Akira gets to try out that Krav Maga

AND the far superior bumper for this chapter that I wish I'd thought of last week:

Akira places a trap card face down and ends her turn

Her car engine refused to turn over the next morning, making a lurching sound that made her wonder if she had run out of gas when she wasn't paying attention. It's not a mistake I've ever made before, but I am stressed out and there's a first time for everything.

She grumbled to herself but made peace with the fact that she would be taking the subway to work that day. If it wasn't gas, the car would have to be towed and taken to a mechanic after work. I don't have time for this.

At a brisk pace, she strolled down the block and turned a corner to head to the nearest station on the line she needed. It took her through more of a nightlife area, so the bars and restaurants were empty this early in the morning.

Within about twenty steps, alarm bells in her head started going off. The car not working, forcing her to take the route down an empty street…it all started to feel off. Without changing her gait, she tightened her grip on her quinque handle and rested her thumb on the release. Either I'll make it off this street or I won't. Let's go.

Ears alert to any sound, she made it a dozen more steps down the street before she caught it. Faint footfalls, fast, coming from high up and bouncing off of the buildings flanking her. The feeling of electricity in the air, like lightning was about to strike.

She jumped backwards and in the same moment hit the release for her quinque, just in time to dodge a round of RC crystals slicing through the air she had just been standing in.

She looked up at the rooftop across the street.

That kagune—

Akira's stomach dropped. For a split second, she thought it was Touka on that ledge and it had all been a cruel joke, to string her along and see how far they could push her before killing her.

She blinked and realized that it wasn't the white-masked Rabbit, but the black-masked one. Taller than Touka, too, it looked like. Her brother.

That second of hesitation cost her. He unleashed another wall of razer-sharp shards that nearly obliterated her. She managed to take most of them out in midair with a wave of her quinque, but one got through and passed way too close by her head.

Dropping to the ground, she sought cover behind a large stone sidewalk planter. He's up high and he won't want to come down until I'm incapacitated, so he'll have to move overhead to get another shot at me. She looked up, blocking out everything but the sky above. She forced her hand to relax a little around the quinque handle—overgripping would just tire her out that much faster.

There—

As soon as the first flash of motion registered, she flicked her weapon at it. It wasn't a perfect hit—she only connected with the flat of the quinque—but it was a hit nonetheless. He was fast, but she reacted quickly enough to catch him in the leg and throw his leap off-course. Instead of the rooftop, he slammed into the corner of the building beneath it and fell to the ground.

Where he now had a clear shot at Akira. She hit him again and knocked him back, but not before he fired off a few more shards her way. One tore across her shoulder and hit a nerve, making her drop her quinque mid-swing. It flew out of her hand to clatter well out of reach.

Shit.

Before the attacker could struggle to his feet and find her defenseless, she dashed around the decorative planter and continued across the street to regroup behind a parked delivery truck.

Akira knew that there was blood dripping down her arm—the same temperature as her skin, so it felt more like a barely noticeable tickle. She was too familiar with the feeling, though she wouldn't stop to check the wound until she was safe.

She was not in enough pain to stop her. He's got some fight left in him, and so do I. One of us is dying. Unless this commotion attracts more attention soon.

Across the street his footsteps started, then stopped, and some sixth sense for combat told her that he was staring at her abandoned quinque. Was it—Fueguchi. Of course.

She realized in a flash that she knew quite a lot about Black Rabbit. Or enough, at least.

People think that spies were caught and immediately executed during the Cold War, thought Akira. But the actual policy was to try and turn any enemy spies into double agents. They're assets that are worth a lot more alive than dead.

A part of her recoiled at letting a murderous ghoul walk away. She was rapidly—within the last five seconds—coming around to the idea of pushing that thought aside and forming an alliance. Using the ghoul as a tool, instead.

She called up into the sky. "Tell me—is this Aogiri sending their regards or are you warning me to stay away from your sister?"

If she was right, that ought to provoke him into doing something dumb. Steeling herself, she lay down and quickly rolled under the vehicle. Yet again ruining my nice clothes on the ground.

