Chapter 29: White Queen to Black Bishop

Shiro felt exhilarated as she leapt across the divide to the target building. She tucked herself in and held the empty backpack she had around her stomach. She broke through a window on the second floor. She landed onto the floor with her back in the air before releasing her kagune and letting it strike around the room; much like her sister next to her. Both girls were reward with the pained screams and grunts of the cult members they had landed among. She quickly jumped up as her kagune settled into a defensive position. Quickly taking in the room she saw that they had taken out almost all the people in the room. The few who had been out of their range were quickly taken care of by Kuro who used her superior ghoul speed and reflexes to knock them out.

Once they were clear Shiro ran to the door and placed her ear on it to listen for anyone out in the hallway. She heard a few people run down the hallway but they soon passed. She decided that it was safe and opened the door. She and Kuro jumped out; each taking a side and checking the hallway for enemies. Thankfully no one was in the hallway now. They then began to run towards their objective of the record room.

The plan was simple. Each ghoul commander would take a floor of the building. Robin took the lowest floor. Kuro and Shiro had the second. Red was in charge of the third floor and Alice was on the fourth floor and the roof. They would each be able to clear their floor of cult members and CCG forces as they wished while also looking for the head priest. Kuro and Shiro also had the record room to raid as it was on their floor.

Having memorized the maps that 2chan bear ghoul had gotten them, both girls quickly ran through the floor. Heading straight for the goal. Kuro, being better at close range fighting, took the lead while Shiro watched the doors that her sister past. The moment even one of them opened, she'd unleash the full fury of her rinkakus on whoever was behind the flimsy piece of wood. But there was something things that couldn't be accounted for.

Like another rinkaku stabbing through a door and barely missing Kuro as she back flipped away from the offending organ. Her own kagune curled around her like a protective shield as the young girl instinctually growled out a challenge while her nostrils flared out to take in more of the scent of her attacker. At first she worried that it was the fake, but the scent informed her that she was wrong. This scent wasn't human or ghoul. It was like the smell of a rotting corpse with only hints of Rize's once comforting scent; now disturbing in its sprinkling on top of this scent of decay. Several of the tentacles soon ripped the door to shreds and out it came from the now open room. The best description the two could give of it was a zombie but with many of their family's trademark rinkaku's growing out of it. The thing looked at them with unfocused eyes. They both watched as its rinkakus moved into striking position. Knowing that a fight was unavoidable, they both nodded to each other reassuring before Kuro charged at it while Shiro covered her with her kagune going straight for the beast's heart.

Setsuko ducked behind the hood of the CCG transport again as several ukaku shards slammed into the vehicle. Things were not going as well as she had expected. First those hulks, for lack of a better word, had become a major irritant. They were pretty powerful and while not fast, were much lighter on their feet than should be possible for such a lumbering thing. They were strong too. Several men had already been taken out by them. They also were annoyingly resilient too. They didn't even notice when they were hit by quinque bullets. And when hit by an Ukaku shard or by a rod from an AGH, they would just stumble a bit. The round only digging a few inches into their flesh. The hulks were also keeping them from getting any closer as they would chase her units out of any cover they had found nearer to the building; making them open to fire from the cultist or the second problem. And that second problem was…

"Kyahahaha! Is that all you've got? You fucking doves?! Was I expecting too much?!" taunted the SS class ghoul, Alice. The frustrating she-ghoul had taken a position on top of the raided building. From there she had been raining down death and pain with her powerful, well fed kagune. Setsuko chided herself for not preparing better for such an obvious strategy.

Alice readied her kagune for another volley. The predatory organ came out in the form of four separate wings. Two large on top and two smaller ones on the bottom that gave it the look of crystalline butterfly wings. She grimaced in irritation since none of the filthy doves were out for her shoot. So instead she decided to play around with one of the giant things the cult had sent out. She fired several of shards into the back of one of them and watched the silly thing try to figure out what had hit it. As she watched the hulk though, the CCG prepared to strike back.

A few buildings over a high powered AGH-3 was set up to snipe Alice. Because the weapon only had one round available, they took careful aim and fired. Alice barely had time to see it coming and bring her kagune up while jumping to the side. The rod ripped through her wings and was still able to clip her side; causing the girl to scream out in pain. Though the overall damage was small, the hit did have enough force to fling her back quite a few feet. But the shot had failed in taking down the ghoul permanently.

