“...Kogami, put your hands behind your head.”
Kujo gently laid Iris’s silent body down on the floor, then quickly raised his handgun again. Kogami stood frozen before him, perhaps overwhelmed by the impact of being shielded and by Kujo’s sudden change.
“Damn it, damn it...!”
Kogami tried to retreat while still gripping his modified gun, but Kujo was faster. He kicked the barrel upward, then twisted Kogami’s arm behind his back as the man lost his balance.
“Don’t move. If you resist any further, I won’t hold back.”
His voice was low, the anger he had been suppressing bleeding through. Three years ago, when he had lost his partner right before his eyes, Kujo had nearly been forced to taste that same helplessness again. But this time was different. He had subdued the suspect for good.
Just as he finished cuffing him, a voice crackled over the radio, announcing the arrival of the backup team. A few minutes later, uniformed officers and the forensics division came flooding into the abandoned building.
“Agent Kujo, we’ll take it from here.”
A familiar officer called out to him, but Kujo couldn’t respond for a while. His eyes remained fixed on Iris’s body lying on the floor.
“...Agent Kujo?”
“Ah... yeah. Please do.”
Coming back to himself, Kujo handed Kogami over to the uniformed officers. The case was solved. The perpetrator was in custody. That should have been enough.
But Kujo’s feet wouldn’t move.
Separate from the forensics team, a technical team responsible for recovering androids arrived and carefully lifted Iris’s body onto a stretcher. The armor over her core had been scorched black by the bullets. A dark hole gaped between her eyebrows. The eyes that had held a tranquil light only moments ago were now completely submerged in darkness.
Kujo simply stared at the scene in silence.
(She was supposed to be a tool.)
He repeated it to himself again and again. Androids had no lives. Iris herself had said as much. And yet the weight of her collapsing in his arms, her final words spoken in broken fragments—those things had shaken something deep inside him.
“Agent Kujo, the transport vehicle is ready.”
Addressed again, Kujo finally began to walk. Just before he climbed into the transport vehicle, a separate figure appeared at the edge of his vision, approaching Iris’s body as it was carried away on the stretcher.
A male android. The man had refined features and a faintly frivolous smile as he reached toward the side of Iris’s body. Kujo narrowed his eyes, watching the movement.
A cord extended from the man’s fingertip and connected to a port on the back of Iris’s body.
“...What are you doing?”
Without thinking, Kujo stepped away from the transport vehicle and approached the stretcher.
“Yo, brother. Nice work solving the case.”
The man turned and raised one hand, showing no sign of remorse.
“Brother...?”
“Don’t sweat it. It’s kind of a verbal tic. I’m Crow. Third Team. Surveillance and hacking are my specialties.”
The android calling himself Crow noticed that Kujo’s gaze was fixed on Iris’s body and gave a sly grin.
“As you can see, I’m salvaging the final data from the ‘broken tool.’ Most of it’s been migrated to the cloud, but some parts like this are still analog. There’s data you can’t retrieve without a physical connection.”
“...Broken tool?”
Kujo’s voice dropped into a quiet, dangerous register.
“That’s what she is, right? Androids don’t have lives, so once they break, they’re just defective equipment. No need to get so worked up, brother.”
Crow’s tone was light, as though he were making small talk. But every word scraped across Kujo’s nerves.
“Say that again.”
Kujo’s fist had clenched tight without him realizing it.
“Whoa, whoa, don’t make that scary face. I’m just stating a fact.”
Crow shrugged and kept tossing out glib remarks.
“There’s no point getting sentimental over a broken tool—”
“That’s enough!!”
Kujo finally reached his limit and lunged for Crow’s collar.
“Crow, stop!”
With a sharp voice, a young woman slipped between them. The person who had rushed over, breathless, was an investigator wearing the jacket of the investigative team that primarily handled cybercrime. Her name was Shizuku Amemiya.
“Agent Kujo, I’m so sorry. My boy is at it again...!”
