Akira should play soccer with a kick like that
It took Juzo less than 15 seconds to get the motorcycle rumbling and ready to go.
Thank goodness Marude was weirdly vain about his motorcycles. The old man insisted on parking in the street rather than the employee parking garage so that pedestrians could tell him how cool he was.
That meant Akira didn't have to waste time getting to her own car or waiting for any other transport to arrive. She just hopped on the stolen bike without a helmet and raced through the streets with little regard for any traffic laws. It was only six city blocks to the parking garage. Hopefully no cops would notice and stop her mad dash.
She could barely remember how to shift and there was a good chance she caused damage to the engine by going full throttle in second gear, but that was an issue for later.
A minute and a half later, the bike screeched to a stop on the sidewalk in front of the parking garage. She jumped off and let it fall over on the ground without putting the kickstand down. Racing into the structure towards the stairs, she strained her ears. Was that a noise upstairs? Which floor?
Before she could make a decision, an unfamiliar ghoul careened out of the elevator at her right and started sprinting unevenly for the exit before he even noticed her. But he must have sensed something was off, because he slowed down and tilted his head to the side.
In a single motion, she activated her quinque—feeling the comforting heft of it in her hand—and swung on him. Let me snap you in half like the twig you are.
With one well-aimed crack of the razor-sharp spine whip, she cut him down from behind. She'd managed to strike across his back, but she had no idea where his kakuho was so she had to take a wild guess before he turned around and attacked.
Not good enough. A mess of pointed red tentacles exploded out of him as he screamed and tried to get back to his feet.
She dodged his attack by somersaulting to the side across the filthy garage floor—in my nice new blazer!—and returned a devastating blow that knocked him to the ground, less one arm.
A shriek from behind nearly broke her focus on the fight. She ducked to avoid what would have been a decapitating lash of his kagune, and whirled her quinque in a sinuous path towards him. It was an attack that appeared deceptively slow, but left the very end whipping around at impossible-to-dodge speeds. He didn't try to move until it was too late.
Thwak. He was down a leg, now, too, and toppled over. He screamed again, a raw fearful sound, and tried to slither away. As he clawed at the ground his kagune still kept her from getting close enough to finish it. And it looked like that missing arm was healing fast, with the leg soon to follow.
Another cry from somewhere at the back of the structure, barely audible above the din. I don't have time for this. Whatever rage she felt at this delay turned into an ice cold fury she'd rarely felt before. She pushed the tempo of her attacks and his ripostes faster and faster. As he grew frantic, she parried his every attempt to keep her away, and kept closing the distance one step at a time.
It was brutally fast—he lashed out, overextended his reach as he tried to stand on his newly reattached leg, and his fear caused him to falter long enough for Akira to rush through the defensive opening. The spines of her beautiful, wonderful quinque shot through a gap in his kagune's aimless flailing and hit him through his stomach, dead in the kakuho. His kagune withered and dissolved, and he tried to curl in on himself as he whined pathetically.
Not wasting a second, Akira pivoted to bring the sharp edge of her quinque across his neck. His screaming cut off with a harsh choke and his body crumpled to the ground. As soon as he looked really dead, she ran up and punted his head across the lot for good measure. Got blood all over my nice shoes, too. Taking a page from Hairu Ihei's book, she followed up with a few more strikes to fully dismember him.
"You better stay dead, you asshole." That took too long. Much too long.
She quickly switched her weapon to the opposite hand and shook out her dominant hand as she spun around and looked for a way out back. Her forearm was on the verge of cramping up from the death grip she'd kept on her quinque. It came through for me again, though. I've never loved a weapon as much as I love the Fueguchi.
She sprinted to the emergency exit, threw open the door to the rear alley, and was greeted with the sight of Yonebayashi struggling to get away from the particularly monstrous ghoul that was holding her down and gnawing at her arm.
Akira was about to lash at him with her quinque when, out of nowhere, a cannonball seemed to strike the ghoul. It happened so fast, she barely understood what was going on.
But while that attacker was occupied, she was able to rush to Yonebayashi's side.
The diminutive Quinx smiled as she clutched at her injured arm. She muttered, "Oh good, you came for me!" and promptly passed out.
The fast, vicious fight between the monstrous ghoul and the mystery combatant ceased—there was no more racket. A dozen feet away, an imposing figure stood still and silent. He stared down the alleyway that the ghoul must have retreated through.
As he turned to leave, Akira caught a flash of his face in profile—strong features she'd dreamed about for years—and she understood.
"Don't you dare run away from me, you son of a bitch!" She screamed so forcefully her voice cracked.
He paused. Quiet words floated back to her. "I can't stay here." He leaned on a staff that he clutched in an inhuman 3-fingered hand.
That's the arm I found after—
She scrambled for something to say, anything to keep him from disappearing again. "I still live in the same apartment."
His silhouette paused for another moment, before disappearing into the shadows again.
She helped a barely conscious Saiko sit up, then yanked the tie from her neck to wrap up the girl's shredded arm. We survived. Amon is alive. We're alive.
A roughed-up Haise and Mutsuki ran towards them. "There you are! We're ok," called Haise. Amon is alive. Where did they come from?
"Akira," yelled Mutsuki, out of breath. "What are you doing here? Are you the one that killed Torso in there?!"
"Torso? Mm, that's nice. Help Saiko up." Amon is alive, and an artificial ghoul. "I need to go home and change my clothes. Call me if you need anything."
She walked dazedly towards the street—scuffed heels, torn blazer, quinque in hand. She decided she might as well leave Marude's bike out front and hailed a taxi.
Amon is alive.
One of the shorter chapters, but boy howdy stuff happened!