Setsuko was cursing her luck that the target had survived when two of her subordinates took matters into their own hands. Rank one Katsuro Taiki had one of his coworkers fling him with a rinkaku quinque onto the roof while Alice was still down. He then landed, using his own quinque, Aegis, to take most of the shock of the landed. His quinque was probably the perfect weapon for taking on the Ukaku as its Koukaku form was that of a large shield that still looked somewhat blade like. Alice got up and dusted herself off under the man's watchful gaze. She giggled and curtsied. "That was amazing Mr. Dove. Perhaps you'll be able to entertain me." He said nothing as he positioned Aegis to act as both a defensive shield and offensive weapon. Alice had to admit that she was impressed with the dove's handling of such a specialized weapon. She did still notice a few holes though. In particular his fee so she decided to go for them as she aimed her Ukaku. Katsuro then rushed at her while she unleased another volley.

Realizing that he had succeeded in occupying the ghoul, the CCG force began to move forward again. Setsuko herself, fired several shards from Diana into the eyes of the hulk in front of the main building entrance. The thing screamed and fell onto its knees. Allowing another investigator to finish it with a well-placed and powerful quinque strike to the back of the neck. Soon they moved into the building itself. The entrance was mostly empty but there were many unconscious and dead cult members and couple of slain ghouls on the ground. She was somewhat confused by why the ghouls and the cult were fighting. Perhaps the ghouls were trying to cover their tracks. She decided to let the others search this floor as she prepared to lead another force up the stairs to the second floor. But she was stopped by another ghoul.

Robin leapt at the lead dove; barely missing the knockout blow he was aiming for. The woman dove back and unleashed her quinque's attack on him forcing him to dodge the shards by climbing the steps they were on. He landed on the top of the stairwell and activated his kagune. Despite his name, his was actually a bikaku shaped like a scorpion tail. Honestly he never liked it; finding it ugly and unprecise. "I won't let you pass," he stated to the doves below him. But the lead one only grinned like she had won some game show or something. "SS class Alice, S class Robin, and I do believe I saw those infernal twins among the ones who leapt into the higher floors," she observed. "To you think that you'd deliver yourselves to us on a silver platter like this. Perhaps my luck really hasn't run out."

Ken dodged another powerful strike by the hulk. Apparently he had similar tastes in naming to Setsuko. To be honest, Ken found these things annoying. He figured out that the things squirming under their skin were tiny kagunes that acted like reinforcement. Even when he landed a hit on one of the things, his rinkaku could only sink in a few inches and they would even try to push his tentacle out of the thing's body. Meanwhile the fake had taken to just watching. Ken wondered if she was just going to wait for these things to finish him off. That somehow felt incredibly insulting to him.

Deciding that they would be too much of a pain to fight together, Ken decided to make the hulks split up. So he retreated and as expected, a couple of them followed with one of them obviously quicker than the other. He decided to take this one out first. But he noticed something else though. The third one didn't follow. It instead stayed with the fake. It even let the fake climb up on its shoulders. She apparently had them well trained.

Deciding to figure it out later, Ken kept his aim on taking out the other two hulks. He fled to a group of trees a far bit away and waited. The quick one soon reached him but had lost sight of him during the run. Ken had actually climbed up one of the trees and waited. Soon the hulk walked under his position and he struck. The half-ghoul jumped onto the thing's back. Quickly he wrapped both his arms and his kagune around its neck and squeezed.

The hulk growled in rage and pain and tried to at first grab him. Then knock him off by slamming its back against some of the trees. But Ken held on and tightened his grip. He heard squishing and cracking in its neck as the hulk became more frantic. Some of the little rinkakus even started to rip out of its body in defense. Ken suffered several painful impalements by the offending tentacles but still held on. After about half a minute his opponent fell to its knees and could only give off light croaks. A few seconds more, the now wobbling being collapse onto the ground; no longer breathing. Ken got up and caught his breath while the letting his body heal a bit. While he rested for this minute or so, he quickly came up with his plan for the second.

The other finally caught up, only for him to run again. Frustrated, it growled angrily but followed. It followed Ken to the lake that was a part of the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. However, the half-ghoul proved both faster and smarter and by the time it had reached the lake, the hulk had once again lost sight of Ken. It began to search. Just waiting for its chance to slam him with its quinque. It approached the shore of the lake and when it turned its back to the water, Ken struck. He jumped out of the water and before the other could react he slammed it heavily in the back to cause the hulk to exclaim in pain. He then quickly grabbed it with his rinkaku and before it could refill its lungs after that scream, he yanked it into the water. The thing, now drowning, struggled but his rinkaku held its grip on the man-beast. Finally Ken used his kagune to break its wrists and ankles before letting it sink to the bottom.

