Akira and Touka engage in medical fraud

Touka felt fine the next day, but Akira still insisted on finding Ogura.

His home and office were under light surveillance, so they caught him as he walked to the grocery store that evening.

He was understandably unhappy about the hand that shot out and pulled him into the shadowy alley, until he saw the two masked women holding him hostage.

After a tense five-minute discussion, the doctor claimed he knew of a sympathetic resident in obstetrics. He made a quick phone call peppered with what must be code words. As he hung up he said, "She can sneak you in tonight, but you'll have to enter the hospital without a mask on."

"No way in hell!" Rabbit turned around and tried to walk away, but Akira grabbed her arm to stop her.

"I can go in first and make sure it's not a trap," she whispered.

Rabbit stilled and stared at her. "Fine."

Akira entered the hospital and briskly walked by the waiting room Touka was supposed to head to. No familiar faces from the CCG were hanging around, and Akira couldn't find any telltale signs of surveillance outside of the hospital's regular security cameras.

Just to be safe, she stood under the one with a direct line of sight into the waiting area and waited until the hallway was mostly empty. She confidently walked down the hall, grabbed a tall linen cart she'd noticed on her way in, and wheeled it right in front of the camera. There would be no usable footage of Touka meeting with this doctor.

Coast is clear, come in and head straight to the waiting room, Akira texted. She picked a good vantage point by some vending machines to lean against the wall and watch.

A moment later Touka walked by, looking like she wasn't the least bit nervous, and took a seat. The resident, who must have been keeping an eye out for lone patients she didn't recognize, opened the door leading to the exam rooms and ushered her back within two minutes.

Touka glanced back in a rare moment of fear. Akira held up her phone—a silent reminder that Akira was a text or call away, just outside the door.

"How was it?" They were taking a roundabout route through the hospital, talking quietly to each other and making sure that no one was tailing them.

"She was nice, but she acted all star-struck the whole time. It was weird." She blew out a breath, sounding fatigued from the encounter. "But I got an ultrasound! I don't think I know anyone who's ever gotten an ultrasound. I asked for as many copies as she could give me."

Touka held up the stack of printouts. To Akira's untrained eye, it didn't look like anything special—just a black-and-white image of a baby in profile, so unremarkable it might as well be a stock photograph. It doesn't look like some sort of inhuman monster, though, does it? It just looks…normal.

"I didn't let her try to take a blood sample but otherwise I look healthy and so does Baby Kaneki."

Akira glared at the ghoul. "Baby Sasaki. We're still in a public place."

"Sorry. This has been a strange night. I've never been a patient before."

For a moment, Akira reflected on that. How robust and quick-healing ghouls were used to be a point of resentment. Now it seemed almost isolating. To not have anyone care for you when you were sick or wounded, to tough out every injury alone until you recovered or died…

"What else did the doctor do?"

"One of those RC level rapid tests, with the mouth swabs. According to her, my RC cell count is shockingly low right now. Between how little I eat…you know…compared to the ghouls that actively hunt and how weak all the human food makes me, maybe it explains how I've had a pretty healthy pregnancy so far."

Akira looked over at her walking companion. "Really?"

"Yeah. It makes sense, I guess." Her voice dropped as low as possible, even though the hall was mostly empty. "Rumor is that if a female ghoul gets pregnant with a human, her body will think the baby is…food…and try to absorb it or something. That's one reason why there's not many natural one-eyed ghouls running around. I was sure something would go wrong sooner or later when I first suspected, so I never said anything to Haise until I couldn't hide it anymore. I guess I've been starving and poisoning myself for so long it all worked out in the end," she laughed. "So that suppressant gas didn't hurt me. It might have helped, even. Maybe the key to a healthy hybrid pregnancy is keeping those RC cell levels as low as possible."

Interesting point. She does have nearly the same kagune as her SS-rated younger brother, and yet it seems like she lacks firepower compared to him—for now, at least. "I think you may be right."

"I'll never be able to thank Yoriko," said Touka sadly. "For her cooking. The practice I got from eating her food might be why I've made it this far. I owe her more than she'll ever know."

"Did you get a due date?"

Touka nodded. "Middle of August, she said."

