Akira doesn't want to be the only adult in the room
And last-minute bonus bumper: Akira needs to update her resume
It was slow-going and the way involved a lot of scrambling over piles of rubble, but Juzo was light on his feet. He could get to the top of an obstacle quickly, then hold his hand out to help Akira make the ascent. Ui clambered after them, more because he didn't know where else to go than any desire to reunite with the CCG's main forces.
Juzo and Ui both had their weapons but Akira was unarmed, so she tried to avoid getting close to the…dragon…that could sometimes be seen writhing at the other end of a cross street. She didn't need to poke at it to know it was bad.
She had to block out the wreckage and death that they passed. Their group didn't have time or resources to be good Samaritans. Before long, the sirens of first responders and the noise of the military heading in to figure out the situation drowned out the occasional cry for help.
I have a job to do—I can't stop to help. And even if I did, it would just be a drop in the ocean.
They didn't talk much, aside from coordinating how to get past the next obstacle. There wasn't much any of them wanted to say.
Akira stood on top of an overturned car. It was difficult to recognize where she was—the cityscape had been thoroughly rearranged—but a nearby subway entrance helped her orient herself.
Recalling the hand-drawn maps of the 24th ward she'd spent ages staring at, she racked her brain for the nearest way down. "Okay, I think we go down this street." She pointed south and hopped down.
Spotting a convenience store along the way, she broke a window and ran in. Leaving most of the food and drinks for other citizens who would surely need them in the coming days, she grabbed a few water bottles and flashlights. "Here, we'll need these," she said as she tossed some of her looted goods to the boys and threw the rest into a cheap drawstring backpack hanging by the checkout area.
Soon Akira was leading their small group down the main street, then a small alley, then under the cover of a large storm drain.
She led them underground, as the tunnels transitioned from the well-maintained city rainwater overflows to the decrepit tunnels of the so-called 24th ward. Twice, she had to redirect their route due to new collapses. Not good.
Luckily, her desire to be as informed as possible meant she'd developed a good sense of direction in the tangled underground labyrinth. And as an added bonus, she could now recognize the wall markings that helped her keep her bearings.
Ui finally spoke. "Do you even know where we're going, or are you just going to get us lost and leave us down here?"
"You're free to leave," she said as she used her flashlight to inspect the intersection in front of them.
He continued following them.
Once in the tunnels, Akira started worrying about how they would get into the more secure parts of the underground quarters. It was wasted energy—when they finally got to the entrance, it had been blasted through.
She stepped over the ragged remains of the living wall with a prickly, uneasy feeling rising in her stomach.
They finally made their way to the main cavern of the space they'd been inhabiting. And stared.
A tendril of the…thing…as wide around as a train had crashed through the ceiling and was blocking off some of the other offshoots. It looked…withered.
But, the place was empty, as well. Eerie.
"Is this…where we find him?" Juzo spoke quietly.
"It should be, but no one's here," replied Akira. "This isn't right."
Ui shouted, "Hello?" His voice echoed through the room.
"Akira," said Juzo, "I smell…blood." He pointed to a gap between the ceiling and the monster obstructing it.
She looked at it. "Give me a boost. We're pushing on."
They struggled over the strange appendage, and continued. First following Juzo's nose, then the signs of a struggle and blood splatters in the tunnel beyond.
Along the way, Akira took them on a short detour to a storage area. The shelves of extra medical supplies had been shaken over, but she was able to salvage what she needed on the ground and toss them into her bag. Bandages, gauze, wraps, topical antiseptic, what was left of the antibiotics they'd stolen from the hospital and the needles needed to inject it, and, after a moment of thought, several aliquots of their stolen RC suppressant in tiny vials.
They took a short water break while things were quiet. There was no chitchat, so Akira was alone with her thoughts for the first time since that blighted press conference. She wondered idly if anyone remembered to bring that Oggai boy with them, or if he'd died in a cave-in. Then, less idly, whether anyone had grabbed her cat. They were both moot points, in the end, since the routes to the most likely locations of her cat or that boy were blocked.
They pressed on.
Before long, they started seeing more signs of violence, hearing low chatter up ahead…
Until…they rounded a bend and ran straight into a group of exhausted investigators. They were sitting and standing, bruised and bloody, staring at a pile of strange corpses. The bodies didn't look human, or ghoul…
They all froze as the two groups took each other in silently. Everyone was just too drained to react much.
Akira finally spoke. "What the hell happened here?"
"Shit, it's you again." Ito was sprawled out on the ground. "Not dead yet, huh? We split up, we were sweeping the tunnels, when…whatever happened, happened. There were cave-ins, we all got separated, that…thing started attacking and those monsters started climbing out of it…"
She looked over the group—a couple she recognized as under Ito's command, the rest looked like the scraps from several other squads that had been put through the ringer. "And the ghouls?"
Ito wiped his forehead with the back of his hand as he looked at the pile of slain monsters. "Strangest thing. The orders came down to mobilize for an all-out assault on the 24th ward. And when we got down here, the whole place had been evacuated. Moments before we arrived, probably. Warm food and coffee was still sitting around."
