Thank you again for reviewing and reading this story, along with pointing out some continuity mistakes I've made in the second chapter. I fixed it, so if you haven't read the re-edited version that I made on Chapter Two, I highly suggest checking that out if you're interested in seeing the changes I've made, thanks to Reviewbruh.
As always, author's notes are on the bottom.
Aside from the white ivory walls and marbled floors around them that weren't slicked with viscius, torn up rock, shattered glass, metal crooked rebar sticking out of the floor, and insulation splayed out underneath their feet, Shirazu couldn't help but notice just how elegant and luxurious the Luna Eclipse building actually was.
Especially when he wasn't having to fight a monster that seemed straight out of Greek mythology.
"H-Hey Urie… How much ya' figure that a place like this would go for?" Shirazu asked in a casual tone, as he carefully walked alongside the extremely upset young man who was beside him. "I mean… Ya' know… Before this place went to shit."
"... More money than we're ever going to see (especially now that we're coming out of this empty handed)," Urie replied back, while fighting past the radiating pain that was shooting up from where his left femur was.
While he was grateful that all four of them were able to get out of that situation alive, Urie felt disappointed at his teammates for being unable to help him claim credit for slaying Noro.
Secretly, not that he would let any of them know, he was mostly disappointed in himself for not being strong enough to protect his squad; a misfortune that in his mind, almost cost them their lives.
Behind them, Mutsuki followed silently while limping. Thinking silently to himself about what had happened, and where their squad leader was, Mutsuki mostly kept to himself as they walked towards the elevator doors.
From the corner of his eye, Shirazu was able to catch a glimpse of his eyepatch-wearing teammate staring blankly toward the ground. Mutsuki's disassociating thousand-yard stare was quickly cut short after he had noticed the deputy squad leader staring back at him with a concerned look in his eyes.
"How are ya' holdin' up, Mutsuki…? Is your leg okay?" Shirazu asked with a worried tone in his voice, after looking down to take notice of just how bloodied Mutsuki's left pant leg was. From what he could make out, there appeared to be a large gash running along the other man's upper thigh.
"My leg…?" Mutsuki asked quietly out loud, more so to himself than to anyone in particular. Looking down at where he had noticed Shirazu staring, Mutsuki stared blankly without feeling any sense of fear or disgust as he noticed the large bleeding gash along his pant leg.
Having been walking alongside Mutsuki while quietly sobbing to herself due to how much pain she was in, Saiko let out a small shriek and took a step back as she watched her friend nonchalantly dig into his wound to pull out a shard of steel.
Before she could become light headed at the sight of Mutsuki's exposed bone and torn muscle being extremely clear for her to bear witness to, Saiko quickly turned her head forward while trying to simultaneously resist the urge to gag.
Cringing at what he just saw, Shirazu quickly turned away from where he saw Mutsuki beginning to bring the bloodied and gore-covered piece of metal up to his face to observe it.
"I'm, uh… I'm gonna take that as you're doing just fine and dandy, I guess…" Shirazu said aloud for Mutsuki to hear.
"It hurts to move, Shirashira…!" Saiko whined from behind, as she struggled the most out of their group to keep up with the pace Urie was setting. "And you guys are moving too fast…! It's not fair; my legs are shorter than yours..."
"It's not your legs, fatass; it's you…." Shirazu jeered out in a snarky and playful tone, which earned him a swift shove from behind after Saiko ran forward to push him.
"Shut up! You aren't supposed to say those kinds of things!" Saiko shouted in a puffed-up angry tone, before socking him in the left asscheck.
Letting out a pained chuckle, Shirazu flashed a sharp-tooth grin at Saiko's flustered face before telling her, "Yeah, yeah, yeah… But hey, insulting you made you catch up with us, didn't it?"
Having nothing else to say that couldn't be expressed by her sticking her tongue out at him, Saiko only rolled her eyes before muttering under her breath.
By the time the four qunix had finally marched their way painstakingly before the set of gold-plated doors of the elevator entrance, Urie became the first to notice that the elevator door was actually still in current use.
