Chapter Text
The chill of night had almost fully taken over. Only the slightest hint of leftover warmth emanated from concrete that had baked in the sun all day.
And on a quiet side street, far away from any 24-hour tourist centers or nightlife districts, a lone figure huddled against the night breeze. He was strategically stationed with a view of the alley that branched off, as well as both ends of the street itself.
Kotoro Amon knew that this stakeout was a longshot, and he only passed through here during the rare instances his schedule allowed. This was only the second time this month he’d been able to devote a couple of hours after dark to it.
Three times last year, an old retired lady who lived near this street had reported strange figures in red cloaks heading this way at odd times of night. An agent was sent to check it out, nothing was found, and the case was closed. It was written off as a combination of her bad eyesight and old age. She died of cardiac failure soon after and stopped making reports.
Something bothered Amon, though. She spotted those mysterious figures because she would have tea by her window when she couldn’t sleep at night. So she was keeping watch at sporadic intervals, and making sightings at even more sporadic intervals. A single visit from investigators would be highly unlikely to turn up any leads.
A dozen visits might not be sufficient. That thought kept kicking around in the back of his mind.
That was how he ended up following a lead that came across his desk for about five minutes and would probably never pan out. It was just a quick detour on his way home, so when he could spare it he took time to stop by this quiet side street a few nights a month. Sooner or later, it might lead somewhere.
He was about to turn around and continue home with nothing to show for it, again, when a shadowy figure skidded around the corner of the alley. Taking the corner at nearly full speed, the shape raced down the alley towards where Amon was stationed.
Fight-or-flight kicked in and Amon jumped into the middle of the alley and released his weapon from its carrying case.
Without hesitation, the figure leapt directly over him and landed at the mouth of the alley. Amon tracked the flying opponent, doing a 180 on his back heel. Spinning around to check what it had dodged, it exclaimed, “What the shit?!”
Surprisingly, it was a girl’s voice. Even more surprisingly, it was the mask of the Rabbit staring back at him from the mouth of the alley.
Shocked but ready to battle, Amon tightened his grip on his quinque handle.
Rabbit didn’t seem to care. “You should run,” she said in a deadpan voice.
Amon scowled. “You can threaten me all you want. You still die toni—”
He was cut off by a violent blow to his side. His brains were rattled from slamming against the wall of the alley. It took a second to register the fact that a kagune had shoved him out of the way and now, about a half-dozen Aogiri ghouls in their signature red cloaks were converging on Rabbit.
She jumped straight up into the air with an aim to escape, but was quickly slapped back down with a whipcrack. She’d been hit by another one of the Aogiri ghoul’s kagunes.
Amon seized that momentary distraction to get back on his feet and ready his weapon.
Meanwhile, Rabbit landed with a somersault and jumped back on her feet. She did a double-, triple-, quadruple-take between him and the multiple Aogiri ghouls that were now blocking him and Rabbit into the alley.
“Listen, buddy,” she panted out. “There’s only one way we both survive this.”
He was about to answer with a resounding “No way in hell!” when a shower of RC crystals forced them both to dive for opposite walls.
He used the momentum from his dive to hop back up and swing around his quinque with as much force as possible towards the two nearest opponents. It hit one, but the other managed to dodge.
As that second ghoul jumped back and twisted in midair to get away, a wall of RC crystals slammed into him.
Amon glanced over at Rabbit, now with one violet and red wing extended behind her.
“Look out!”
He turned back in time to sidestep one kagune whipping at him and jump over another that tried to snake around his ankle. Another round of suppressing fire from Rabbit slowed down this next wave of opponents, and he had an opening to bum rush them and slice them to pieces.
When he turned back to keep an eye on Rabbit—he was sure she’d stab him in the back the second he turned away too long—he caught her trying to run up a wall and flip across the alleyway, dodging an attack as she launched through the air. She landed hard, though, and in the instant it took her to absorb the shock one of the unwounded ghouls grabbed her arm and threw her against the wall.
While that ghoul was distracted, Amon had the opening to hack at his back. The ghoul screamed and whirled around to make a last, desperate lunge at Amon. The attacker was quickly cut down.
