Chapter Five

Russian Violet

It was more than just the alcohol that was giving Akane that warm and fuzzy feeling. It was the fact that it was Masaoka's bottle, that she and his son were sharing it like this. Like they were old friends. She wistfully imagined there had been many times in which Ginoza and Kogami had gone out drinking together. She could almost see them, Kogami poking fun at Ginoza, and Ginoza would actually take it with good humor and a few clever comebacks of his own, while the two of them knocked back their drinks. Though she supposed Kogami would've tried alcohol and Ginoza would've tried to stick with a virgin drink. But she liked to think they still had good times like that regardless.

She and Ginoza poured each other's glasses and then clinked them, Akane having joined him on the bed and both of them sitting with their backs to the wall. If you had told her the day she had first met this man that she would in due time find herself in a casual situation like this with him, she wouldn't have dared believe it possible.

Yet here they were, both of them knocking back Masaoka's golden whiskey. Akane, for her part, was trying this particular sort of alcohol for the first time, and on the first swig, she choked on the searing heat that flowed down her throat, like she'd drunk liquid fire. The burning spilled over into her nose and she lurched forward, coughing and sputtering, but despite that she did manage to keep the rest of her drink from spilling.

"You okay there?" Ginoza asked, leaning forward tentatively as if trying to decide whether or not to give her back a thump. At the same time though, his tone of voice was curiously on the edge of a laugh.

Which made Akane laugh a little herself as she sat back up and slouched next to him against the wall once more. "Sure," she gasped, catching her breath. "Just…you know…first time…drinking whiskey…."

The corner of Ginoza's mouth quirked in that typical almost-smile of his. "I figured as much," he said, and then took another swig himself.

Not missing that he didn't choke quite as much, Akane said, "Yeah…all I've had is all the wine Kagari introduced me to."

Ginoza raised his eyebrows, but his eyes themselves came over a bit misted and regretful, and Akane looked away, inferring that how much the now ex-Inspector still regretted what had happened to poor Shusei Kagari. Though Akane felt she too was to blame in some part. Just because she'd been in charge of directly handling him at the time.

She cleared her throat. "Um, anyway, so…you seem to have a little bit more experience with it. Or you're just stomaching it better on a first try."

"Maybe it's just in my blood to take it," Ginoza mused rather morosely, swilling the liquid in his own glass.

Akane, having taken a tentative second sip while Ginoza had been talking, swallowed and then opened her mouth to respond, but was forestalled by the pleasant buzz now zinging through her brain and scattering about, like a golden light exploding in her head. Definitely a faster hitter than something more mellow like wine.

"Anyway," Ginoza went on over Akane's moment of mentally short-circuiting, "I did used to go out to the bar with…well, with…Shinya and…Mitsuru…."

At this, Akane's ears pricked up and she regained her faculties of thought. "You mean…Enforcer Sasayama?"

"Yeah. When Kogami…first joined Division One from Division Three…Sasayama wanted to celebrate, so he uh…treated us to a time at this cabaret called Pink Paradise or…Pin-Para…."

Then, of all things, Ginoza's cheeks colored, and Akane, after first finding it kind of adorable, suddenly wondered if there had been pretty women involved in that jaunt as well.

Ginoza meanwhile chuckled again. "I know, right? But, even then I avoided alcohol like the plague…seeing the way my father drank…and more so after he was labeled a Latent Criminal…I didn't want to fall into any habits of his that were either seemingly causal or symptomatic of what had happened to him…so…yeah…this is the first drink I've ever had in my life." Then he looked at Akane and actually regarded her with a warm expression. "I'm glad though, somehow, that it's with you."

Then Akane felt her own face flush against her will and she sought refuge in looking back down into her own glass of whiskey. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of the shirt Ginoza had on, and her eyes glanced over the toned flat of his chest before she looked away again and took another swig from her glass. And though her eyes teared up again, she at least knew what to expect this time and managed to handle it with more grace.

Realizing though that Ginoza was regarding her with mild expectancy, clearly seeking a response from what he'd said, she licked her lips and lowered her drink, cradling it in both hands in her lap, running her thumb up and down the glass. "Well, Mr. Ginoza…I didn't think you were capable of something like flattery."

