Anteiku was quiet, as it always was at 9PM at night.
The sign was flipped to 'closed', the tables cleaned, and no food on display.
A single person was in the cafe, dark blue hair fading into the shadows and brow furrowed in an uncharacteristic mix of worry and concentration. His hair was pinned back, exposing pointed ears.
His computer was open, bathing a small area in bluish light. A little red light was moving on a map, closer and closer to the place where he was seated. A bare foot tapped nervously on the floor, and the table creaked under the stress that was being applied to it through a pair of clenching hands.
Abruptly, Rin stood. The chair toppled with a clatter and bounced a few times.
"I can't do it," He said to an empty room, "I can't."
"Hmm?" A very messy blond head appeared over the back of one of Anteiku's few booths "Can't do what?"
"I can't meet the exorcist," Rin said blankly "I can't face my brother, or Shura, or any of my friends. I let them down."
"Ok," Hide said, not fully awake or sure what was happening "I'll meet the exorcists. Go upstairs and write your letter."
"My what?"
Rin wasn't sure what was happening either.
"It's an idea I got from the CCG," Hide explained "You write a letter to the people you care about in case you die in the raid."
"Isn't that lovely."
"Ask Touka for some paper, she knows where it is."
Nodding numbly, the half-demon picked his way around the toppled chair and up the wooden stairs that had quickly become familiar. A piece of the railing was splintering, courtesy of Rin hurling a knife at Nishiki's head. In his defence, it was a camping knife still in its sheath and how was he supposed to know that the ghoul basically had fricken' motion sensors in the back of his head.
"Touka?" Rin called as his sock-clad feet hit the upper floor "Do you know where the paper is?"
Touka was all too happy to hurl the cardboard box across the room at Rin's head, where it smacked him above the eye and split his skin. An oddly spicy smell rent the air - his blue-tinged blood.
"Sorry," the female ghoul said, not sounding very sorry at all "Get out of my room before I throw the chair."
The half demon pulled several sheets of paper out of the old shoebox and got out of her room at high speed.
Down the hall, he crossed paths with Hinami. The younger girl was really taking Kaneki's disappearance hard, as was shown in her reddened eyes and slumped shoulders. Rin didn't know how to make her feel better, so he just patted her shoulder in what he hoped was a comforting matter. He wanted to see her face lit up in her infectious smile, not shuttered off and stained by tears.
Biting his lip and splitting it (downside of fangs), he threw himself down on his bed and stared at the blank paper. His lip healed almost instantly (upside to demonic healing).
The bed had a dark pink cover patterned with sakura blossoms, something Shura and Shima would never let him hear the end of.
Sighing, Rin flipped onto his front and reached for a pen and the first sheet of paper.
A few ticks of the small alarm clock next to the bed echoed in the silence.
The paper was still eye-searingly blank. Rin chewed on the ballpoint pen as he thought about what to write.
It broke almost immediately under his sharp teeth, giving him a mouthful of blue ink. Reflexively spitting at the horrible taste, he felt a twinge of horror as the liquid stained the paper, sakura pattern and pillows.
"Crap, crap, crap!" he yelped, scrambling upright and sweeping the clean paper onto his desk. He ripped off the blanket and pillows, then clawed off the white sheets as he discovered that they were also marred by the ink. Feet pattered down the hall and around a corner as he rushed into the laundry, carrying the bedclothes in a hasty bundle above his head and looking slightly like a demented pink mushroom on legs.
He shoved the fabric into the washing machine, kicked the door shut, and started the load. It took ten seconds to realise that washing machines needed something else, and poured a heap of laundry liquid into the slots.
About a bucketload of toothpaste managed to get the ink off his teeth - in your face Yukio for telling him that wouldn't work - and he'd just have to hope that no one realised that he'd borrowed some bedclothes from the hall cupboard.
That whole adventure done, he flopped onto the now-clean bed and nearly chewed the new pen he'd picked up.
Growling in frustration, he pulled the item away from his face and stared at it as though it would tell him what to write.
No luck. He'd tried the same thing during several maths tests, and despite it never working he kept trying.
He flopped back over to his back and stared at the roof, trying to think.
~oOo~
Later that night, the window opened and Rin jumped out with an annoyed scowl on his face and Kurikara clenched in his hand.
The paper wasn't as blank as before. It now bore a few sentences.
Hey, Yukio.
I'm going to be blunt – if you're reading this, I'm dead.
Hide had the idea for us to all write these before we went on this rescue mission, in case we didn't make it back.
Outside, under the ever present light of Tokyo, a faint shout rang out.
"Get back here, you little s***!"
Sounded like the localised demons weren't making it easy for the son of Satan.
~oOo~
"You look like you got hit by a truck," Nishiki stated "Where was the rage party?"
"Why thank you," Rin snapped "And for your information, there was no rage party. Only two very angry hydra. I didn't even know the damn things existed until last ni-this morning. So now I'm trying to sleep off that stupid encounter, so shut up!"