Expecting for them to not be completely out of danger, despite the fact that sounds of fighting and gunfire from outside had already long since been diminished, Urie gripped the handle of his encased quinque.
"Brace yourselves... We might have hostiles incoming…" Urie warned in a considerably hushed tone; worried about whether or not whoever was in the elevator could somehow hear him. A concern that wouldn't have been realistic to Urie, had it not been that he and the rest of his squad members were still shaken up by their recent encounter with Noro.
One by one, each member of the quinx squad prepared their quinques and kagunes for immediate use, and were all ready to strike at a moment's notice. Each of them stared intently on the overhead monitor above the elevator doors that indicated each floor that the elevator cart was passing, as it grew closer and closer to the floor they were located in.
A single ding and a melody played from the speakers just above the elevator before the doors slid open to reveal a very unimpressed stare coming from the tall bearded man standing at the front of the small collection of investigators within the elevator.
Immediately upon recognizing the special class investigator, all four of the quinx squad members felt their blood run ice cold, and soon each one of them were rushing to lower their weapons to appear professional.
"I-Investigator Washuu…(Wasn't he in that helicopter)?!" Urie asked with an astound and confused look in his diamond-pupiled eyes.
Staring boredly at the young man who casually addressed him, Matsuri arched an eyebrow at him before speaking in a broad and bothered tone.
"... That's 'Division Commander' to you, Urie," Matsuri said in a scornful tone, before stepping out of the elevator to clear the way for his entourage of investigators who had been escorting him.
Not even bothering to address the quinx squad at first, Matsuri took his time to take in the scenery before him. Being bothered more so by the amount of dust in the air rather than seeing the sight of his men and women butchered, the high-ranking man took out a handkerchief from his pocket before fanning away some of the musty air from his nostrils.
"Jesus, it's disgusting here… Hand over the crime scene bag to quinx squad's deputy over there, erm...?" Matsuri instructed before trailing, as he stared over at Shirazu with a stumped-look on his nonchalant face. "... Shinzu? Shiitake…?" He guessed randomly while snapping in the air; making it clear to Shirazu that Matsuri had forgotten his name.
"M-My name's Ginshi Shirazu, D-Division Commander…!" Shirazu said, before immediately getting handed a large duffle-bag sized backpack by one of the men behind Matsuri.
"Yes, well… Shirazu, your squad will be responsible for tapping off the interior, as well as outlining any bodies before moving them for transport... Oh, and don't damage any evidence that'll need to be picked up by the forensics team… And make sure that every corpse or piece of flesh is sent to the ground floor to be collected tomorrow morning." Matsuri ordered, which completely caught Urie off guard more so than any other of his comrades.
"Preparing for a post crime scene cleanup…?! Investigator W- Er... Division Commander," Urie said, after quickly correcting himself, all the while earning another bothered and annoyed look from Matsuri. "Isn't this the job that they assign to bureau investigators (those pencil-pushers)? We're ghoul investigators…! W-We're still fit for duty; we can help fight!"
Staring at Urie's exasperated hopes of trying to impress him slowly fading away with each passing second of silence coming from his end, Matsuri looked at the young and visibly shaking man up and down before shifting his gaze over to his bloodied and injured teammates.
"... That won't be necessary; Noro and the One Eyed Owl have both been neutralized," Matsuri informed before impatiently staring over to Shirazu, completely side-lining and ignoring Urie.
"Shirazu; I want your team to start from the ground floor to block off any exits. From there on, have one of your squad members focus on the underground parking garage while the rest of you work your way from floor-to-floor…"
Dreading the sound of the heavy workload being forced on them, Saiko made a quiet and nervous gulp before muttering, "There's over thirty floors here… And this building is so wid-"
"-Was there something you wanted to share with us, investigator?" Matsuri asked in a scolding and extremely inconvenienced voice, as he stared disappointingly down at Saiko like a teacher would do so with a disobedient student.
"... N-Nope!" Saiko stuttered out with her blue eyes widened in horror, after finding out that her complaining had been heard by someone in as high of a position as Matsuri was in.
