Akira receives a compliment.
She sat on a bench and took a swig of water. She was in workout clothes, looking out at the empty training room. She'd come here to turn her brain off with a good workout, stay in top shape with her unarmed combat, and bury the fact that she was now hiding some of last night's murderers from the CCG.
But that look Haise gave me…
No matter what she did or how long she went through her warmup drills, she never hit her stride. It was proving to be one of those workouts that felt miserable from start to finish. When she sat down to grab a drink, she remained there for several minutes to stare at the wall.
Luckily, the gym facilities in the main office were nearly empty on a day like today. Most of her colleagues were either neck deep in paperwork or recovering from their injuries. She would have the place to herself for as long as she needed.
The noise of a door opening startled her head out of the clouds.
"Sorry. I thought this room was empty."
It was Urie—shoulders slumped, not meeting her eyes, looking almost like a different person.
Akira rushed to reassure him. "It's fine. I was just thinking about leaving." Then, as an afterthought, "Why are you all the way out here? You have a gym at your house."
"I had to get out of that place. It's…suffocating."
She nodded. "I understand. We're probably here for the same reasons, then. Would you like to do some sparring for a while? I've been working on Krav Maga, so I won't hold back."
He nodded and started some warmup stretches.
After a knock-down drag-out sparring session, they did some cooldown stretches. Akira lamented the fact that she'd have a few good bruises, but the solid hits she'd landed on Urie would already be healed by the time they left.
Urie finally opened his mouth to say what he'd been trying to put words to. "About Haise. He's not behaving normally. Hiding in his room, ignoring us instead of trying to get us to eat breakfast together. And…when we got home last night, he said he was going to request a transfer."
I expected that, but it's still not something I wanted to hear. "From what I heard, he had a rough time last night."
He leaned against the wall behind him and crossed his arms. "That doesn't excuse…"
Quit being a tattletale, kid, she thought, but dug deep for her last reserves of patience and empathy.
"You'll never know the things he put up with before the Quinx project got off the ground. The whispers, the stares, the suspicion. I didn't see at the time, but he was terribly alone. It wasn't right to let him face that much cruelty on his own." She sighed. "I was letting some of my own issues get in the way. But my point remains—he doesn't need any more cruelty. You're viewed with some apprehension, but you're well-accepted in the CCG at this point. That's thanks to him. Remember that when he's being a little jackass to you."
He gave her an intense stare, seeing if he could read between the lines. "I heard that last night, he was caught eating a part of the One-Eyed Owl. Am I supposed to just let that go too?"
Akira nodded disinterestedly as she got up and grabbed her water bottle.
"You don't even care?!" His outrage—not just at Haise, but at the loss of Shirazu—finally broke through.
"Of course I care. I care about Haise, I care about the Quinx." The blonde laughed sardonically as she zipped up her gym bag and prepared to leave. "You're suffering, but you're not the center of the universe. Haise has his own troubles right now, things that you know nothing about. Give him space."
Urie was silent for a long moment, glaring at her defiantly. "So he can eat in peace?"
"If basic decency isn't a good enough reason not to provoke him…" She listened for anyone approaching in the hall. She wanted to put some fear in the Quinxes so they'd leave him alone for a while. "This doesn't leave this room, but he's a kakuja, or as close to one as a human can get. We know. We've always known. He'll mop the floor with you if you ever cross the line. Sorry."
Her words hit their mark—the boy's cold façade finally broke. The color drained from his face and he gaped at her. Clearly he hadn't been expecting that. "You housed us with a kakuja?!"
She patted him on the shoulder as she walked to the exit. "We've had him on RC suppressants for a long time to keep him under control, but who knows how effective they are anymore. There's a chance he could have developed a resistance by now. So just in case, leave him alone and tell the other Qs to do so as well. I trust you can get the message across."
With that, she left.
It was a long week of funerals and memorial services before things began to settle down and she fell back into her normal daily routine.
In the morning, Akira flipped on the light to her office and sat in her chair. She checked her emails, fired off a few responses, and wrote out her to-do list for the day. Read up on new cases, check with Hirako to confirm their next training appointment, make a few phone calls to follow up on some interviews she'd conducted last week and otherwise make headway on her current investigations, and end the day with a Krav Maga class down at the office gym.
As she was going through her morning routine, one of the student workers from the mail room walked by and knocked on the door.
The investigator felt a moment of nostalgia for the days when Nagachika was the one running around the building knocking on doors—ostensibly annoying her, but making her smile nonetheless.
"I've got something for you, Ms. Mado!" The college-age girl handed off an envelope and turned to leave.
This was her least favorite part of the job. It was reading through several coroner reports, old enough that they hadn't been digitized yet. She had recognized similar signs of predation on a couple of more recent corpses. It would be so much easier to make peace with my dealings with the ghouls at Café :re if I didn't see ghouls at their worst every day, she pondered.