An instant later, she saw his feet land on the sidewalk she'd just been bleeding on, then turn around in confusion looking for where she went.

She was wearing court shoes with a bit of a heel—very inconvenient in a fight unless you used them as a weapon—so when he took a step in range she kicked hard at his shins and knocked his feet out from under him.

Another roll to get out from under the truck on the opposite side—away from the hand that shot out and tried to grab her—and ran back around the truck to try and catch him while he was distracted. She threw open the door on the back of the truck and swung it around towards where he should be. He perforated the door with RC crystals, then kicked it in frustration.

Akira ducked under the door as it slammed shut again and when she stood, she was nearly face-to-face with Black Rabbit on the other side.

At least that maneuver got her under his guard and into the blind spot where his kagune attacks were nearly useless. She almost ran into a swipe that could have taken her face off, but she was ready.

She ducked under his swipe, towards the outside, and clotheslined him across his chest as she pitched forward. Her momentum knocked him backwards—she stepped one leg behind his feet to act as a fulcrum and flip him over onto the ground.

The ghoul didn't seem prepared for that. He was probably more accustomed to people attacking him with brute strength and weapons instead of physics. He landed hard on his back, and she didn't waste a second slamming her pointed heel into his stomach.

"Shut up and listen to me! You're going to ruin everything!"

"Bitch!" He curled up with a groan. Ghouls might outclass her in many areas, but a solid hit to the solar plexus with regular human strength was still enough to stun almost anyone.

She tried to retreat as fast as she could, but he grabbed her ankle and yanked her off her feet. She landed hard on her side. Ooh, that'll leave a bruise. Now they both had the wind knocked out of them.

With her free heel, she kicked at his hand around her ankle until he let go with another curse, shaking out his abused fingers.

"You—and your sister—took care—of an injured bird—as children," she gasped out while she scrambled away on the sidewalk.

Behind his mask, Black Rabbit's own labored breathing caught. On hands and knees, he tilted his head to look at her. "What game—are you playing!?"

"A much bigger game than you are, Ayato." She sat up against a building and took several controlled breaths to try and reset.

He growled from behind his mask, but followed her lead in getting his breathing under control.

Akira thought out loud. "I know there's a schism in Aogiri's leadership over their handling of Fueguchi's capture—you versus everyone else, right? So if I had to bet, you're not here on their behalf."

He stayed silent.

She continued. "I think you're here because you've seen me hanging around your sister's café, so you finally decided to get rid of me quietly, far away from Café :re." Just my luck he follows me home and messes with my car while Amon's out on a stakeout instead of lurking around my neighborhood. "Of course, that begs the question," mused Akira, "how long have you been keeping an eye on Touka's café? Since it opened? She misses you."

He tried to stand and steady himself into a fighting stance. "I'll kill you!"

She waved away his threat. "Calm down. She's not in any danger from me. What are you even doing, watching from a distance instead of stopping in to congratulate her?"

"Congratu—what are you talking about?" His hands dropped in confusion.

So he's been watching from quite a distance. That makes sense, if he doesn't want anyone at the café to know he's there. He—and Aogiri by extension—must not be aware of everything between Touka and Haise. Troubling. I really expected Itori to spread that around a lot more. She regrouped and focused on her main objective. "Nevermind. You want in?"

That brought him up short. "What?"

"Yeah. Sooner or later they're going to try and do something about Hinami. Do you want in?" As she spoke, Akira struggled to get back on her own feet. It hurt. "You'll have to keep Aogiri's attention off of me and the café and roll over on them when the time comes, but until then…I'd just give you one job."

Black Rabbit stilled, listening intently, so she kept talking. "I know Takizawa is in Aogiri Tree's clutches. He was an old friend in another life. I'm going to get him, too. Just keep him safe. Do whatever you can to keep him safe until I can get him out."

Some poor early bird yelled out their window, "Hey! What's going on out there?"

"Make fast choices," Akira said. "You do want to save Hinami, don't you? I can only delay her disposal for so long."

Black Rabbit didn't answer, but looked behind her.