"Just a couple more months. Did you find out if it's a boy or a girl?"

"Yeah, she's pretty sure it's a girl. Hey, why are we going this direction? I've been here before and we should have taken that elevator back there to get to the exit."

Akira furrowed her brow. "Why the hell have you been here before?"

They rounded a corner to run right into Suzuya, backing out of a supply closet and kicking the door closed. His arms were full of autoclaved packages.

Before he turned around, Akira quickly pushed Touka back around the corner. "Ack—"

Juzo noticed her out of the corner of his eye and broke out in a grin. "Oh, hey, Akira!"

"Suzuya…what exactly is going on here?" Akira crossed her arms and tapped a foot, blustering in on the attack.

"Umm…I like to grab sutures and needle drivers when I'm here sometimes?" He held up one sealed package, covered in words like "sterile" and "non-resorbable". "They have all this nice colorful thread that's hard to buy without a license."

Akira took a moment to collect herself. "I'm sure you know this, but stealing from hospitals is frowned upon." Then, she whispered conspiratorially, "And you better not let any of the nurses catch you."

He nodded and started stuffing packages in his pockets. Timidly, he asked, "Do you want to come say hi to Shinohara with me?"

She fought the urge to look behind her and make sure Touka was gone. "Yeah. I'll stop in with you for a few minutes."

He walked across the hall and held the door open for her. "How is Haise? It's no fun to have a limb cut off, even if his grow back." He paused and muttered under his breathe, "Lucky."

Of all the oddballs floating around the CCG, Juzo and Haise are probably the two that most people avoid, but they treat each other well. "Last I heard, he's recovering."

"Oh. Good. Were you here getting the stitches removed from your fight with Black Rabbit?"

She nodded, going along with the alibi he so conveniently provided. "Yep, I'm all healed up." Akira looked at the body in the bed, the room quiet except for the beeping of machines and the whoosh of the respirator. "I never worked closely with Shinohara, but I know he was important to Investigator Amon."

Juzo took a seat at his bedside. "Yeah. He was a good mentor to a lot of people until…"

"We've certainly lost a lot of good people along the way."

Akira took in the sight of Juzo, who only had eyes for his sleeping father figure. The boy looked truly young and vulnerable for the first time in her memory. Running around with ghouls might not be the best way to honor their memory, but we're on track to keep losing everyone we care about unless something changes…and I think I want it to change.

The younger investigator looked over at her. "Sometimes, I wonder how long it'll be until I'm the only one who really remembers him. Me and the flower girl."

"Huh? Who's that?"

He pointed to the bedside table. "There's someone else who visits Shinohara sometimes. I don't know why. I've never run into her, but the nurses say she's a pretty girl with blue hair. She always leaves flowers, but she hasn't been in a while."

"Very mysterious." That's going to be an interesting conversation with Touka.

"Uh-huh. I hope I get to meet her one day."

At home that evening, Akira settled on her couch with a glass of wine and texted the ghoul. Did you get home safely?

Yeah, after you shoved me down the hall and my life flashed before my eyes.

I think you should change your hair color. It's too noticeable.

Touka sent back a picture of herself, looking irked, hair under a shower cap. Way ahead of you. Already ruining this expensive dye job in case I ever run into that doctor. Just got my roots done, too.

Sorry for pushing you like that. You almost ran into an investigator who was there to visit Shinohara. She hesitated for a moment, but decided to type out what she really wanted to know. Why exactly do you visit him?

It was a long time until a response came through. He came in to Anteiku once, scoping it out for the operation probably. After I heard on the news about him and how sad his family was, I spent a lot of time thinking about how badly he hurt my friends and family, and how they'd hurt him. I don't know how to make things right between us, but visiting him and brightening up his hospital room seemed like a start.

Akira stood and paced around her apartment anxiously before answering. Well, watch out because he also gets visited by his protégé who might be one of the most dangerous young investigators in the CCG, she wrote back. He said he wants to meet the girl who brings the flowers. If Juzo gets his wish, you're dead.

"I've been thinking. I sent Tsukiyama away, most ghouls stopped coming here after Haise and then you showed up, and everyone else knows not to gossip about me being pregnant or hanging out with an investigator, but there's still no whispers about those things on the street. This isn't the way it was supposed to work."