Before she could finish, Amemiya quickly operated a tablet terminal. At once, control of Crow appeared to shift to the terminal, his master unit, and he temporarily stopped functioning as though he had been pinned in place.
“Oh, I hate that. Release me, Shizuku.”
“It’s not about whether you hate it!! I’m truly sorry, Agent Kujo. He doesn’t mean any harm, but he has such a foul mouth...”
Amemiya bowed deeply. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, several years younger than Kujo. The fatigue beneath her expression seemed to reveal the hardships she endured every day.
“If Crow causes trouble again, I’ll write the incident report myself... I’m truly sorry. As always.”
“...Are you always the one who cleans up his messes?”
“Yes. I’ve written so many that I don’t even want to count them anymore.”
Amemiya gave a weak laugh, and some of Kujo’s anger eased.
“Crow is very capable, despite how he seems. He’s just a little... no, quite foul-mouthed.”
At Amemiya’s words, Crow shrugged.
“I can’t tell if you’re complimenting me or insulting me.”
“Both. In fact, the insulting part is stronger.”
Amemiya stated it flatly. From the way she treated Crow, it was clear she regarded him not as a tool, but as an individual—or at least something close to one.
Kujo glared at Crow for a while, then finally lowered his fist.
“...There won’t be a next time.”
“Scary, scary. I’ll keep that in mind, brother.”
Crow responded with the same glib tone as always, but for an instant, his gaze shifted toward Iris’s body—specifically, the end of the cord that was still connected. From an angle Kujo couldn’t see, Crow’s fingertips moved ever so slightly.
Deep within Iris’s cloud data, beyond the cord connected under the pretense of salvaging her data, Crow had quietly planted something. No one present noticed what it was.
“Well, I’m out. Data recovery complete.”
Crow unplugged the cord and walked away as though nothing had happened. Amemiya hurried after him, bowing to Kujo once more.
“I’m truly sorry, Agent Kujo.”
“...Don’t worry about it.”
Kujo gave only the briefest reply. Just before the transport vehicle pulled away, he looked one last time at Iris’s body as it was carried off on the stretcher.
For the next several weeks, Kujo was removed from field duty and assigned to investigative work indoors. Following up on the case, preparing reports, organizing documents—desk work left him restless. He would rather be moving in the field, where he didn’t have to think about anything else. But now, whether he wanted to or not, he had more and more time to remember what he had seen that day.
(She was supposed to be a tool.)
Even as he repeated it to himself again and again, the weight of the moment she shielded him remained etched in Kujo’s mind, refusing to fade.
Then, one afternoon.
“Agent Kujo.”
A familiar voice stopped him in the hallway of the headquarters. When he turned, Iris stood there, fully repaired.
“Iris...”
“My repairs have been completed. I returned to active duty today.”
Her tranquil eyes were unchanged from before. Yet when he saw the light shining within them, an indescribable relief spread through Kujo’s chest. Admitting that to himself was something Kujo found deeply unwelcome.
“I was informed by the team chief. I understand that you wished to dissolve our buddy assignment once this case was resolved.”
“...That’s right.”
“Has that intention changed?”
Kujo was silent for a while in response to Iris’s question. The scene that came to mind was the moment she shielded him. And then there was that frivolous man—Crow, and his words: “broken tool.”
If she was a tool, why had she done that? Why had she thrown herself in front of Kujo to protect him when she hadn’t even been ordered to?
“...Just a little longer.”
Kujo forced the words out.
“...I’ll agree to work with you.”
It wasn’t an expression of gratitude. Even so, it clearly sounded different from his rejection before.
“Understood.”
Iris nodded quietly. Her expression barely changed, but Kujo felt that her voice carried the faintest hint of something like relief.
Outside the window, the light of dusk began to stream in. In the time that had supposedly stood still for Kujo since three years ago, the first quiet signs of certain change were beginning to take root.