Akira's wild ride

From the front end, Touka shouted, "Hey big guy, I don't care how, but can you separate this car from the ones behind us?"

Amon jumped up. What followed was the sound of the door at the back of the car being pried open, and the metallic crashing of the coupler being demolished. "Done."

The ghoul handed off her child to Amon. "You might want to sit in the chairs and don't touch anything. And lift your feet off the floor. I've never tried anything like this."

He sat next to Akira and pulled her half onto his lap with one arm, doing his best to keep her and Ichika restrained while obeying Touka's list of instructions.

Touka stood with her back to the instrument panel, braced herself in the narrow doorway, and…detonated.

With a flash, her kagune furled to life and sent the air crackling. Like solar flares, Akira thought through her blurry vision.

She could feel her hair stand up and stick to her cheeks with static. The overhead lights flickered on, then charged up to blindingly bright. A bulb popped, then another.

Gauges lit up and went haywire, alarms dinged, and the whole car jolted to life.

If not for Amon's arm around her, she would have tumbled sideways when it suddenly rocketed forward on the tracks.

The sounds of ramming through the crowd of Furuta's soldiers did bring joy to Akira's delirious thoughts. She would happily fall asleep to the sound of their bodies bouncing off the train.

The car kept gaining speed, probably close to its top velocity, until its circuitry was fried.

They were suddenly plunged back into darkness. Touka sank to her knees, out of breath. Momentum kept propelling the car forwards along the track—until everything was suddenly thrown sideways.

They'd hit something on the tracks and derailed. It felt like they skidded sideways for a moment before finally tipping over with a crash.

Amon managed to brace himself, arms tight around Akira and Ichika. He took the brunt of the impact on his back. Touka was knocked clean off her feet, tossed across the car.

Akira was sure she blacked out for an instant from the surprise and the pain of being thrown around again. There was a moment of unreal silence, and then Ichika's cries. She sounded healthy enough, albeit terrified. No response from Touka or Amon. She'd landed half on his chest, so she could feel that he was still breathing at least.

They were bathed in a dim flickering half-light. A set of emergency lights were still stubbornly going in the tunnel outside, strobing over the decrepit scene.

Her ears were ringing, and her vision was fading on the edges and everything was sideways, but—head lolling over Amon's arm as he held onto her—she could swear she saw a shadow creeping towards her through the demolished rear door.

Dying? Or—

Some of them grabbed on, she tried to say. But her voice didn't work. She could only cough.

It took all her strength to lift her hand. It flopped against Amon's shoulder—no reaction. He must have been thoroughly stunned. Look! You can't come this far to let them cut you down when you're not looking.

And the anger rose up, at all the scars and the tears, at how pointless it all was if that shadow got any closer—and how she was willing to die fighting for the right reasons, if she had to, but not like this—helpless, bleeding, unable to see straight, unable to protect anyone—

And she heard her father's voice—not that trickster's imitation but the real thing from the depths of her childhood—when he first started braiding her hair for her in the mornings before school.

"I know your mother was better at this than I am, but we'll just have to make do."

Akira responded glumly, more to remind herself. "Because Mommy is dead."

"Yes. But I'm proud of her. She was very brave. Now we…we have to be almost as brave as she was."

For all his faults, her father had done a good job at protecting her from harsh realities she'd been too young for. He never disturbed her with gruesome details sure to cause her nightmares.

Akira didn't like it when adults condescended to her, though. She especially didn't like it when they danced around things that were obvious to her. "Maybe if she was less brave, she wouldn't be dead."

In later years, when she was old enough to realize that he'd been broken by the death of his wife, and his precocious daughter was rubbing salt in the wound, that moment would haunt her.

Her father let go of her hair and stopped talking. After a long, long time, he spun her around. Put his hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eye.

"Sometimes you can't run away. Sometimes you have to stand your ground and fight. With everything you have. Even if it costs you your arms and your legs, you have to keep fighting. I hope you never have to find out how much easier it is to roll over and give up than to fight. But if you do, I hope you make your mother and I proud."

