"There a problem, inspectors?" Ginoza watched as their target's smile morphed into a cocky grin, no doubt knowing their predicament. "Oh, I'm sorry. Only one of you is an inspector, right? That thing would be more useful pointed in your direction, wouldn't it?"

Ginoza grit his teeth, taking the barbed comment.

But Tsunemori didn't allow herself to hesitate any further as she lowered her weapon in favor of speaking to the suspect head on. They were more than the machines in their hands. If the system wouldn't back them up, then they'd just have to face their enemy themselves. "Let's just talk this out, Kenshi. We don't want anyone getting hurt here." Her eyes wandered over to Sakura, giving her a nod before she faced the man again. "I don't think you do, either."

Ginoza watched as his smile faltered slightly, though his hold on the older woman tightened. Ginoza found the action odd. With the way his arm hugged her to his side, it was like he was protecting her, holding her to him, rather than threatening her. The knife had even inched its way from her throat. It was true. He really didn't want to hurt her.

He took that moment to finally look at his mentor. There wasn't as much fright in her expression as he would have expected from a hostage. For the most part, she just looked unbearably tired. Her coefficient, however, reflected what his eyes couldn't judge. Her number was high, and climbing. With his palms coated with sweat, he quickly lowered the dominator from her, it nearly falling from his grasp in his haste to do so.

He gaped, unable to hide his own fear as he watched her lips move. 'I'm okay,' she mouthed. But he could hardly take comfort in that. He'd just seen proof of the complete opposite.

Tsunemori took note of the dilemma, channeling her own worry towards their suspect. Sybil's judgement was wrong, but she already knew what it felt like to be abandoned by the system. She still remembered Yuki's bright face covered in tears and terror as that knife slid beneath her throat. She could still see the hopelessness that had clouded her gaze as she realized that even her best friend, an inspector with the perfect tool to take that horrifying man down, wouldn't save her.

"All I wanted was for you to know." Kenshi's face crumbled even more as he mumbled into Sakura's neck, the woman cringing away from him as disgust tinged her features. "I've loved you since the moment I met you. But you could never see me… Or my love for you."

Ginoza felt his stomach drop. It had been Sakura that he had been after all along? All of it had been for her? But then that meant… The body of their latest victim flashed in Ginoza's mind. All that anger, all of that hatred that had been laced into every stab was meant for the woman now in his grasp. The woman that had his knife at her throat.

"But she knows now," Tsunemori tried, flinching as the knife only grew closer to his hostage's flesh. "She understands your love for her now, don't you, Sakura?"

She caught on quickly as she licked her lips, her eyes meeting Kenshi's for the first time since they entered. "Y-yes, dear. I'm sorry I didn't understand at first. I was just a little shoc-"

"Don't lie to me!" he roared. "I know you. I know when you're lying. Don't you dare lie to me!"

"I would never…"

"Even when you tried to tell me that you didn't feel sick? When I found you nearly passed out on the back deck and you tried to tell me you were fine?!"

He was getting increasingly angered, and the situation was quickly slipping from Tsunemori's hands. So Ginoza did the only thing he thought could help. "You're sick?"

Kenshi's gaze fell back to him, sneering towards him with avid dislike. "Of course she's sick! How could you not tell?"

"And you tried to keep it from him?" He ignored Sakura's bewildered stare, keeping his attention directed solely on Kenshi. Attempting to sympathize with a suspect wasn't really his forte, and it made him want to cut out his own tongue more than anything, but it was the only card he had. Acting friendly with a man that had murdered multiple women, when had that become a part of his job description? "You were just trying to spare his feelings, right?"

"O-Of course. I just didn't want to upset you, T-Takaya."

"So you admit it. You do lie to me!"

Shit. Kenshi was evidently unstable. No matter how many ways they attempted to spin the conversation, the man's anger always landed on Sakura. But they had to find a way to distract him from that anger, focus his mind on something more important than that emotion. Tsunemori seemed to get the same idea.

"I loved the flowers!" she blurted, her tact lost to desperation. "I don't know who would be able to turn down such masterpieces. If anyone had made those for me… let's just say my apartment wouldn't be so empty…"

He relaxed a little in response, some of the tension leaving his limbs as he looked towards the inspector. "You liked my work?" He sounded like a little child looking for praise, his eyes wide and hopeful.

"We both did." She gestured towards herself and Ginoza. "They were beautiful and your choices of flowers were deadly accurate. I felt like I knew them just from the flowers alone."

"When I saw those women, I thought only of her." His gaze fell to the floor, a torrent of emotions reflected in his eyes. "You know when I was a kid, I wanted to be an artist… But my OAT score had other ideas. The system said that my purpose was to heal people. Heh, guess it was a little off."

