Ouryou Rouichi
Mr. Ouryou, your daughter is here to see you again.
Isn't that nice?
I'm sorry, but your father knows you're here and is happy to see you too.
Please don't get discouraged.
Yes, of course.
That's a lie. Everyone here is the same.
They don't notice anything. They don't say anything.
They don't think anything.
They are mere shells of their former selves,
soon to disappear like the melting snow.
This epidemic leads innocent people to their deaths,
and yet, its pathogen will never be eradicated.
This is the disease called serenity,
a form of death that people have wished for.
My head is full of things
that I can never tell anybody of
In this perfect world
I roam, a lost being
This world is impossibly hard on me
It's an illusion that plays out before my eyes
Can I find its faults?
Plastic, all is plastic
Nobody is allowed to be insane
You're made of plastic too, like this beautiful world
In this beautiful world
there is something
that obscures all light for me
My heart tries to break out
and finds no answer
Secret kills for you
The secret remains for you
Don't show me a dark future
nor a world of pretense
Keep our motion secret
#07: Symbolism of Bletilla Striata
This is...
Don't tell me...
They first dismembered and cut open the body,
and then they used plastination to turn it into a human specimen.
Then they brought it right into the middle of town and displayed it...
I'm taking you off this case, Kougami.
What?
Why... Gino?
I can't allow a detective who can't put aside his preconceived notions
to be a part of the initial investigation.
Even so...
We still don't know if this is connected to the Specimen Case.
Ah!
So I'm on standby at my quarters, right?
That's right.
Inspector Tsunemori.
Y-Yes!
It seems that you're aware of the circumstances.
Watch Kougami at all times and make sure he doesn't do anything stupid.
That'll be your job during this case.
I'll summarize the case.
The dismembered body found in a park in Daikanyama, Shibuya ward
belonged to Kuzuhara Satsuki,
who was a student at Ousou Academy, a private college for girls.
She went missing a week ago.
Hey, Ousou Academy is...
...where Touma Kouzaburo, the suspect in the Specimen Case, worked.
Right?
The body was eroded by a special kind of chemical,
and the protein was converted into plastic form.
Analysis confirmed that the chemical used was the same one used in the case three years ago.
It's more than likely that these cases share the same culprit.
So after three years, the mysterious killer returns, huh?
Gino! Was it really okay to take Ko off the case?
He's been investigating the Specimen Case all this time, right?
He might've been able to find us some new leads.
I've read his report.
It's completely delusional.
You're going too far!
Kougami.
Whoa!
You've got the sparring program on the highest difficulty level!
Are you really human, Kougami?
Yeah.
I mean, all it takes is one Paralyzer and I'm out like a light.
I'm just your average, weak human.
I bet the Property Management Division's gonna give you hell for this.
Not my fault their system's a piece of crap.
Is there something on my face?
No, there isn't!
You already get provided with a powerful weapon like the Dominator,
so do you really have to engage in this much combat training?
Yeah, I do.
Our weapons are powerful, but it's for that very reason
that their users have to be even stronger.
In the end, the Dominator doesn't kill people. I do.
In order to keep that in mind,
I have to feel the pain here.
Are you trying to teach me something?
Well, I don't wanna be in a situation where you have to fire the Dominator.
So, what do you want?
To start with, please wipe yourself down and put a shirt on!
It's about the unsolved case.
Public Safety Bureau Special Case 102.
I looked into it. Sorry to pry into your past.
What are you apologizing for?
You're not angry with me?
Why would I be angry?
Because it's an old homicide case that claimed the life of one of my subordinates?
Because it's been three years and we're no closer to solving it than when we began?
No reason to be.
And if I got angry at anyone, it'd be myself.
In that homicide case, I didn't even come close to finding the mastermind
who'd been pulling the strings behind Touma Kouzaburo.
Do you think the same guy's behind this case?
I don't know yet.
It's still possible that this is just an elaborate copycat crime.
But it's definitely worth looking into.
You've been taken off the case, though.
That's okay.
I don't wanna cause Gino too much trouble.
What?
I'm saying, there's a way to handle these things.
We can find a good pretext to create a situation where they'd need us back.
Is that really possible?
It is. Just wait and see.
What kind of person was Enforcer Sasayama?
He was a real piece of work.
A
Huh?
He was a womanizer.
I lost count of how many times he tried to grab Karanomori and Kunizuka's butts.
