Akira discovers cosplay
A timid knock sounded at her office door several days later. "Come in."
The door swung open, revealing a nervous-looking Yonebayashi. Mutsuki was standing behind her in the hall, looking chagrined.
Akira pushed away her keyboard. "What is it?"
The young investigator fidgeted with her fingers and stared at her feet. "Um, normally I would go to maman, I mean Investigator Sasaki, but lately he's busy trying to plan an important investigation right now…"
"I get it. Just tell me why you're here." Akira reminded herself to be patient. Snapping out something sarcastic and humiliating the littlest Quinx wouldn't benefit anyone.
Racked with nervousness and concern, Yonebayashi could barely string her thoughts together. "I know someone…I don't think she's a ghoul, but sometimes when I'm around her I think I might smell… What do I do?"
The older investigator leaned back in her chair and thought. "Well, who is it you're concerned about?"
"Um, you remember the bakery I told you about, that I go to sometimes? And Takeomi likes it, too? One of the workers there. But she's really nice, and she always has me try a bunch of her baking experiments. I just don't want to get her in trouble or anything. But…what should I do?"
Akira pursed her lips and made a show of thinking. Inwardly, she focused on calming herself down and simultaneously marveled at how precarious her situation was. It's a double-edged sword, hiding all these ghouls right under the CCG's nose. Very risky and very effective, except when everyone's lives become too enmeshed.
She shuffled up some of the papers on her desk and moved them aside. They're both good kids, they'll believe whatever I tell them. I almost feel bad about this.
Akira looked over Yonebayashi's shoulder at Mutsuki. "Have you met this worker? Do you know what she's talking about?"
"No," said Mutsuki with a frown, taking a hesitant step forward. "Shirazu and Urie think she's being dramatic, but Saiko seemed really upset, so I'm here for moral support."
Perfect. "Saiko, you're just catching an occasional hint of what might be the scent of a ghoul?"
She nodded tragically, pigtails swishing around.
"But you feel confident that she is human herself. I suppose she must be, if she's working in a bakery. She'd have to taste her own food to make sure it's seasoned correctly, right?"
Yonebayashi perked up. "Yeah, her food's always delicious. She's an amazing baker."
Akira folded her hands on her lap and made another show of thinking hard. "The CCG takes countermeasure law very, very seriously. Even if she is a human, if she's found to be consorting with ghouls, she would probably be arrested and thoroughly investigated."
The blue-haired girl looked at Akira like she'd kicked a puppy.
"However," continued the blonde before Yonebayashi could start bawling, "you have no real evidence of any misconduct. You spend most of your time in the Chateau and here at the main office, so you never run into ghouls unless you're hunting them down. She lives out in the world, where she might rub shoulders with ghouls on the subway, at the store, in the park—all innocently on her part, of course."
Mutsuki and Yonebayashi were nodding along, looking more and more hopeful. They were both eating up Akira's misleading half-truths hook, line, and sinker.
"So, I think that unless you have any significant reasons to report her, keep very minor suspicions like this to yourself. You could cause her a lot of trouble for no good reason. Does that sound good to you?"
Yonebayashi nodded eagerly. "Yeah. You're right. That makes so much sense. Thank you! I feel so much better." She turned to leave, looking like a weight had been lifted off her. "Come on, Mutsie! You know what we should do? Make Takeomi finally ask her out! I just know he wants to hit that."
"Well, ah, I think it would be kinda rude to—AH!"
With that they were gone. Akira rolled her eyes and got up to close her office door. Neither of her visitors had bothered, as they'd both disappeared down the hall—Yonebayashi dragging Mutsuki along by the wrist at breakneck speed—apparently with plans to harass poor Takeomi.
The following week, Akira found out what investigation had been distracting Haise.
If she'd known sooner about his ghoul impersonation mission, she probably would have tried harder to put a stop to it. For goodness sakes, he'd somehow gotten ahold of an Eyepatch mask, and their descriptions of the mask maker they'd visited sounded strangely familiar. It couldn't be…
No good could come of it.
But it had already happened, and now she was in a meeting, listening to the Quinx squad give her a detailed debrief of the mission.
Shirazu was talking in one breathless rush. "—and after telling us about the Blades in the 18th ward, they told us this insane rumor! According to them, some crazy ghoul has seduced her way into the CCG and nabbed herself an investigator!"
Yonebayashi smirked. "She sounds like a real baddie."
"The ghouls we talked to seemed to think she was dumb," Mutsuki added.
"It's not crazy, or dumb," Urie chimed in. He went on to offer his take, a rare occurrence in these meetings. "If most investigators found out their girlfriend was a ghoul, I think they'd hesitate to kill. And it'd be a good way for a ghoul to get information on CCG operations."
Dammit. That information was never supposed to make it back to the CCG. And it wouldn't have, if they hadn't gone undercover like this. "No names?"
"No," said Urie.
"Then it's just a wild rumor you heard from some ghouls. I'd suggest keeping it to yourself unless you want to be responsible for the breakups and divorces it could cause once investigators start lobbing ridiculous accusations at their significant others."
The group groaned. Yonebayashi actually booed her.
She held up her hand and continued. "It sounds like an urban legend that just exists to embolden ghouls and foster suspicion among us. Think about it—there's no way a ghoul could be right under an investigator's nose that long. Until this moves beyond the level of idle gossip, spreading it around will do more harm than good."
"What if it's true, though?" Haise finally spoke up.