Ginoza raised his eyebrows at her again, and then he actually looked a little shocked, and with himself too, and this time he was the one who looked away in an attempt to conceal an inexplicably flustered reaction. He cleared his throat, trying to regain his more professional composure. "I'm just being honest," he told her, and took another drink.

At which Akane couldn't help smiling, and found herself relaxing, getting the same feeling she got when she spent time with her friends Kaori and, when she'd been alive, Yuki.

"This is nice," she said, after a lull of gentle quiet.

"Hm?"

Ginoza frowned at her, though out of curiosity rather than disgruntlement. There was a nuance in the difference that Akane found kind of endearing.

"What is?" he asked her.

At which Akane grinned with a teasing edge. "You…talking like a normal person."

"Oh." And then Ginoza actually a chortled, a real laugh threatening to come out.

"Does it feel okay?" Akane ventured to ask.

"Heh. Let me think." Ginoza took another mouthful of whiskey and then admired the way the light filtered through the liquid's golden color. "It does. Thanks. I need this…considering where I'm going."

Akane's smile retreated somewhat. "Do you think…you might still come back?"

"Come back? You mean…as an Enforcer?"

"Yes."

Ginoza's expression turned sober and he quaffed the rest of his drink. As he did, Akane leaned over and grabbed the bottle sitting on the nightstand. When she held it out, he offered her his empty glass for her to pour more whiskey into it.

"I don't know," he finally said as she set the bottle back down. "I'm not sure I want to really think about that right now."

"All right then. We can talk about something else then." Akane stretched a little and sipped a bit more of her own whiskey. She was still on her first glass, but it was coming down on her like a rain of happy sparkles.

"Like what?" Ginoza asked, actually sounding kind of mischievous.

Which quickly sparked Akane's interest, no less her desire to dig into him slightly for it. "Who was your first crush?" she asked him, boldly lifting her chin and raising an eyebrow, daring him to brush off the question.

Ginoza stared at her as his cheeks colored again and he took refuge in his glass once more. "Come on, that's not fair."

"How is that not fair?"

"Don't I get to ask you something like that first?"

"Fine then. I'll tell you my first crush first. First." Akane giggled a bit and then continued, rolling back her eyes as she thought a moment. "Let's see…my first crush…. That would be…this guy I met back in high school. All the girls loved him, really. He was a huge flirt. But the kind that made you want to make him see you as the one girl he cared about most, that you could have wrapped around your finger."

"But this crush went unrequited, I assume?"

"Naturally. One in part because I did my best to keep to my studies even though I wanted to put more effort into getting the guy to notice me, and two, because even though he was gorgeous as hell, he was as dumb as a rock."

Ginoza sniggered. "Glad to know you had your priorities straight."

"Of course I did." Akane grinned. "Now, it's your turn." She resisted the urge to elbow him in the ribs like they were old pals. It felt right, but something in her told her that Ginoza would feel his personal space invaded by the gesture. Sure they were drinking together, casual as they come, but this was only a first step, and Akane knew that even then, Ginoza was only willing to go along this far because of a combination of alcohol and his own vulnerable and low spirits—the kind that was willing to put up with anything for a dose of much-needed companionship.

"All right, all right," Ginoza conceded, and he cleared his throat. "Well…the first person I had a crush on was well…yeah, in high school…and it was this really pretty, smart, and funny girl whose mind danced with numbers and equations so effortlessly. She was a genius at stuff like science, especially chemistry. But she was also kind to pretty much everyone. I think she's a doctor now, actually. However…."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, my feelings were unrequited too. She uh…had an unrequited crush on…Kogami."

"Oh."

Another silence fell between them, both of them considering the bottoms of their glasses again.

Then Akane said, "So you two went to school together?"

"We did. He had my back when I got…harassed by some of the other guys. So I…made sure that I would always have his in return…."

Ginoza's eyes dimmed wistfully, and Akane felt compelled again to steer the conversation away from such delicate topics.

But then Ginoza said, his voice croaking with as yet unexpressed grief, "I always thought that…for a while I thought, anyway…that my father…loved and respected Ko more than he did me. Especially after Shinya's hue clouded and he joined my father on the other side of the law." He drained his glass here too, all but chugging the whiskey down, and Akane was quick to pour him a third dose of the stuff.

It was the only thing she really could do for him at this point.