He got slugged every time, but he never seemed to learn his lesson.
He had a short fuse too.
Once he got upset, there was nothing anyone could do.
One day, he went to the house of a guy who got flagged by a Hue Check.
When he stepped inside, this guy was on top of a woman he had kidnapped.
Sasayama almost killed the guy.
Since I was an Inspector at the time, I stopped him,
but deep down, I thought that he was a funny guy.
Yeah. That violent, womanizing bastard was a real funny guy.
At the very least, I never expected he'd die that way.
Did you see the picture of his body?
Yes.
We found it underneath a Holographic display.
Yes...
Do you know what kind of display it was?
No, I don't.
It was an ad by a pharmaceutical company.
"Our safe stress care will transport you to a world without suffering."
A
Analysis showed that before Sasayama was turned into a specimen,
he was dismembered while he was still alive.
It was like the culprit was sending a message.
"Life is nothing but suffering."
I wanted the bastard who did that to Sasayama to meet the same end.
Once I started feeling that way,
my career as an Inspector was over.
Do you have any regrets?
I don't regret my own actions.
But the thing is... the case is still unsolved.
That's the only problem.
We need to find the accomplice who helped Touma Kouzaburo three years ago.
Are there any leads that we can still use?
Yeah.
There's a picture that Sasayama took,
though it's pretty blurry.
It was saved on the terminal that Sasayama used.
This man? Did you find out what his name was?
The picture's filename was...
"Makishima."
They found Kuzuhara Satsuki dead.
I heard.
Yoshika has been absent from school since yesterday.
I heard.
Hey, listen to me!
I am listening.
It's not just Ookubo.
I heard that Yamaguchi Masami in Class B has been absent, too.
Sounds like there's trouble brewing at the Academy.
So?
"So"?
If there's trouble, the first thing you should do is stay out of it.
Don't gossip, either.
What are you saying?
I feel that careless actions could put us in serious danger.
We've been friends with Yoshika since we were kids, you know.
Ouryou Rikako.
Who?
Ookubo was really crazy about her, right?
And she seemed to be interested in Ookubo as well.
If you ask her, she might know something.
Yeah...
There's this quote from Kierkegaard that my father liked.
"Because man is superior to animals,
in other words, because man is the self, and spirit,
man can be in despair."
Unless you know despair, you cannot know hope.
My father used dismembered bodies as the subject of many of his drawings.
That's because they symbolize the contradictory nature of the self.
I had great respect for my father.
He was aware of his obligation as an artist
and continued to focus intently on using his creations to enlighten people.
I think even now that he was a great artist indeed.
That's why I simply can't forgive him for abandoning that duty halfway through.
Yesterday, my father passed away.
He's been as good as dead for a while,
but finally even his heart gave in.
But I'm okay.
I'm not sad.
I, his daughter, will carry out my father's duty together with you all.
Don't you think that's wonderful?
It's exciting, isn't it,
Yoshika?
Eustress deficiency cerebral infarction.
Well, that's not the official name for the illness.
It is said to be the real cause of most deaths that are declared as
"heart failure from unknown cause."
I've heard of it. They say that it's a side effect of excessive stress care.
For some time, it's been understood that moderate stress has beneficial effects.
For example, it stimulates the immune system.
As they say, it serves as motivation in your life.
You could even call it a reason for living.
However, once Psycho-Pass checks became routine,
people have found their sense of stress numbed so heavily that
we started to see patients who couldn't even recognize stimulation itself.
Once that happens, they're like living corpses.
Soon their autonomic nervous system stops functioning on its own
and their vital functions shut down.
That's very sad.
So humans now care for themselves to the point that
they've actually regressed as living beings, huh?
The fact of the matter is,
as much as our medical system has advanced,
statistically, the average lifespan is actually decreasing.
Well, this data will probably never be made public, though.
That's not surprising.
In this era, everything that could be considered a reason to live has died out.
No one tries to talk seriously about what life should be like anymore.
The father of Ouryou Rikako, the girl I mentioned earlier,
had eustress deficiency as well.
Ouryou Rouichi...
At some point, he was a predominant illustrator.
Haven't you heard of him?
Unfortunately, I don't have much knowledge of the art world.
He possessed a prodigious talent for drawing cruel, vivid nightmares using girls' bodies as motifs.
However, he himself was a man of quite strict morality.
