-99: Checkerboard—
Whatever the thing with the motorcycle had been, it had clearly been enough to crack Aogiri's defenses enough for the CCG to enter the buildings. The gunfire was more sporadic, but was now much heavier when it did happen. In the close quarters of the building, massed full-auto fire was an even match for a ghoul's kagune if it didn't manage to flank. This was a game I had only read about and never played, since it came with sizable risks to the entry teams. Echoes and ricochets bounced through stairwells.
This situation was starting to deteriorate, not rapidly, given that we had yet to encounter any opposition. If the CCG was operating like I assumed it would, victory was going to be less a feat of tactical genius than just flooding the complex with grunts and ammo.
Or Aogiri would collectively decide to cut and run and the whole thing would end in a rout.
Kicking in yet another door—I had ceased with the slower doorknobs about two floors ago—I noticed Touka running along with a distracted look on her face. Before I could get her attention, she nearly ran into a squad of CCG as they rounded a corner. She and Nishiki stopped dead, I yanked them into the room I had just opened, and the Uta-Yomo-Tsukiyama trio did their slippery work.
"Touka, you ok?" I knew Nishiki was fine, because he marched out of the room cursing at our luck.
"Y-yeah!"
Clearly not, since her mind had just been elsewhere.
"Keep your head in the present." It felt funny to be passing on some of the first BGA combat advice I had received. "We worry after we win."
"Right." Her face shifted back to being serious, and nodded.
The unbidden thought I had was that she was thinking about Kaneki, but that couldn't be the whole story, right? Giving my head a brief shake, I reminded myself of what I had just said. There'd be time to worry later.
"We're going to split up." Yomo announced. "Between covering as much ground as possible, and the Dove interference, it's our best bet since Irimi and the manager don't have any solid leads. Uta, Tsukiyama and I will force our way through. Touka, take Allen and Nishiki, and find the path of least resistance."
After Yomo and company left, I took a short listen to make sure they were actually gone before reaching for one of rifles. Picked it up, toyed with the idea of bringing it along, then leaned it up against the wall. Between needing to waste time to scavenge ammo from bodies, and the fact that it was a full size rifle and not a more practically sized carbine...I'd have to pass. More than a firearm, this whole situation was a very sharp reminder that Hasuko still had my quinque. Following Touka and Nishiki up a stairwell, a chattering of fire from outside also reminded that a quinque wasn't much against a firearm.
In front of me, Nishiki implied Touka was easily distracted, Touka responded by insulting his busy sex life. Nishiki noted that Touka had to be on her period to acting the way she was. I wondered if they were actually friends or if I was going to have to step between them to stop a fight.
We ended up on the rooftop, where Touka proceeded to scare the hell out of me by having us jump the gap to the last apartment building in the row and making us the second trio of ghouls. The other trio of ghouls were standing around the edge nearest the CCG incursion point and holding a lively argument.
"—Don't get what the hell he's doing, holed up in his playroom. If there was ever a time we needed Jason, it's right fucking n—" The ghoul changed subject mid-word once he noticed us. "—You!"
Me? Had we met? He did sound familiar
"Didn't I warn what would happen if you came back here," He jabbed a finger at me, knifelike kagune unfurling at his shoulder, "you crazy fuc—"
The curse cut into a yelp; without the need to play by Aogiri rules, I opted to sink a spike of kagune into his chest, which in turn caused him to stumble off the edge of the apartment block. The protests from the remaining two ghouls were ended quickly by a kick and razor storm from Nishiki and Touka, respectively.
With that out of the way, I looked to Touka on where to go next only to find her and Nishiki looking to me. Both were very clearly looking at me to direct them. We'd clear this one the same way that we had been clearing the other building; floor by floor, room by room—not that there was a better or other way.
Clearly, there was a fair bit of fighting going on; the stairwell we came down was quiet, but the others funneled shouting and gunfire up while transporting Aogiri members down. Nobody was paying any attention to us, but it was inevitable that the CCG would take the building eventually. Clearing another apartment, my eyes drifted out a window to where the top of that domed building was just a few stories below. I shouldn't have given it a thought, but a strange gravity pulled my head back in that direction.
'Trust your instincts' had been what Monica and the others had been pounding into my head back home, 'your training informs them, and they'll sort more data than you can'.