Ginoza took another swig and then went on, "It made things really lousy…so I tried my best to just…keep myself closed off from most people…. It just…got to a point where it hurt too much to keep trying when I kept getting disappointed." He shook his head and this time he snorted with a laugh that was mirthless. "It's funny. Well…not really but…I mean…I put so much energy into berating you about unnecessarily clouding your hue…and here I am…the one with a Latent Criminal's Crime Coefficient."

He ventured to meet her eyes here, and Akane knit her brows compassionately. But again, she was at a loss for anything to say, which again, made him look away.

"Don't misunderstand. It's not like I'm looking for pity." He knocked back more whiskey.

Akane watched him, and found herself giving him her kind and sincere yet sad smile, for now, in that moment, she knew exactly what to say to him. "I never thought you were one to ever ask for something like that," she told him.

Which made Ginoza lifted his head and stare at her, a little in awe perhaps.

But Akane met his shocked and almost supplicating expression unflinchingly, finishing off her drink and then lifting her empty glass, which snapped Ginoza out of his temporary trance and got him to reach over for the bottle and pour her a second glass.

"Very well then, since we're dissecting my screwed up psyche, might as well go all the way," Ginoza muttered as he replaced the bottle on the nightstand. "So, this actually all kind of brings back a bad memory," he said, though by his tone he didn't sound entirely unwilling to talk about it either.

Akane said nothing as she waited for him to speak, taking another sip from her second glass of whiskey.

"It's of the day I got the call that Kogami'd…crossed that line." Ginoza heaved a sigh and ironed his forehead with his palm a minute before he went on. "He'd been flagged by a street scanner while he'd been out there, trying to follow that lead on Makishima that was all Sasayama had had to leave behind as a legacy, and well…Division Three brought him in. Initially, anyway. Me, Dad, and Kunizuka were on-duty and called in as backup so we…had to help. And… well…I was the one who got the shot in that brought Ko down…when he tried to resist.

"Which was sad in its own way, seeing as how Division Three was where he'd started out. Him and Dad. That's where he'd been green as an Inspector, and Dad…he'd taught him a lot of the things that you picked up from both of them."

Akane glanced at the time. She got despondent to see how late it was, moreover at the silent message she'd just gotten from the mental health aide asking if she was planning on handing Ginoza into CID custody any time soon. In spite of herself, she pushed this aside and took another drink from her glass. But then she noticed Ginoza watching her and got a chill.

He gave her a bitter smile. "It's getting late, isn't it?" he asked her, shrewdly intuiting that Akane was trying to act like time wasn't on their side and that they could just stay here drinking, just the two of them, until dawn.

Akane sighed. "Yeah. It is. But…you get to be the one to say when."

"Oh I do, do I?" Ginoza almost sounded coy.

"Yep." Akane finished off the rest of her drink, enduring the fire that slid down her throat, stomaching it much better this time, feeling more and more dreamily relaxed. "But I will say that I think it's a shame that you're not properly drunk yet."

"Well, only one way to fix that," said Ginoza rather cavalierly, and he poured her a third round and they clinked glasses and drank at the same time.

"Oh shoot, we forgot to toast to something," said Akane.

"Oh. Right. Ah…." Ginoza noticed that now his glass was empty, so Akane poured him more whiskey as he thought. "I know," he said when Akane set the bottle back down, "to my dad!"

"All right then, to Mr. Masaoka!" Akane practically cheered, the two of them clinking glasses and drinking again.

"And to Shinya Kogami, God love the...bastard!" Ginoza added, this time a little more slurrily than before.

And though Akane could feel even sitting down how tipsy she was getting, she was more than willing to ride the wave as she clinked glasses with Ginoza a third time and they both drank to Kogami and his recklessness.

Ginoza finished off his glass again with an air of abandon that Akane hadn't thought he was capable of until now. But then he seemed to remember himself when he looked at her and their eyes met. And then his eyes filled.

Realizing this, Ginoza, though he was still smiling, muttered, "Damn it," and took off his glasses, pressing the back of his hand to his eyes. Despite his efforts though, like before, he couldn't hold back, much as he tried, and the poor guy let out a hiccup that turned into another sob that preceded a torrent of tears.

