22 Chapter 28: setting up the board

There were a lot of ways that the fake could have answered. But Ken had to admit, he wasn't really expecting her to start laughing. Confused, Ken asked, "And what's funny?" Finally the laughter stopped as the woman calmed herself. "You're here. You're actually here?! Just like the jester said you would," she answered. Even if he couldn't see it, Ken could feel the smirk that the fake had on her face.

Not knowing what else to say, Ken continued, "Oh, and who's this jester of yours? And it sounds like you're happy that I came. Do you need something from me?" The ghoul with annoyingly similar kagune to his tilted her head and knitted her brow. The childish posing only irritated the half ghoul even more. "Hmmm, to be honest I don't really know. I didn't really plan that far ahead." She giggled again. Ken found himself dumbfounded at this. "You're insane," was all he could muster out of his lips. "I suppose I am," she replied.

The fake then brought her kagune into her hands. She stroked it lovingly. As if it was a cat in her arms instead of a deadly combat tentacle. "But I guess first I must thank you. Or should it be your aunt? Or the jester who first gave it to me? This rinkaku is wonderful. It has finally given me the power I needed. The power I always wanted." She even began to affectionately rub it against her cheek. "That I needed. To change this broken world." Ken took a step forward. "Interesting. I hope you won't mind explaining things more clearly for me," he said as he readied his kagune for a fight. But the fake had other plans.

She turned to leave. Ken jumped forward; grabbing the front of her blouse and some necklace she had under it in his hand. "I'm not letting you get away," he warned. But the fake just smirked at him and pulled out a can of pepper spray from her pocket and blasted him in the face. He growled out in pain as he tore off the necklace and front of her clothing. Turns out that it really does work on ghouls. But not in the same way as it does for humans. Granted it did sting a bit but his advanced healing took care of it within seconds. It was the scent and taste that got him since she had aimed for his open mouth at the same time he took a breath. The smell of moldy grass filled his nostrils and the taste of burning mud entered his mouth. While Ken, gagged and tried to spit out the disgusting substance that now coated his tongue, the fake laughed and jumped up onto the roofs. After about half a minute Ken was able to finally not taste the disgusting concoction. Now extremely angry he prepared to chase the other only to get another unpleasant surprise. An unmarked police car barreled into the alley way and slammed him into a wall. The two officers in the car followed up by shooting multiple rounds at the pinned ghoul. During this, he dropped the necklace that he had gotten from the fake.

Smoke from the damage engine partially obscured his figure. Both of the men in the car looked at each other in uncertainty. And then one of them asked the accursed question of, "Did we get him?" He was answered by two rinkakus that slashed into the car; missing both men by mere inches and causing both of them to scream and leap out of the car. They watched as the kagune ripped into the car and started to pry their master free. The smoke even cleared giving one of the men a chance to lock eyes with the enraged ghoul. He lost control over several of his bodily functions. They both wisely ran before he was completely free.

Ken half-thought about going after the two fleeing men. But hearing more sirens decided it was too much trouble. He pocketed the cloth that he had taken from the woman and then went back to the hotel. His sisters noticed his unhappy attitude as he angrily marched past them to cooler they had hidden some meat and blood in. "Big bro, you ready for the meeting?" Kuro asked innocently. Ken Just chugged a bottle of blood before turning to telling them, "Fuck the meeting. I'm going to bed early." The worried twins, tried to pry into what was wrong with their brother but only got terse replies. After a few minutes, they gave up; only getting what he wanted to get done at the meeting and his ok to go themselves. They soon left their brother to sleep off his irritation.

"Killing people based on the circles of hell in the Divine Comedy? Sounds a little over the top to me," stated Alice causing Kuro to groan and lay her head on the table in irritation. For the last half hour Alice had been trying to poke holes in their brother's discovery of the pattern of the fake's hunts. If it wasn't for the fact that it would be too counterproductive to their current goals, she would have punched this woman in her stupid face ages ago. Even then, she was very tempted to do it anyways. Kuro had never liked this woman or her gang to begin with. All throughout their time in the thirteenth, both the Kanekis and the Wonderland Gang members had gotten into multiple arguments and spats. In fact, about a month before the Rize event, as it was now being called, Kuro had gotten into a nasty encounter with a couple of her goons going by the titles of tweedle dee and tweedle dum. Kuro did win the fight but not without a few moderate injuries that put her in bed for a few days afterwards and led to her brother threatening to make the two who had done this to her eat their own faces. He also promised to personally give Alice a lesson on human/ghoul anatomy. If Robin hadn't intervened to make peace, chances were that it would have probably been what would have gotten the doves attention instead of Rize's escapades. Sitting back up and rubbing her hand through her hair, Kuro shot back, "Really? Because it doesn't sound anymore ridiculous than building a giant maze to play a game of hide and seek with your prey." The goth lolitta woman simple shrugged and replied with, "Hey, he bragged he could outrun any ghoul that went after him. Turns out he couldn't." Kuro growled before her sister put a comforting hand on her shoulder to calm her down.