Well, it's not uncommon for there to be a disconnect between the creator
and the impression their creations give.
But in Rouichi's case, there was a firm ideology there.
According to him,
by becoming firmly aware of the cruelty
that hides in the dark depths of the human heart,
humans can foster the common sense, ability to reason,
and goodwill to control that cruelty.
He viewed his creative efforts as a means to enlighten the populace.
From what you say, he sounds like quite the saint.
However, the spread of Psycho-Pass assessments
ended this role that he had decided for himself.
People don't have to control themselves anymore.
Instead, they can now maintain their mental health through machine assessments.
I heard...
that Rouichi welcomed this technology.
Whatever the means,
his ideal of humanity having healthy and sound minds had been realized.
As a result, though, his mission ended and his life lost its meaning.
I'm surprised.
I thought all artists were the same, concerned only with fame and wealth.
Well, he too probably had inner conflicts.
But in order to solve them,
he used all kinds of state-of-the-art stress care methods.
His daughter Rikako tells me that he was so dependent on them
that you could call it an addiction.
As a result,
he became a living corpse who couldn't even sit up from his bed, huh?
She loved her father so much that I'm sure
she couldn't forgive that which took him away.
It's as if Ouryou Rouichi was killed twice.
First, his talent was killed by science and technology.
And then, his soul was killed by society.
In short, you mean this girl is committing crimes to get revenge for her father?
Well, I don't know.
I hope she finds some meaning beyond revenge, though.
Choe Gu-Sung?
That was quick.
I do wonder how Mr. Makishima knew that there was a place like this inside the Academy.
It seems this used to be a generator room that powered a recycling boiler,
but when the Academy was renovated, it disappeared from the blueprints.
How slipshod, huh?
So where are the chemicals?
Over there.
Deliveries aren't usually my thing,
but the payment this time is quite generous.
Not to mention I get to help out a cute young lady like yourself.
So, I hardly have reason to complain.
Where does Mr. Makishima get weird stuff like this?
He did mention that they were leftover stockpiles from past festivities.
I don't know who made it.
I don't even want to.
The person must've thought that entertaining Makishima would be a lot more worthwhile
than getting a patent for this weird chemical or selling it.
He does seem to attract geniuses that have gone astray.
And you're one of them, right, Choe Gu-Sung?
I don't know what it is,
but when I'm with him, I feel like I'm reliving my childhood or something.
I start to wonder what mischief we should get up to in order to shake up society,
and my thoughts become consumed with those ideas.
I know the feeling.
You guys prepare toys,
and we, mischievous children that we are, use those toys to create a stir.
It really is fun, isn't it?
Well, us toy manufacturers
have enough fun just watching what you brats do next.
Yeah. I'd say they're probably discovering my second prank right about now.
Keep an eye on the news.
Will do.
You always leave before the really fun stuff begins.
It's a shame you miss it.
Unfortunately, I don't do too well around blood and stuff, so I'll pass.
A second one...
If this is really Touma Kouzaburo's doing, that makes it the sixth.
So, what was it that you wanted to ask me, Kawarazaki Kagami?
It's Yoshika...
It's about Ookubo.
She's been absent from school for the last three days in a row, so... um...
So you're worried. You care about your friends.
We've been friends since we were kids.
What's this?
Friendship between girls is wonderful, isn't it?
I think it might end up being a very exciting motif.
Um...
It might also be a good addition to my Yoshika exhibition, don't you think?
A touching reunion with your childhood friend.
It's an emotionally stirring scene, isn't it?
It really makes me cry.
I want to reenact this moving scene in a place where more and more people can see it.
Perhaps it really is the fate of artists to be struck by such inspiration.
It seems all fairy tales are dead
In a hospital ward of brick stones
my voice is too coarse to sing
Outside in the foggy haze
a red moon glows
Look at me
Do not avert your gaze
Behind black bars
I was born
I wish there were a punishment for evil
Always I need you
Now, grant us justice
before chaos takes us all
Pay the price of fate and let us go together,
nameless beasts
This is a world where the mental state and personal tendencies of humans can be quantified. While all sorts of inclinations are recorded and policed, these measured numbers used to judge people's souls are commonly called "Psycho-Pass".
This story is a work of fiction. The names of all individuals and organizations that appear in this show are fictitious and any similarity to those in existence in the real world is purely coincidental.