Drink had its benefits, but also its dangers, just like Kagari had once told Akane, rather wisely for someone like him. In this case though, Akane couldn't be sure. The whiskey had loosened someone as wound tight as Ginoza so much that it had him crying for the second time in front of her, and giving little effort at restraining himself.

Yeah, he was definitely drunk and not acting with his usual caution.

At the same time though, it had loosened someone like Akane enough to breach her own apprehension and unbridle her natural compassion, reaching out to him with both hands and wrapping her arms around his shaking shoulders. And because he was loosened, he was unresisting to her as she pulled him against her, and so he let himself cry into her shoulder like a child. And also because she too was loosened, she felt no inhibition in letting her heart break for him, bit by bit, like glass cracking under an immense weight, with every choked sob, her own eyes filled and she hugged him closer.

"I'm so sorry, Akane," Ginoza choked out. "I'm no good to you…not like this…."

"Don't be ridiculous," Akane told him, soft but firm. "This isn't the end for you. You and I both know that."

"But it's so hard…when all I can see ahead is darkness…."

"Just breathe. And you'll find the way up. But take your time. Take all the time you need…."

They stayed like that, for perhaps an age. Akane managed to lose track of the time again. Maybe it was really only a moment.

But it was a moment that Akane would never forget nonetheless.

And she felt something warm in her chest, the kind that flooded her with hope like she hadn't felt in the last few days.

Then Ginoza gave a gasp and, like a cat, started to pull away. Realizing that the man must've somewhat come back to his usual senses, Akane relinquished her hold on him, regarding him with nothing but kind patience as he struggled to compose himself. She understood his mindset completely when he inched away from her—not because of her, but because of his own discomfiture, his self-deprecation over acting so unprofessionally with her, at allowing himself that luxury.

"I'm sorry…" he rasped, wiping as his eyes with the heels of his hands. "That was inappropriate of me, I…I mean we…."

"Mr. Ginoza…it's fine," Akane told him mollifyingly, and he looked at her, as if he couldn't believe what she was saying. Her smile widened. "It's not like you have many options," she said, and by "options" she meant "shoulders to cry on" and he seemed to understand that as he simply nodded.

She thanked him for the drink, said she enjoyed having the time just to be able to talk to him like this, and this seemed to relax him again a little. He even managed another of his crooked half-smiles back at her and said, "Of course. Same…here."

At the door he stopped her one last time, and asked if she'd be so kind as to make sure his father got a good burial.

Akane smiled sweetly at him from the door, her bag over her shoulder. "Of course. I'll overlook the whole thing in your place."

Ginoza's eyes rounded out and then he shook his head. "No, I can't ask you to go through all of that, it's too much just for a co-worker."

"Well, who else will?" Akane pointed out.

Try as he might, Ginoza couldn't seem to think of a good answer, and his shoulders slumped again in defeat. Swiping the bottle of whiskey and unscrewing the cap, he conceded with, "All right. I mean…he was always rather fond of you. Like the daughter he never had, I suppose."

A fist—one of more warmth, but a fist nonetheless—lodged itself in Akane's chest, and for a moment it was hard to breathe. But she managed to compose herself and put her smile back on. "Don't you worry about a thing. I'll take care of it. I'm happy to. But don't you go overboard on the drinking," she added as Ginoza took a swig of what was left of the whiskey straight from the bottle.

Ginoza glanced over at her as he did so, before he took one more gulp and then wiped his mouth off uncharacteristically with the back of his hand. "Yeah. Sure." And just to reassure her on that score, he screwed the cap back on and then leaned over and tucked the rest of the whiskey in a drawer. Sure it wasn't a locked drawer, but Akane felt the gesture alone said enough.

Hopeful again for his sake, she bade him farewell, and then, after a moment, added, "And listen…whatever you decide, Ginoza…there'll always be a place for you at MWPSB."

This was not a good look.

Of course, she could use holo makeup to make them disappear, but she would still know that dark crescents underlined her very tired eyes that morning. Given this, she just let the whole thing slide and did bother with covering them up.

Running on three hours of sleep and having to get back up again for work was not cool, but it still wouldn't do anyone any favors to take a personal day (save for the day she had planned for the internment of Masaoka's ashes). Sure, they were getting a couple of new recruits, but they were still new, and needed training and proper introduction into the group. Moreover, Akane was still flying solo as the Inspector and there was no way she'd be able to leave her "hounds" without their leashes, as it were.

