Ok so I lied, just one more chapter though, finals are crushing me.
Roulette
The carousel of weeks turned around thrice and she was again sitting in the countermeasures history class.
Reina's eyes threatened to close completely at the monotonous tone and the oppressing warmth of the classroom.
That she'd taken her usual seat at the very back did not help.
She'd been about to win, her knife would have pierced his lung and heart and then she would have swiped it to the side to make sure that they were irreparable even for a ghoul.
The feeling had creeped up on her as it always did, hopelessness. She killed him there, and then what. Why should she even? What were his victims to her? Wasn't she off-duty without her superior's eyes stuck to her back? He needed to kill people like she needed to pay for dead cattle.
For all that she knew he could be more of a person than she'd ever be.
She with her lukewarm blood and ruthless mind.
Reina had thrown her heart away –lost it, whatever- a long time ago.
Never having been like most of the other investigators, she didn't hate ghouls, she loved fighting, yes and for her age, she'd been made into a pretty good investigator.
But she never had quite wanted to be one; there had just been no way that she wanted to take once everything had happened. It wasn't that she didn't want to be an investigator; not really, I was that she didn't want to be anything and she just so happened to have had the potential drilled into her.
She didn't hate ghouls.
And she was tired, very tired, she had been for two years.
When his hands pushed her against the wall, she felt a great relief.
A dull ache on her forehead brought her back to her reality. No one seemed to have noticed, once the pain had passed she found her eyelids drooping again.
This time, she decided, she might as well face the stupid memories, no one seemed to be watching anyway, only Shiina- who was giving her an amused look from two rows ahead- and she was no one to be worried about.
Reina laid her head on the desk.
"Do it"
His black sclera had widened, unfocused as they were.
Why had he not done it yet?
The primal instinct of hunger won over his mind that was trying to comprehend what had happened though, and he took a bite at her shoulder.
Pain raced through her nerve endings, like white hot fire, it was nothing that she hadn't had before.
She yelped and he stopped some semblance of self, creeping back into his eyes.
His hands tightened around her throat.
And he blacked out.
This time the heat woke her up, but she was too tired to lift her head from the table.
She'd left the young man there, seeing that his injuries were beginning to mend. Reina had been half tempted to lay there and let him feast on her when he awoke.
But she had to die in battle; it couldn't be any other way. So she dragged herself and her quinque far enough from the warehouse and called for assistance, arguing that she had been attacked by a figure that was completely hooded and that she had no idea who it was, but she'd only barely managed to escape.
It was just a huge lie
Her eyes closed again
There were blue blurs hanging around her occasionally.
Reina didn't think too much about it.
That day… she could have always killed him
But she didn't really want to kill him.
"Hey, get the hell up Rei, its over" Eh? Kami?
"Y'know, I'm happy we don't get these specially appointed missions if they are so draining" Fumiko's perky voice chimed in the background.
"Ugh, I just slept awfully. It has nothing to do with that" She replied sleepily.
"You have been very tired lately though" Shiina helped her up carefully; Rei had always been weak when waking up. "And your injuries that time…"
"It's not the worst I've had" Lie "I'm just training more lately" Truth, she had started training with other weapons too.
"Uh huh, just know that you're making me worry a lot."
She directed a deadpan expression at the shorter blonde "You're not my mom Shi"
"I keep you eating and wearing pretty clothes I might as well be" she giggled "And Kami-chi can be the dad"
"The hell? If any child of mine turned out like that-"
Fumiko chose just that moment to interrupt "By the way didn't you have one of those missions today?"
Her groan had probably been audible outside, true, she loved fighting, but that day she just wanted to go lie in bed and rest her muscles "Ughh, shit yes. I've got to be there at five. And I have to dress up"
"It's four already," Kami said "And why?"
"Undercover" she all but started dragging herself toward the door. "They're having me take it easy and being bait. I'd rather be killing things."
Behind them, a happy aura grew "Let us doll you up then?" Shiina was smiling happily though there was something creepy about it.
"No, why?"
The other gave Rei the evil eye while pulling out her cosmetics bag. "Because it'll make me happy and you won't have to move a muscle"
Well that Idea was appealing, "Fine, just no pink lipstick, I'm supposed to be a whore, but I'm not going to look like a trashy one"
Shiina all but squealed with delight and Kami and Fumiko's chuckles filled the room
.
.
Being bait sucked.
Rei was stuck in the most uncomfortable dress ever made, which was a feat for something that barely went from her breasts to her butt.
It was also yellow, she hated yellow. The only thing that she probably liked from the outfit were the garters, they hid her brand new scars – faint, thankfully, CCG had some seriously good scar preventing treatments, the bruises had all but gone too- and were black and lacy The situation was made far worse by the fact that she didn't have her quinque and the only thing she could use to defend herself against the S rated ghoul if the squad failed was a long knife tucked in her knee high boots.
The scar on her upper arm was far less faint and pretty, but in the red light, it wasn't all that apparent.
Why she couldn't hide Roujirou in some alley and kill the fucker herself was beyond her.
And she was so tired.
This ghoul was the only kind that she actively disliked. To an extent, she'd never really resented them, they needed to eat, and even humans would turn to eating one another when food was nonexistent. Others didn't think the same, and she understood, there were people with personal grudges –friends, family, lovers that had been lost- and while she considered herself quite pragmatic, Rei couldn't say that she wouldn't go on a rampage on the individual –ghoul or human- that harmed the people that she cared about –and such had been proved already-.