A man in a delivery uniform was jogging back to his truck. "Are you okay? What—" He froze as his eyes landed on the ghoul.

"It's a ghoul attack!" yelled Akira, taking advantage of Black Rabbit's distraction to kick his feet out from under him a second time. Payback. "Play along like a good boy, Ayato," she whispered.

Turning back to the delivery man, she yelled. "Call the CCG! Now!"

He backed away two steps before he turned and sprinted off.

Akira turned back to look down at Ayato. She could feel his glare through the mask. It killed her to admit it, but maybe she needed to take a page from Touka's book. Dangerous situations sometimes call for dangerous gambles.

"Get out of here. If you decide to take me up on my offer, you clearly know where I park. Just leave me a note under the windshield wiper or something." She paused for a moment. "What did you do to my car, anyway?"

The ghoul hopped to his feet and dusted his jacket off. "Stole the spark plug," he muttered. With that, he turned and raced up the side of the building as if gravity didn't apply to him.

By the time a car screeched to a halt in the middle of the street, he was gone over the rooftops.

Some young A-rank investigator from the local office jumped out. "Where's the ghoul?!"

Without thinking, she tried to point with her wounded arm. The electric, radiating pain of a damaged nerve flared up again. With a wince, she held her good hand over the dripping wound on her opposite shoulder and leaned against the wall.

Maybe she was feeling a bit woozy. Once the adrenaline wore off, she was left with a lot of bumps, a racing heart, and the feeling that she had exerted herself so much and so suddenly that she was about to throw up her breakfast.

"You just missed him. Could you grab my quinque? I left it on the other side of the street. And find me a medic. I need stitches."

At the main office, Akira was feted for surviving a sneak attack by an SS-rated ghoul, coupled with laments about how she wasn't able to finish the job.

She spun it as a crime of opportunity—he attacked her out of nowhere as she was walking down the street, on her way to grab a snack before work from a nearby food stand. He must have thought she'd be an easy kill for the glory of Aogiri, not realizing who he was messing with.

After finding a moment alone she fired off a quick text to Amon—she'd forced a refurbished secondhand phone on him, paid for in cash, so he would be easier to get ahold of. Her car's spark plug was replaced in twenty minutes and any hint that the ghoul knew where she lived was erased. She didn't want anyone digging into why and how Black Rabbit had targeted her at her home.

Three days later, she found a paper jammed under the handle of her car door. It was an unsigned telephone number.

She sent three texts from Amon's phone, just to keep things less traceable.

1. Be less conspicuous. Stop picking fights.

2. Keep T out of the action as much as you can.

3. Wait for me to tell you that we're making a move.

She got a single response an hour later.

OK.

She added, 4. When this is all over, apologize to your sister for causing her so much grief.

She never got a response to that one.

After the last development dropped out of the sky and tried to kill her, Akira lost her patience with waiting for more developments to come her way. She mentally catalogued all the half-followed leads and ideas she had, and resolved to make progress on several fronts that would require her to act alone.

She wouldn't win this game by sitting around and reacting. She had to be prepared for the sucker punches. It's clear I need a contingency plan for Touka. In a lot of ways, she's a weak point. For me, for Haise, for all the ghouls at Café :re…

There was one bold idea, but how to pull it off? A records search would leave an electronic footprint…any physical records might be severely outdated…

But why rely on records at all? Why not go straight to the source? No paper trail that way.

One quiet afternoon, she swung by Chigyo's lab to pick up her syringes of weapons-grade RC suppressant.

He handed her a slim case with several such needles, made of quinque steel, prefilled, and stable at room temperature.

"Oh, by the way, can you let me into the armory? I want to take inventory of some of the quinques my father left me in storage. See if any strike my fancy and need to be added to my rotation."

Chigyo nodded, smiling. "You got it!"

He walked her downstairs into the locked storage area for CCG property. Quinques, body armor, Q-bullets, the works. Being a weapons researcher who frequently needed access, Chigyo was one of the few with his own key. Everyone else had to go through the sign-out desk to get into equipment storage.

Akira made a big show of inspecting every quinque that had belonged to her father. Luckily, that was a long list.

