Psycho Pass: All Alone With You

Fireworks, Pt. 2 (M)

Consciousness returned all at once like a tsunami of glass slivers being driven into his skull. Kogami winced in excruciating pain and pressed his soot-covered palms against his eyes as they burned from a chemical sting. He could not tell what was more painful, the dull daylight or the piercing, unrelenting sound that boomed unmercifully in his ears. Seeing blood on his collar, he held a hand against his right ear and confirmed that he was bleeding from there.

"Lie still, you fool!" Ginoza growled, trying to keep him quiet. "The blast probably perforated your eardrums. Your equilibrium will be off."

"Akane?" Kogami managed to cough. When Ginoza did not answer, Kogami threw himself to one side in an attempt to get up. The entire world fought him, spinning and hovering before him like a malfunctioning holography program. He stumbled over smoldering debris from the bomb blast and collapsed to the ground where he vomited violently into the rubble.

"Kogami, be reasonable. You need to lie still," Ginoza said. "There's nothing you can do right now—"

It was as if Ginoza had declared her dead. Kogami shoved him back with a hard, open palm strike to the chest and glared at the Inspector through hard, narrowed eyes. The force was enough to send Ginoza flailing backwards to the ground. Blundering over his own legs, Kogami stumbled toward the wreckage of the building and left his former friend sitting on the ground.

"Kagari?" Kogami found the Enforcer lying in a heap of broken concrete and rebar. "Kagari!"

"Still breathing," Kagari whispered. "But don't ask me if that's a good thing right now." He abruptly sucked in his breath as he tried to move his left leg from beneath a piece of heavy concrete.

Blood pooled underneath the ruined concrete girder. "Don't move," Kogami said. He slipped the knot of his tie and quickly made it a tourniquet by wrapping it around Kagari's thigh.

"Akane—"

"I know."

"I'm sorry, Ko. One minute she was there, and the next...she was gone."

"I'm going to need your help to find her."

"Is that a question?" Kagari winced in pain as Kogami tightened the tourniquet into a knot.

Kogami sat back on his haunches. He struggled to gather his wits as the world spun in and out of focus, making him nauseous. "You ready?"

Kagari nodded. "Yeah. Get this thing off my leg."

Bracing his shoulder against the concrete slab, Kogami grit his teeth and used his legs to push against it. He raised the massive stone up just enough for Kagari to free his leg from the crushing weight.

"Son of a bitch!" Kagari cried out in pain. "If the guy who did this is still breathing, I intend to kill him. Slowly. I don't care what judgment Sybil gives him."

"He's breathing."

"Not for long."

"You good?"

Kagari gave him a thumbs up. "Let's find Akane."

Kogami turned his attention to a collapsed section of wall. Heavy smoke was trailing from beneath it. Though the initial blast had brought a fiery wave in the detonation, most of the flames had been snuffed out in the resulting shockwave. Getting on the ground, he stared beneath a collapsed section of wall. "Akane!" Her name echoed away from him into a void beneath the rubble. He used his flashlight to look down inside and saw a darkened recess that had somehow survived the blast.