Touka handed out drinks as she spoke. She now sported much less conspicuous dark hair—she looked like she could blend into a crowd if she had to.

They were sitting around in Café :re's back room, having an impromptu meeting. Amon had stopped by to say hello to Akira, and she'd managed to badger him into stopping at the café for another special cut of meat. He's certainly been reliable since he came back…

"She's holding on to it for a reason. I'd bet that information broker is sitting on what she knows until a big enough customer appears." Akira frowned. "Maybe she even figured out what we were planning when we didn't try to get ahead of the gossip. It's terrible to come up with such a good plan, only to have your prey sidestep the trap."

Amon chimed in, "And Marude, Hirako, and Arima are definitely engaging in business that isn't aligned with the CCG's interests, just to muddy the waters." She'd brought him up to speed on their meeting with Marude and Nagachika since he already knew the boy was alive, after all.

"I think Marude, Hirako, and Arima suspect that I'm up to something, too, but they don't seem to believe I'm a threat to their plans. And of course, who the hell knows what Haise is up to since he refuses to speak to any of us. I can feel the ground eroding under me on all sides. If I push any further, it'll all fall apart. The only upside to this détente is that we're not interfering in anyone else's plots. Yet. They'll just keep an eye on us as long as we're staying out of their way."

Touka nodded. "You guys realize the CCG is going to implode soon, right? I don't see how it can survive like this with so many people working against it from the inside."

"We were always so sure that the greatest threat to us was ghouls, we never looked too hard at each other." Even with all that she had seen to tarnish the CCG, Akira couldn't help but feel sad at the thought. That organization had been the center of her life, her parents' lives. It would be a loss for that to disappear.

Touka sighed and walked away to attend to other chores. "When it happens, it'll happen fast. Like with Anteiku and the Tsukiyama family. Be ready." She'd lived through impending disaster so often before, she seemed to have a finely tuned sense of how the tension in the air kept ratcheting up.

"And on the other side," added Amon, "Rushima is fortified to the hilt. We won't get past the beach if we try and sneak in there." He and Nishiki had finally located the stronghold, and likely Kano along with it, but quickly determined that they lacked the firepower needed to accomplish anything there.

"Aogiri's set to implode, too. Between what Itori told us about their tensions behind the scenes and Nagachika informing on them to the CCG, their days are numbered. It's going to be a mess when it all detonates." Akira polished off her cappuccino and walked the cup over to the sink. "Of all these secret factions busy weaving their own webs, I'm inclined to believe that we're the most pathetic."

"Hey! Watch your mouth," yelled Touka from across the room, where she was organizing tins of coffee beans.

Akira glanced at the apron Touka was wearing, which now looked like it was struggling to stay tied around her ever-increasing waist. "You're part of the problem, Kirishima. If you weren't knocked up, we could make moves with a higher risk tolerance and more personnel."

Touka threw a balled-up dishrag at Akira, who easily swatted it away in midair.

"Due date's in August. After that I'm back in action," Touka called as she disappeared into the walk-in freezer in the back of kitchen.

Amon crossed his arms and looked down at his coffee in thought. "Discretion is the better part of valor. If we don't have the resources to mount a big operation on our own, stay on defense and be ready to make a move when conditions favor us better."

Touka yelled from the back of the freezer, "Who are we, anyways?"

Akira and Amon looked at each other. Akira answered, "A loose affiliation of politically homeless ghouls and humans, I suppose."

Amon voiced the next question. "What's our purpose, then?"

Touka emerged, shut the freezer door, and stared at the two investigators. "I want to burn the entire CCG to the ground."

"Hard pass," shot back Akira.

"Then I want to rescue Hinami from Cochlea."

"Still a big ask, but more realistic. Barely." Akira could get away with delaying the girl's disposal for a little while longer. Every time she quietly filed for an extension it looked like such a thorny, personal topic on paper that no one had ever questioned her on it.

Amon took a breath. "I want to save Takizawa from Aogiri Tree. And convince Kurona to join us."