By the fifth or sixth one, Chigyo got bored and wandered off to poke around on some cluttered shelves. "I'm going to be over here," he called. "Maybe some forgotten weapon will give me inspiration for my next project. Just let me know when you're ready to leave."

He was technically supposed to watch any unauthorized visitors, but he trusted Akira. "Of course," she said absentmindedly as she put another quinque away.

She picked up the next one, listened for Chigyo clanking around across the room, then set it down and rushed over to a large grey cabinet in the back.

Quietly opening the doors, cringing at every supersonic squeak, Akira laid eyes on a pegboard of keys.

Most of these are two-sided, obviously to vehicles. I'm guessing the troop transport vans that only get trotted out for big operations. Then, any that look a little shiny or worn down have been used frequently. I want an unpopular one. So if any of them look dusty and unused…

She plucked one such key off of the bottom row of the pegboard, pocketed it, and shut the cabinet door.

Hurrying back to the shelves of quinques—heart racing but with a perfect poker face—she tested out a few more for good measure.

After fifteen more minutes, her heart rate returned to normal. She called out to Chigyo that she was ready to go.

At the end of another training session with Hirako and the kids from the Sunlit Garden, she glanced over at her co-instructor for the day. "Hirako. I'd like to discuss that meeting you mentioned the night of the Tsukiyama extermination."

He sent an even more serious gaze her way than usual. After another one of his careful silences, he spoke. "There's an izakaya I like near here. It's a bit seedy, but it's a good enough place to stop by after work."

Akira nodded. "I could go for a drink."

Akira ordered sake and a salad, while Hirako got some sashimi and accepted a cold beer from the waitress. They sat in a dimly lit corner. The place was full enough that anything they said would be lost in the din.

"I've got a question for you, Akira. If you could choose anyone at the CCG to serve under, who would it be?"

Is this it? Her heart sank at the thought that Arima was their wolf in sheep's clothing. She took a sip of warm sake to calm her nerves.

"It would still be Arima. You know that. Why do you ask?"

"I'm loyal to Arima, too. I know him and I trust his judgement. I could march after him anywhere, no questions asked." He ate a bite of sashimi and watched Akira's reaction. "Can you say the same?"

Akira shook her head. "He's still only human. I won't blindly follow him. I'd have to know a lot more before I took that leap."

He watched her with the same impassive look he always wore. "That's why Arima's suddenly so interested in you. You're one of the best young investigators, but no one would ever take you for anything but a dutiful follower. Your parents were rank-and-file investigators, and you've been one your whole life. And yet, you walk into his office and start to ask interesting questions about half-ghouls. That's the sort of thing that might make someone want to keep a closer eye on you."

Her stomach sank. Arima's man is talking to me about half-ghouls…is this what I was waiting for, with the canary trap? Maybe, but it feels off…nothing about this makes sense anymore.

She waved away his words. "Oh, I'd already forgotten about that. It was just some what-if that occurred to me one day."

"If that's all there is to it, then you're much less interesting than I thought."

Akira glanced up from her plate, as casually as possible. "Why on earth would that matter, Hirako?"

"Asking questions about things you're not supposed to question is…interesting. The kind of interesting that intrigues Arima."

Another sip of sake to buy some time. God, I hate spy games. "Just because I posed some hypotheticals about half-ghouls, huh?"

He looked at her, silent, waiting for her to give a real answer.

Why is Take acting as a go-between? If something is so big that Arima can't be seen approaching me to discuss it…then it's pretty damn big. It could be 'betraying the CCG' big.

She looked back at Take, dead in the eye. "I'm not going to bite unless I know exactly what it'll cost me to get involved with whatever exciting project you two are cooking up."

He sighed. "To be honest, I think it'll cost everything. But it'll be worth it."

For a long moment, Akira thought on that. Enticing, but dangerous. Maybe too dangerous to take an undefined risk like that…She just wasn't sure whether this was the canary trap springing or not.

Her intuition said it was Furuta and not Arima, but the conversation she was having with Take pointed towards Arima and not Furuta. She couldn't ignore that fact.