While her response didn't seem to reconcile the level of annoyance Matsuri visibly had for her, the man considered his time to be too important to be wasted on trying to correct all of the many problems he had with her, just be looking at her.
"... I had high hopes for you four… Especially you, Urie," Matsuri said, before turning away from Saiko to stare directly into the widened eyes of the man who he had just addressed. "Do you know how much time and resources were spent to give you four the abilities my family gifted you with? We could have used all that effort to develop something far more useful and reliable than you four."
Being compared to a bad investment, Urie felt his heart beginning to race and his stomach dropping as he watched Matsuri's eyes staring at him in a different light; in a way that alerted the young man that he was being looked down upon.
And more importantly, Urie feared that his father's legacy was going to be seen as nothing more than wasted potential.
"D-Division Commander…! We did the best we could!" Urie barked back in more of a defiant tone than Matsuri felt tolerable with. "Look around you! Look how people died here! Doesn't us being alive right now prove something to you?!"
"Urie… Don't-," Shirazu warned quietly in a worried tone that fell deaf ears.
"Stand down, investigator, before I have you held under contempt for disobeying a superior," Matsuri threatened in a low and deepened voice, which alone didn't seem to be persuading Urie to stop while he was still ahead.
Perhaps if there had been a more pressing matter for Urie to worry about, he would have been too distracted to focus on just how disrespected he felt.
"... You wouldn't want to disgrace your father's memory more than you already have, would you now?" Matsuri said in a condescending tone, which was more than enough to make the young man's patience snap.
Urie, who was being stared at by everyone within the vicinity, felt his fists involuntarily clench and his eyes beginning to burn. He only thought of himself during that moment, and as he did his best to restrain himself from speaking out of line more than he already had, even he was powerless to stop himself from what was about to come out of his mouth.
"... Fuck you."
The room went quiet, and the tension in the room grew thinner by the second.
After about a moment of silence that seemed to last an eternity, an amused and low sounding chuckle escaped from Matsuri's curled up lips. "Ah, I see… Koori," Matsuri called out calmly to the special class investigator behind him.
Already knowing what he was about to be ordered to do, Koori gave Urie and the rest of his team a sympathetic look before walking forward from the group behind Matsuri. "Yes, Washuu?"
"Please escort Urie outside and into a transport vehicle. I want him in custody until we assign a fitting punishment and suitable pay-reduction to him and his squad," Matsuri ordered.
None of the quinx squad members dared to protest what the Washuu's youngest member of the family had just ordered, and remained silent as they watched Koori reluctantly grabbing hold of Urie's quinque before escorting him downstairs to be placed under arrest.
As the elevator doors closed behind Koori and Urie, Matsuri gave one last look of superiority and smugness to the troubled young man before turning his attention back to Shirazu.
"If I were you, I'd start by first piling the bodies in the main lobby," Matsuri said, as he continued to speak in a cold tone. "Considering that your manpower is now down to just three abled-bodies, I'm estimating that by the time you three are finished, it'll be… Sometime in the evening."
Almost forgetting the fact that her friend had just been taken in for speaking outwardly to a powerful member of CCG, Saiko was horrified after hearing the estimated time it would take for them to complete the interior clean up.
"Evening? Like, t-tomorrow evening?! D-Division Commander?! A-Aren't we, uh…?! G-Getting help or something with this…?!" Saiko asked in a begging tone of voice. "That's a lot of work for only three people…!"
"My team and I will be continuing our sweep within the interior and exterior to complete our own investigation, and bagging and tagging whatever we see fit," Matsuri replied back to Saiko, before taking a few moments to enjoy the look of dismay on her chubby face before finishing with, "As for assistance in your clean up… I'll have Division II's chief handle the clean up operations outside, for the two kakujas that you've failed to stop…"
"... The rest is completely on you three," Matsuri said with a slight grin on his face, before once again beginning to continue on his way past the three distraught members of quinx squad. But of course, not before finishing his exit by telling Saiko, "Fail me again, and you won't be able to afford junk food to fuel your poor diet."