Tsunemori tilted her head as sympathy came to her eyes. "You went into medicine at the system's suggestion?" She moved slowly as she talked, making her way away from Ginoza, but not any closer to Kenshi.

"It's what everyone does, right?" He laughed, but it was hollow, dead the minute it echoed from his throat. "What about you? Did you always want to be an inspector, or did Sybil choose for you?"

"I chose," She paused, considering how to answer his question in the best manner. "I chose to follow the system's recommendation."

"Just like me, then… I went down the career path picked out for me, became what I needed to be. And the system was right. I was pretty damn good at it. I was even able to create the most effective mood suppressant yet!"

Ginoza's eyes widened at the information. So that was how he was keeping his coefficient so low. He had medicated himself.

He watched as Tsunemori took another few subtle steps and gave a nod that was covertly directed at him. He rose his dominator just enough to catch the outline of Kenshi's body. The man was at eighty-five. His suppressant is wearing off...

"But everything still felt so dull. Like I was living a shadow of a life. I tried to find new ways to stimulate myself. Expanded my medical prowess any way I could. It wasn't until I took Sakura's herblogy class that I found what I'd been looking for." A fond smile lit up his face and he looked back down at Sakura. She gave him a strained smile in return, but it was obvious that she was trying not to recoil. "She reminded me that I still had a soul. Saw me for the artist I was at heart. She even encouraged me to take some art classes on the side. I knew from then on that I couldn't leave her."

"Out of curiosity," Tsunemori interrupted, expression bashful. "Where did you get such an idea? I mean you could have just painted her a picture on canvas." When it looked like he had taken that the wrong way, she amended her words. "But that would be too cliché, I suppose."

"Y-yes, Takaya," Sakura spoke, "that was such a… unique idea. However did you come up with it?"

Color rose to his cheeks as his smile grew almost too wide for his narrow face. "You remember Kayabuki Ayami, right? She was in your class before-"

"Of course. Gloomy, but very bright."

"She said she wanted to convey her true feelings through her artwork and drew a portrait of herself bare to only her truest characteristics. It was just like that story you told me, Sakura! When I saw that drawing, everything clicked."

"What clicked?" Ginoza questioned, throat dry.

"I couldn't just wait anymore. I had to show her how I really felt." He nuzzled his face into Sakura's neck, the knife separating from her only minutely as he leaned his head against hers. "That first girl I met in the courtyard. She was unbelievably stunning, just like you are. And she was so strong in her beliefs. Wouldn't let anyone disprove what she knew to be right. And she was untainted by base desires, pure in every sense of the word. I couldn't help but see you as I was speaking with her. I knew she was the one. She would be a testament to my love for you."

Ginoza watched as Sakura grew more and more visibly nauseated as he went on. He tried not to worry, to put his faith in Tsunemori, in the machine in his hands as he watched Kenshi's number creep its way up. But if the elder woman let herself slip, if Kenshi noticed just how disturbed everyone in the room truly was because of him, if Tsunemori said the wrong thing, or if he himself did, then he would officially have no one left.

"It felt so impossibly good to let it all out. Kayabuki was right. With every stroke of my brush I could feel my love flowing through me and into her. It was like a transference of my soul… But it never reached you. I left my artwork for the world to see. I allowed everyone to know, but you never spoke of it. Never acknowledged it, not even once." His grip on her strengthened and she squirmed slightly in his hold. His pained expression was quickly creasing with anger.

"You're hurting me, T-Takaya."

"You hurt me!"

She whimpered as the knife slid closer to her skin. Ginoza had to force his mind to ignore the way her hue darkened in response to his growing temper. "So you had to make yourself heard." The man turned back to him and Ginoza fell into a more casual stance, the dominator just barely keeping Kenshi in view. "You needed to confess again, so she could understand." He made it sound like a question, like everyone in that room didn't already know the answer.

"Yes." His brow furrowed with the same desperation that misted over his eyes. "She had to know. I had to let her know..." His voice cracked, but that seemed to only heighten his distress. "So I made another and another. But she just didn't get it! She couldn't see past her plants and her dead husband! It was just as it always had been. I wasn't going to let her die without her knowing."

"So you took another girl…" Tsunemori prompted. "Miyuki was supposed to be another confession…"

He looked downright torn at those words. He cringed, expression souring as if her words were particularly strident and forceful in his ears. "I didn't mean to do that, I just… I started to, but I just felt so vexed and enraged and suddenly I was stabbing her and stabbing her. Then I was just standing there, her blood dripping off of the knife in my hand instead of my brush. It hadn't been what I'd intended, but… It conveyed my emotions all the same." His lip curled and the knife crept even further into her neck.

