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It’s silent. Birds chirp now and then, but in the long pauses between their noises, there is nothing. The ground is stained with blood. Human, ghoul, all mixed, all red.
(It all looks the same when spilt.)
Akira Mado is the last remaining of her little squad. Only her luck and stubbornness saw her through a brush with death. She is wounded, but it is nothing compared to the horror around her.
“ETA twenty minutes,” the voice from her communicator announces. She nods, realizes they can’t see and lets out a weak “Understood.” As the connection cuts, she slumps, sitting down. She lays her quinque case beside her and stares ahead.
After what feels like eternity, she hears the sound of footsteps and turns. A tall figure, cloaked in black and wearing a samurai mask, makes his way through the battlefield. He looks around before his gaze falls on her. Her hand twitches towards her quinque, but then he lifts his mask up.
It’s a familiar face, one she first saw in years when she encountered him the night the raid on Zeum Hall was carried out. Until then, she thought he was dead and regretted everything, wishing to turn back time and save him. Sometimes she wonders if his death would have been better after all.
And yet, she has never been able to speak a word of his continued existence to anybody. If she even thought of doing that, she would feel her throat close up and coherent speech leave her. And so she continues to hold onto this secret alone.
Her logical thinking always seemed to fail whenever Koutarou Amon was involved.
“What are you doing here?” she asks tiredly.
“I was walking by when I saw the Aogiri cloaks and… Akira, are you fine?” His teal eyes narrow as he comes closer to her.
“I’m fine,” she tries to snap, but it comes out sounding dull. “You were just walking by?”
He flushes as she stares at his mask. “I was planning on… going somewhere.”
Of course. She resists the urge to question him; she will not keep his secrets but neither will he think of hiding it from her if she asks.
He sits down beside her, his expression mournful as he surveys the dead. They were all once his colleagues too, but now…
Now he is no longer one of them. Now should be the time for her to act, to withdraw her quinque and—
His voice breaks the silence with a murmur. She pauses. His words are almost indistinct, but she's quite sure it's a prayer for the souls of the investigators. She can't muster the energy to move as he goes on, and instead she finds herself focusing on how soothing the timbre of his voice is. Like a lullaby.
(Or maybe a siren luring its prey.)
She leans against his shoulder. He shifts slightly and, after a heartbeat, moves an arm around her. He feels as warm as any human, the same as he always has.
She doesn’t know how long they stay like that. Sleep starts to weigh down her eyelids. It’d be nice to give in…
Loud sirens blare, breaking through her haze. The birds caw madly. The emergency lights of an ambulance create strange shadows in the evening, and grow closer.
“Akira…” he whispers, pulling away from her and standing up. She can barely follow his movement as tired as she is. He smiles weakly, looking as if he’s struggling for words before shaking his head and disappearing into the shadows.
CCG personnel flood out from several vans just moments later.
Her hand finally moves to clench the handle of her quinque case, but it’s too little and too late. Once again, she fails to eliminate him.
(Once again, she succeeds in not eliminating him.)