Akira auditions for Cirque du Soleil
With Hinami's help, they broke into a car once they'd gotten enough distance from the abandoned truck, and hightailed it down to the location Irimi sent. They pulled up within five minutes of getting the order. It only took a couple more minutes on foot to find the group they were sent to help, with the aid of the girl's nose.
She was greeted by Miza and several of the White Suits. They were hiding behind a crane, peeking around its base's corner.
"Here's the situation. We heard about a group of ghouls living down here and we thought we'd try to get them to come with us. We sent some of our team in to find them, but those new black-armored forces attacked."
He pointed to the far end of the U-shaped stack of shipping containers, where a couple of the containers lay askew with the open doors pointed towards the back corner. It seemed like they might have been knocked from the top row of containers. On the ground were the bodies of several ghouls—in white suits and regular clothes—and also a couple of smaller, black-armored bodies.
Miza explained the problem. "We've got half of our group and a bunch of rescues pinned back there. Every time one of them tries to get in they get blasted, but every time one of ours tries to leave…"
"A standoff," Akira cut to the chase.
"For now. We've probably only got a few minutes until the CCG shows up with reinforcements and we've got to abandon them."
The thought made Akira scowl. She surveyed the two remaining Oggai, standing around in the clearing, shouting taunts at the ghouls stuck in the containers. "Why not just attack them from behind? You have the numbers advantage."
She pointed up. A container was suspended over the field of combat, where its transport had been interrupted. "There's one firing RC suppressants from above. I hit him hard in the beginning, so he retreated up there. We tried rushing them at first—we lost three and got half of us turned into easy pickings."
Akira nodded. Her mind spun through the possibilities. "He wouldn't have retreated unless it was a serious wound," she surmised.
She noticed a pair of work gloves thrown on the ground nearby, probably from the poor crane operator abandoning the site as soon as the action began. They gave her an idea. She pulled her own pair of heavy-duty gloves out of her pocket. They were just supposed to be a part of her delivery outfit, but they'd work perfectly.
Looking up again at the nearly untouchable sniper's nest, she said, "When I get up there, one of you run out and distract our sniper. Attack him from the front. I'll incapacitate him. As soon as I do, you all attack."
"I'll do it." Everyone looked back at Naki. "I already got hit with the suppressant, I'm not good for much else right now."
"Works for me." Turning to Hinami, she said, "Stay low until I get his gun away, but I need you to have my back up there."
Hinami nodded.
Akira quickly climbed the steps up the side of the crane in a low crouch. Once at the boom, she weaseled out of the protective caging to bypass the operator's box and shimmy sideways across the crane's arm.
Just focus on the next move. At first her heart rate picked up at the view of the ground beneath her in her periphery, but the crossbeams she was traversing were stable, easy to hold, and easy to move across. She quickly slipped into that focused, fearless, calm state required in times such as these.
When she reached the middle, she got low to sit on the bar. As she scooted closer to the trolley apparatus, she looked down at her target. The little pain in the ass was still on his stomach, the muzzle of his dart gun sweeping over the ground. "Just give up so I can get back to my game," he yelled. "I had to bail on a ranked match for this."
Now the scary part. With a deep breath, she wiped her hands off her pants, put the gloves on, and leaned back. With slow, careful maneuvering, she hung herself upside down under the jib arm of the crane. At first hanging by hands and knees, then—in a moment of stomach-dropping nerves—she unhooked her knees and let her legs drop to dangle just by her hands alone. She knew she could hang there for several minutes at least, but in such a heightened state—figuratively and literally—it was hard to push aside the voice in her head saying, but what if you're not strong enough?
Shaking her head and remembering to breathe, she felt around with her feet until they were on the cable. Akira didn't waste another second. She wrapped one leg around the cable, pressed hard to trap it between the soles of her boots, and walked her hands down every available crevice of machinery until she was entirely on the cable.
The cable was too smooth and slender to get a solid grip, especially with the gloves on. She could feel herself slowly slipping down. The sensation brought on another wave of nerves, but she reminded herself that this was a one-way trip down anyways.
Letting up the tiniest bit on her grip, on the cable pinched between her boots, she started sliding down. She could feel the friction quickly heating through the gloves.
She was coming in a little too hot, so she jumped off at the last minute and landed with a loud clunk on the top of the container.
Something hit her in the arm before she was even upright. It stung. She glanced down—a dart was in her bicep, probably injecting her with RC suppressants. So she'd finally been noticed.
Her attacker was at the other end, lowering his little toy gun with a smug look on his face. Don't look too smug. Little human me got the drop on you.
He was, indeed, wounded—a slice through his body armor exposed half-healed viscera underneath. That body armor could be a problem, though. It didn't leave many soft spots to target. Well, there was one…
Flicking the needle away, she took a few steps forwards. Testing, from a distance, how much of a threat he saw in her. A sting in her side her that she'd been hit again.
He watched her with a bored expression, but turned his attention to Naki down below. That fool was now yelling and running across the ground below towards them.
Akira quickly grabbed the dart still in her side and enclosed it in her fist. She kept approaching. First walking, then sprinting.
"I'll be with you in a minute, ma'am," the Oggai drawled as he fired at Naki several times. So I'm no threat at all. Let's do something about that.
And the last moment, when that boy finally turned back towards her—probably expecting to swat her away—she dodged the hand that swiped out at her, grabbed the knife out of its sheath on her leg, and swung it through the air, right into the child's neck. With her other hand, she jabbed what was left of the dart into his exposed cheek.