"No, don't!" Tsunemori took a thoughtless step forward, but was stopped quickly by the man as he screamed out.

"Stay back! I swear I'll kill her!"

"No you won't." Ginoza had his dominator back up, trained for when the time came, but despite his threatening stance, he still attempted to appeal to him. "You love her. You don't have it in you to kill her. I know how it feels, Kenshi. Trust me, I know. You just want it to be over, all of the wanting and waiting. No matter how much you wish you could just pull that trigger and be done with it, you can't. No matter how much you despise her for what she's done to you, for ignoring your feelings, for leaving you to feel worthless, you can't." The feelings spilled forth, all true in their sincerity. But he didn't let himself crumble beneath their weight. "You love her. And you would never want her dead."

Kenshi shook his head in defiance of that statement. "I realize now that maybe she won't ever understand my feelings. Just like Aroia couldn't see his love, she couldn't see mine. But I'm not going to let her die without me. I refuse to be alone, too!"

"You don't want to do this!" Tsunemori kept talking, but the enforcer's sense of hearing dropped out, as did most others. His attention was squared solely on the numbers flashing before his eyes.

93…

94…

95…

Ginoza let out a slow, quiet breath as he prayed for Kenshi's coefficient to increase faster. His muscles strained beneath his suit as the dominator shook in his grasp and his finger held tight to the trigger. He understood Kougami's actions a little more now, the emotions that had led to his demotion, to his final jump into murder. It was like being eclipsed in a flashfire that never ended. A feeling that was completely overwhelming and all-consuming in nature took over, compelling him to kill a man that had killed so many others, had threatened and killed those he held dear. Taking a life didn't seem so outlandish anymore. It wasn't such a personal, or irredeemable betrayal anymore.

96…

97…

Unlike Kenshi, Makishima couldn't be tamed by their system. The system couldn't paralyze him, or decompose him. It couldn't even hold him, as he'd escaped almost as quickly as he'd been caught. Kougami had no other choice.

He had no other choice.

98…

99…

The knife began to make its arc against her neck, but it didn't get far. The trigger loosened as Sybil reappraised its target, and Ginoza was there to take advantage of the system's correction. Kenshi froze up at the first pulse and the blade slipped from his hand, clanging to the floor just as his own body met the sound with a crude thud. Sakura collapsed to the floor shortly after, her hand covering the small incision that had been made as Tsunemori rushed to them.

Ginoza watched as if he were simply a witness to it all. As if he hadn't just felt the barbaric sparks of homicidal intent shooting through his veins. Hands numb, he dropped the dominator to his side. He knew he should have felt something. Joy that he had rescued the last person that remained from his past life. Anger that it had taken him entirely too long to disarm the criminal. Annoyance at how much such a situation had unnerved him. But, no, he didn't feel much of anything aside from a general and very distant sense of awareness.

Later on, as everything moved around him, he had to wonder, if it had been a gun in his hand, would he have been able to pull the trigger? Without the system as his cover, its judgement as his excuse, could it have been so easy? Something inside of him gave him his answer.

And it wasn't all that surprising.

Time passed quickly after that. Kenshi was taken into custody and officially charged with the murders of five women, the abduction and attempted murder of another that Division Two had found in the basement of his house, and the attempted murder of his most prized professor. Sakura's physical injuries were minor with the damage to her hue being much more severe. She was admitted for treatment and intensive therapy with a high chance of recovery.

It turned out that Sakura truly was sick, but had kept it quiet from most, so it was no wonder that Ginoza, with his lack of current involvement with her, hadn't known. Kenshi had figured it out though, and that, coupled with the idea from Kayabuki, had triggered his decent into madness. But Kenshi was now no longer a threat and the bureau, as well as the general public, could rest easy in the wake of his arrest.

Reports were filed and the hype died down. They'd closed their case, yet something inside Ginoza still seemed wide open.

When everything was said and done, a full day had already come to pass. Too much had happened, and he was far too wired to simply retire to his room, so he slipped out to the one place that had always brought him peace.

The glow was bright and brilliant as a mild chill began to set in over the area, night having fallen only a short while before. It was calming, the view. It allowed Ginoza to settle for a few moments. The city, in all of its hectic, chaotic glory reminded him that everything still went on, people still lived their lives, the world still turned, despite his failings. Despite there being a few less people within its population.

