japanese is stilted but functional, and his welcome is sincere enough despite the concerned looks he spares at Makishima. Those come as a surprise to Akane. She watches from the corner of her eyes as they talk for a minute under Kougami’s watchful frown. She glimpses an unexpected smile on Makishima’s face at something Sem says—and has to force herself to turn away, incredulity and loathing a confusing mix in her chest.
Now there are only the two of them, sitting across each other, in a room with two beds, a table, and two chairs. Even as she sits holding her glass of brandy between her hands, in a borrowed shirt that smells like Kougami, she has to try very hard not to think what any of these mean.
“Come back with me,” she says instead.
Kougami doesn’t answer. There is only the breadth of the table between them and the night is silent outside. If he doesn’t answer, then it’ll be because he chooses not to.
Akane waits, regardless. She would’ve looked him in the eye, as she had done throughout the day—except to maintain that effort requires the kind of self-control that she no longer possesses. Perhaps this is why he’s been stalling. After such a long day, she is exhausted and he knows it.
Kougami has changed. Three years have passed and she has filled in all the blanks across that gap with memories that stay constant, crystallised by time. Now that he is sitting in front of her, he seems to be larger, harder, colder, more distant than she ever remembers.
“I’m a fugitive,” he finally says, lighting up another cigarette.
“At the moment,” she concedes. “But if you come back now, there’s a chance that you can have your old life back.”
“As a dog in the system.”
She doesn’t flinch; it’s either a testament of how much the last three years has hardened her core or simply yet another proof of how tired she is. He backtracks all the same.
“Sorry,” he mutters, face obscured by a wisp of smoke. “It’s been a while since I have to… yeah. Sorry.”
Since he has to what? Akane feels numb. Perhaps with Makishima he never has to watch what he says—and what an existence that is. She measures her words every second, with every wall listening, every corner hiding an all-seeing eye.
“Maybe your Psycho-Pass has recovered,” she offers feebly.
“And maybe it hasn’t.”
“Even then, I can negotiate it.” This sudden surge of determination puts new steel into her voice. There is a chance. She will have to be smart if she wants to outmanoeuvre Sybil, but in this case she does have leverage. She has what they want. “You can come back.”
“In exchange for?”
She holds his gaze now, a challenge. “Makishima, of course. Isn’t that why you’ve kept him alive all this time?”
Kougami’s face doesn’t change. His fingers remain steady. Not even the tip of his cigarette quivers. It’s this conscious effort to keep all reactions locked within that tells her he is anything but unaffected. The realisation slips in like poison. She has thought him distant; only now that she sees: there is, in fact, an abyss between them, and it’s widening with every word hurled across the table.
“You know what Sybil really is, don’t you?” When he speaks again, it’s with an odd sort of gentleness that doesn’t match the words.
“So do you,” she replies at once. “He’s told you.”
“And you think it’s a good idea to deliver him to them?”
“I think it’s a rotten idea,” she keeps her face straight, her voice firm, “but still better than the alternative.”
He leans back into his chair and sighs. She recognises that feint; it means he’s going to attack. “What is this alternative? Me living here instead of Japan? It’s not such a bad thing.”
“Is it?” Akane presses on, voice rising. “Living like an exile? Forever drifting and not being able to come home? Ever?”
She can see how her words affect him. Kougami is not made for a rootless existence. There is something inherently steady in him, something that needs a home, familiar soil, to flourish. Earth. Not white drifting clouds.
“Still better than the alternative,” he echoes, and it’s his final answer.
Warmth bleeds in her eyes. She hasn’t even noticed the weight of her tears until her vision blurs, fragmenting his face out of focus.
“He calls you Shinya,” she whispers past the heavy lump in her throat. “Is that why you didn’t kill him?”
Kougami scoffs. “Of course not. Don’t pay attention to anything he says. Messing with people’s head is his hobby.”
She nods jerkily, the first few drops making their way down her cheeks. “Then he’s got what he wants. He’s certainly messed with mine.”
His hands twitch, an aborted movement. She cannot help but wonder if he has just physically stopped himself from leaning across the table and putting his arms around her. But he remains still, silent, a burning cigarette dangling forgotten between his fingers.
The storm passes quickly. Akane wipes her face with her sleeve. His. It’s one of his shirts. It envelopes her perfectly, all the more so because she knows this is the last time she will ever feel it.
“What are you planning to do now?” She looks up, face bared, daring him to look.
Kougami does. “Keep fighting with everyone here, I suppose.” He is careful, mindful of her pain. “Do our best not to let them get into this country.”
“Is that why he was there, working for the Chairman?”
Kougami’s left eyebrow twitches. “He volunteered.”
“So you’re working together now.” And forgetting about Yuki, Kagari, Masaoka, about your friend Sasayama, except she didn’t say any of those out loud. If his expression were any indication, however, he has heard them all the same.
“It’s complicated.”
She cannot help but laugh, a wet, pitiful sound. Such a clichéd line. It sinks into her soul like a needle, slow and painful. But she has always known, hasn’t she? Even back then, there was always something complicated about Kougami’s hatred for Makishima. Now, after spending the last three years with him, learning about him as an individual, she can only imagine all the things that have changed.
“I’m keeping an eye on him,” Kougami continues when she makes no reply. Akane doesn’t think she imagines the note of desperation in it. “He’ll never kill again. Or do all the things he’s done before. I’m giving you my word.”
Because you’re in love with him, she almost says, the words rattling painfully in her throat. In love with a monster. And even though that’s what he is, you love him all the same.
“I see,” she says, and she does.
Across the table, Kougami has never looked more alone.
End Chapter 1