Needless to say, she could feel herself running purely on grit and drive. She dealt with this by piling task after task upon herself so she could tear through each of them like a machine working on backup power. She gave herself hardly a moment at all to think, that way she didn't have to think about how tired she was.

That is until Aoyanagi offered her this, stopping her just outside of Division One's office door on her way to find something in Archives.

"Hey, listen, seriously, I'll take Kunizuka off your hands for a bit until you get things a bit more stabilized. And you've had a chance to take a couple of personal days. You're gonna crack if you don't chillax."

Akane raised an eyebrow at her senior. "'Chillax'?"

Aoyanagi rolled her eyebrows. "You know. Chill. Relax. Chillax."

"I know what it means, Inspector, I just wasn't expecting someone like you to use the term." Akane did manage a tired smile though. "Anyway, I couldn't possibly do that now, not with two Latent Criminals coming in to join up with Division One as Enforcers. I need to oversee that. And then there's Mr. Masaoka's internment."

"Right. You're right." Aoyanagi sighed and then sobered. "So…Ginoza. He crossed over."

"Mm." Akane clasped her hands behind her back, avoiding her fellow Inspector's eyes. She was getting the sense that in the event of an Inspector becoming a Latent Criminal, it created an overall grim atmosphere in the office. She had little doubt that something similar had descended upon the place when someone like Kogami had "crossed over".

Then she felt a pair of eyes sear through her back, the nape of her neck prickling, and out of the periphery of her vision she caught Inspector Suzuki of Division Three passing them by in the hall.

But then Aoyanagi cleared her throat pointedly, and, arms folded underneath her breasts, cut Suzuki a glare that made him stiffen and quicken his pace, the heels of his shoes clicking on the linoleum. Then she caught Akane's eye again and actually smiled, if soberly.

"Don't go blaming yourself," she told her.

"How did you—?"

"Because I'd be doing the same thing in your place."

"Oh." Akane supposed she shouldn't have been surprised. She even wondered if Aoyanagi was still blaming herself regardless, considering how she was one of Ginoza's very few close colleagues. His only one, really.

At least he had that going for him.

"He's lucky he's got someone like you looking out for him," Aoyanagi went on, and she actually winked.

Akane blinked, taken aback. Apart from being confused about being referred to as someone who "looked after" Ginoza, she was about to ask, "What about you?" but thought better of it and bit the question back.

Aoyanagi though seemed to pick up on it anyway. "I know what you're thinking, but I'm not exactly the comforting type."

"Mm." Again, Akane wasn't exactly sure how to say that she quite agreed. Aoyanagi was many things, and kind in her own way, but she was definitely too blunt to be someone who could comfort others. At best she could probably offer good companionship over a drink (if a non-alcoholic one, given that she was an Inspector, which Akane rather thought was something of a shame because in her opinion Aoyanagi seemed like the sort who would be a lot of fun to drink with and could really hold her liquor).

But then Aoyanagi chuckled and actually grasped Akane on the shoulder, giving it a squeeze in a gesture of camaraderie. "It's fine. We all have each other's backs here, you should know that by now. At least, I think we should." She glanced down the hallway in the direction they'd just seen Suzuki disappear.

Akane followed her glance. "Yeah. I think so too. After all, that sort of thing is something we've got over Sibyl."

Aoyanagi raised an eyebrow at her. "What do you mean by that?"

Realizing she was on the edge of letting the truth slip, Akane backpedaled as best as she could, laughing lightly and waving a hand. "Oh you know. I mean…it's a computer program, right? It just…goes through the motions. I mean…we think of it as thinking but…it's still a computer…right?"

"Right…." Aoyanagi studied her a moment longer, and then her wristlet chirped. "It's Shisui. I'd better go." She gave Akane one last grin as she turned leave. "Hang in there, okay?"

"Yeah…sure." Akane raised an uncertain hand in a sort of wave, suddenly wondering if this meant she was gaining more of a foothold in the CID, establishing a rapport like this with another Senior Inspector.

Supposing that, she took comfort in it. After all, given everything, she expected she was going to get pushed into a Senior Inspector position of her own more quickly than normal. At the same time though, she couldn't help a shiver up her spine as she ran her hand up her arm.

