-29: At Last-
I was almost halfway to them when the arm hit the ground. Ghoul? That fast, that quick? Ghoul. Had to be. Didn't think the fight I wanted would come so soon. Thank you, universe.
As one man fell, I reached the other. No time to be gentle; I tackled him before a return strike came back across where his neck had been. Maybe it was just the adrenaline, but I could've sworn I felt the wind from the miss. Thank god I had decided to avoid the meal; that sprint and the tackle would've had me emptying the contents of my stomach more than a little eagerly.
Amon came up from behind, placing himself between us and the blur. The other man was down, not moving, bleeding from a line across the head. Slow ooze; his heart had stopped; he was dead. Beneath me the other man stirred and groaned. He was alive. At least for the moment
One good look was all I got at the ghoul; longcoat, white mask, blonde hair. Proportions suggested female. Was Amon unarmed? He didn't draw a weapon. Idiot. Points for effort didn't win fights to the death. Still, he took a few blows: long enough for me to get up and long enough for him to get a thorough beating.
The familiar static crackle and warmth greeted my fingers as my quinque deployed. I felt a smile twist across my teeth. No moral complications. No twisted cruelty. No mercy. Just combat.
First thing was to get her attention. I swung low, catching an ankle and yanked. Off balance, she retaliated with slash that hissed past my head.
And a sudden kick. It was like being hit by a steel pipe. There would be time to hurt later. With raw speed like that, this had to be a crystalline type. An ukkaku. What a coincidence.
Responding to the kick, I sidestepped and slashed low. She was still resetting her feet. My grin renewed itself: her own momentum kept her in the line of my strike. No good; I was off balance. My reach wasn't far enough. A thin string of blood whipped from the speartip. Bad strike. Not deep enough to sever anything important.
She dodged back, popping her kagune in the process. A swarm of spikes razed the pavement, forcing a retreat. Crap. Between the spines and her own speed, she'd have an easy time picking off Amon or the other investigator. She realized it too, making a beeline toward the latter.
Bad angle to bring the spear into play, even if I was in in range. My turn to play the fool. Missing by inches, my spear whooshed past her head. My fist followed, but she was already staring me down. And driving a knee into my stomach. I much preferred when Hasuko did that. This time, I did a better job of not being winded.
Before she could pull her leg back, my fingers snapped around her ankle like a steel trap. I could've used the leverage to toss her away from the defenseless duo, but right now being offensive was violently appealing. With her distracted and yanking free, she didn't realize what my left hand was up to until it hammered into her mask.
Watching her tumble to the ground was the best thing I had seen since stepping off the plane.
Naturally, she recovered with only a few seconds spent on the ground. As expected; even with the force I could bring to bear, I still couldn't concuss a ghoul bare-handed. I had messed up her mask though. The blow had shifted it upward, enough for me to see the lower third of a face and a shock of black hair before she shifted the cracked rabbit back into place.
Still not a good situation; couldn't grab my quinque without leaving the other guy open and leaving it embedded in the wall meant I was half-disarmed. Adding to the trouble was that this was a crystalline type, one capable of launching a hail of shards. Reciprocal force regulation meant that I could respond in kind—
And then a white blur split the distance between us. Close enough to cover me with chips of concrete. I blinked grit from my eyes. Did the man have zero caution?
"Very good, Allen." Kureo. The unwanted rescuer. "Amon should take notes, especially on keeping his quinque on his person."
He made a second swing, forcing the ghoul back. Not for the first time, I wished I had a quinque like that. Every move he made, every swipe he took, was amplified by the skeleton-like weapon. And then Kureo opened his big mouth, taunting, jeering, aiming to cut where he his weapon was failing. How the hell did he have the focus to mock somebody and try to cut them up.
Taking my eyes off the fight for a second, I looked to Amon. It was basically a reversal of his fight with Ryouko, except his beating was applied with fists and feet rather than a quinque. Definitely would have a impressive black eye tomorrow.
"—weak, once you drag the fight out. Which is exactly what my associate did, right?"
I probably had. Either that or the ghoul was getting sloppy. Shut up, Kureo. Your voice makes me want to hurt something.
"Why don't you tell me where that little ghoul is? After dealing with her parents, I shouldn't keep the child waiting for her extermination."
"Shut! Up!" Each word was punctuated by an unsuccessful blow.
Sloppy, sloppy: she didn't notice that she had overextended. The scorpion tail now stretched behind her. Mado was now wearing that same sadistic face. All it took was a twist and a flick of the wrist for the quinque to spring erect, right in her blind spot, and perforate.
I could hear the wet tear, and wrenched at my own quinque. If he wouldn't end this quickly, I would.
"If I could erase you from existence, I would." Another sweeping strike, another miss. If Kureo could stop running his mouth this fight might've been over already. But that assumed he wasn't playing the sadist again. Having his 'fun'.
"I do wonder how much trash like you I've buried over the years. You won't even be a footnote."
Another scorpion strike and the ghoul retreated, clutching at her arm. With a growl, I ripped my own quinque free of the wall. This was not going to be drawn out. Before I could do more, the ghoul disengaged, making a leap onto a low wall, then onto a rooftop, and then she was gone.
"Guess she realized she couldn't win." Kureo's shoulders adopted a disappointed slope.
I waited five minutes before agreeing.
