-94: Have Mask, Will Travel—
I managed to bridge the time until my nightly patrol with getting as close to a nap as I could. The result was an odd sense of clarity, like standing outside on a deathly cold and clear night. Ironically, that was what I found myself doing after the sun had set. Touka found me about halfway between her apartment and Anteiku. She looked, even in the half light on the rooftops, as if she had been working toward emulating me.
"Wow. You look bad."
"Ha." I rolled my eyes in the cold air. "Then why try to imitate me?"
My attempt at humor was about as halfhearted as it could get.
"Yeah, well, that's why I have a mask." Her voice became slightly more muffled as she slid down the rabbit's face over her own. "You just look like you belong in a hospital."
"Ha."
I ceded the lead to Touka that night, just following her as I had used to on the first few nights of our nightly duty. More than once, I heard her mutter about it being too quiet to be comfortable. After perhaps a half hour or roof hopping, we ended up on the southernmost area considered Anteiku's territory, where Touka planted her butt on an air conditioner and stared lasers in the direction of the eleventh ward.
"You scare off everybody from their nightly walks? Haven't smelled a soul since we started."
I decided not to mention that Aogiri was the probable cause there, not me.
"Dammit." Touka hopped from her spot to start pacing about the rooftop. "I was hoping something would be going on—I need to just shut my brain down and do something!"
She was saying the exact same thing I had been thinking. Meanwhile, Touka had been continuing her growling.
"—should be doing more than just planning when we don't even know where he is. Meanwhile you're just standing there because you're even more in the dark than I am!"
Stopping, she directed what was probably a nuclear death stare toward the eleventh before her shoulders slumped. Losing Kaneki had hit everyone at Anteiku; Hinami, myself, even Nishiki had been worried enough to ask me about the whole thing. Looking at her though, it was pretty clear that Touka was taking it worse than any of us.
And…I wanted to hurt Aogiri back, even if I knew that it was an unhealthy impulse.
But that wasn't something I could do. Retaliatory tit-for-tat was strictly forbidden under the BGA guidelines, punishable by permanent desk duty or getting fired and prosecuted. Not to mention all the personal vendettas it could start and the whole cycle of revenge thing that was hammered into my head from my first day. I still carried the ID and badge wherever I went.
Except, those rules no longer really applied to me at this point. This certainly wasn't a Chicago rooftop, and I was definitely no longer operating on BGA payroll. I was free to do as I wished. Free to hurt whoever I wanted
"Touka."
A grunt.
"Think the ward could manage without us for the night?"
"Ha?" She didn't even bother to turn to look at me. "Probably. Not like it could fall apart in one night."
"I want to head to the eleventh tonight." I didn't see any point in beating around the bush in explaining my idea. "Ask questions, get answers, that kind of thing."
"Well," Touka muttered to herself, "not like my morning classes are essential or anything."
Ah, right. Touka was still in school and today was…Thursday, probably. I hadn't really been keeping track of the days recently.
"All right." She stood up, looking less defeated. "But we're not going over with your mask situation like that. Anteiku first."
I shrugged internally and let her lead the way, not saying anything until we were in the back entryway of Anteiku.
"So..." I didn't want to ask why were were back here; Touka was more irritable than usual right now.
"Uta dropped by this afternoon. You and Kaneki got lucky; he brought your masks all the way out here."
"Ah." I followed her to the door that separated the customer area from the back of the shop, stopping on instinct by the threshold.
"Just come through. No customers for you to scare with your mug."
I sat down at the counter while Touka looked through a collection of cabinets. The thought occurred to me that this was only the second time I had been in this space right before I had a canvas shopping bag held out to me. Kind of anticlimactic, not that I really knew what I was expecting. Would've been pretty neat if it came in some kind of dramatic box though.
Inside the bag was all gray fabric and hard surfaces, and with me not having any reference points to figure it out, I ended up turning the mask basically inside out before realizing the correct way to put it on. The gray fabric had been the outside, covering my whole head and slinking down onto my shoulders—more of a mesh than a fabric, since I could see through it pretty clearly. Underneath was the hard surface; a fairly thick molded piece of what was probably Plexiglass or Lexan that reached from just below my nose and covered most of my head. The whole thing was held on with a few straps and fit far better than I thought possible. If I closed my eyes, I could almost forget I was wearing it.