After being insulted and threatened for what must have been a third time that night, Saiko felt a fresh stream of angry tears flowing down from the corners of her eyes as she and her friends watched Matsuri and his colleagues stroll down the hallway, and away from them.
While the three qunix members had been silent during the duration of time it took for Koori and Urie to finish using the elevator and exiting the premise, all of that changed the moment they stepped into that cart and the doors were shut behind them.
"I HATE THAT BASTARD!" Saiko screamed in a thunderous voice, which made Mutsuki flinch.
Dropping her quinque to the floor of the elevator, Saiko slammed her fists against the polished metal walls of their tightly confined space. Ignoring the fact that she was causing her two friends to panic due to her shaking the walls around them, Saiko continued to throw her tantrum before letting out one last exacerbated screech.
After letting out her frustrations, Saiko practically threw herself onto the floor before laying down on her back. Staring up at the ceiling of the elevator cart, Saiko began to mutter obscenities and curses while trying to catch her breath.
Having been the quietest one of the bunch, Mutsuki looked up from Saiko's display of anger and self-pity to gaze worryingly at Shirazu. "Hey, um… D-Do you think we're going to really get in trouble? And what about Urie? Do you think he'll be okay?"
Taking a moment to think about his answer, Shirazu did his best to look as calm and reassuring as he could before giving Mutsuki his response. "To be honest, I doubt anything will come of it."
Not believing the words that were coming from the deputy's lips, Mutsuki arched an eyebrow at him before asking him, "What makes you so sure of that?"
"Well, the way I see it Mutsuki, they're probably just going to give Urie a slap on the wrist, and chalk his outburst up to him having an emotional breakdown due to stress, or whatever," Shirazu explained, before reaching his way down toward his bloodied and ruined coat pocket to pull out a stick of gum.
"Sure it was embarrassing as hell to be demeaned like that in front of a bunch of senior-ranking investigators, and yeah sure, we'll probably get in trouble if we don't do what that asshole told us to do… I doubt he gives enough of a damn to have a vendetta out against us," Shirazu said in a low tone, as he stared down with a bothered look at his stick of gum with a somewhat saddened look in his eyes.
"... If anything, this will probably just make it so we're overlooked for when it comes time for promotion... It'll make it harder to get into a better position to help pay for my sister's treatment, that's for damn sure..." Shirazu muttered to himself quietly, while being too hyper fixated on the stick of aluminum-wrapped gum in his fingers to notice the concerned looks he was getting from his two friends.
However, just as soon as his moment of solace came, he quickly shrugged his disappointment off before unwrapping the stick of gum. "Oh well, it's whatever. That guy was just power tripping and just wanted to show off, that's all… He had some real small-dick energy; that's for sure," Shirazu concluded as he popped the stick of flavored chewing gum into his mouth, before tossing the wrapper on the floor to free hands up to begin the process of unzipping the heavy backpack in his arms.
"I'll tell you what Saiko… I'll let you have the parking garage; that'll probably be the easiest thing to start off with," Shirazu said in an optimistic voice, before fishing out a small notebook, a cheap ink pen, and a large roll of police-caution tape.
"All you gotta do is close off the exits, and write down anything suspicious into that little notebook. There should be some traffic cones located somewhere in a storage closet if you need them; you can use them to block off the entrances and exits that way."
Although she begrudgingly appreciated what Shirazu was trying to do for her, Saiko couldn't help but still feel rage boiling within her. "... Whatever." Saiko said, before getting up to grab hold of the notebook and roll of caution tape with one hand, before setting down her encased quinque down on the floor. "Just make sure to keep the ol' girl safe while I'm down there…"
Armed with a notebook in her ripped coat pocket, a plastic pen, and a roll of caution tape tucked underneath her armpit, Saiko took the liberty of breaking the guard shack that sat just outside the elevator she used to get there.
Making sure to commandeer an expensive looking bottle of iced coffee from the mini fridge, Saiko took the keys to the pristinely white golf cart parked just outside the small shack before sitting down in front of the desktop computer within the air-conditioned shack.
Taking a jug of iced coffee, Saiko set down the glass bottle before cracking her fingers to begin using the computer that sat before the chair she was in. Luckily for her, whoever had last been on duty had left the access controls to the parking lot gates unlocked.