"Look. Despite what you may think, the facts don't lie. Big brother was able to intercept her hunt earlier tonight using this theory. He also got this." She placed the torn front of the fake's clothing. "And though he lost it do to… unforeseen circumstances, he also grabbed a cross like necklace that was on her. So he wanted to ask you guys if any of you know of someone who fits the suspect description. A Christian or least an avid reader who has a thing for Western Imagery. Has a flair for the dramatic as well. Or if the scent from this cloth jogs anything from your memory."

Shiro watched the others for anything suspicious. After telling the other two siblings what he wanted from this meeting, Ken had warned them to watch the others since, except for Robin, he didn't trust any of them too much. There was a chance that one or more of them could be involved with his female imposter. Especially after her comments about a jester. To all three of them, this line and her references to being given the kagune caused them to believe that something deeper was going on here than just a random ghoul that didn't understand boundaries going on a binge. For better or for worse, no one did anything suspicious.

Instead, after a few moments, Robin came over and took the cloth. He breathed in the scent for a minute or two. It smelled heavily of some sort of incenses. "I recognize this scent," he stated; getting everyone's attention. "There's a bunch of nuns who accept donations on the street that's on my way to work. I think they call themselves the order of the cross or something like that." 2chan bear ghoul took out his laptop and pulled up all sorts of information on the group. Some it was actually official such as police records and even a CCG file on how the group was under some sort of observation as their dogma had been recognized as ghoul friendly.

They all read the information over the next few minutes. The order of the cross was a supposed cult based on Catholicism that believed that ghouls were instruments of god's will. They also believed, among a bunch of other weird things, that one day, the apocalypse would be when ghouls would swarm the earth and cleanse it as god protects the believers who will live in a paradise afterwards. Thanks to its focus on ghouls, the CCG had them on a watch list. But, at least according to the file, previous investigations didn't find anything too incriminating so they labeled them as a low priority. Kuro and Shiro felt a bit demeaned by group using ghouls like as some sort of plague of locusts.

"So," Alice opened up with. "Everyone who thinks these guys are guilty raise your hand." Everyone did. After a bit more conversation about this, they decided to gather some more information and in a few days figure out a plan to catch the fake Eyepatch now that they knew where she came from at least. The fact that Ken wanted her alive did raise a few eyebrows, but in the end they all just assumed he wanted to take his time with getting his revenge on her.

"But nothing was found after a thorough investigation so they were placed on a low priority watch," finished rank two investigator Sora Shichiro. He was a one of several investigators that Setsuko had put together as a fast response team to any sightings of Eyepatch. Currently they were all in the main meeting room of the thirteenth ward CCG office reviewing what they had from the last sighting. Which was unfortunately not much. From the only witness they had gotten confirmation of there being a second Eyepatch. Something that they already had plenty of evidence for already. The only other thing of note they found from searching the scene was a cross-shaped necklace.

Setsuko held it in her hands. It was still in a bag to keep any cross contamination of evidence from occurring. Her eyes betrayed her distaste for the thing. The idea that people would see ghouls as anything good, even as some form of punishment, was appalling. Besides, the existence of ghouls had destroyed any chance of her believing in a god. No benevolent or just being would let such things walk on the surface of the earth.

She looked back up at the men and woman around her. She couldn't help but put on a confident smirk. Despite all of them being low ranked, they were young and talented. She expected that some of these investigators would become champions of the CCG in due time. And all of them had the will to take down these fiends; even if it meant challenging Eyepatch or the One Eyed Owl. They would win.

She took a deep breath. "As you have seen, we have reason to believe that this cult is colluding with ghouls. As such they shall face the full punishment of the law as stated in the ghoul countermeasures law. Currently the legal department and local law and judiciary forces are completing the legal documentation and warrants needed to raid the premises and arrest those responsible. Preparations will be finished, bar any complications, by Friday. The raid will begin that night."

