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As an act of self-indulgence Togane Sakuya likes to imagine himself as a human being. On occasion, he even masquerades as one.
His Mother taught him well. To have his hair properly groomed. To choose a cologne expensive enough for a head or two to turn as he mixes with the crowd, when he’s allowed to meet daylight. She taught him how to smile; a welcoming thing that would leave the people around him comforted and appeased, unaware of the teeth behind it.
Most of the time, it’s a successful act. High as his crime coefficient might be, there still are those who wonder how such a well respected therapist has ended up locked behind thick plexiglass. A dull white cell with nothing but books and paper to keep him company, he spends his days outlining the profiles of those who visit. Legends and rumors surround him, whispers of his ability to taint your hue by breathing his air.
And yet, like moths to a flame, something draws people in.
Togane receives two kinds of visitors: the young nurses who act deliciously coy during his routine check ups, and the Inspectors. It is part of a farce – they try him on and then realize he’s too much to handle. Or perhaps, he feels like a corset, too tight for their chests.
They all look the same to him – those who do not, end up as portraits in his notes. There’s a young one who piqued his curiosity, hue as clear as the sky at dawn, her big eyes more fitting for a softer career path than blowing the brains off the scum of the earth. Behind plexiglass, he should feel more like a doll than a window shopper. But he cannot help but be drawn to the strange luxuries of life.
The same face keeps jotting out of his mechanical pencil, the more he meets the young Inspectors, one by one, until they’re alone with him and even behind glass they leave with trembling shoulders, afraid they’ll end up tainted just by looking him in the eye.
When he steps out of the white van to meet Division 1 in the flesh, the air is thick and humid from the threat of rain.
“Enforcers Togane Sakuya and Hinakawa Sho have been assigned to Unit 1,” the robotic voice of the Dominator announces. The look Enforcer Ginoza casts him is nothing short of dirty. Togane’s lips curl into a smirk dressed up as a smile. “It’s a honor to meet you all,” he says. His gaze lingers on Inspector Tsunemori, almost waiting for a reaction that does not come. Not yet.
The thought entertains the most theatrical scenarios in his mind – there was a film he saw, once, that told the tale of a beautiful young woman who prayed for company when she was young and unaware of the spirits she awakened through that heartfelt wish. What once was a comforting presence became a sinister silhouette haunting her sleep, pressing down on her mind like a vice. Until ultimately, he ends up consuming her, and she ends up deceiving him. But despite the ending, he still wins, somehow. Not that Togane ever had anyone to debate this ending with.
Perhaps, he might play the part for the scaredy cats in need of an extra hand. The creature of the night, coming to claim and destroy, making deceitful pacts, tearing families apart and pitting lifelong friends against one another.
He has nothing to claim as his. But the chaos is water to a sore throat.
Maybe, he muses, it’s that the younger Inspectors have only ever dealt with danger with a Dominator in hand. Which would explain why they all look so naked before him.
But the meetings that the Department arrange are surveilled enough for them to enter the quarters mostly unarmed. And despite the security cameras pointed right at him, they still fidget, they still search for somewhere else to look.
The young Inspector with the clear hue, so far, is the only one who holds his gaze. She asks him questions – about himself, and how he ended with such a high spike. What caused his pain, his rage, how did he end up tainting everyone he ever laid eyes on. All while looking him in the eye and taking notes, her hand unwavering. Like him, she takes notes by hand – a habit long gone, except for old souls.
All answers are locked behind the pages.
The higher Planes arrange him to meet the young Inspector over and over again. He learns her name – Tsunemori Akane. His mother whispers to him through Sibyl, a warning against the iron-willed Inspector who looked the System in the eye and did not falter. She, however, looks and sounds human. She’s soft-spoken and even gives him an encouraging smile every now and then. Maybe, if they put him close enough to her, she’ll let the saintly mask slip.
Two of them can play in this Masquerade, he muses.
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Togane,” Inspector Tsunemori says, firm and polite as usual. “Sorry to rush you, but we’re in a bit of a hurry. This will be a great chance to see how we work firsthand. Let’s just say I have my…” she says, pausing to browse for the best possible word that would not alert the System “...methods”.