Why was that building drawing me in? It wasn't like the other apartment blocks, and all the blocks had been were living quarters and storage.
"We're going back a few rooms." I announced, prompting a pair of questioning looks. "There's a fire escape a little way back, and we need to get to ground level."
If there were any doubts, they were left unspoken as we climbed down. There were actually two buildings at this corner of the complex; the building with the dome and a windowless one with about half the footprint of one apartment block.
"Nishiki," I pointed out the structure with the flat top. "I want you to check out that building while Touka and I check the other one. And don't take any pointless risks."
"Just calculated ones, got it." There was enough wit in the rapid reply that I couldn't help but chuckle. "Don't worry, I'm getting a minor in math."
There was a single double door into the domed building; heavy, cold and enough to flip my senses into danger when I placed my hand onto the latch bar. Every alarm bell was ringing—danger, ambush, IED—but nothing happened when we stepped over the threshold.
What insufficient light there was had puddled in the middle of the open interior, giving the impression that the opposite wall was further away than it actually was. A checkerboard of factory fresh ink and ivory tiles didn't help mitigate the effect. Behind and to my side, Touka shifted, either because she was as unsettled as I was or to get a better look. The focus all came down on a simple scene in the center.
A table, a pair of buckets, an occupied chair, and a man resting his hands on its back.
"I thought" The figure stepped back from the chair and toward us. "that I had ordered you all to leave me be when I was having my fun. At risk of my…displeasure."
Jason.
Touka made a nauseated sound. "Kaneki..."
That was the only possible person in that chair: the whole room smelled like him, smelled like he had been bleeding and sweating and dry heaving. A twist in my gut. Something wrong had happened here, something best forgotten.
"Interruptions, interruptions. Barely a few days to have my fun and then everybody wants to spoil it." Jason seemed less concerned about the CCG than he was about being interrupted. "In any case, I think we have another pair of guests you can choose between."
He gestured to us with one hand as his other tilted Kaneki's head in our direction.
Now though, I wasn't one hundred percent sure it was Kaneki—everything over there looked fairly gray, with no indication of Kaneki's slightly unkempt mop of black hair.
Touka must've seen something I didn't: she bolted for Jason, Aogiri disguise fluttering to the ground in her wake. The attack was broken off by swipe from Jason, one hard enough to sound like a truck pushing through wind and forcing her to dodge aside. I made my own approach, dropping the cloak and closing the gap—at a walk though, I wasn't about to charge in like Touka. Jason locked his attention onto me with a look that very much said he expected a good fight and lunged.
I took a guess and dodged left; Jason's arm went right, his reactionary kick whiffed past my leg and for the briefest of moments I was sparring against Frank back in the BGA gymnasium. Then Jason growled, deployed his kagune and reminded me that this was absolutely not home. In answer, I deployed my own and immediately used it to deflect an overhead blow while the rest of me blocked a fist aimed at my sternum.
Easy now. Keep defensive and open some distance.
Something was off about my kagune. Not in the sense that it had formed improperly, but more in the 'gained twenty pounds overnight' type of problem.
Two more kagune attacks from Jason, only one of which I managed to fully block with the sensation of being hit with a baseball bat studded with shark teeth. Something in my blocking arm creaked and sent a zing of hurt up to my pinkie.
My spike-edged ribbon wasn't moving any slower, but it had all this new weight and now getting it to stop was—I danced backward to open some distance—almost enough to pull me off balance.
Jason stepped forward with a smirk, probably smelling weakness, until both his expression and approach were cut short by a spike from my kagune pinning his foot to the floor. At least I could still shoot straight. He simply ripped his foot free, charging in with a roar and another set of hits I just managed to block while sending a pair of new spikes into his gut. No effect. If anything, they just made his next punch that much harder. Shouldn't have sent Nishiki away. He would've been absolutely invaluable for this fight, letting me actually take shots at this guy since I wasn't able to shoot and move my kagune with much more than point blank accuracy.
As it stood, I was approximately equal to this guy at the moment—until one of us landed a fatal or disabling hit. Or until my stamina gave out, after which the fight would be to avoid becoming a punching bag. Maybe I wouldn't need to worry about the time issue as much. Touka was doing her best to free Kaneki from where he had apparently been manacled to the chair—I may have given her a lot of crap, but she was good at taking opportunities when they came.
That I only saw this after nearly being knocked to the checkerboard floor was irrelevant.