It was a case she was developing in her free time, and it seemed like there was something promising there—a ghoul that suddenly ceased activity years ago then restarted shortly after Aogiri's Cochlea raid certainly raised an eyebrow. At least, she thought so.
There was a part of her that disliked the tedium of working a case, but when her continuous plugging away finally began to pay off and everything started to come together…now that was satisfying.
What wasn't satisfying was the wall she'd run into with her higher ups. If she couldn't flesh out the case with a higher kill count and then tie it to Aogiri, she'd been told that she wouldn't receive any support on it. To the CCG administration, this active ghoul wasn't worth pursuing.
If she couldn't make any new information appear, it would have to move down her priority list. And…after rereading all the material on the older murders, she had no brilliant insights to add. It was destined to join her pile of cold cases.
It wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last, but it was always bitter. Akira liked to think that she had a good nose for interesting cases, and when the investigators above her disagreed, she privately thought they were stupid.
Unfortunately, letting the bureaucracy wash over you was the key to staying sane at a place like the CCG.
It was difficult to investigate solo with no resources, and it would be even trickier to investigate solo with no resources in secret.
She leaned back in her chair and thought about the problem playing on repeat in the back of her head. The ghouls at the café. Her own tiny acts of betrayal, and how they built up to the big one, and the betrayals that hadn't happened yet.
But also…she'd found Amon again, she'd made some tiny headway on Takizawa…
How much danger she'd put herself in. Looking back, she wasn't entirely sure the visit to Itori was worth it. All she got out of it was stress and suspicion, exactly what the redheaded ghoul wanted.
A thought suddenly seized her. Nothing about the Clowns or what Itori told me matches Arima's style. I just don't think it's Arima. I have no good proof, but I think it's Furuta.
She thought back to that morning—from across the front lobby, she'd caught sight of a serious-looking Haise. Furuta was walking at his side, chattering away. That's not good.
Akira spent a few minutes taking stock of the position she was in. In the office, she felt safe enough. Same with going out on investigations—she was often with several other investigators, occasionally with the Squad Zero rookies to show them the process, but ambushes were possible. She'd make a point to not do any solo investigations, at least.
She otherwise lived a quiet life centered around work—a thought that usually gave her the sickening feeling she was letting life pass her by, but today made her feel very safe. She didn't normally go strange places alone, and she had a domesticated artificial ghoul hanging around her apartment on a regular basis.
It would be difficult to fully protect herself from anyone trying to attack her, unless she quit her job and disappeared into an underground bunker. If someone—from V, Aogiri, the Clowns, or the CCG, it didn't matter—had her singled out for assassination, they would be nearly impossible to stop. In fact, it already would have happened.
So, she was safe enough for now.
Her next step, then…was to accept what she already knew in her gut. She was still feeling outraged at Touka and everyone from Café :re, but deep down she knew she wouldn't turn her back on them. Feelings had never had much of a hold on her, but loyalty and obligation certainly did.
It was time to get serious about her role in the intrigue unfolding around her. No more trying to referee from the sidelines. If she didn't pick a team, sooner or later events would make that choice for her.
She was well and truly in it now, and there was no backing out.
That night, Akira got a single text from the ghoul she'd put on the backburner: You were right, he's angry and he's not doing well.
Akira picked up her phone with a deep breath and called Touka.
"What happened?"
She sighed. "I wasn't dumped but it sure feels like it. He came by and explained that he had to start a new position at work, so he wouldn't be around as much. Then he left me a credit card and a number to call for emergencies. I tried to get him to stay longer, to talk to me, but he stormed out."
Akira massaged her forehead. She really needed to get these headaches under control. "He did request a transfer out of the Quinx Project. Word is he was partnered with Furuta, so tread carefully."
"Who's that?"
The blonde walked over to her kitchen and microwaved some milk, then stirred in hot chocolate powder with one hand while she spoke. "Aside from my boss, he's our other candidate for traitor. In any case, if he is partnered with the traitor, you should be keeping your distance from him for now."
"I think…he remembers something. Maybe everything. Otherwise he wouldn't have been so cold all of a sudden."
"Maybe. But we won't know until one of us gets a chance to talk to him alone, outside of the CCG's walls."
Touka barked out a laugh. "Good luck! I've never seen anyone as good at bottling everything up and putting on a happy face. He's going to play that role until…well, I don't know what his plan is."
Akira frowned. "I'm pretty sure he knows you're a ghoul. If he's staying away from you, then his plan involves keeping you safely off of the CCG's radar."
She heard a shuddering breath on the other end and knew Touka was fighting back tears. She collected herself enough to continue in a cheery voice, "Ugh. Men. They're so temperamental. How are you and your artificial ghoul doing?"
Akira glanced across the room at the artificial ghoul in question, sipping coffee on her couch and eavesdropping on the phone call. "Amon? Oh, he stops by some evenings for coffee. We talk."