He stood there alone for only a handful of minutes before he felt the cool whispers of a familiar touch along his skin. Long lost fingertips traced along his cheek until they glided tantalizingly slow down his jaw and throat. It was barely a glimmer of feeling, but it gave him a sense of calm in a time when he sorely needed it. Ginoza sighed and relented, letting the phantom share his space instead of dismissing him as he'd done so many times over the past months. It was almost too easy to sink into his presence, to welcome the warmth at his side. He was too tired to force him from his consciousness, his will too frayed to bury those hands back into the depths from which they came. It didn't matter anyhow. He was past the shame, the hatred. As he'd learned in his past sessions, and in his darkest moments, it was okay to indulge in his fantasies every once in a while.

They didn't talk in these moments. Other than the quick tips and reassurances during a case, and the quiet murmurs in the safety of their bed, they never did. It would break the delicate reprieve he could only find at such an hour. But this time the quiet didn't lend him the same comfort it usually did. It was stifling, like a carefully knotted tie that restricted his airflow. He didn't wish to couch these feelings, not anymore. Instead, he let them float along beside him, easily reachable within the air, but not concretely dwelling within him. He'd surely drown if he let the rain settle for too long.

Ginoza turned, facing not the man that he wanted, but the shadow that had been left behind. "I'm sorry I was so harsh, Kougami." The coarse whisper slipped from his lips, unbidden feelings surfacing with the sound. "I didn't know…" He thought back to that feeling of hopelessness, when he thought that there was no way he could stop Kenshi even though he was right there. Even though there was no longer any doubt as to the type of man that he was. He had felt such rage towards the man that had dealt so much hurt. So much grief and regret towards the people he never could have saved. But there had still been a slight flicker of sympathy within his breast, and that had been the most shocking feeling of them all.

"Are we just hiding behind Sybil?" he wondered aloud. It was a dangerous thought, but it couldn't be helped. "Would I have…" killed that man without a second thought if her voice hadn't commanded it of me? What was it inside of them that made them capable of killing? Why was it that Kougami could take a life, when Tsunemori could not? Why was it so easy for Kenshi to go from helping people to brutally murdering them?

The man had been so meek, so small and easily overlooked. He was successful, his chosen profession giving him purpose, even if it didn't serve to fulfill his inner desires. He didn't seem the type to kill. But who really did? Over the course of his career, Ginoza had seen enough people become murderers and criminals despite them not fitting the typical profile. All it took was the right set of circumstances and the right amount of emotional turmoil and mental imbalance to drive even the most sane and rational men down to the level of a killer.

And again, he could only wonder if he was already there. Had he finally fallen that far down? Or was the peak of that level already a distant memory?

No matter the answer, it was too late to turn back now. This was his destined path, the one he'd chosen. The one the system had bestowed upon him all those years ago, and he had clung to it like a lost child. "I went down the career path picked out for me, became what I needed to be." Kenshi wasn't the only one. The moment that recommendation had come in, he'd been hell bent on being an inspector, even went and dragged Kougami right along with him. He'd relied so heavily on the system's judgements, for better or for worse.

"How do we know if we're on the right path if we don't choose it for ourselves?"

Maybe he was being too hard on Sybil. It wasn't its fault that he had failed.

There had been other professions he could have chosen, other paths he could have walked. There had been many moments over the years where he had wondered what his life would have been like had he taken a different turn. Such thoughts were only natural, he assumed. Would he have become a completely different person? Would his life have been easier? Less of a tangle of regrets and doubts? Or would he have faced the same questions? The same unbearable loss? Would he still have failed so effortlessly?

Ginoza shook his head at such useless thoughts. What could have happened was of no consequence. This was where his life had led him, and he needed to quit regretting it. He needed to quit questioning his place in the world, and the system that governed it. No matter its faults, he still believed in the system.

What else was there to believe in?

How to continue on was the true question. He was already growing weary of following this path, of tracing the outline left behind by his predecessors. As an enforcer, he'd done well. He'd done exactly as he was supposed to, but there was still a hollow left inside that remained empty no matter what he accomplished. He didn't know how to fill the void.

He always told himself that he was working to save people, but that was just another one of his grand lies, wasn't it? He was just trying to prove himself to the world, to his father, to Kougami. But all of them had abandoned him. His father was dead. Kougami was gone. The world had turned its back on him the moment he'd fallen from grace. He no longer had anyone to prove himself to, so why was he still here? What was his purpose now?