"He gave you horns." Touka remarked, sounding more amused than peeved.
"He did?"
In response, Touka pulled out a compact mirror—an item I never expected her to carry around—and slid it across the countertop.
She was right. Two red horns poked through the cloth, right about at forehead level and just a little too large enough to be inconspicuous.
"Neat." I passed the mirror back. "Didn't expect anything like this."
Uta's measuring had truly paid off; with the mask on, it barely felt like I was wearing anything. I hadn't even needed to adjust the straps
Touka redirected our route to the train station after we left, leaving me feeling foolish for thinking we'd head over on foot, and paid for a pair of tickets to the eleventh. In practical terms, once we boarded, we had the whole car to ourselves. Few wanted to go to the eleventh, and even fewer after dark.
A thought occurred to me. "Does it bother you that your mask is kind of…simple?"
"Eh." Touka shrugged from where she was leaning against a seat. "No. Yours isn't that ornate, y'know. Uta has a flair, but he's not that flashy with his designs."
She stopped speaking as the train pulled into another vacant station and waited as the doors slid open and shut under their timer. I was, between sleep deprivation and the hour of night, finding the whole train trip oddly surreal.
"Got mine when I was young, so that might be why its simpler. But it fits fine and I like it."
"Ah. So no replacement then?"
Touka muttered something about me knowing nothing. "Ghouls don't change their masks. It's how we recognize each other when we're out. Makes it easy to tell who's who."
It also made it easier for the CCG to track individual ghouls, but I kept my mouth shut.
"We're getting close," Touka noted, "Where are we headed, again?"
Wordlessly, I pulled up the picture of Hide's map on my phone and passed the device to her.
"That's their hideout?"
"A potential spot." I replied as the train began to slow. "Tonight, it's just confirming that." And hopefully getting into a fight.
"What happens if we come across any Aogiri members?"
"If we do, we can ask them where their base is. If we're lucky, we'll get to fight."
We were the only people who disembarked from the train. From there, finding a dark place to put on our masks and get up off of ground level was easy.
"So how well do you know the area?"
"Pardon?"
"How long is it going to take us to get there?"
"…I have no idea." A problem opened up in that I really had no idea where this photo of a map fit into the eleventh ward."
Touka hit me in the shoulder, hard enough to tell me she was irked. "You idiot. Don't you know how much coastline there is in the eleventh? Looks like we really will have to find some Aogiri to ask."
Even that proved to be difficult, despite my expectations. Maybe this group was secure enough in their power that they didn't feel the need to run patrols of their territory? Hopefully not; this was enough of a pain without getting Touka even more irritated. Baiting them to us would be easier, but how would we do that without risking drawing the CCG to us as well was difficult.
"I have an idea."
Touka stopped pacing our most recent rooftop, her glare at me apparent even through the mask.
"If we bait them to us, it'll be easier."
"And how would we do that?"
"Remember what got us running when we were working back in our ward? We just need to make it look—smell, really—like we've just hunted a human on their turf, and it'll broadcast our location."
"There's no humans out."
I shook back one of my sleeves. "All we need is something that smells human enough."
Touka slowly nodded, understanding what I meant.
"Just, ah, make it quick."
One quick swipe later, and a slow drip made a tiny red puddle on the asphalt. Keeping my arm held out was less of a chore than a way to avoid getting blood dribbles down my fingertips. Touka had flicked her fingers clean, but kept glancing down at the puddle for some reason unknown to me. On the bright side, we didn't have to wait for long; a trio of Aogiri appeared at the far end of the rooftop, clearly identified by the robe that seemed to be their uniform. Two had matching oni masks, possibly also Aogiri issue, while the third and probable leader had a stylized wolf head.
"Didn't we tell you?" One of the oni stated, "if you wanna hunt in Aogiri territory, you gotta be in Aogiri."
The wolf jerked his head back to look at his subordinate, just long enough to give me a whiff of black comedy and be glad nobody could see my grin through my mask.
"Well." Wolf head looked back to us. "He stole my line, but the point stands. Hunting in Aogiri territory is a high crime."