A thought she'd tabled flew to the forefront of her unsteady mind. Well, she thought, maybe I'm about to really get him spinning in his grave. Or maybe…he'd be really proud of me for fighting, even if it meant sinking so low. Tsujigiri, right, dad?

The next moment happened in flashes. Biting down on something hot and chewy, the pall of injury hanging over her lifting bit by bit…heaving herself up to hand and knees, then with increasing strength to her feet…racing the length of the train and practically salivating at the thought of tearing into that pallid-faced attacker's skin.

He cursed and sank into a ready stance. She dove under the arm he flung out to try and grab at her. In a flash, she almost got her hands on him.

With a heave, he threw her back to the other side of the train. She hit the wall and slid to the floor of shattered windows.

Not good enough. Fight like an investigator—use your head. The space was confined, and they could only enter one by one. If she could end this fight fast—

Jumping up, shaking off the disorientation, she stepped over a slowly stirring Touka and raced back at her enemy. Vaulting over handrails, she built up a surprising amount of speed in just a few strides. She jumped to grab onto a formerly vertical rail above her head. Swinging with as much momentum as she could generate, she let go at the top of her arc and flew, feet-first, to hit the front one in the chest.

He went down with a thud and a grunt. Akira landed on top in a mess of limbs. In a mad scramble of half-instinct, half-training, she grabbed the last quinque knife off her ankle and stabbed wildly at the squirming attacker underneath her. There was a sound piercing the air—it took a moment to realize she was screaming.

She sprang upright, stomping her boot on his throat to keep him down and looking around for any other—

Then—pain. Sharp and dull at the same time, strange. Ah, they have kagunes. She glanced down at the whip-thin protrusion sticking through her chest—just under her collarbone, missing her sternum by a hair. One half of her was fascinated at how wrong it looked.

The other part was determined to keep fighting with single-minded ferocity. The pain was not enough to stop her. She grabbed it in one hand and gave it a forceful yank. The guy attached to the kagune was shocked, he stumbled forward. She brought it up to her mouth to bite through it.

Horrible taste. Sour, harsh…but worth it, ripping into someone who'd hurt her.

She was still so taken with fury that as soon as it was severed, she kept an iron grip on the ragged end and hauled her target closer. Too late, he remembered he could let it dissolve. But without her pulling him towards her with all her might, he suddenly stumbled backwards and windmilled his arms to try and keep from falling backwards.

Akira took the chance to slash at his midsection with her knife hand and jumped back to avoid the entrails that spilled out.

Ew, intestines.

He faltered and tried to reach at her with the arm that wasn't busy holding his stomach together…but the next victim in line behind threw him to the side.

Akira smirked and spun the knife in her hand a couple of times. She was starting to feel better. A lot better. Her eyes zipped over him, searching for vulnerable points.

Swapping her grip onto the blade, her hand flew out and—Finally! It sank point-first into his eye. He screeched and tried to pull it out, but when he raised he hands to touch it…Akira ran up and slapped at his hands, which hit the hilt of the blade, which finally dropped him.

As he screamed and writhed, she set one knee on his chest and wrapped her hands around his neck. Once the struggling died down enough, she retrieved her knife with a shudder-inducing sucking sound and thought, Why not cut his head off, just in case?

So she got to sawing.

"—kira, Akira stop! We need to go!"

"Grab her!"

An arm around her waist hoisted her in midair, folding her in half. She grunted at the impact, scrambled at the restraint. In her surprise, she'd let go of her knife—she couldn't leave it behind. She had to destroy them.

Once trucked outside of the car, she was set down but her hands were twisted behind her back. Her barbarian rage still burning, she struggled as hard as she could against the restraint to try and go back. "Let me go!"

"No," said Amon sharply as he dragged her down the tunnel.

"I can do it now. Just let me go." She resisted again, fighting harder, but her captor was so damn tall he just tightened his grip on her hands with one arm and lifted her feet off the ground again with the other.

She was carried along for a frantic sprint, splashing through puddles and kicking through rubble. Until the sound of something whistling overhead brought them all up short. He dropped her—she landed rough but on her feet—and turned around to unleash his own misbegotten kagune on anyone still doggedly pursuing them.