She looked at each one of them in the eyes to make certain that they had completely understood. She was returned with eyes of steel and burning determination. "So you are dismissed until then. Take the time to prepare yourselves. Chances are high we may run into multiple high level ghouls. I don't want any of you to have any regrets. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

'We strike this Friday evening,' Ken mulled over the current plan. It had been a few days since his encounter with the fake Eyepatch. There had been a couple more meetings since. They had decided to just raid the cult's base. They had two goals for this attack. First was the stopping of these attacks. Everyone agreed that the fake had to be stopped along with anyone who helped her. The second objective was to find out what was really going on. The meeting had made Ken suspicious that something deeper was happening and he was determined to find out what. It had been an uphill battle but he had gotten the others to agree to capture fake eyepatch and the head priest for interrogations.

They would also try to get the groups records as well. Armani, through his information channels, had found out that the group had an almost obsessive compulsion to record everything. From finance to private meetings they kept track of everything. For what reason, Ken could care less. He just knew that what he needed was probably in there and he would get it.

He took another sip of the coffee he had just bought. Wanting to get out for a bit, he had grabbed a book and came here to read. While the place was no Anteiku, it was still exceptionally nice. Plus they only served a few simple cakes with their coffee here, meaning he could enjoy the lovely scents of the patrons and the coffee without too much of the stench of human food along with it. He had just finished a chapter when another person sat down across from him. He could tell from her smell alone who she was. "You've been busy," he simply stated indicating the television. On it was a news report on the rash of slayings by the fake eyepatch over the last few days. The girl answered, "Well it wouldn't do to break the cycle; my dear virtuous pagan."

Ken closed the book and looked at her. The woman was rather pretty. She had a straight, shoulder length hair that fluffed a bit around the bottom of her neck. Only one eye showed as the other was covered by a simple medical eyepatch that reminded Ken of his own from his childhood. The smirk on her cute face that hadn't lost all of its baby fat was irritating to the natural half-ghoul. He grinned back. "So I'm your next target then? Didn't you run away from me last time we met?" The girl laughed. "Oh, come on, you don't expect me to try to take on a SSS class without preparations do you? But now I'm ready." Ken just sipped his coffee before he replied. "And your first step is to give me a heads up. How virtuous of you." "I wanted to inform you of the venue. The place of our fated duel should be deserving of such an event right? So I want you to come, this Friday, to Shinjuku Park after hours. I'm sure your friends can set it up so we won't be disturbed." She got up and turned to leave the café. "I look forward to our little date." "Before you go," he asked before she got too far away, "What's your name?" She turned back and this time genially smiled. "Kotone Miyako." And with that, she left. Ken watched her leave and remarked, "I guess I'll have to tell Robin that I won't be available for Friday's operation." He took another sip.

Friday finally came. All parties began to move into place. For the allied ghoul forces this meant meeting up on the rooftops around the building the Order owned. Among the force were members of the Wonderland Gang led by Alice herself, Yakuza members under Armani's control, some of the Santa Muerte's underlings wearing masks reminiscent of Halloween, Robin and Red, and finally Shiro and Kuro. Overall, probably around forty ghouls had gathered here. They had noticed the CCG and police units preparing to attack as well but decided that they could deal with them while they set out on their own objectives. A watch on Robin's wrist beeped. All at once, the entire ghoul force leapt at the target building.

At the same time Setsuko sat in the back of a CCG vehicle with some of the other investigators. She was checking her quinque one last time before the raid. She could almost feel it in the air. That this raid would give her some sort of great opportunity. Perhaps they would find the clue that would lead them to the true identities of that snake's spawn that had mocked her for all these years. She could only hope. Counting both the police and CCG units that would be involved, she had over two hundred men and woman under command. And so the time came. "Operation, start!" she shouted into her mic.

The CCG force surround the building. Several officers in armor broke down the front door with a battering ram. So focused on their goal and filled with adrenaline that they didn't notice the ghouls above who had just leapt from the nearby buildings. But they did notice the large club like weapon that came at them through the broken door; killing two of them. A giant thing, not quite human, came out of the door. It raised the club over its head and let out an almost inhuman roar while a few more came out behind it.

Ken waited near the center of the park. He had to admit, the fake had tastes. He had visited this place, numerous times. Including cherry blossom viewing with sisters several times. It was also large enough to insure, with a little bit of help from the 2chan bear ghoul, Armani, and Santa Muerte, that they would not be disturbed.

He soon saw four figures approach. The lead was the fake but the three behind her were what caught his attention. He couldn't really describe them as humans. They were humanoid at least. But each one was huge. Maybe around seven or eight feet tall. And they smelled like a mix of human, ghoul, decay, and Rize. He also noticed each had a quinque of some sort and that something was squirming under their skin every now and then.

They stopped in front of him and the fake asked, "Ready?" Ken just released his kagune. The rinkakus jumped out, stretching a bit, before surrounding their owner. "Your move."