After remotely closing off every entrance and using the access controls to bring up the traffic barriers to prevent any vehicles from just driving through the closed-off gates, Saiko stomped her way angrily over to the golf cart to check the interior of the garage, all without needing to roam on foot.
Plopping her bottom onto the seat of the driver's side, Saiko used the keys to open the glovebox of the stark-white golf cart. There, hidden beneath a stack of papers and booklets that she couldn't care less about, Saiko felt her eyes widening in awe upon gazing down at the decked-out handgun fitted with a laser sight and flashlight.
Wrapping her small and chubby fingers around the pistol's handle, Saiko couldn't help but imagine using it to cause bodily harm on Matsuri, which only made her even more furious.
Slamming her foot against the acceleration, Saiko grumbled curses at the very thought of the special class investigator who treated her friends and herself so poorly. She wanted to hurt him back, to humiliate him, and to make him pay for causing Urie to have an emotional breakdown.
She was getting tired of people looking down at her for her weight, and for the way she looked. Saiko wouldn't admit it, but she felt nothing but all those snide remarks and stares from those outside her squad hurt her.
After almost losing her life and seeing those around her being slaughtered by Noro, Saiko found it unforgivable of Matsuri to even dare look down on them for doing what many people wouldn't have the guts to do.
To Saiko, that man proved himself to be nothing more than an over privileged coward.
She was itching for something to take her pent-up hatred on, so when she saw a silhouette of what looked like a man standing hunched over beside the driver's entrance of what looked like a Rolls Royce sedan, Saiko quickly went into action.
Slamming on the brakes of her golf cart to come to a screeching halt, Saiko leapt out of the driver's seat to sprint over toward the suspicious person to blind them with her pistol's flashlight and laser as she took aim directly at their center of mass.
"CCG! Identify yourself!" Saiko demanded while sounding as intimidating as her voice would allow herself to portray. Without realizing just how carried away she was getting, Saiko found herself moving her finger over toward the trigger.
Already having been stressed and overwhelmed with pent up rage, Saiko didn't bother giving the stranger more than a second to respond before emptying the clip by firing all seven rounds directly into whoever had tried sneaking away.
Breathing heavily to herself as she felt a fresh new wave of adrenaline beginning to course through her veins, Saiko stared down past the smoking barrel of her pistol to continue maintaining her aim on whoever it was that she had opened fire on.
"Stay down, or else I'm gonna have to… Wait…" Saiko muttered to herself, as she began to squint her eyes and lean forward to get a better look at the young man who was laying down in a pool of blood along the asphalt floor.
Needing a moment to finally recognize the identity of the mutilated man who was covered from head-to-toe in blood and in shrapnel, Saiko felt the gun involuntary sliding out of her hand as she stood there as white as a ghost.
Too shell shocked to scream or to make any sort of movement to assist the man, all Saiko could do was shiver uncontrollably and sob silently to herself before finally being able part her quivering lips to whisper out for the bleeding young man.
"M… Maman…!?"
Thank you for reading this chapter.
The reason why Urie acted out in this chapter was because without Shirazu's death to distract him and demoralize him, he had more pent up energy to be called out on his failure to stop Noro.
Since Noro had ceased fighting with them in order to try and save Eto, the qunix squad were seen in Matsuri's eyes as disappointing failures, and let slip that he now considered them to be a bad investment in CCG's resources.
Because Noro left early, Shirazu survived, and is still the deputy of the qunix squad.
Just like Urie, Saiko didn't have anything to distract herself with, hence why she ended up getting more and more pissed off as she thought about what had happened between her squad and Matsuri.
Mutsuki was shocked and bothered by Matsuri, but was still the most reserved out of the bunch.
And in case anyone's wondering or didn't want to wait for the next chapter to find out, Haise was planning on fleeing from Luna Eclipse with Eto. Neither of them are in terrific shape, especially after Saiko shot Haise seven times.
Thank you again for reading, and I'm always open towards suggestions and feedback.
Thank you, and have a good day!