In the normal course of events, Akira would have been paying close attention to the rare sight. Amon was usually very discreet about the side-effects of his various trials.

Instead, she was taking stock of the fact that she thought she could still fight. On a normal day, she'd be shaking with fatigue by that point. Her muscles should have tightened up on the verge of cramping, it should have been painful to uncurl her fists. She was feeling none of the warning signs that she was nearly out of gas. She was feeling…bulletproof.

Having taken out the vanguard of their pursuers, Amon turned around and looked at her. "We don't have much time. Let's go."

She ran her tongue over her teeth. "I feel fine." She could hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears, but everything felt very, very clear. On one side, the station they'd entered through and the street beyond. On the other—the architect of this cataclysm.

She could see the line, leading back down the tunnel, through the rest of the monsters and soldiers, and up to where she'd left him. It all fell into place in her mind. It was so clear. "Let me go. Furuta's incapacitated, as much as he'll ever be. Let me go back, I can end this right now. I can do it. Make him pay."

"We need to go." Touka grabbed her arm and tried to pull her along. "We need some way to block the path behind us."

"No." Digging her heels in, Akira resisted. Touka didn't manage to budge her.

"Stop it. You're out of control!" She was having trouble keeping her grip on Ichika with one arm and Akira with the other.

"I'm not," she hissed. "I'm perfectly in control." She felt a certain…bloodlust…but it was just another tool. Something she could use to drive her forwards. It was like once she locked in, she couldn't change course. She didn't want to.

Amon ran up behind her and picked her up again. "You came to save a life. You did it. We can get out now safely or risk it all for retribution."

Akira tried to flail, wilder this time. Composure gone.

An angry voice broke through. "Screw this—"

And a fist hit her hard on one temple.

The fight suddenly drained out of her. She went limp. Everything went dark.

When she opened her eyes, it was to clear blue skies above her. What a beautiful day for such horrible things to happen.

Then she smelled something acrid, and noticed the gray-black smoke rising from the grates near them.

"I thought it would explode," Touka explained. "The gasoline. It's just burning. It should still stop them for a couple more minutes."

With immense effort, she rolled her head to the side. She felt like she'd been hit by a bus. Or even a tank.

Touka was laying against a wall at her side, still holding her stomach and looking battered. Ichika was on her lap, sleeping.

"I'm sorry," the ghoul continued with a grimace. "I just meant to slap you out of it, I guess you were worse off than I thought. But you weren't acting like yourself…or maybe a really shitty version of yourself…"

Her eyes rolled wildly and she tried to sit up, only to have a hand settle on her shoulder and gently push her back down.

"No. Don't try to move."

Tilting her head up, she saw Amon kneeling above her head.

She cleared her throat and swallowed. Her mouth tasted funny. Tingly, like she'd just eaten some Szechuan peppers. She lifted her hand to her lips and looked at her fingertips. Bloody.

"…Did I bite my tongue?"

Touka barked out a laugh. "Not exactly. Anything you want to share, Akira?"

She looked back up at Amon, who was not wearing the overcoat he'd begun the adventure in, leaving a clear view of the plain gray T-shirt underneath…and the bloody sleeve on the side he was trying to angle away from her.

Scrunching her eyes shut, she stuttered out, "Did…did I…"

She felt tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes, down the sides of her face. They were gently wiped away by warm fingertips. "It'll be okay, whatever is going on I'm here."

Opening her eyes, Amon was leaning over her now. "No…I'm sorry I hurt you."

She spoke without thinking, but the more she considered, the more she realized she'd spoken the truth. Akira was more distraught at causing harm to Amon than the fact that she appeared to have ripped a chunk out of his delt in a moment of distress.

"I heal fast these days."

"Wait," she said, suddenly more awake. As she frantically ran her hands over her side she felt her ripped up shirt, and the skin underneath stung as if she'd been burned, but…

Amon helped her raise her head to see that she was thoroughly blood-splattered but her internal organs exactly where they should be—on the inside. There was an egg-sized hole in her shirt just off center of her chest, but shiny pink scar tissue puckering up underneath. "Oh, that's interesting." She held out one arm. "Help me up."