Amon looked back for Rabbit, still leaning against the wall rubbing at the shoulder that had taken the brunt of the collision. She was pinned, cornered, easy prey. It would be a dirty trick for him to turn on her after they’d fought in the melee together, but there would be one less murderous ghoul in the world.
That white mask stared back at him with those dead black eyes. “Hey idiot!”
In a moment of chaos, he lifted his quinque to defend himself from the attacker he heard running up behind him and tried to twist around in time. Before he could even complete a full revolution, a blur blasted through the gap between his quinque and his face.
For a split second, he thought he caught a whiff of coffee.
Rabbit seemed to just glance off the opposing ghoul and landed with a stumble. The Aogiri ghoul froze, almost in confusion, before blood started pouring down the front of his cloak. He gasped in pain.
Before Amon could jump in to finish him off, the lone surviving Aogiri ghoul ran off into the night.
As he ran, a fast-healing wound left a trail of red behind his dirty cloak. One last shard of crystallized RC cells flew past Amon and hit the final combatant square in his back with a satisfying thwack. He fell before he could round the corner of the alley.
Amon clutched his side, feeling the jolt of a bruised rib with each breath. A gash on his shoulder was slowly oozing blood, and he had rolled an ankle badly at some point. That was the most pressing injury—the pain and swelling were setting in, and it was feeling less and less able to bear weight. No running away, then.
A foe was still before him, so he steeled his exhausted body to fight once again.
Rabbit was heaving and out of breath from her impressive acrobatics. “Aogiri scum,” she spat in a hoarse voice. She went back to holding the shoulder that had hit the wall. That arm hung limp at her side—dislocated, maybe?
The mask turned his way, slowly. He could almost feel her sizing him up. He would be a sorry opponent with his injuries, but she wasn’t looking too combat-ready either.
Without warning, his freshly-injured ankle gave out and he careened back into the concrete wall of the alley. The pain went from dull throbbing to red-hot running up his leg, but he managed to stay silent and keep his grip on his weapon.
Their silent standoff felt like it lasted hours, but in reality it was probably only five seconds of waiting, ready for the other to make a move.
Rabbit broke first. She simply turned around and started to walk away.
Before he could consider the wisdom of it, he yelled, “Rabbit!”
She stopped in her tracks and turned back around. Heaving a sigh, she said, “I’m tired. I don’t want to fight anymore.”
That startled Amon, and he blurted out, “But we have to fight!”
“I don’t have a bone to pick with you tonight, I was only after Aogiri. Word is their foot soldiers passed through here sometimes, and I was just trying to eavesdrop for news of…someone I know. But I’m not the best spy, it turns out. I would’ve gotten away fine if I didn’t have to stop and save your sorry hide. Consider this my apology for attacking you that day. Now we’re even and we can both just…walk away.”
He struggled back to his feet, half-leaning against the wall, barely managing to stay upright. He was a professional, though. This was far from the first time he had to dig deep and force his broken body to keep moving through sheer willpower. He knew how to push himself.
“You killed Kusuba and Mado. I won’t betray them by just letting you get away.”
Rabbit tilted her head to the side and regarded him silently for a moment. “I was angry that you killed Ryoko Fueguchi. The most harmless ghoul in the world. I don’t think she ever hurt a human in her whole life. But you know what? Killing your friends didn’t bring her back. It didn’t make anything better.” She started backing away slowly. “I’m trying this new thing where I don’t let my anger get the best of me. It sucks. But if you want to test me, come and get me.”
First Eyepatch just walked away from an easy kill, and now Rabbit? Since when were all these ghouls turning pacifist? Amon wondered why it was his lot in life to be spared by ghouls when everyone around him was slaughtered.
Rabbit spun around and crouched in preparation to jump, her one good hand braced on the ground.
“Wait!—”
She looked back over her shoulder.
“Your friend Eyepatch—where is he? Was he behind that ghoul restaurant massacre in the seventh ward?”
She froze for a second. “What Aogiri did to him, it changed him. But he said we should talk more and fight less. That’s a big part of the reason I’m letting you live. For now.”
With that, she leapt up from the alley and disappeared across the rooftops.