His head dropped onto the table for a grand total of seven seconds before something very heavy crashed onto the table and startled him upright.
Hide had heaved a huge plastic jerry can onto the table.
"Exorcist dude said that this would repel demons while we're gone," the dyed-blond said "Here, put it around the place. You know how this stuff works."
With a quick shove, he pushed the container over to the younger male. Some of the contents spilled, splashing onto the table.
Rin was out of the chair in less than a second, and skittering backwards until he crashed into the wall.
"Keep that stuff away from me." he hissed, eyes lighting with an odd glow.
"Um, that's water," Nishiki pointed out "What had water do to you?"
"So help me, I am going to murder my brother," Rin growled "For giving us this useless holy water, when he promised us information about the Aogiri raid!"
"So what's this?" Touka held up a USB double-bagged in ziplock and dropping from being in the water.
"Holy s***, when did you get in here!" Nishiki gasped.
"I'll go get the laptop." Hide sighed, pushing himself off the chair he'd sat on and angling his body for the stairs.
"I need coffee."
"Me too."
"Me three."
"I am not getting up."
"No one asked you, Nis***ki!"
"If you want it get it yourself!"
"You want the coffee too, go and get it!"
"Make Okumura do it!"
"Move the holy water and maybe."
Both ghouls looked at the water, at Rin, and at each other.
"Nah." They said in unison.
"Then make your own damn coffee."
"What if we move the water closer?"
"Then there's even less chance of me making you coffee."
"And the gold medal for time wasting goes to you three! Rin, what's the password for this USB?"
"Pass it." Rin mumbled, holding out his hand for the laptop.
He flipped it open and typed in a word, then another, then a whole string of words.
"Got it."
Somehow, the dyed blonde made heads and tails out of the endless folders, most of which had titles either in english or blank.
"The CCG moves into position at 7:30PM," Hide read, brown eyes squinting at the screen "The first attack team goes in at 7:35."
"Wait, was this today?" Nishiki screeched.
"No, it's tomorrow," Hide reassured.
"We should probably go to sleep now, in that case," Touka said "The manager is closing Anteiku tomorrow, something about going to the 4th ward."
~oOo~
It was safe to say that no one slept well, lest of all Touka. She'd denied denied denied, but she really liked Kaneki as a little more than a friend. She wanted to hold his hand, play with that glossy black hair, maybe even ki-
She groaned and buried her crimson face into her pillow. Since when did she act like a lovesick schoolgirl?
Finally, she drifted off into a dreamless sleep.
~oOo~
She slept through the rising sun, through the peaking sun, and woke up as it was beginning to set and someone was poking her with a stick.
With a growl, she grabbed the stick (it was a broom) and shoved it back at the person holding it.
A distinctly feminine yelp made her jerk her head around as she realised that she'd just stabbed Hinami with a broom handle.
"Sorry, imouto," Touka yawned "What time is it?"
"Six."
"That early?"
"Six PM."
"What!"
The female ghoul scrambled out of bed, staring in horror at the digital clock innocently blinking digits at her.
"Why didn't you wake me up?" Touka demanded.
"We all needed the extra sleep." Hinami shrugged.
She started to nod, until she realised what Hinami had said.
"Wait. We?"
"I'm coming with you. Don't bother arguing, I'm not going to go into the thick of the fight. I'll just stay on the outskirts and help if any of us get injured!"
Touka didn't argue. She wouldn't make Hinami wait alone in the cafe, not knowing if they would all come back. Plus she'd thrown her stupid brother into the tunnel system, and wasn't sure if he'd be able to get back out the Anteiku hatch.
~oOo~
Time managed to drag and fly.
No one spoke, not even when the cook walked in carrying a katana that none of the other staff had ever seen before.
No one spoke when the manager and the older staff came back.
No one spoke to convey what was happening, yet they knew what they had to do.
They were a group of silent wraiths as they flowed out the door and somehow crammed into two CCG-issue cars. No one asked how those had been acquired.
They drove across the wards.
Somehow they slipped into the convoy of CCG vehicles, between two vehicles with an odd cross shape on the side.
"True Cross." Rin said.
Silence fell again.
When the convoy stopped, they parked near the edges and slipped out into the swelling darkness.
7:28
7:29
The minutes slipped past.
7:30
Quiet murmurs could be heard as CCG squads slipped into position.
7:31
7:32
7:33
7:34
7:35
All hell broke loose.
Ghouls and CCG alike surged forward, running like they had hellhounds after them.
The first few Aogiri members fell like leaves, while their comrades held for a little longer - sticks in a breeze.
They got stronger, and stronger, until the first human fell. Then another. Then another.
It was clear that both sides would sustain heavy losses.
And so began a long, bloody night.
~oOo~
Thanks to all my readers :)