"What are you doing? You're slowing us down."
"Just…one minute." Airi had heard her phone chiming and looked at the screen to find Yomo's number. I can't. I can't back out of this. Itori will kill me. Maybe literally. She put her phone on silent and continued to follow the older ghoul down the street, still unsure of what they were doing.
"Anything look familiar?" Itori finally asked, barely able to keep the excitement from her voice.
"What? Um…?" She looked around at her surroundings, but frowned. Goose bumps rose on her skin as she suddenly remembered the street they were on. She remembered walking down that same street with her parents, many years ago. "We're…in my old ward. Why are we here?"
Itori smiled and gestured around her. "Why do you think? We're going to have a fun girls' night out, right? So which house was yours?"
Dread filled every fiber of her being as she looked off in the distance. "I…doubt that it's still standing. It's been a long time. Even if it's still there…more people probably moved into it." Airi tugged at her hood, trying to keep her face in shadow.
By now, it was past sunset. Uta had walked her to the bar, as promised, and Itori made her wait a while before they set off on what she assured Airi would be a fun night. The ward that they were now in was rough, but not as bad as the 4th ward. There was cannibalism when Airi last lived there, which was how her parents had died. Back then, the houses and buildings in the area were quite rundown. Many homes had the glass broken out of the windows and had been boarded up.
The ward looked a little better now. Things had been repaired and the sidewalks and street were no longer cracked and uneven. It might even be considered a well-kept neighborhood to someone who had never lived there. No matter how nice it looked now, Airi could only see it as a massive graveyard. In her childhood, she had seen horrors take place here that she had tried hard to forget.
"We're not going in; I just want to see what it looks like. So which way?"
"…that way…" Airi nodded down the street and reluctantly walked behind Itori. She was hesitant to go anywhere near the old house. The memory of her last night there was still vivid in her mind. Her parents had brought a corpse into the house for food and were followed by larger, stronger ghouls. The body was stolen, her parents were murdered, and all three corpses were devoured as Airi hid and struggled not to make a sound. By the time she had emerged from her hiding place, her parents were reduced to scraps and bone.
I don't want to go back there. Why are we really here? Did Itori really want to come here just to see where I grew up? Why does it matter? Airi frowned, moving closer to the older ghoul. "Shouldn't we stay off the main roads?"
"What? Come on; it's not like the CCG would think to come here looking for you. They might not even know that you were born here." She looked over her shoulder at the younger ghoul and raised an eyebrow. "Ai-chan?"
"Did Yomo ever tell you…what happened in that house?"
"Ren-chan never talked about you before you met U-chan."
She absently prodded her lip piercing with her tongue on the inside of her lip, unsure if she wanted to bring it up. "Itori-chan, my parents…were killed and eaten in that house." To her surprise, the other ghoul kept walking. "Itori-chan?"
"Well, we're here to do something. We can't turn back now. Besides. If we go back, Ren-chan will be able to find you."
"Wh-what?" Airi caught a flicker of mischief in the older woman's eyes when she looked her way. "Itori-chan, what-?"
"We have a job to do here tonight, Ai-chan. You remember what happened with Ria?"
Airi remembered. Ria was a female ghoul who tried to kidnap Isamu by lying and saying that she was his mother. Itori had heard from an informant that Ria was seen in Airi's home ward, leading a child somewhere. A ghoul child. The possibilities of what might have become of that child were all quite grim. The chances of the child still being alive were miniscule. She nodded in reply to Itori's question.
"Don't you want to know why Ria was trying so hard to take Isamu-kun? Or why she had that other kid? There's got to be a reason for it. What if it wasn't just for her to eat them?"
"…I don't want to think about it…"
"But if she was taking the kid here for someone else, don't you want to know why?" Itori held up her phone and leaned on one hip, giving Airi an expectant frown. "I have the address of where she was taking the kid. It's a house owned by someone else. We're going to go there and see what's going on."
Airi nervously bit at her thumbnail as the two walked, a cold feeling seeming to permeate her skin and bones as she thought about a potentially fatal confrontation. "How are we going to get in? And why do you care so much about this, Itori-chan?"
A mischievous grin spread across her face and she tucked her phone away. "I don't, but I know that you do. I just like seeing that fire light up your eyes when you fight, Ai-chan! It reminds me of U-chan when he was a teenager! Also…" Itori rummaged in the bag slung over her shoulder. She held up a bottle of murky liquid. When it sloshed behind the glass, it looked thick and held globs of something in it. "A little liquid courage. It's cruelty-free, too."
