Chapter Text
Officer Niijima Makoto stared straight ahead as she walked down the hallways of her precinct in Shibuya Police Station, her face all business. Not that it wasn’t ever not business, anyway. She was serious about her job, and everyone knew it. Despite being on the police force for only a year and change, she had already accomplished what most do in three.
This popularity didn’t come without a cost, however. Many men in the precinct jeered that she was only this successful because the higher ups were interested in her as a woman. So, they’d give her some slack. Or maybe, some extra brownie points. Still though, her nickname, the “Iron Fist of Justice,” wasn’t given without letting the results speak for themselves. It wasn’t often that people came by a person as dedicated, as loyal, and as beautiful as she was.
Others would look at her with jealousy, annoyance, and daresay even hatred. Wondering how a woman, of all people, could go from being a fresh recruit in the Shibuya Police Squad 29, to the rank of Police Detective. How she effortlessly climbed through the ranks that others had been stuck in for years was a mystery that perhaps only the late Detective Prince Goro Akechi, who had been missing for 6 years (or presumed dead, depending on who you asked), could solve.
Makoto knew all this. She wasn’t blind, nor deaf, to the uncomfortable rumors that plagued her. She also knew that if she were a male, people would no doubt react much differently. Instead of hearing the hushed whispers of “Look at the Iron Fist, she’s already cracked another case” in the offices, she would probably get a clap on the back and a handshake on a job well done. She knew that Japan was dominated by a male culture. She knew that her dream to become a police commissioner would be an incredibly harsh road because of it. She knew that while she may be respected, there is also fear behind the voices that work with her.
Makoto knew a lot of things from her time in the force.
She probably could have done very well as a private investigator. Pair that with her sister, the famed defense attorney Sae Niijima, and you had quite the dynamic duo. That thought not only drifted through her head, but she had no doubt it went through the other officers’ as well. For a lot of people, they just care about the money. Or maybe the job security. Makoto wasn’t sure, but she had seen enough in the Metaverse to know what the general public tended to think. She had a reason to be in the force. Something other than fame, or fortune.
Makoto glanced to the side as she walked to see a pair of officers in uniform suddenly shift their gaze downward, as if trying to avoid her. She sighed, and kept her eyes in front of her, nearing the superintendent’s office.
Funnily enough, if anyone ever actually vocally asked her why she was doing all this, why she was so hard driven, why it was almost inhumane in the way she would solve cases at such a rapid pace, they would receive a very simple response that would shatter the belief that her reasons were inhuman.
I promised to somebody special that I would bring about true justice from the right side of the law.
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Aspiring politician Amamiya Ren let out a heavy sigh and drummed his fingers on the desk in his office, staring at a computer screen.The results of the most recent representative elections were displayed on full screen, but his eyes still couldn’t read the results. It was as if they refused to believe what was plastered on screen.
Maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him. Maybe he was just reading it wrong. He brought his hands up to his face, and rubbed it with the palms of his hands. They moved past his pursed lips, soft cheeks, dark eyes, and into his messy hair. Opening his eyes while blowing the air out of his cheeks, he reached for his glasses that lay on his desk. Even though they were purely decorative, Ren held onto a tiny tinge of hope, as if the spectacles would magically change the poll numbers in front of his eyes.
They didn’t.
“I don’t understand…” He muttered under his breath, bringing an elbow down onto the desk, propping his head on a balled fist.
“What don’t you understand? What’s wrong? That wasn’t the reaction I was expecting to see.”
Ren tilted his head slightly to look behind his monitor and at the plush leather chair on the opposite side of his office. Sitting on it was a black and white cat with a yellow collar around his neck. He got up on all fours and stretched, before hopping down from his resting place to make his way over to the desk.
Ren sighed again. If anybody saw him talking to an ordinary cat, they would think he was delusional.
To him, and several others, however, this was no ordinary cat. In fact, you’d probably hear hissing if you called him one.
“I lost, Morgana… I lost…” was all Ren could get out.
“Wait, what?”
Morgana jumped onto Ren’s desk in one fluid motion and stared at the screen. His jaw went slack.
“No way… Weren’t you projected to win by a total landslide? The prediction was 80% to 20% in your favor!”
Ren could simply nod as he turned his attention back to the screen, which read: ‘Ren Amamiya: 30%’
Just as the ‘cat’ had said, it should have been a landslide. His opponent for his seat should have been a pushover. But now, everything that he had worked for up until this point, had been destroyed. Until the next election, at least. But that was years away. Years that Ren didn't want to waste.
Still, something was off. He narrowed his eyes at his opponent on the screen, unblinkingly staring back at him with a certain type of smile on his face. The first issue was that Ren had never seen that man smile before, until now. The second, more haunting issue, was that Ren could recognize his smile like the back of his hand. Most couldn’t, but when you dealt with the surreal, the real became much easier to see through.
Morgana recognized it too. “That looks just like all the smiles from 6 years ago… It looks.. Fake.”
Ren nodded his head in silent agreement. Something was amiss. Something seemingly foul has obstructed his quest for true justice. Something that reminded him all too much of the sort that he used to punish 6 years ago.
He quickly pulled out his phone from his pocket, and reached to the top contact in his favorites list.
It was time to use true justice that a special someone spoke so highly of.