"Just talk," parroted Touka. Akira could almost picture the glint in her eye.
"Yes. Just talk. We're both…lost, in the same way. We commiserate."
"Uh-huh, commiserate. Is that what the kids are calling it these days?"
The blonde rolled her eyes. But…why not twist the knife, just a little, for fun? Holding eye contact with Amon, she spoke. "If you must know, I tried to kiss him the night before the battle in the 20th ward. He turned me down, quite clearly."
He turned red and stared hard into his coffee cup.
That finally made Touka laugh in earnest. "Man, that makes me feel a little better. My life was on the verge of being destroyed that night, but somewhere out there at the same time your crush was rejecting you hard."
Akira responded with frosty silence.
"Just don't do anything I wouldn't do," joked the pregnant ghoul.
"Uh-huh. Sound advice." Akira cracked her neck and rolled her shoulders. It had been a draining day. She felt the need to add, "Don't think you're off the hook for the stunt you pulled with Tsukiyama. You still crossed a line."
"I know. Thank you for talking to me anyways."
They said their goodbyes and ended the call.
Akira closed her eyes and took a few calming breaths.
As she grabbed her cup of hot chocolate, Amon spoke. "I wasn't rejecting you. I was rejecting my subordinate. It wouldn't have been right."
"Is that so," she said coolly. Inside, she was practically tap-dancing at his reaction.
He nodded.
She sat on the opposite end of the couch and sipped her own warm drink. An interesting development, to be sure.
"Well, thank you for letting me know. Now—if you and Orochi are going to coordinate your recon of Kano and Aogiri, what's your plan? He must be getting medical supplies somewhere, and I doubt he's going through official channels. My bet would be veterinary or research supply companies."
For a split second, Amon had been surprised that she'd immediately returned to their topic of discussion before the ghoul had interrupted them, instead of continuing along that new, electric line of conversation.
He hid it well, though, like the gentleman he was.
That's right. I'm glad you're back from the dead, but you don't get back in my heart that easily. First, show me that you're going to stay, because I can't take much more heartbreak.
They dove back in to discussing ideas and potential places to start—after all, he and Orochi had a similar goal of getting information out of Dr. Kano, why not work together? Hopefully, Amon would also keep the brash younger ghoul in line, while they were at it.
As he was leaving through her balcony door—finally repaired but now left unlocked most of the time— Amon took a deep breath.
"About Rabbit."
Akira grimaced at him. "Please don't give me your sideline analysis of how I'm handling everything wrong."
He shook his head. "No. That's not what I wanted to say at all. I've had a lot of time to think recently, and I spent a lot of it thinking about justice."
"Really."
"Yes. I think justice makes a lot of sense to us—you pay your debts, you fix what you break, you get punished for your transgressions. I think maybe you question it even less than I did."
She tilted her head to the side and looked at him. "It's the simplest thing in the world. You choose to cross the line, you pay the price." Then she sighed. "If you're going to tell me how much of a hypocrite I've been with Rabbit, I know. I know she should pay for what she's done and I'm doing nothing about it. I don't need you to remind me."
"No. That's not what I wanted to say. I mean that we both place a high value on justice, whether that's our training at the CCG, our histories, or just a matter of personality…but where we went wrong is we never left any room for mercy. You're doing that with Rabbit, whether you realize it or not."
Akira blinked. She hadn't been expecting that turn.
Normally when people said positive things to Akira they were a foregone conclusion. She already knew the areas where she was smart, competent, capable…She accepted politely and went on with her life.
Coming from Amon, and for something so unexpected, though, left her at a loss. It made her feel almost shy. "I…am?"
"When I was an investigator, all I wanted was justice. Maybe vengeance would be a better word. Then I woke up in a cell as an artificial ghoul, and suddenly mercy became very important." He looked her in the eye. "It's so easy to be angry. But to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose…that's a lot harder. I know you feel like a hypocrite because you're choosing to let go of your anger and show mercy instead, but you're doing the right thing, and with great courage."
Akira felt like the breath had been knocked out of her. She'd never had a compliment hit her in such a vulnerable place. And coming from Amon, too…she felt more adrift with every word he said.
"I…don't know what to say."
He paused on his way out. "I just thought you should know that. Even if you don't recognize the bravery in what you're doing, I do."
In an instant, he was gone. Akira had to stop herself from calling out for him to come back.
She didn't know whether to laugh or cry, whether that feeling in her stomach was butterflies or nausea. And yet, she couldn't stop mentally replaying every word he said to her. Maybe he will get back in my heart that easily.
I really think if humans are going toe-to-toe with ghouls, they've got to use Krav Maga: no rules, no showboating, no respect for your opponents, no mercy. I can't think of anything else that would give you a chance of survival…but I'm open to ideas hahaha
Next week: Akira plays some spy games