I kept my heavier kagune in close, trying to keep it from pulling me around too much as its ribbon of crystalline spikes flitted about like a loose band saw blade. Then came the distinct metal snap of Touka deciding to simply break one of the manacles. Jason heard it too, his own head snapping around toward the chair with a growl. Both to keep his attention off of Touka and because it was that much of an opening, I surprised myself and went for his neck with my kagune.
This only served to prove that Jason was every bit the threat he had been treated as when he stopped my kagune with his own and locked his gaze back onto me with the air of an adult who was ready to punt an irritating toddler.
Not good.
All I was really able to do was mentally brace for impact and externally try to mitigate the force that sent me close to what felt like twenty feet. Where I had expected him to lay into me with his kagune, Jason only sprouted a sadistic smile as he closed the distance. I was trying to get back up, but there was something slippery on this patch half-shadowed floor.
On the plus side, I didn't get to experience what that sickly smile promised because Touka shouted something profanity-laced at Jason, applying punctuation in the form of a blast of razor-sharp spikes to his back.
While the no-doubt incensed ghoul chased Touka, I tried a different tactic to get up and found myself looking at a pair of Aogiri robes on the floor. Then, after successfully getting myself upright, I realized that it was actually a small body and an adult sized one. First thought through my slightly concussed head was that it was Kouto and Kei, but their heads weren't exactly…head shaped.
Any other thought on them was pushed aside in the process of regaining my feet. I had other ghoul sized concerns fighting on the opposite side of the room. Rejoining the fray, I sunk a pair of spikes into Jason's leg and took him off balance lone enough to let Touka get out of range to recover while I got back in.
Workable plan, up until a hand caught my wrist in a death grip and wrenched me off balance.
An audible pop slipped into the air from between Jason's fingers and a steady cascade of fire knifed up from my elbow.
"I'm not about to let go." This ghoul was having as much fun hurting me as Kureo had.
I grit my teeth, deciding whether I was going to let him break the arm or break it first and try to get an advantage out of that. Kind of a seesaw decision there.
See-saw. A messy idea, and one I didn't know if I had the fine control to pull off...but all I had.
I clenched my jaw, tensed my arm, and for a moment I would've sworn a bit of concern danced behind his cruel little eyes.
Then my kagune whirled in close, only the first few spikes nicking flesh before the remainder ripped in deep. In motion, it looked almost like cutting raw meat with the business end of a blender. The last bit of skin holding on to the arm had to be ripped, but that wasn't hard. Nothing had gone off course, and it hadn't been as bad as I thought.
Hadn't hurt me a bit, at least. To be fair, it had been closer to a relief of having my elbow slowly dislocated than actually stopping the pain. Jason's face went through several of stages of grief, eyes dancing between the bloody stump and the severed limb before realizing that he was now missing his grabbing arm from the elbow down. Something about the sad puppy expression on Jason was just so amusing that I couldn't help myself.
"Ha—" The mirth was promptly cut when a tree trunk of muscled kagune whipped into me.
Despite having my kagune already in the way, the laws of momentum were not on my side and I was once again sent flying. Somewhere between the hit and landing, my mask had also been knocked off my head. Flat on my back, Jason's kagune now resembled a cross between a horror movie mutant and several skinned corpses worth of muscle wrapping themselves around his head and maimed arm. The appearance was oddly familiar, not that I could place where I had seen it before I had on Jason. As he charged and roared like some kind of beast, I got lucky and sunk a spike directly into his knee. Taking advantage of the stumble and crash, getting to my own feet again was quick and painful.
If it hadn't been under Jason's grip, one of the bones in my forearm was definitely broken now. Something was also off with my same shoulder as it now felt as if someone had tried to leverage it out of the socket with a steak knife. Also a ringing in my ears, but that was more of an annoyance.
Once more, Touka had leapt in to draw our now-crazed opponent's attention and proceeded to lead him around the room. Fuzzily, I realized that she had probably saved me from a follow up blow. I was so going to owe her for tonight. Forcing the hurt down, I raced back in. This was not a good spot or Touka to be in; I had training specifically to fight ghouls; how to take hits and minimize damage. She had none of that, and scrapping with other ghouls was a sketchy substitute.
There was a meaty thwack and a scream as Touka was basically catapulted across the room, taking out the table and both buckets before rolling to a stop.