"Go!" She screamed, and the sounds of fighting erupted beneath them.
She hooked a leg behind the boy's leg and pulled hard, until the knee folded. Tackling her small—but very strong—opponent to the ground, she tried hard to saw and twist the blade with one hand as she scrabbled for the gun in his hands with the other. Those knives were mostly just good for punctures, though.
Still, she got her free hand on the barrel as the Oggai choked and gurgled, trying to shove her off. He finally succeeded in getting a knee between them and forcing her back. The suspended container wobbled a bit under their struggle.
She skidded across the corrugated steel surface and nearly went over the edge, but—she had the dart gun in her hand.
As the child soldier was trying to stand back up and pull the knife out of his neck, he unleashed a feeble kagune in one last effort and started thrashing around blindly when—
A huge downward slash neatly divided him into two halves, shoulder to hip. Great gouts of blood poured across the surface of the container.
"Thanks, Hinami."
"Of course," said the girl gravely. She had jumped up to the container as soon as Akira gave the signal. With her eyes lit up a murderous red and black, and how calm she was surrounded by blood and screaming, Akira was reminded that the girl was a child soldier in her own right.
"Let's finish this and get out of here," the former investigator declared.
The fighting was over soon after. Without their overwatch, the ghouls below were quickly able to overpower the two remaining Oggai. They might still recover from their injuries, but they were at least incapacitated long enough for everyone to get away.
They ran to the water, heading to the concrete pipes on the waterfront that would take them back underground. Akira, unaffected by the suppressants, made sure to bring up the rear and usher the weaker, wounded ghouls out.
She stared at several of the young ghouls they'd saved. Some alone, possibly orphans, some being ushered by a parent or maybe an older sibling—about the same age as Hinami, and that Oggai boy.
She climbed over the railing and scrambled down the seawall after the last of the refugees, following the path of their group. The cold ocean water splashed at them. It washed a good amount of gore off of Akira, and the sound of their retreat was covered by the waves.
Behind her, though, over the gentle wash of the surf, she heard shouting. Voices she recognized, that made her stomach drop.
"—are you going? We're supposed to be backing up the Oggai." Was that—Mutsuki?
"I don't care." That was definitely Yonebayashi. "I don't like them. They smell wrong and they creep me out."
Akira froze, pressed against the seawall and trying to stay out of view of anyone walking by above. She was the last one out in the open. Could she make a break for the tunnel? It was just a short sprint away, but if they saw her go that way, she'd be giving away the location of their entire group.
One of the newer Quinx, probably the tall one she wasn't too familiar with, answered. "We still have to follow orders. I'll tell Urie about this."
"So tell him. I thought I smelled…something."
"How? I can't smell anything but seaweed. And motor oil from the boats."
Akira stood motionless, looking up and hoping no one would peek over the railing and see her. She wasn't sure what she was going to do or how she could stop any of the Quinx.
At long last there was movement. Peeking down at her was little Saiko—who'd been so desperate for a maternal figure she could depend on only to get betrayed over and over.
Akira was still wearing a mask—would the girl recognize her? Would that make things better or worse?
The girl stared at Akira. Her eyes watered, but then again that could have been spray from the waves.
"Saiko, quit it! We've got to go!" That voice sounded farther off—they must have lost patience with Saiko's little side trip.
They stared at each other for a nerve-wracking moment, neither moving.
Please don't, Akira mouthed.
Finally, Saiko backed away slowly. "Okay. I'm going."
The rest were waiting for Akira just inside the pipe. For her it felt like she'd been held up for an eternity, but according to them she was only thirty seconds behind them.
The group quickly fled and made their way safely underground again.
The ghouls rescued from the containers were all shocked when they got close enough to realize that she was human, but they were grateful for any help that came their way. They kept thanking her. She didn't care, but she tried to smile and nod.
Absent-mindedly, she rubbed at the fingers that had been wrapped around the knife. It felt like she may have popped a pulley in her ring finger from holding on so tightly when the Oggai had shoved her away.
Looking down as she walked, Akira noticed the stains of blood on her pants.
How did they all react when they got to the site of that fight with the Oggai and put together what I did there? When Yonebayashi realizes that she should never have let me go?
When Miza told Kaneki what had happened on their run, Akira knew the exact moment he heard about what she'd done.
He looked over at her with an expression she only recognized because she'd seen it once before—on the faces of all her teachers and classmates the first day back at school after her mother died. Akira hated when people looked at her like that.
She spun on her heel and went off in search of Banjo. That finger injury was small, but it was bowstrung and swollen, and it would be a significant hindrance in a fight.
When she finally got back to her room, Amon was leaning against the wall by the door. Arms crossed, he looked at her with a concerned tilt to his head. He didn't even have to say anything.
"Don't." Akira wasn't happy with how the day turned out, but she felt…very clear. "I know how you want me to respond. But I just can't pretend to feel that way. They put child soldiers on a battlefield, not me. And they did it because they want to provoke a certain response in anyone who fights them. Their mistake is that I won't give them that response. I had to get our hostages out safely, and I did."
"You've always had strong ideals," Amon frowned. "But ideals don't have to live in the world they create. People do."
She shook her head, maybe a little too quickly. "I really, really don't want to talk about it. It's fine. We all do what we have to do."
I think Saiko keeps popping up as the main Quinx Akira interacts with because there's a certain…symmetry(?) between her backstory and Akira's role in her life that leads to some good dramatic tension and makes Akira confront the cost of her actions.
Next week: Akira is overwhelmed.