Author's Note: WARNING this chapter is GRAPHIC. As will be the next few chapters (perhaps even worse). Rating has officially been changed to M. Also, I just wanna remind you guys that Ruby doesn't have Crescent Rose atm. You'll see why I mentioned that in a bit. Enjoy! :D
Cover Art: Daily reminder to check out ghoul_edits (the guy who made the cover pic for this story) on instagram for amazing art!
Mandatory Disclaimer: I do not own any of the series depicting in this story, nor any of the characters, etc. In fact, I own nothing xD.
Time Break: ... ... ... ... ... ...
Bold text: GHOUL VOICE
Italics: INNER THOUGHTS, or when a character is speaking to themselves; also used occasionally for EMPHASIS when characters are speaking
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Chapter 7: R | WBY
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Tatara was annoyed, to say the least.
When Kanou had told Eto about his plan to create an army of hybrid ghouls for Aogiri, Eto had been ecstatic. Which wasn't much of a surprise, since she herself was a one eyed ghoul, so the prospect of having more one eyed ghouls amused her.
However, while Tatara understood Eto's decision and would abide by it no matter the circumstances, he still didn't like the prospect of working with a human. The ghoul had developed a deep mistrust of humans after his time in Atlas.
Nonetheless, Eto had agreed to provide Kanou with the resources he needed: test subjects, a better laboratory, equipment, etc. on the grounds that he provide soldiers for Aogiri. Which was all good and well. Until, of course, Eto had put Tatara in charge of retrieving test subjects for Dr. Kanou.
Almost immediately Kanou had asked the second in command to go after a certain girl, ranting that she was essential to his experiments by virtue of surviving some rare disease. Normally Tatara would just give a minor task like this to one of his subordinates, but he and Eto had to make sure that news of Kanou's affiliation with Aogiri did not reach the rest of the organization's ears. More than a few Ghouls would be very uncomfortable at the prospect of working with a human.
He could have given the job to Torchwick, but that moron would probably find some way to crew things up, so in the end he had decided to go after the girl himself. And that, ultimately, was the reason for his annoyance.
The idea of working for a human absolutely disgusted him, even if it was for the benefit of the organization. He considered himself a loyal member of Aogiri and would never defy orders once they were given to him, but that didn't stop him from feeling annoyance from time to time.
"I'll just have to make this quick," he muttered to himself.
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Tatara eyed his targets from atop a nearby building. They seemed to be four girls, for the most part small of stature - one with pure black hair, the other with white, another with blonde, and then finally his target: a petite girl with red and black hair.
Tracking the girls had been fairly straightforward, since the snow had provided him good cover. But also, they seemed incredibly young and inexperienced when it came to combat-related matters.
The white-haired ghoul sighed. He had no qualms killing humans, but that didn't mean he went out of his way for it. Especially when they were defenseless little girls.
Then, suddenly, the group stopped moving. One of the girls stood apart from the others and appeared to be saying something.
Seeing his chance, Tatara jumped down from the building and released his Kagune, slamming it into the black-haired female's face and killing her upon impact.
Or rather, it would have killed her if she were a normal human, but Tatara felt some unexpected resistance. It would seem this one is a ghoul, he said to himself, as he watched her fly into the side of a building across the street. She would probably survive the injury, but Tatara highly doubted she would regain her consciousness any time soon.
Cracking his neck, Tatara shot his Kagune forward in an attempt to skewer the white-haired one. She managed to move out of the way at the last second, but didn't avoid the hit entirely and took a savage slash to the stomach, which knocked her unconscious.
Tatara then emerged from the shadows with his hands behind his back, the tip of his Kagune pointed at the girls menacingly.
The rest of these three are normal humans, it would appear, he said to himself. That was good. It would save him any more trouble.
The blonde one then gathered what bit of courage she had left, and stood in front of his target. "I won't let you hurt my sister," she said lowering into a fighting stance.
Tatara smiled amusedly. "Very well," he said.
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Yang grimaced. This isn't good, she said internally. Ice Queen's out for the count, and Blake got smashed into the side of a wall. Even if I'm able to beat him … then I'll need to get the two of them to a hospital ASAP.
Also, though Yang would never admit it to herself, she was absolutely terrified.
The Blonde rushed towards her opponent, and as she did the bracelets on her wrist expanded to cover the entirety of her forearm. Tatara raised an eyebrow as she did so, as if to say, That's not a smart move, girl.