She looked around. They were at a crossroads, several routes leading up and down. "Do you know which way they went?"
"No, but we saw signs that they split into two groups. We were following the tracks of the larger group."
"Okay," she sighed. "Let's keep moving."
"Just one problem. We don't know how to get out. The way we came in is blocked, and the way the ghouls got out is blocked. We tried sending a couple of guys as scouts but they got turned around and ended up back here."
"Mado can get us out. She's the ghoul whisperer now," sneered Ui.
"I don't understand how someone as rude as you ever outranked me," she scowled right back. "You know how they say people don't quit bad jobs, they quit bad managers? You made it real easy to quit the CCG."
After a couple of false starts, she located a route that appeared unobstructed. The subterranean path took them laterally a good distance, then finally started rising.
When they sat to take a rest, Akira took the chance to toss bandages and antiseptic to a few of the wounded investigators.
Before long, though, they noticed a distant noise coming from a blocked side tunnel up ahead.
Ito rose reluctantly and grabbed a handful of men to come with him. "With our luck it's more of those damn monsters."
The group trudged ahead. Akira brought up the rear. She couldn't do much aside from watch, but she wanted to know as quickly as possible if something went wrong.
When they came upon a wall of rubble, the guy in front kicked at it a bit. A couple of rocks dislodged and clattered across the ground. The problem was obvious to all. What if disturbing things led to another cave-in?
The muted sound of someone banging stone against stone rang out, louder and clearer now.
One of them finally voiced what everyone was thinking. "Maybe someone's trapped?"
In a flurry, the investigators rushed forward to start digging out rocks. Akira quickly directed them to start stacking the larger rocks to the side, quickly building a couple of towers to help brace up the ceiling. It probably wouldn't do much against a collapse, but she'd seen similar fortifications in the farther reaches of the 24th ward.
Within a few minutes of intense work, they'd unearthed a body. An investigator—obviously with serious crush injuries, but other more precise cuts and gashes on the corpse caught her eye. Something about it rattled her intuition.
Then another body, or most of one was unearthed. And a third.
The rubble shifted again. Everyone backed away, but Akira had the thought that the debris wasn't as tightly compacted as it should be, if the tunnel had experienced a catastrophic structural failure.
Then a hand—alive!—broke through the gravel. A ripple of shock went through the gathered crowd. Two investigators jumped forward to pull the hand and the person attached to it out.
Akira and several others stepped back again, giving them room to work.
Finally, with an avalanche of gravel flying everywhere, they all fell back on the ground. The survivor had been wrenched free.
The people with a view of the action backed away in dismay.
It took Akira a millisecond to put together why they'd react like that. Ito was directly in front of her, so she elbowed him aside and shoved her way through the rest of the line.
It was Hinami, struggling to stand on one leg—how had that happened?—and wearing a determined look on her blood-streaked face.
Akira ran up to catch the girl before she keeled over. "It's okay, I'm here now."
The young ghoul could only take a ragged breath and clutch Akira's shirt like she was a lifeline. "Akira…"
"Where did everyone else go? Why are you here alone?"
She felt the girl shake her head. "We were getting the children out this way, but they were catching up fast. I stayed behind to hold them off." She added, "The tunnel caved in while we were fighting."
Akira let out a breath she didn't even realize she'd been holding. "Touka's going to be very mad at you."
That got a small laugh out of the ghoul. "Yeah. Really mad."
The crowd parted a bit to let Ui through. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Come on. We're moving on." She pulled one of Hinami's arms over her shoulder. "If you want to find your way out of here before you die of thirst, we take her with us," she announced to the investigators.
Ui glared at her as she passed.
As they walked away, Akira glanced over at one last partially unearthed body. She finally put together why the jagged slices he was covered with were so familiar to her—they were the kind she was used to inflicting with her quinque.
"If she is who I think she is, she was involved in your father's death," Ui said as he stumbled over some rubble.
She was too focused on hauling the girl over the uneven terrain. "She was just a kid," she muttered.
They rounded a gentle bend towards what should be the final ascent to the basement level of the city. And—thank goodness—it wasn't completely untouched by destruction, but it was clear enough to get through.
At the sight of a steep tunnel full of loose debris, Akira sighed. "Here we go."
Hinami blinked away some tears and said, "I'm sorry for slowing everyone down."
Before Akira could reassure her, Juzo hopped up on Hinami's other side and placed her other arm over his shoulder. "Here," he said quietly.
"Thanks," said Hinami in a barely audible whisper.
"I lost a leg, too. Everything's built for people with two good legs, so it's really annoying, getting around without one. But I got to help design my cool prosthetic!"
"I'm sorry you lost a leg." Then, after crossing a large pipe that required a lot of help from Akira and Juzo to clear, she added, "It is annoying to only have one leg."