He eased her back on her feet. She hissed through her teeth at the movement. It still felt like she'd pulled half the muscles in her body, and maybe been beaten with a baseball bat for good measure. "Holy shit, it hurts to not die," she wheezed out.

"I know it does. But you're tough. You'll be okay." He kept a solid grip on her shoulders, helping her take a couple of wobbly steps. "Are you sure you want to walk?"

"Yes." She looked up at him, letting him blindly steer her. When she blinked, her eyelids weren't quite coordinated. "Hey, I might be a little concussed, but when we get to the other side of this, we should probably get married, right?"

There was a hitch in his step. "We can talk about it more once that concussion wears off."

"I'm serious. I don't think anyone else on Earth has seen me cry as much as you. So I either have to kill you or marry you."

"…You do make a compelling argument. Put me down for a tentative 'yes'."

"What was that you said about gasoline?" Akira wanted some idle conversation. Putting one foot in front of the other was a challenge, and she needed a distraction. The last thing she wanted was to be carried around anymore.

"We needed to keep them from following us out of the tunnels. While you were out, Amon helped me roll a couple of cars down that hole in the road and set them on fire. He put a hole in one of the fuel tanks so all we had to do was light the trail from where we were, topside. Lots of smoke and fire but no explosions, so it's a temporary blockade."

"I could have told you that, Sparky," Akira said. She had very little filter left. "Fuel works because it doesn't explode, it burns at a controlled rate."

"Wow, anything to try and get back on your high horse, huh?"

A deep boom sounded behind them and vibrated through the air. The ground shuddered a bit.

"The fire must have ignited a natural gas line or something similar," Amon guessed. "One less way for them to get out, but one less way in."

Akira looked over her shoulder at the plume of dust and smoke hanging in the air. "The pipelines through most of the city should be shut off by now. The damage will be limited."

Touka pointed. "We have a bogey," she muttered, her posture subtly straightening up.

There was a small black figure following at their back. "Like a damn cockroach. Do we see what he wants?"

No one answered, so Akira waved him closer.

He stopped, then haltingly approached.

They all watched, ready for an attack, but his movements were jerky and off-balance. He must still be recovering from his interrogation. That, or he was putting on a show.

Once he crossed into range of both Touka and Amon, but a good distance outside of his own range, Touka held up her free hand to halt him.

He stopped in his tracks, and took a couple of steps back for good measure.

Akira tried to shout, with not much volume, "What do you want?"

"I don't know. I don't have anywhere to go."

"How'd you end up here? Where are your parents?" Akira was mostly trying to buy time to figure out what to say next.

"Dead," he growled. "Ghouls."

"Mine too," she said. "You really can't think of any other options?"

"Furuta will kill me because I couldn't stop you, the investigators will kill me because I was following Furuta… And all my friends are dead now! There's nothing! No one!" He was shaking, both eyes glowing red, barely able to contain himself. "Maybe…maybe I should just take you up on your offer."

To kill him if I ever saw him again, she realized.

"I'll do it," Touka volunteered sardonically.

Akira shook her head. Her thoughts were still scrambled, but she could feel in her bones that that was not the right path. Thinking out loud, she said, "No…we don't stop an endless war of attrition with more killing."

The ghoul growled. She was unhappy at the thought, but she wasn't intractable. Taking a step back, Touka glared at the boy over Ichika's head. She gestured for Akira to continue with an eye roll.

Akira opened her mouth to speak, hoping she could string her thoughts together into something sensible. "You can be driven to a place where rage and grief make peace impossible…I know. I've been there. And I know you can be pulled back from there. I don't know how to pull you back, but I know it's possible."

He looked down at his hands, the lost one mostly regrown but in the angry red tissue that the artificial ghouls seemed to favor. "No way. I became a monster for no good reason."

"So? I think I might have finally become the best killing machine I could ever hope to be, and…I just don't care about that anymore. It doesn't mean my life is over. Yours, either. You don't have to squander it."

He shook his head, as if he didn't want to hear what she was saying.