And he has his own, but she does not know yet. Not to the actual extent.
She holds the dominator with a confidence that sits in stark contrast with her delicate form. She holds his gaze, even without the plexiglass. “Shall we get started?”
Inspector Tsunemori’s persona is well-crafted, solid enough for him to wonder if she could be some kind of saint. The thought wraps around his throat like tar, blood boiling underneath the skin; no one is holier than Mother. Though he does not let it slip – he answers her questions in earnest, and even gets a hint of a laugh out of her.
Until he asks to light a cigarette.
Her eyes widen for a fraction of second too long as he draws a Spinel out of the package. Her gaze follows the movement of his fingers as he lights the cigarette.. Then, her eyes flash with fire, and the light is snuffed like smoke, and she’s the picture perfect Inspector again.
He writes it down in red.
It’s more than just a vice, it turns out. He tries a different brand of cigarette one day, and her gaze does not falter – it comes back when he switches to Spinel again. It’s the faintest shift in her tone, her breath hitching for a second when he asks her if she’d like a smoke.
He writes it down in red, next to her face in a picture.
He tries a hoarser tone the next time they meet. Her eyes widen again, and he writes it down.
He follows a red thread made of heartbeat measurements, faint shifts of Inspector Tsunemori’s body, and research – of a name, most of all. Because whatever causes those shifts must have a name and a face he could track down.
Sibyl only whispers to him when the pile of notes about her – encounter after arranged encounter – eaches the height of a footstool. Perhaps, he’s all too invested in the subject – but being behind bars has always given him the privilege of pursuing his interests thoroughly.
Kogami Shinya. A traitor, some beast with a gun who ran off after blowing the brains of a potential guest of the System.
He would have wanted the pleasure of ruining the man himself in any other circumstance. But not if he’s the cause behind the earnestly human reaction of an otherwise perfect Inspector.
She almost looks like anyone else when he does anything that might remind her of this man – cigarettes, a bolder (more personal) question, quoting philosophy that she responds to. It’s just another puzzle, but one that he’ll get through.
“299”, she whispers to herself. “We need to bring him back to 299.”
“He’s a dangerous specimen,” he says as their steps on the metal stair set echo. “Why not just eliminate him?”
It’s less of a jab and more of a genuine question.
Inspector Tsunemori stops in her tracks for a split second and turns to him. It’s his gaze that falters, but she doesn’t notice.
“Because no one deserves to die, Mr. Togane,” she says. “As long as we can bring them back to 299.”
And he can’t help but wonder – even himself?
Togane is not one to believe in humans and their intricacies, and Inspectors in particular, but this case might just be a novel of its own, and twice as entertaining. Reality, after all, can be so much better than fiction and he’s read enough to want to enact some firsthand. It could be that he might just need a different pastime, but that’s another matter.
With a bit of luck, once he enters her Unit, Inspector Tsunemori might even tell him about Kogami. What he meant for the team, what he did. How he stepped out of the System. If he’s dead or alive. And when she does, he might have replaced him already – a changeling of sort.
But until then, how to become him? Technology has progressed far enough for him to wear the man himself as a costume, down to the finest detail, but becoming the person is still an actor’s work. He’s no thespian, though he’s read enough to quote a gruesome tragedy or two by heart, but his fingers itch to put on the mask.
He twirls the cigarette between pointer and middle fingers and waits for it. For the pupil dilation and the breath hitching for a second.
And right on cue, in the silence of the Department’s electric car, Inspector Tsunemori averts her gaze and her knuckles grow a shade paler as she grips at the steering wheel with more force than necessary.
“Please wait until we’re back at the headquarters to smoke,” she says. But there’s a gravity to her voice that feels like victory. Enforcer Ginoza, in the rear mirror, gives him the same, unchanging dirty look he gave him on their first encounter.
It’s all for Mother’s sake, in the end. Thought he’d be lying to himself if he never admitted that the thought amused some part of him that has laid dormant behind plexiglass. And it’s high time he set foot out of prison again – to smell fresh air, fresh blood, and anything in between.
Being human is his favourite game. Pretending to be one specific human, however, is a whole other challenge. One that he’s dying to take on.