Jumping into the air, Yang yelled, "Die you bastard," and punched at him with Ember Celica. As she did, an orange-yellow blast emitted from her weapon, hitting the Ghoul in his face.
Tatara didn't even flinch.
As soon as she had fired off her weapon, the ghoul whipped his Kagune around and stabbed through Yang's stomach.
Yang screamed and arched her neck in pain. Tatara then yanked back his Kagune and Yang fell to the ground, vomitting a pool of blood onto the pavement before her. Her consciousness faded in and out.
A store window shattered somewhere nearby.
"Now then," Tatara said, raising his Kagune in preparation to slice Yang's head off.
Before he could do so, however, the ghoul glimpsed a flash of rose petals as Ruby appeared at his left side, a piece of broken glass in her hand. Tatara's eyes widened. She's fast! he exclaimed.
Reaching back, Ruby stabbed the ghoul through his eye with the shard of glass. Blood sprayed everywhere, clouding her vision, but Ruby allowed herself to relax the second she felt her makeshift weapon sink into the enemy's body, and re-emerge out the back of his head.
It's over, she said to herself.
Which would have been an accurate statement, had she been fighting a normal Ghoul.
Ruby's eyes widened as a hand reached through the spray of blood and closed around her neck, crushing her throat. Ruby tried to scream, but the pressure around her windpipe was too much. She watched in horror as the Ghoul pulled the shard of glass out from his eye, and the massive wound on his face mended itself.
Tatara looked at the weapon disinterestedly. "I hope you didn't think you'd be able to kill me with a move like that," he said.
Ruby looked on in fear. Am I … going to die here? she asked herself. Truth be told, she was terrified at the prospect of dying.
"This is going to hurt," the Ghoul said to her. "A lot."
Faster than the eye could see, Tatara whipped his right arm, and using the shard of glass slashed through Ruby's arm at the elbow. Unfortunately for Ruby, the glass was ragged, so it didn't cut through her arm in a single, clean motion. The result was that the arm still dangled, gruesomely at that, by a small strand of skin and flesh from the upper part of the her limb.
Ruby gave a muffled scream, and tears filled her eyes. The pain was nearly unbearable, by far the most she had ever felt in her short life
However, before she could continue to think about the fact that she had just lost her arm, Tatara chopped her in the side of her neck with the same arm, knocking her unconscious. He then sliced off the rest of his target's arm.
The ghoul eyed the appendage on the ground before him.
The reason he had cut off the girl's arm was to make it look as though she were dead, so as to keep the CCG from finding out what was happening. Granted, it was far from a failsafe measure, and even if the CCG did find out then it would be no big deal, but if people saw an arm on the ground after a Ghoul attack they would inevitably jump to conclusions that the girl had been eaten. Especially since the manner in which her arm had been cut off was not with a Kagune, but rather with a piece of glass, so there was a chance the investigators would mistake it for a bite or rip wound.
The CCG had always seen Ghouls as monsters with uncontrollable appetites, and Tatara intended to use that against them here.
As he looked at the girl before him, Tatara thought, She's talented. Normally a piece of glass wouldn't harm a Ghoul, but she targeted the one spot at the bottom of the eye where a Ghoul can, under the right circumstances, be injured by normal weapons.
If we can break her sanity she would be a valuable asset to Aogiri Tree.
Throwing the girl's unconscious body over his shoulder, Tatara looked at her teammates before him. He considered killing them for a brief moment, but deemed it unnecessary, and walked away from the bloody mess he had left.
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Review Responses
Note: For the most part, I'm only going to be responding to reviews that I think ask questions or bring up points that are important to the story. Otherwise, I'll just be using the built-in review response system.
FineChyna: So first of all, thank you SO much for the reviews and the help. I appreciate it! :D
Also since you brought up the three tombstones in chapter 1, I'll go ahead and talk about them for a bit. First off, I'd like to point out that there is already one tombstone at Cliffside Altar. Secondly, while I do intend for there to be some major deaths, I HATED how Akame Ga Kill (phenomenal anime/manga for those of you unfamiliar with it) killed off every main character. Killing off characters once in a while is okay, but spamming it and killing off ALL the main characters is imo NOT okay. And that's all I have to say on that for now :P
Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! Believe me when I say things are about to get REALLY intense :)