So she usually didn't hate them, she acknowledged that there were sides and she was on one of them, but didn't despise them for eating, or defending themselves –even liking to fight was fine by her, ghouls were entitled to hate doves as much as doves hated them-. However ghouls like this one were the exception, they preyed on helpless people with the only goal of obtaining a specific type of prey and making them suffer through abhorrent torments. Deep down she knew that the reason a good portion of the ghoul populace tended to be like that had to do with the way they were pursued and exterminated, but it wasn't like there was a better way to handle the issue, after all, humanity- like any other race- had to fight back.
These weren't any different from human serial killers.
This fact made her even more pissed off that she wasn't doing the disposing.
She leaned against a streetlamp outside of the clubs that the Ghoul apparently frequented.
Descriptions were a tall man in his forties with a wiry build, though the witnesses were hardly ever reliable on account of intoxication.
Victim profile was tall young brunettes with pale skin. They had also apparently been some of the boldest on the street.
The street itself reeked of illegal dealings and sleazy businesses. Neon signs and the smoke from thousands of cigarettes –including hers- helped create a thin layer of red tinted fog that only masked partially some of the more unsavory characteristics to the place.
She tried to seem confident.
Basically she turned down every man that did not match the description, and for the few who did she acted as gaudy as she could and demanded a ridiculous sum-they wouldn't refuse if she was going to be too dead to ask for the money at the end of the night-.
No matches up until then.
Someone grabbed her from behind "Say, whore, how much?"
Rei turned around roughly, surveying him as quickly as she could.
Tall, wiry, creepy and mid-forties check.
"Not just any fucker can have me, you know stud? I'm the very best. I'll turn your world upside down." His hand reached down to squeeze her ass, Rei swore she was about to gag. "So you'll have to pay for that. How about sixty thousand yen?"
As the man looked down at her she could see the pure hate in those eyes. His breath hit her face full on.
He stank of blood.
"You better be worth it whore" A smile spread over his thin lips "I'll make you worth it."
Wasting no time, she pressed the button that would tell the squad to come in.
The man grabbed her roughly and proceeded to drag her to a parking lot.
"Tadeshima" A voice she knew from somewhere floated up behind them "The boss isn't done with you yet."
With surprising strength, the guy turned around; dragging her with him Reina's eyes could not have possibly widened more.
"Ayato, I've said my piece" The man grumbled, Squeezing at her shoulder almost too tightly. "Get the hell out of my way"
It had taken a fraction of a second for them to recognize each other. Even with her altered looks, she could tell from the way he was looking at her the same way she was sure that he could tell that she recognized him as black rabbit.
Leave her eyes said.
There was a sort of inquisitive spark in his.
She had after all not added his face to the database. To be sincere, she hadn't really wanted to, fighting him was a thrill in the moments when she wanted the adrenaline, and he was a prime subject for the moments when the overwhelming urge to give up came upon her.
"You're free to do as you wish" he said in a tone that was dripping with mockery, the other man did not seem to catch it though, engrossed as he was with his catch. "Just remember you were warned "
"You're an idiot if you believe I'd let myself get captured."
Black Rabbit simply smiled contemptuously and turned away.
The bastard was a nuisance for both of them huh?
With a growl, and his identity practically confirmed –though he didn't know that yet- the older ghoul grabbed her roughly by the forearm and dragged her to a parking lot two blocks away.
Just as they got in bright lights turned on at their backs.
"This is the CCG, release the lady and surrender Ghoul" Ennoshita's voice boomed through the megaphone "You are surrounded"
Enraged, the ghoul's sprouted his kagune –a bikaku that looked like multiple lizard tails- "I-if I'm surrounded I might as well kill the whore then, a last fucking mea-"
Those were his last words.
She had not been supposed to intervene, but technically she was just making things easier for her superiors.
The tip of the knife protruded from his forehead, the hilt from his jaw. Her arm was drenched in blood.
Just to be sure, she pulled the knife out and cut his heart from side to side too.
.
.
Black Rabbit's name was Ayato.
Or at least he was known as Ayato.
It was a useless little piece of information.
But taking into account that he had refused her his name that time, it felt like a triumph to have learned it, despite the awful circumstances –the satisfaction that stemmed from killing that creep still hummed within her two days later-. Two weeks before she had been very much ready to die. Not knowing his name had not mattered much then.
She was still ready to die most of the time though.
In a way, she was just awed at it because he'd let her go, even though he had recognized her. And if he'd outed her then she'd have been good as dead or worse –ghouls and humans had equal capacity for cruelty towards those they considered natural enemies she had found-. Rare as it was, he intrigued her, Reina was accustomed to feeling little but apathy towards most living beings, no matter how amazing or amusing they were supposed to be –she'd seen so much already, too much maybe, she'd grown weary of watching-.
Maybe it had been for not finishing him off or handing him in that time, maybe it had just been practicality. It was still quite interesting.
It was early Sunday morning, three weeks after they'd fought in the warehouse; she wore the same white nightgown as she leaned on the fire escape and sucked the life out of a cigarette. The heat was even more humid, even this early in the morning.
She'd often looked up at the little hole between two buildings that she had spotted him in that time, but he'd never been there.
He was interesting, that much she would admit, he was one of the bad ghouls, yes, part of Aogiri Tree, but he was not cruel.
And he's not hard on the eyes she mused shame he's a Ghoul
Sighing, she flicked the remains of her cigarette off the veranda and turned to go in.
Someone was looking at her.
And there, in the little whole, she could see some unusual vises of blue.
Reina ripped a page out of her sketchpad.
If he killed her, well, she'd unravel his mind first, and then he could do whatever he wanted.
Also, she'd always been curious about this particular issue, and everybody at the academy seemed to have different opinions.
She'd long been ready for death anyway.
(Or the Russian game the two are playing)
How's everybody finding Reina? I just though I'd ask