"Yeah. Wheelchairs are okay, and the prosthetic's great, except it can feel heavy after a while. And sometimes it makes me tired to wear it all day. Doesn't it kind of feel like it should still be there?"
"It does! It's weird. I wonder what it'll feel like when it's regrowing," Hinami pondered.
Juzo laughed. "Well I wouldn't know about that."
There were many reasons why Juzo didn't connect well with other people. It was somehow fitting to see him find common ground with a ghoul on a topic that most people would avoid bringing up at all costs.
After an exhausting scramble, they finally emerged out of a drainage pipe hidden behind some bushes. It emptied into a small grassy park, a strangely peaceful little alcove that made the destruction and claustrophobia of the underground seem like a dream.
Until, that is, they turned around and looked behind them. Smoke and dust still hung over a good portion of the city, and that misshapen monster had toppled more than one building.
Ito walked up next to her and pointed. "Look. The CCG's main office is still standing, and the lights are on."
She nodded. "That's as good a place as any. I bet every investigator in the city, on and off duty, is making a beeline there right now. Let's go, I guess."
"Wait," Ui said. "What's this you're talking about?"
"You don't think we should head back to the main office?"
"I think we should," he said as he gestured to the small crowd. "You two need to figure out alternative accommodations."
"Hold on. She saved us. You're saying we should just…abandon her?" Friendly outgoing Ito couldn't fathom the kind of backstabbing that was second nature to Ui.
Ui pointed at them. "That is an SS ghoul and the biggest traitor in CCG history. We don't know what the hell is going on right now. We're exhausted. Can we afford to take them with us?"
The buzz of agreement from the back of the crowd made Akira's stomach sink. Watching the crowd turn against her and Hinami, she was suddenly the closest she'd ever felt to a child being told her mother was never coming home. Then, like now, all she could think was, no, there's no way everything could go so wrong, so fast.
But it had.
Hinami's hand on her shoulder tightened.
She swallowed hard and cleared her throat, trying to make sure her voice didn't crack. "No, we're an injured teenager and an unarmed woman. You're just going to leave us here, after we brought you out of the underground?"
Ui looked around, eyes lighting on the hard-faced investigators who'd been sour the whole time about letting a ghoul go unexterminated. "That's the only reason I'm letting you go." He looked around. "Shit, does anyone have a smoke?"
"You fucking asshole," she hissed at him.
Someone finally handed him a cigarette. He lit it, took a drag, and stared at her from under his stupid haircut. "It's not that personal. I think you'd make the same call in my shoes."
"I still have a soul, so I really doubt that."
Ui laughed like it was the best joke he'd heard in ages, as if he doubted any of them still had a soul.
"This is wrong," Ito said. "You can't be serious. We can't leave them."
His words were not popular. Ito glanced back at the restless crowd—maybe he'd be able to convince some of his own men to stay with them, but even that was debatable given the situation. The rest of the group would be happy to leave her to die.
"But…what about Shinohara?" Juzo frowned.
Ui shook his head. "Can't you tell? She's lying about that. It's a nice dream, but the dead don't come back. Shinohara wouldn't want ghouls and traitors using his memory against you."
Akira fought back a snarl. That snake, whispering in Juzo's ear and spreading discord. She held her tongue, though. The truth was so outrageous that she could argue until she was blue in the face and not a single person would believe her. Better to stay quiet instead of raging. She'd keep what little credibility she had left that way.
"No, I'm not doing this." Ito tried to cross the empty space to get to them but, after a nod from Ui, two lower-ranking investigators grabbed each arm and held Ito back. "Let me go!"
"You'll thank me for this later," said Ui as he turned his back on them and began leading the main group away.
Akira and Hinami watched the group walk off.
Juzo and Ito looked back over their shoulders as they were hustled off—Juzo looking conflicted, Ito with a miserable expression.
In a movement so fast it escaped almost everyone's notice, Juzo produced a pair of knives from somewhere under his clothes and launched them in her direction. They were buried in the tree to her left with a thwack-thwack.
Well, we've gone from unarmed to mostly unarmed, Akira thought acidly.
She pried the knives out of the wood with single-minded intensity.
Hinami's soft voice broke through her simmering rage. "What happens next?"
The former investigator thought. "I'll let you in on a secret, Hinami. It's always a doozy when you look around for the adult who's going to have all the answers, and then you remember that you are the adult. I don't know what's next right now. Let's rest for a bit and then I'll get back to pretending like I have a plan, okay?"
They found a protected little doorway to sit in for a moment. On the way, Akira kicked her way into a vending machine and grabbed more water for the two of them. As they sat, Akira thought about Ui's words. Biggest traitor in CCG history…I'm sure Hirako could tie with me, but it might be accurate. Hmm…I should add that to my resume.
Maybe it's the Halloween season combined with how much I've been thinking about all this underground action, but movies like It, The Descent, and As Above So Below have really been on my mind lately.
It looks like we now have a Roanoke-type mystery to solve!
Next Week: A dashi tutorial goes terribly wrong