It was like Sibyl was right there, right beside her, a specter, always watching her, always listening.

Then again, that's what it was like all the time.

Funny how easily she could forget that when she really wanted to.

When Akane went to feed Dime later, she was surprised to find a very small shelf of paper-and-glue bound books in a corner of the otherwise spare sitting room. Curious, she knelt down and ran her fingers along the spines, surmising that they were mostly rare first editions that someone like Ginoza—who was into things like collecting old coinage—would favor having in their possession just to have them. Of course, he had an e-reader tablet like most, but she found something charming in imagining him every so often getting a fancy to come here and pick out a physical book and dreamily drift through it with lazy yet methodical turns of the pages.

Her finger landed on one about the Third American Civil War, and another about how Russia had collapsed under its own weight and rebroke, reverting to something akin to the former Soviet Union, and then another on the formation of the Southeast Asia Union. Places that had become among the most violent and cruel places in the world. Japan prided itself on being able to protect itself from such a fate by reestablishing isolationist policies and curling itself up inside the Sibyl System. Like an echidna.

Even though Ginoza kept his reading tastes to non-fiction, she did find one book that was clearly a novel. Was it Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, or Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment? Or even something quirky like a collection of Sir Conan Doyle's stories about Sherlock Holmes? She just had this sense that if he did pick up any fiction, it was going to be the classics. Or historical fiction. Which were things that weren't strictly contraband—none of this was—but it was highly advised against for those who got high stress levels just from reading about bloody histories and stories full of death and danger.

Which was a shame because a lot of the best stories involved those, oddly enough. And in Ginoza's case, Akane highly doubted that books like this caused him any undue stress.

No, the novel she found was something called One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. She flicked through a few pages. From the bits and pieces that she snatched up with her eyes, it was a strange book. Fascinating, but a curious thing for someone like Ginoza to take an interest in. Then again, perhaps he'd just gotten it because it was another rare book he'd managed to find.

She smiled at the thought of asking him next time she saw him before replacing the book quietly back on the shelf.

The following day, she operated much the same as she did the day before, especially with Akabayashi and Fukuin incoming from the isolation facility at noon. She wasn't handling the basic training, but she was there to welcome them when they arrived in the armored transport and stepped off, each carrying a duffle full of all their possessions, taken with them from iso.

"Yo, Inspector." Fukuin gave an energetic little wave.

Akabayashi glanced sidelong at her, like he was wary of her acting so familiar with the woman who would be both her superior, as well as her handler out in the field. Then he seemed to dismiss it and simply greeted Akane with a respectful nod.

Akane returned the nod in kind, but also responded to Fukuin with a rather chummy, "Good to see you so enthusiastic, Miss Fukuin."

Fukuin mimed punching out a couple of invisible perps. "Yeah, I'm kinda itchin' to get out there and take down some bad guys, know what I mean?"

"Found your motivation, have you?"

"Sure. Why not? Makes me feel better about myself, anyway. I'll be making a difference, right?"

Akabayashi frowned, but still made no comment. It seemed that now he didn't know quite what to make of his fellow recruit and shifted the strap of his duffle slung over his shoulder.

Akane couldn't help her amusement as she turned on her heel. "Absolutely. But, before we do that, we should get you two settled in. If you'll follow me, I'll take you up to your assigned quarters."

"Ooooooh, nice! Can't wait to see my new digs. And I can spruce it up however I like right?"

"Indeed you can. Within reason of course. But it'll definitely be much less restrictive than iso."

"Sweet!" Fukuin was beyond effervescent. For all she'd said about not caring too much about getting locked up since it removed some of the burdens of self-responsibility, it seemed she'd been itching for a little more wiggle room as far as daily living conditions went.

Akane didn't wonder at it, since she was much like Kagari in particular. The lifers in iso, like that artist that she and Kogami had visited for questioning, seemed to get to make their quarters a little homier, depending upon several other variables based on an individual's circumstances, but the ones who were supposedly only meant to be there short-term (in the end, not exactly true) were pretty sparse, and much smaller.

Predictably then, Fukuin did little to suppress her excitement when she was shown her quarters. She all but squealed, bouncing on the balls of her booted feet as she spun around the living space, stripped bare as it was. Then she looked at Akane and actually bowed.