You really thought this out, didn't you? Airi held out a hand, knowing that there was no getting out of this now. The fair-haired ghoul uncorked the bottle of fermented blood and passed it to her with a grin. The younger woman took a few gulps and shivered before the warmth of the fermented beverage surged through her veins. The corner of her mouth lifted and she licked away stray drops of blood. "You…just want to see my cuddly, sadistic side…don't you?"
"It's my favorite side. So which way to your old house?"
Airi trudged along ahead of Itori now, frowning and gripping the bottle of blood in a white-knuckled grip. She had a bad feeling in her gut, but there was no turning back. The two female ghouls were in her old ward, at night, with very loose plans to investigate a potential child stealer. We don't know what we're doing. Yomo doesn't know where we are. I'm not even sure that Uta knows where we are. If something goes wrong, we could die.
"Are you still worried about doves?"
"…a little…" Airi took a long drink from the bottle and passed it to Itori, who gleefully took a few sips. "What happens if we-?"
"Don't worry so much. You really think something bad will happen? I've seen you tear someone apart before; it's fine!"
If I die here…I guess I'll at least die in a place near my parents. In her buzzed state, she pulled her phone out of her pocket as she continued to walk and looked at the screen. There were several missed calls from Yomo, in addition to text messages. She sighed, running her fingers through her dark hair as she fought the urge to contact him. I'll apologize when it's over. I know that he's upset, but…I didn't have too much of a choice.
"Ren-chan again?" Itori teased her. Airi nodded. "He's pretty overprotective, isn't he? I guess U-chan is the same though."
They reached the house and Airi was not surprised by what they found. All of the windows had been smashed and the front door was missing. The nameplate on the front had been chipped away at by the weather and the name "Shirayuki" was barely legible. She stepped inside first, followed by Itori. The younger ghoul moved from room to room, remembering little moments from her childhood spent in the house.
It was when she reached the kitchen that Airi felt her heart sink. This was the room where her parents had died and there were still remnants of shredded clothing on the floor. Clothing that she recognized as belonging to her mother and father. She crouched down, tentatively reaching out to touch the ragged fabric. Dark patches showed where they had bled before death and she felt a calm sadness settle into her mind. Isamu's parents are gone, too. Did they die the same way? I wish you were still alive. I have so many questions about Isamu, but I'll never really know. I'm not sure he even knows how he's related to us.
"Hey, Ai-chan. We have company."
She turned her head and saw Itori standing in the doorway, her back to the dark-haired ghoul. Standing and walking over, she looked past Itori's shoulder and to the door-less front entrance. There were large, male ghouls making their way down the street toward the house. Five of them?! I can't handle that many! She glanced to Itori, who wore a smirk as she watched the men approach the front of the house. "Come on! We have get out of here!" She grabbed Itori's wrist and turned to run for the kitchen window, but bumped into a solid chest.
Airi trembled and took a step back as Itori began to laugh. He…found me? Her grey-blue eyes met Yomo's stare and she blushed pink with embarrassment. "I…need help."
"That doesn't look good." Uta emerged from behind him, looking toward the larger ghouls now entering the house. "Just wait. I'll be right back."
"It will be faster if I help," Yomo argued, following him to the kitchen doorway.
Itori leaned back against the kitchen counter, crossing her arms. "You could've beaten them on your own, Ai-chan."
"N-no, I couldn't have. Not all five of them." She lifted the bottle to her lips and drank deeply. Wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, she felt her courage spiking. Airi curled her hands into fists and spared Itori a brief glance. "I can probably take at least one and that should even things out, right?"
"Go get 'em, Ai-chan!"
Urged on by the blend of fermented blood and Itori's enthusiasm, she rushed forward and released her kagune from her back. It was actually very lucky. When Airi burst through into the living room, one man had his back turned to her and she leapt up to wrap her legs around his waist. Her mouth opened wide, her teeth tearing into his neck as she gripped his head with both hands.
Her attention was completely on her own fight, oblivious to her companions' fights. The man was thrashing, trying to throw her off of his back, and when he managed to finally dislodge her, his abdomen was filled with spikes from her kagune. Airi was quickly on him again, attacking with a barrage of strikes to the chest and scowling up at him with bloody teeth bared. When he tried to rush her, an arm wrapped around her waist to move her and the man's head was sent flying.