"We're only in Aogiri territory because we're looking to join up." Touka stepped forward. "Where should we go then?"
"You two? Hah." The two oni exchanged a look as their leader spoke. "You wanna join, they you'll have to prove you can make it—too many softies joining up already. Which ward you two from?"
"Thirteenth." Touka declared, with no hesitation.
"Oh? Then why aren't you in the White Suits then? Pretty sure they aren't choosy."
"We're independents."
Wolf head snorted. "A likely story. More like you're too weak to get into any groups."
"And you aren't?"
Ah yes, the classic Touka snark.
"I'll have you know that I've been with Aogiri from the beginning, whelp. Tell you what—"
"So you would know where Aogiri's base is?" I interrupted.
"Every ghoul in the eleventh knows where Aogiri is." Wolf head sneered back. "Except bandwagon fans like you."
It wasn't that my patience for this conversation hadn't worn out, it was that Touka was partly blocking the direct approach to the three Aogiri.
"So. Tell. Us." Touka sounded about as fed up as I was.
Wolf head's response was a derisive bark of laughter that was echoed by his companions. He may have planned on saying something else, but that was also at the same time his presence sawed through the last bit of my patience. I brought the mouthy nuisance to the ground hard enough that we almost bounced. The matched pair stepped back a step from where I had their probable leader pinned and squirming.
"Now then." I had one knee planted on one of wolf-head's shoulder blades, and was not being gentle with my weight. "Where. Is. Aogiri?"
"Screw you!"
In response, I grabbed his arm and tugged backwards. Not hard, just enough to feel tendons strain.
"Do whatever you want, hurt me, whatever, I'm not telling you anything!"
"You? I don't care about you. You're not even a living thing to me. You said that every ghoul in this ward knows where Aogiri is, so I'm going to ask your buddies. Every time they don't answer, I'm going to break your arm and we'll keep playing until you can't heal."
"You think that'll get them to talk? Y-you idiot, you think a member of Aogiri would be that cowardly?"
"Well," I shrugged, leaning in close, "If they don't talk, I can use one of them to take your place and talk to the remaining one."
One of the two made a noise indicating just how not-eager they were to let it get that far.
"I've—erg—got a better idea."
I looked down. Maybe wolf head had decided to make this easy for all of us after all?
"I'll just kill you both."
Or not.
A plume of an forming kagune erupted from the folds of his cloak, narrowly missing my arm. I wasn't interested in letting wolf head get to a point where he'd actually be able to fight back, but with both my arms occupied with keeping him pinned, my options were…limited.
Before I could really think it through, I had brought my head down to where the kagune had been pushing through the folds of the cloak and ripped out a mouthful-sized chunk with my teeth. The sensation was like biting into a bundle of soft gummy worms with the flavor being slightly more savory, as if they had been produced with fruit rather than just sugar. I only really had the time to reflect on the flavor due to everything seemingly grinding to a halt by the time I had straightened up. Touka had actually paused mid-punch. Beneath me, wolf head was now making noises like a fish gasping for air, his kagune having gone limp like jello once I had taken my bite.
One of the matched pair was a little distracted with Touka's kagune turning him into a partial pincushion, but the other appeared to be just as surprised as Touka despite the mask. I chewed and swallowed the mouthful as quickly as I could; now was the time to say something, since I had all the attention at this point.
"Now." I paused to lick my lip where something had dribbled free, "We were talking about Aogiri and where to find them. Is that conversation going to keep going, or am I going to need to take another bite to tide me over until it does?"
Wolf head said something, too fast for me to catch, possibly referencing my mother.
I looked to Touka and confirmed that I had, in fact, been insulted. So, I took another bite, which resulted in more pained yelling and both of the other Aogiri members squirming away from me by a few feet.
Wolf head now seemed to be a font of information, albeit still speaking too quickly for me to catch every word.
Confused, I looked to Touka, who shook her head with the air of the long-suffering straight man in a comedy.
"He says he'll tell us everything we want to know."
Bit late on getting this one out, but hopefully it'll prove a good distraction for that mid-week slump or Thanksgiving madness. Up soon is more of Allen's history, meeting a major antagonist and Allen getting in even more over his head.