And if it somehow was Arima collaborating with the Clowns, the last thing she needed was to draw attention to Café :re by getting caught with traitor to the CCG. Or, more accurately, she couldn't afford to get caught betraying the CCG to ghouls twice over. It would double the risk, double the exposure, double the chances of getting caught.

Maybe she could just leave the door cracked until she knew more…

"I'm intrigued. I am. But I can't take that deal as it is." She downed the last of her sake. "For what it's worth, I think I'd rather be on the same team as Arima and you. But for now I'll just stay out of your way. This conversation can stay between us, can't it?"

"See, the old Akira wouldn't be willing to let something drop like that. It's strange." Take smiled quietly. "I hope you continue training up the rookies with me, for now at least. There's going to be some big changes soon. Maybe your opinion will change, too."

"You'll be the first to know."

"Arima will be disappointed."

She stabbed at her salad. "Yeah, well, it's a bit of a family tradition to screw up opportunities for advancement."

He laughed and stood to leave.

Still bitter about Marude's ungrateful behavior at the café, she said in a loud voice, "Don't you dare leave me with the tab, Hirako! It's rude to invite a lady out and then make her pay for your dinner."

That got a bit of a smile out of him. "True." He threw a few bills on the table, then left.

Akira stayed a while longer, picking at her salad as she thought. I feel like I got nothing from that.

"He said Arima was interested in me because I started asking questions about whether half-ghouls could exist. He was referencing a conversation we had a while ago, when this…partnership first began. I'm not sure that was the canary trap springing. It doesn't feel like the smoking gun I wanted." She sighed. "Something's not right."

Touka had a thoughtful look on her face. "It's still suspicious as hell. At the very least, he's planning some sort of coup."

They were sitting in Café :re, currently empty of customers. She'd managed to pop by before Touka finished locking up, and Akira gave the ghoul a recap of her evening.

It was one of life's strange ironies that the only person she could talk to was a ghoul, but Touka was the only other person who was up to speed on all the moving parts. Amon would have been a good option, but he'd gone off that afternoon to do more searching for Doctor Kano, and by extension Aogiri Tree. He called or visited every few days, but most of his time was already taken up chasing dozens of leads that rarely led anywhere.

"Do you really think so?"

"How are you not picking up that vibe? The first thing he did was feel out whether you were more loyal to the White Reaper or the actual leadership. He's sizing you up for a power grab."

Akira stuttered for a moment. "But…it's Arima. He's the best of us."

"It's always the right-hand man," Touka sighed.

Akira groaned. "In any case, I feel like there was absolutely no progress tonight."

"You know that the CCG is a den of vipers. You know to watch your back, even around the people you want to trust most."

"Which we already suspected." Massaging her temples yet again, Akira said, "I need to stock up on painkillers. My life is disintegrating around me."

"I can give you our leftover pastries for the day. I worked out a deal with the bakery where Yoriko works to sell their stuff here, so we've got some quality goods."

Akira nodded. "Gimme everything you've got."

"You know," Touka said with a smirk, "I've heard that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. I could throw in a heart or a stomach for that guy you're commiserating with."

"Not funny. Just pastries, no organs."

She passed Marude in an empty hallway a couple of days after. He glanced around as he walked in her direction, verifying that there was no one else around, and leaned over towards her as he passed. He paused only long enough to recite an address and the time to meet there in two days.

Akira nodded once and continued walking.

They met at Akira's car on the street outside her apartment. After the fiasco with Itori, they'd decided that dressing as normal humans was slightly safer than any masks or costumes.

Touka was wearing her black swing jacket—now doing only a barely passable job of disguising her pregnancy—over a large sweater with oversized overall shorts, tights, and combat boots.

Akira was wearing loafers, immaculately pressed black slacks, and a cream mockneck, with a fitted camel trench coat to ward off the chill.

"What," Touka grumbled.

"I'm just thinking that we are two very different people." Akira shook her head and got in.

Touka followed, and awkwardly buckled up. She fiddled with the belt, struggling to get it settled comfortably around her stomach.

