Power in the Darkness

What is important to you
Can be garbage to another

Credits. Honour. Fame. It all eroded his half-dead mind as the immense power he had received took him over. The more he tore with the inhuman muscle protruding from his back, the more of that scent that overwhelmed his senses, he felt as if he had been liberated from the pain he had been living all his life. This moment was what he was waiting for. Or so his crazed mind thought. Twisting and turning from the monsters' grasp, he grinned wildly and salivated uncontrollably, piercing them and tossing them to an unknown corner. Frame 4. He didn't know it could be this exciting.

The knife-wielding bodyguards methodically surrounded him, preparing for a jump attack but they were easily cut through by the unstable Urie, who simply continued laughing at how easy life seemed to be with his new-found power. Mutsuki could only remain surprised and horrified at his current state, but was busy keeping the hoards of ghouls of himself. Urie flipped himself over and brutally kicked the pursuing ghoul's face, sticking himself onto the wall as more came to take him down.

The horrified Mutsuki was too busy thinking of how to get Urie in control to notice the ghoul that climbed into the room hastily, even though he destroyed the vent's grill with a loud bang. He eyed the situation carefully, beckoning the other two to crawl faster. While Big Madam was indeed supposed to be guarded immediately, Orion felt that it was a little too dangerous to jump in without knowing what in the world was that thing going on a rampage now. Fortunately Kikinoji had made his way into the vent before a loud explosion rung and shook the walls, shocking no one but himself.

Urie continued his unstoppable rampage, and Big Madam was obviously tremendously amused of his vitality. Her bikaku swished back and forth, waiting for her own moment to strike. Once the sliced pieces of her bodyguards were out of vision, she took a simple step forward, bent down and threw her bikaku upwards. A surprised but delighted yelp was made when Urie's koukaku twisted together and thrust at it, damaging it severely. Big Madam flopped backwards, easily overtaking him in speed and slapped his face several times for fun before grabbing him by his feet, slamming him down onto the concrete floor. He writhed and spasmed, as if he was being infested by something. The room silenced itself when he let out a cry of anguish.

All the recognition he ever wanted was never given to him no matter his efforts. No matter how much blood and sweat he put into anything, he would see that man, Takeomi, in his way, shaking the hands of those that he himself wanted to shake. That god-damned obstacle that probably did so much less then he did. And yes, that scum's father that let his father die because of foolish cowardice. Or so he thought. Or so he screamed. Sasaki. A man without his memories but still so compassionate and successful. In that span of time had he have Urie under his feet despite knowing more. And how he always seemed so far from that glory of maybe having Sasaki pleased with his efforts. His team mates as well, even if they had done such small things would they get praised for, while he quietly stood behind with blood in his hands.

Orion silently watched the poor man breakdown into pieces. In a way he could empathise, in way he couldn't. Because he couldn't hate Gisella, his older sister, for getting the recognition, the fame and want that he'd always wanted. Indeed, he entered Aogiri out of the indirect loneliness and pain she had inflicted onto him, that wavered like a shadow in the family. No matter how much he studied or trained, she would always be better. But their difference was that despite his brash and cold attitude he noticed that he had people that would accept and acknowledge him. But Urie probably was too blind to see that.

Tatsuge whistled as he caught sight of Kikinoji finally making his way into the room. Technically the Suzuya squad was a hallway away from their current location, and they had the severely injured Jinnou to take care of. He took a few step forward, albeit extremely carefully, towards the fight. Big Madam could see the strong reinforcements arrive, but had plans of her own. She signed for Tatsuge to stop where he was as she made her way to Urie.

Mutsuki made his way carefully to Urie's side, who was still in his state of ranting his life's worries, still too crazed to respond to the gesture. A sharp, tearing noise sounded, shocking his body as Urie's koukaku cleanly made it's way through his body. But despite the pain, Mutsuki smiled because his companion had snapped back to life, judging from the surprised expression and agap mouth. It was immediately removed from his body, but Mutsuki limply continued on to hug Urie kindly.

"It's okay now."

A few moments of silence endured, and the other Quinx could only let out a whisper.

"You're...a woman...?"

How familiar this was to Orion. Knowing someone that is close to you as a male your whole life to find that they're female. Tatsuge patted his head lightly as he grimaced at a few memories, before regaining his composure and slapping his hand away. At the same time, Kikinoji nudged the both of them as he heard the incoming rushed footsteps of the Suzuya Squad, and was quite pleased to smell Jinnou's blood wafting close. His wounds had covered up quite a bit from the lessened scent of iron.

"Ufufu...I'll consume you, little boy, then I will definitely get my hands on that precious beauty over there, my treasure..." Her laughter sent chills down Mutsuki's spine. None of them were in any condition to fight her, nor were they ever on par with her skills. It was then when he whisked his head over to the side to spot three more active ghouls, which meant that they were practically surrounded...

The Suzuya squad busted into the room, practically killing everything upon sight. Tatsuge was mesmerised by the sight of the flinging scythe for a moment before narrowly dodging Suzuya's strike. Suzuya tip-toed backwards and quickly dashed forward, turning his body mid-air so as to dodge the four rinkaku tentacles flying at him. He stared at the black mask with a white crack designed on it, trying to listen to the ghoul's breath. Surprised. But that wasn't what he was expecting...