Akira smiled at him, but she could feel that it didn't reach her eyes. She had a growing fear that it had been so long, and the Aogiri executives were so vicious, that Takizawa might be unsalvageable.

Akira was one of those women who was just born knowing any plan including the words I can fix him was doomed to fail.

If it came to that, she was determined to be the one getting her hands dirty. Amon had been through enough. But one way or another, she was determined to get Takizawa out of the ghoul gang's clutches.

"And Nishiki wants Kimi. If…Ayato would come back, that'd be nice, too," Touka finished.

Akira remained impassive. She'd kept quiet about her sleeper agent, half because she didn't want the slightest risk of blowing his cover, and half because it would hurt Touka to get her hopes up and see it all amount to nothing.

That was her biggest wildcard, really, but the fact that she had let him go and he hadn't taken the chance to kill her meant it would be mutually assured destruction if either of them balked and tried to tell their superiors the truth of that brawl. So she could put a pin in Black Rabbit for now.

Touka set a plain brown paper bag on the table in front of Amon. "But more than anything, I just want a quiet life with my husband and our child. I just want to live. That's all."

That's what she said when she was fighting my father. He didn't believe her, did he? Akira frowned. I do believe her.

"Isn't that what you two want, too?"

This time, when Amon met Akira's eyes, it was almost magnetic. When Amon finally looked away and stared instead at the brown bag that represented the distance between them now, Akira snapped her eyes up to glare at Touka. Not cute, Kirishima.

The ghoul stared back with an innocent expression, daring Akira to say something about her blatant attempt at matchmaking.

Instead, Akira took the high road and summed up their discussion. "So objective one is survive the coming disasters, and objective two is protect all of our loved ones. We continue to keep a very low profile for now. We have a few arrows in our quiver, and we'll use them wisely when the right time comes. Easy-peasy."

"Easy-peasy," agreed Touka. She put her hands on her hips and sized up Amon, still sitting at the table. "I need to thank you."

"Why?" He was still unsure around Rabbit, and tended let Akira do most of the speaking around the ghoul.

"I've been pissed off at Nishiki's behavior for a while, but I never felt like I could say anything because I've done worse, and besides, he'll never listen to me. I don't know what you did, but after looking for Kano with you he's been…almost tolerable. He hasn't run off to start fights with investigators lately and he even began picking up shifts here again."

Amon blinked at her. "You're welcome. I'm not sure I did anything other than have a couple of conversations during stakeouts."

"Well…whatever you talked about, it worked."

In the car ride back to her apartment, Akira had to ask. "So…what did you and Orochi talk about on those stakeouts?"

Amon thought for a moment. "Nothing much. Trading stories, mostly. He talked about how his older sister trusted a human who turned her in to the CCG…and then he ended up falling for a human, too." He sighed. "And I talked about my time at the CCG. He liked hearing about the procedural detective work. I got to reminisce about some of the investigators we lost over the years."

That made Akira sulk. "Including your Dojima girl?"

Amon actually laughed. "You're still not her. You're you. I remember."

"Great," she bit out sarcastically. "Otherwise I'd have to remind you again." The words were out of her mouth before her brain could think twice about bringing up perhaps the most embarrassing moment of her life. It was fine when she did it on purpose to mess with Amon, but when her catty thoughts slipped out because it was always at the forefront of her mind…that was revealing way too much.

"Well…good then. Glad we settled that," he said, sounding a little more subdued at her tone.

She changed lanes, glad that she had the task of driving to focus on. Her face was neutral, but inside she was writhing in mortification.

I'm back baybee! Jet-lagged and hating the thought of work tomorrow, but such is life. I originally wrote the second half of this chapter mainly to remind myself where all the main players are so far, but it also serves as a nice little recap after that brief hiatus.

With regards to Touka theorizing about the effects of RC levels in the hospital, I feel like there's not exactly a ton of evidence in that direction, but it makes enough sense to me to at least be a possibility.

It didn't occur to me when I first started, but I unintentionally set myself up for not being able to pull off the same time skip that happens in the original story. IMO, the next few chapters are a bit low on action, but it's the calm before the storm and we've got to lay some more groundwork in the meantime muahahaha

Next week: Akira goes shopping