"Thank you so much, Inspector! This is more incredible than I could've hoped for!"

"Hey, no need to thank me," Akane chuckled, her arms folded under her breasts. "I don't make the decisions about who gets what room."

That said though, she couldn't help a measure of warmth when her thoughts touched once more on the fact that this space had in fact been Kagari's former quarters. She glanced about the now empty dwelling, visualizing from memory where the pinball machine had been, the sofa where she'd drunk glass upon glass of wine, the little kitchenette where Kagari had cooked for them. Pieces of lovely memories of time spent simply hanging out with someone she considered a coworker, not an underling (even though that had technically been the case).

She remembered when she'd first showed up here, offering Kagari her company, and a peace offering, being that at the time when they'd previously spoken, he'd blown up in her face about how she had been lamenting about her burdens of choice when most people (especially people like him) got hardly any, if at all. He'd blinked in surprise, and then he'd laughed, diffusing any sort of tension that Akane had felt had cropped up between them.

Now, as she observed Fukuin toss her duffle aside and bound over to the large window to peer out of it, she felt certain that Kagari would be quite satisfied with someone like her inheriting his place here.

"Well, I'll leave you to it," Akane told her as she stepped out, pausing only to add, "And if you'll look here, there's a call pad by the door if you need anything, because now I've gotta lock you in."

Fukuin spun around, her ponytail whipping around after her. Just for a moment she looked crestfallen as she said, "Oh right." But then she glanced at the call pad. "But if I need anything, I just use that, right?"

"Yep. Which'll come in handy when you wanna make big purchase orders for things like sofas…tables…pinball machines. Which reminds me, until you get that sorted, they'll be sending you each a futon so you're not without something to sleep on tonight." Akane grinned. "You'll need all the sleep you can get after all, since you start training bright and early tomorrow morning."

Fukuin lit up again, and Akane bid her farewell with a wink before shutting and locking the door with her ID and authority as an Inspector. Then she sighed and glanced over at Akabayashi waiting for her in the hall.

"I know," she said. "It's still a prison, more or less."

Akabayashi shrugged. "Yes, a gilded prison, but if I at least get to live mostly how I choose in my own personal space, I'll be happy enough."

"You're pretty take-it-or-leave-it, aren't you?" said Akane as she started further along the row of Enforcer quarters and Akabayashi followed in step with her.

"I'm a resigned soul, to put it simply," said Akabayashi. "But at least here, I won't feel too much like I'm simply wasting away. And there's the occasional adrenaline spike I'll more than likely get from working out in the field. You know, to keep things interesting."

Akane covered her mouth to suppress a full-on laugh. She couldn't help it. She found his blaisé attitude rather endearing, if she were being honest.

Akabayashi raised an eyebrow at her. "Inspector?"

"I'm sorry," she said, regaining her composure as they reached the door to Akabayashi's assigned quarters, "I just like how straightforward you are."

"Oh." Akabayashi blinked, bemused as Akane opened the door for him and stepped aside to let him pass.

"Well, take your time settling in, and again, gotta lock you in, but there's the call pad by the door if you need anything," said Akane, giving Akabayashi a softer, and rather more serious smile. "'Kay, is that everything? Yeah, that's everything. For now, anyway."

A corner of Akabayashi's mouth tugged upward, and he almost returned her smile. "You're a little…off, aren't you, Inspector? I mean, permission to make a personal observation."

"Well, since you already did, yes, permission granted," Akane teased, and Akabayashi actually laughed a little.

After she'd left him to get acquainted with his new home (sparse as it was), Akane rewarded herself with another smile, one of personal triumph.

Oh yes, she felt she'd made some pretty good choices as far as a couple of new recruits were concerned.

She was only wistful at the fact that Ginoza wasn't here to see how well she was managing on her own.

Not that she really had to do it, she just felt she needed to do it.

After she got off her shift later that day, and before meeting up with the officiant who was helping her put together Mr. Masoaka's internment, since she had a little time, she made a detour and stopped off by the isolation facility. Seeing as how she'd gotten Fukuin and Akabayashi settled in at Nona Tower, she was concerned about how Ginoza was getting on after being transferred to iso.

Even more surprising though was the sense of a brick of lead being dropped into her stomach when one of the iso attendants came back to her, telling her that Mr. Ginoza didn't want to see her.