When Ken crawled out of the lake and shook some of the water out of his hair, he found the fake now watching him; still sitting atop the last hulk. "Divide and conquer huh?" she observed. "Hey, it works doesn't it?" he shot back. The other grinned. "I suppose it does. Hey Eyepatch-kun. Why don't we talk a bit before the final stretch?" The look the fake gave him this time wasn't mocking. It was now a more serious, almost appraising look. "Tell me. What do you really feel about humans?"

Shiro's kagune stabbed into her opponent but like her brother, found the thing impossibly resistant to being impaled. This time the zombie's own rinkaku grabbed onto her now stuck tentacle and tried to use it to yank her to it. She quickly dissipated it and regained her balance before dodging several more strikes from the zombie.

Meanwhile Kuro got in close and landed several punches. But they seemed to have little effect as well. Her punches meeting the thing's flesh did make disturbing squishing noises and cause it to leak though. She met back up with her sister after being forced to fall back under another kagune assault. "Ugh, it's like punching a leather bag full of jello," she groaned as she shook off some of the puss that had gotten on her hands. "It's still in our way though. We need to take this thing down fast. We don't know how long Robin can keep the doves from coming up here from the first floor."

Thankfully Shiro came up with a plan. "Kuro! Let's take a little off of the top." Kuro looked to her sister for a moment before nodding her understanding. Shiro formed two rinkakus but instead of keeping them normal, she forced them to change shape till they became like blades. She then launched them at the zombie as her sister also leapt forward. The zombie's kagune tried to block hers. While it did weaken them, the two bladed tentacles were still able to cut through their opposition and slash at the thing's neck. They cut into it pretty deeply, but didn't completely remove the enemy's head. So now it was Kuro's turn. The girl quickly jumped up and used the left wall as a spring board to jump at the zombie and deliver a powerful roundhouse kick to its head. The damage from her sister's strike along with her kick was now enough and the thing's head was ripped form its body and bounced away. In one last act of defiance, the now headless body's rinkaku's all tried to strike at Kuro but she was able to jump way while both hers and Shiro's kagunes protected her. The corpse finally collapse onto the ground. After waiting few seconds for any more signs of life from their defeated foe, both girls cheered at their victory.

The path now clear, both of them now reached the record room where they landed a spot of good luck as well. They also found the head priest in the room as well. Before the cultist could react, Kuro smacked all those present with the side of her kagune. She then started to tie up the priest while her sister went for the file cabinets. Shiro quickly grabbed any paperwork that seemed important looking and stuffed it into either her own or Kuro's bag. Meanwhile Kuro, now finished with tying up the unconscious man, went to the computers and using her kagune, ripped open the Dell desktops. She then grabbed the hard drives from inside. They would let 2chan bear ghoul look at them later. Once they had collect enough, Shiro pulled out one of those shrill rape alarm things that some woman carried and pulled the cord. The sharp toned beeping now informed the other ghouls that their main objectives were complete and it was time to escape. Shiro held onto the bags of files and the hard drives while her sister hefted the prisoner. They then ran for the closest windows to escape.

Robin was forced to dodge as the lead dove once again tried to blast him with her ukaku quinque. He realized the disadvantage he had here as with no long range ability and being in such a large room made him an easy target for her to chase. Meanwhile, her little fledglings were proving to be an annoyance of their own as well. They either chased after him, dividing his focus in dodging both them and their commander's attacks. Or they tried to make a break for it up the stairs and forcing him to cut them off again which only allowed the head dove to more easily predict his movement and almost take him down several times.

Thankfully none of the ones present now had ukaku quinque other than the leader. But he knew that he had seen as least a couple others who had gone to clear the rest of the first floor who did. With his luck they'd be back soon to help bring him down. Deciding to take care of this quickly. He charged at the woman and with his kagune knocked her quinque out of her hands. He watched her began to avoid a killing blow. It would be so easy to finish her if he would just swing his bikaku down upon her. But he wouldn't do that. Not if it meant becoming a murder. So instead he pulled back his kagune and prepared to just gut punch her. However that moment of hesitation was all the woman needed.

Setsuko noticed Robin's hesitation. She had read how he seemed to be resistant to killing of any kind. But that changed nothing. He was a ghoul and needed to be brought down. So she activated one of her hidden trump cards. A quinque blade came out of her prosthetic hand as she swung it at the ghoul and succeeded in slashing his throat wide open.

Caught completely off guard, Robin could do nothing more but struggle to breathe as blood filled his windpipe. He fell to the ground as the dove told him, "You shouldn't get on the battlefield if you don't have the intent to kill." She and her flock then ran up the stairs; leaving the dying ghoul behind. After all, she had two bigger targets to find. Robin simply smiled while he bled out. 'Sorry Miss. There's no way I could do that. No one deserves to die.'