Looking to wherever Tatsuge was staring at while blindly, but narrowly, dodging his attacks was the long, brown haired woman who had just launched the destructive arrow. She herself had froze seeing the familiar flash of styled red hair, just like when they had first met. Irritated at how he had stopped all logical functions, Orion kicked him to the other side and engaged in combat with Suzuya, who gave the 18 year old a few scares with the manipulative handling of his scythe before scurrying off to help take down Big Madam.

"Rei-chan! It's me, Mama, do you remember?"

Luna cringed as the overly sugar coated words were used by such a foul creature. Grimacing, she held onto her whip, but Iori pushed her back. His eyes held a certain light as he observed the other team's leader approach the ghoul, with no expression on his face. Big Madam stared at him hopefully, at least to spark some sort of morbid "happy memory" with her.

"Yeah. I remember." His voice held no joy, nor pain. "I don't hate you for anything alright? I'm just doing my job, Mama, so I'll have to kill you."

"You ungrateful brat! I never loved you anyway!" She spat, now howling with a sadistic laughter. "You're so useless to me, what an imbecile you are! You think what you're doing now will make someone love you? Hah! Jokes on you, the only time you're only worth is when I used you! Silly child!"

Abara hands closed the young man's eyes and ears, whispering gently.

"You wouldn't want to hear that."

With inheritant rage, Luna had already propped an arrow and aimed it right at the head. Nakarai, Tamaki and Mikage had quickly done the job of piercing her limb by limb, Iori slicing the wiggling tail repetitively. An odd smell emitted from the arrow as she drew back the string, a bunch garbled pleads from the victim before it was launched. It cleanly went into her forehead, drawing a spurt of blood and terrible writhing. The arrow head had started to slowly paralyse the ghoul in an agonizing manner, for it contained a dangerous, Rc killing chemical.

"Aisaka, did you just use the illegal chemical?" Nakarai questioned as the ghoul finally stopped moving.

"...that was the last of it in my office. I had to get rid of it." She mumbled, not very pleased with the stare she was being given. "Don't worry about it. Besides, it was dangerously absorbent."

She shot one of her arrows at Tatsuge's feet, causing him to jump backwards in shock. As if on queue Orion nodded at her, dragging him away as he tried to reach out to her, only to have his rinkaku cut by his very own comrade. Kikinoji gave him a pitiful stare as he allowed Orion to subdue him, dealing a lethal kick to his face. But unexpectedly Tatsuge was more durable than he seemed, but he kept quiet and let them drag him away.

"What are we going to do about those three ghouls?" Mikage looked at Luna, who simply sighed and set her bow on her back.

"Flare, Crowley, and an unknown commander ghoul. We must report this. But other than that, we should leave them. We have more important things to handle. They've already escaped either way."

"...Roger that, Aisaka-san."

Behind, Suzuya was released from Abara's hold, inspecting the body along with the others. His partner eyed him carefully as he leaned down towards it.

"Goodbye, father."

Miharu casually peeled the sword embedded in her chest and chuckled slightly, watching her wound close up firm and nicely. Akira gave her a disgusted stare as the blindfolded woman casually made her way down the stairwell to meet her. Tightening her grip on her whip, she steadied herself for the strike from the glowing, bright blue sword in her sworn enemy's hands. But it never came. Instead she twiddled around with her feet, a cheeky smile on her face as she tossed herself over the investigator, landing swiftly on her feet beside Miza, who simple urged her to stop playing around and move faster whilst dealing with an overly ecstatic green haired boy. She fired a few rounds of the ukaku quinqe she had, which was cleanly deflected by Kokonoe's bikaku tail that moved along with a slight, happy beat. Seeing the signal to move, she could only click her tongue at losing those few seconds that she could kill her. Kill Miharu, her ex co-worker who seemed to be working for the enemy now. With no further purpose on top of these flight of stairs, she rushed to follow the rest. Haise was in danger, and she needed to do something about it.

Yes, writhe in agony. But when will you understand what I told you, perhaps? You're indulging too much on one side. You're not human. You're not a ghoul. You're both. So please stop trying to be one. Because it will only break your poor, crying mind even further. Further than the power you've attained, further than the love you never realised to you received. For what is garbage to you, can be important to another.

Authors Notes: Because I'm an asshole and decided to hold this up in my documents. Just kidding, I just got back from a two week "holiday" and missed Christmas with my family -.- Other than that, Happy New Year with this new chapter! To that guy who said that you hoped that this fanfic goes over 20 chapters: here you go, Chapter 21! But all of them are kinda short so...mehhhhhhh. Sorry for the really REALLY late update though. Now we're kinda finished on this side of the Auction, time for the finale of this arc! I was wondering if I should do some Christmas thing like the manga did, or jump straight into the next arc. I hope I captured the essence of Urie's state of mind and Suzuya's encounter with Big Madam.

Special thanks to all of you who have stuck around, have a good 2016!

Thanks for reading! R&R much appreciated!