He could feel the phantom at his side grow colder at his words, but that was just fine with him. He didn't know why he was still clinging to this man. Ginoza felt like he was always left hanging in his wake, left dangling from a slender thread that stubbornly refused to break. He didn't know why he couldn't just let him go. Their love wasn't everlasting. It wasn't an epic love story that spanned galaxies and lifetimes. It had been transient, at best. They were simply two people that had grown together until they finally sprouted in different directions. To Kougami, he had probably been nothing more than a passing fancy. Leaving him behind had been easy. He hadn't even spared him a goodbye.

All those years of friendship reduced to a flickering flame that went out almost as soon as it had been ignited.

But no matter what he told himself, he couldn't let him go. He would hold on to that shadow until it too would fade away. Whether he was the wife or the stable boy, it didn't matter. He would always be there.

"I figured I'd find you out here."

The figure vanished, disappearing into the air as Tsunemori came to replace him in his spot. She looked worn, though the smile of accomplishment still clung to the corners of her lips. Even as her eyes were tinged with an aged sorrow, she still looked proud.

"She's alive. That's what's important," Tsunemori spoke, looking out at the scenery below. "They're both alive and Kenshi Takaya can't hurt anyone else. We did well." He gave her a smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. She knew it wouldn't comfort him, but she stayed by his side, looked out over the same view.

She could appreciate Ginoza's spot, found it comforting in more ways than one. It certainly beat sitting in the cocoon of smoke her apartment had become as of late. There was an easy neutrality to be found out there in the open. Where you were neither shepherd nor hound, neither lawful nor criminal. If only it were so simple. That just one step outside of those doors could strip you of such bounds.

"How did you know that his coefficient was rising?" Ginoza inquired.

"He was sweating. His pupils had grown more dilated. His hands were shaking more." They had been such quick, thoughtless observations. She'd barely had time to process her own thoughts before she was signaling her partner. "Once I heard that he had taken a drug, I was fairly certain that he was coming off of it. Since he was already at seventy-four when we arrived, it was safe to assume that he hadn't taken any since he dumped Miyuki's body."

"Where did you learn to read someone like that?" He had asked the question, but she didn't have to say anything for him to know. He knew that Kougami had sucked down all of professor Saiga's micro expression reading crap more eagerly than any of their other material in school. She truly was his devoted pupil. And, surprisingly, he didn't feel bitter about it anymore.

She had made a wise decision by choosing to learn from Kougami over him. As evidenced, he made her a better detective. She had absorbed many of Kougami's good traits, even while taking in a few of his worst. But maybe it was about time he stopped comparing her to Kougami. She was her own person.

His gaze crossed the small distance between them and settled on her form, fully taking in the growth she'd accomplished. No matter how exhausted she seemed to be, no matter how much weight settled atop those small shoulders, she still kept her head high. She was tiny, and still quite naïve, but she was strong, resourceful, and principled. Above all, she was capable.

"How did you celebrate after you made lead inspector?"

She merely blinked at his question, realizing that it hadn't ever been something she'd considered. She had lost nearly her whole team. She had gained her position only because of Ginoza's deterioration and demotion. It hadn't been the happiest day of her life, despite how she should have felt after having gained such a promotion within such a small amount of time. "I didn't really feel like partying when I was promoted."

"Ah… I think most of us feel that way."

"Really?"

"When Kougami and I first joined, we were so excited. We had finally accomplished what we had been dreaming of for years." He grinned at the memory, remembering just how surreal it all had felt. How overjoyed they both were as they sat on his couch, those same words falling from Kougami's lips as they'd had all those times before. Ginoza's smile fell as soon as it came. "But it hits hard, the circumstances that have allowed you to gain your position. Best case scenario is that the previous inspector retired or made their ten and moved up into the Ministry. For most, that's not the case. My predecessor had been killed only a week before I joined, and Kougami's, well… It was hard to feel happy when the previous occupant of your position is dead or worse."

Tsunemori kept herself from thoughtlessly looking Ginoza's way. She knew all too well the implications behind the word 'worse'. Their team had seen enough of worse, and that was exactly why she had found the thought of celebrating rather repugnant.

"But Kougami insisted that we do something for our accomplishment." Ginoza shrugged, failing at holding back a chuckle. "He said that 'the tragedies of our past shouldn't keep us from celebrating the now.'" Despite Ginoza's grumblings, Kougami had arrested him around the neck and pulled him out to their favorite bar. They spent nearly their entire night there, drinking and laughing the night away. Even though it wasn't really anything different than what they had normally done, it managed to make Ginoza feel like there was something worth celebrating.

He looked down at the petite brunette, the forlorn smile on her lips, and figured that it was about time for a celebration. "Come on, Akane. I'll cook us something up."

It was no Partners in Justice, but it was what they had.

They just had to get used to it.