Akira snapped her head around to stare at him. The beat of silence she allowed was far too long. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, on the off-chance there is someone here who thinks he's in love and he's just getting used…shouldn't we warn people of the possibility? I feel bad for whoever he is, just waiting to get his heart broken."
He spoke without an ounce of irony, full to the brim with empathy for the mystery chump and completely unaware that it was him.
Oh, Haise, you're killing me here. "Unconfirmed gossip still causes more trouble than it's worth. Besides, none of you have anything to worry about," she joked, locking eyes with Haise.
The young man blushed and quickly changed the subject rather than admit he wasn't quite as single as his subordinates and make himself a target for a very different kind of teasing. Thank goodness he hated talking about his personal life in public.
After work, Akira headed to Café :re and tied up several paperwork-related loose ends on her tablet while sipping an Americano and listening to Touka. Ugh, back-to-back debriefs.
There was still a certain awkwardness between them now that the truth about Rabbit was in the open, but Akira also had the strange feeling that poison had drained out of an old wound and it could finally begin to heal.
"I talked to Itori at her bar a few days ago. I finally confirmed that I was dating Haise, and asked about Aogiri's newest artificial ghoul."
"I know. That's why I'm here tonight. That information already made its way back to the CCG, but I think I was able to contain it…for now. What did you get out of her in return?"
Touka hopped up on the counter near where Akira was seated and leaned back on her hands. "Bad news travels fast, I guess, especially when you tell the biggest gossip in Tokyo about it. Itori knew I was asking about Aogiri for someone else. She won't talk unless she knows who's trying to get that information. She said to stop by after closing any night this week."
"How did she know?"
Touka furrowed her brow, eyes downcast. "My little brother joined Aogiri Tree years ago, and I haven't tried to track him down because I know it won't make a difference. When I went to Itori after all this time and started asking about Aogiri's experiments instead of my brother…She's good at figuring people out like that."
"Hmm." Akira continued her work as she listened.
The ghoul stared at Akira for so long, the investigator finally set down her tablet and bit out an annoyed, "What?"
"How much do you trust me, Akira?"
She grimaced. "Not enough for whatever you're about to suggest."
Touka ran into the back room and reemerged with the bomber jacket she'd borrowed days ago. "You can wear this so you won't smell human. If this is important to you, I'll keep you safe if you continue to keep me safe."
It is important to me. Dammit. "How necessary is it to pass as a ghoul?"
The blue-haired woman grinned deviously. "Where we're going, humans who wander around that late get eaten."
This is totally normal. Just a regular trip into the underbelly of ghoul society. Akira was dressed in all black: leggings, combat boots, and the jacket she'd gotten back from Touka. No large quinque case, in the interest of blending in. She did have a knife strapped to her forearm, hidden up her sleeve. It wasn't much, but she refused to be unarmed.
She'd parked her car in a garage where she fully expected to come back to some smashed-out windows. Then came a walk of several blocks, with a hood hiding her face, to the cross streets Touka had provided.
Touka—Rabbit tonight—was waiting for her in the mouth of a nearby alley. Haise was stuck working late that night, catching up on case files, giving the ghoul a chance to disappear all evening without any questions.
She was in a longer, loose swing jacket that did an excellent job of hiding her pregnancy. Also black, also with the hood pulled up.
It was easy to feel like a villain, skulking in the shadows like this.
"Back here," the ghoul instructed.
Akira followed her into the unpleasant-smelling alley.
Touka took her own Rabbit mask out of her jacket, and handed Akira her disguise for the night—a plain black half-mask. Almost boring compared to the ghoul masks she was used to, but good enough on short notice.
Fully disguised as ghouls, Rabbit nodded towards the end of the alley and Akira followed.
"We've got a bit of a walk. If anything weird happens, get behind me."
She glanced down a side alley where two men were hanging out on a pile of boxes while a third rummaged through a nearby dumpster.
The one that noticed her nodded once in greeting to the masked woman before turning back to whatever they were dumpster diving for.
Once they had passed, Akira asked, "Are all of these back alleys crawling with ghouls?"
"They weren't ghouls. Just some thugs who know not to cause us trouble. I think most humans who live in these neighborhoods have an unspoken truce with their local ghouls."
"That's…quite sad. You might disagree, but I don't think it's right for whole neighborhoods to live in fear of ghouls like that."
Rabbit glanced back as they continued walking. "It's not how I want things to be, either."
Akira followed the Rabbit into her warren, blindly taking twists and turns until she couldn't possibly know where they were. I'll never be able to find my way back here again, which was probably her intention.
They walked in silence for a couple more minutes, until a door slammed shut somewhere.
Akira startled and held back a gasp.
"Are you ok?"
"I was never a big rule-breaker. This all feels very unnatural to me." Though, she couldn't deny a certain illicit excitement at this excursion.
"It'll be fine. I asked Yomo to hang out by the bar, so he'll be keeping watch over us. I just didn't want to attract too much attention by all going together."
Sure enough, after they rounded the next corner, Rabbit scanned the rooftops before nodding to a shadow on a derelict balcony. The shadow raised one hand in return.
"We're almost there. By the way, if she pours you a drink, don't take it. You don't want anything she's got for you."
Akira nodded, and followed Rabbit up a nearly-hidden stairwell.
It's probably for the best that the Quinx are more in the background of this story—I don't know what's wrong with me but I have the urge to make Saiko say ridiculous things every time she's in a scene.
Next week: Akira gets some hot goss over shots