"I really mean it," muttered Akira, as an uneasy feeling settled in her gut. "After this, you are on maternity leave from ghoul business, CCG business, anything except normal human activities."

"Okay, mom."

The blonde started up the car and drove off. "You're not exactly in a position to throw that around as an insult."

Touka laughed. "I know. You're right. I…just also have a personal stake in tracking down Hide, if he really is still alive." She grew serious. "When Haise…Kaneki…starts talking to me again, maybe it'll smooth things over to say I found his best friend who, by the way, isn't dead after all."

"He's still keeping his distance?"

"I've caught him tailing me during errands. Two times now."

"It's very sweet of him to not completely abandon his pregnant wife," Akira rolled her eyes.

"I understand, though. He's mad I knew more about him than he knew about himself the whole time. I never said anything, even after we got married. A part of it was selfishness, yeah, but a part of it was trying to keep him safe. What you said scared me, about the amnesia being the only thing protecting him from being hunted again. I didn't want to be the one to ruin that for him."

They spent the rest of the ride in silence.

As Akira parked in the empty lot down the street from the address, she told her passenger, "You stay back as far as you can. Just keep a lookout unless I tell you otherwise. I have my phone on me if you need to contact me. There's still a chance that this is an elaborate sting operation for the CCG to root out traitors." She frowned. If it was, they netted her fair and square. "Let's go."

Touka nodded and quietly exited the car.

The two of them began walking down the block—Akira on the lit sidewalk, with Touka much farther back and in the shadows.

Do these conspirators ever stop to think they'd actually be less suspicious if they met in public, in broad daylight? I'm getting a little sick of being kept out way past my bedtime for this crap.

The investigator walked up to the building and looked around. From her prior research, the address was a mostly constructed small office space in a quiet neighborhood. The developer had gone bankrupt before finishing construction, so the building was sitting abandoned until someone bought or demolished it.

The front door was unlocked—it looked like it may have been picked open, judging from the scratches around the keyhole.

It was a good place for clandestine meetings. One main entrance meant that anyone entering would have to walk through the central lobby, making them an easy target for anyone watching from the mezzanine level above.

She walked into the lobby and waited.

Her phone rang. The number was blocked on the caller ID. She picked up the call. So they're watching from somewhere. Interesting. This is my personal phone, and I don't think I've ever given anyone in the CCG the number.

"I'm here. What now?"

It was Marude. "Keep walking, past the elevators. Take the stairs up to the third floor." He hung up.

She'd have to walk through the main atrium to get to any of the four staircases. The stairs would also be required to have fire exits leading to the street, locked from the outside and able to be opened from the inside.

One entrance to watch who came in, several exits for a quick getaway.

The location had Nagachika's fingerprints all over it.

Akira walked past the empty elevator shafts that had never been finished, took a deep breath, and started climbing the stairs.

If I recall correctly, there's a point in TG where Ayato claims to be excellent at close-range combat, and then immediately gets his ass kicked (and how!).

The first kernel of this story came about when I read A Pound of Flesh, which was abruptly abandoned on a terrible cliffhanger…At first I daydreamed what might have been next, then I thought it would be better to try and come up with my own story instead of lamenting someone else's. In any case, I wanted this to play with some similar ideas, but I don't want to just retread the same ground. I didn't want to copy a similar showdown in APOF where Ayato tries to attack Akira on the street, but I couldn't escape the fact that A) Ayato cares about Touka more than he wants anyone to realize, B) at some point he'd probably catch wind of Akira hanging around his sister so much and try to do something about it, and C) there's not a lot of places the two of them could reasonably cross paths…so I just gave up trying to be creative and wrote it like this.

I hope that reveal wasn't a letdown! As I tinkered with this, it slowly became a political thriller-type story against my will…that's not actually a genre I enjoy so don't expect me to be too amazing at writing it, but I'm trying to keep it on-track as much as possible. I'm more concerned with getting the characters I want arranged the way I want so they can have interactions that amuse me, and espionage/skullduggery turned out to be the simplest way to accomplish that.

Next week: Akira causes two murders and stops one