Akira continued. "I know. I know how impossible it feels to go on when you think that everything you were has been annihilated. How lost and empty you probably feel, if you've built your life around revenge and now you can't even hold on to that anymore…"

He hugged himself and stared at the ground, rocking back and forth like a child in deep distress. "Why would anyone…even help me?"

"Let us live well, and times will be good." Amon finally spoke up. "She's doing you a kindness. Accept it."

Touka added, almost reluctantly, "Someone I respected a lot once told me that it's a very sad thing to let revenge get in the way of living your life."

He was quiet but listening. Not running away or attacking.

"I'm sure we can make room for you somewhere," Akira offered.

Touka snorted. "Not a chance. I don't trust him not to crash the copter."

"Come on. I haven't gotten that soft," Akira shook her head. Turning to the boy, she said, "No helicopter rides for you today. You know your way to the Main Office. You can have a long walk to think. Disappear if you want, or present yourself there…we can tell them to be on the lookout for you. Just…don't give up so quickly."

***X

Everything seemed to happen very fast after that. They got a little more distance, just in case, then picked out the clearest intersection they could find. It would work well enough.

No radios had survived the frays they'd been through. Two were broken, one was missing. That smoke from their little explosion must have gotten someone's attention, though.

Amon, having suffered the least damage, was sent to the top of a condo building. There, he broke several of their vials of sinus-clearing oils to finally summon their ride.

They sat on a bench, as if they were waiting on a bus.

Within ten minutes, the scent must have wafted back on the breeze to the waiting helicopter. Akira could hear the beating of blades getting louder and louder. She'd nearly fallen asleep, but she tried to shake herself out of it.

The helicopter passed overhead once and spotted Amon when he stood to wave them down. It circled back to alight in the intersection.

The pilot looked around the street, alert to any incoming attackers. Hinami, in the copilot's seat, looked over the ragged lot of them. Her face—under the helmet she was wearing—was visibly relieved. She smiled and shouted something that was lost in the clamor of the engine, waving them over.

Akira squinted against the dust and wind kicked up by the landing. They all hurried to the open side of the helicopter and climbed in. Akira's foot slipped off the landing skid, but Amon caught her from behind and lifted her into the cockpit.

Annoyed, she scooted in and squeezed into her seat. It was a very cozy fit, with five adults and one baby trying to get situated. The pilot quickly handed everyone headphones so they could talk over the noise.

As soon as the door clicked shut behind Amon, the bird took off.

The pilot's voice crackled in her ear. "Buckle up, this isn't a tourist excursion!"

She tried to pull the restraints around her waist, but fumbled at it for much too long. Every bump of turbulence seemed to throw her off.

"Let someone else take care of you for once. You're still all torn up." Amon tried to reach over and grab the buckles out of her hands.

"No, I'm fine…" But her eyes were so heavy. "Just…tired."

Amon finally grew impatient and finished buckling her in. "More than tired."

"I'm fine." Her eyes closed, just to blink, and it was a struggle to open them again. An unreal level of exhaustion was setting in. "Maybe I need a spa day," she slurred out as she tipped sideways into Amon's side.

He looked down at her with furrowed eyebrows. Suspicious. She felt him trace around the miraculously healed hole in her décolletage. "You're taking everything in stride."

She closed her eyes and sighed. Akira was not about to have this conversation over a public radio channel that the whole helicopter and probably half the CCG was listening to.

"Mmhmm. Don't worry about me. I'll explain later, there was just too much other stuff going on. I was waiting until everything calmed down…but it hasn't yet. Didn't think it'd matter so soon." She pried one eye open to peek up at him. "Don't be mad, I'm fine. It'll all be okay."

X

Originally, I was going to make a joke about Pikachu or Tokyo drifting as the teaser for this week, but I second-guessed myself at the last minute because I thought it would be too big of a spoiler. I'm sure some people might have had an idea or two, but I also kind of hope that was a fun surprise for a couple of people.

The more I thought about it, the more I thought that the Oggai were a bit underutilized. They showed up to move the plot forward, and then go away when they're no longer needed…I just wanted to try out mining them (or at least one) for pathos a bit more.

Next week: Akira's prediction comes true.