29 Chapter 35: omake 3: Kuro's night out on the town

Kuro watched as the white cloud of her breath floated away from her. The heated air floated away a bit before dissipating into the cold winter night. It was the early evening on a cold December night. Kuro was huddled on the roof of one of the many tall buildings that filled this ward. She wasn't certain what ward this was. One of the other ghouls in their gang had said something about it being one of the lower numbered wards where the CCG had almost complete control. Thus, making the ward nearly uninhabitable for ghouls. They would be here for a couple weeks as their leaders collected some intelligence they could use for their next raid. Kuro could care less about that though. Instead she found herself wondering the ward and completely bored.

She looked back down at the people below her. Many of them appeared to be happily carrying on with their day. It was getting close to Christmas so the entire ward was decked out in holiday decorations. There were gaudy lights on storefronts, Christmas trees and other holiday decorations all around the walkways, and people dressed in ridiculous outfits asking for donations or selling cakes and things. She saw happy couples out on dates who were probably planning to get lucky this coming festive season. She saw children with their parents discussing the toys on sale or playing in the snow that had fallen over the week. Everything was so bright and cheerful in this place.

So bright and cheerful that it sickened her. It still had been less than half a year since she and her brother and sister had had their world cruelly torn asunder by the doves. Before that day, the ghoul investigators had always seemed like some sort of boogey man to her. Like something that you would check under your bed for or ward with a nightlight. However, that day she learned that they weren't like that at all. They were much worse. The doves were monsters who posed as heroes but had cruelly destroyed the happy life she had before. The wounds from that trauma and the new life she had found herself in were still fresh. She was half tempted to go on a rampage right now. She could easily kill several of them and flee before the doves could even appear.

But she instead took out her anger on the nearby industrial air conditioner by punching it hard enough to leave a large dent in its metal surface. She leapt down into the alley way below while being careful not to be spotted. She landed with the snow softening her landing and silencing the sounds from it. She checked once more to make sure she was safe and hadn't been seen before walking out of the alley with no real destination. She actually was supposed to be at the hideout. Big brother had told her to stay there since it was still too dangerous be out. The doves here had nearly complete control and they probably had some pictures of the trio on file that would let them easily identify them at a glance. Other than white hair, none of them really looked that different from how they had before the attack on their home. Still she couldn't take being cooped up there and had instead slipped out while Shiro was taking a nap or something.

Kuro soon found herself at a small playground. She felt further saddened as this brought back memories of happier times. She had always been the most active of the three of them. So she had often gone to the playground near their home a lot. On a few occasions she could drag one of or both of the other two siblings with her but usually it was just her and her father who didn't want her to go without supervision. She had loved that time when he'd play with her. He had been her hero. The strongest person in her tiny child world who would die before he would let anything bad happen to his children. And so he did on that fateful night. He fought and died to keep her, her sister, and her brother from harm. Kuro felt herself tear up at the memory of watching her mentor and father die without being able to do a thing to save him. There wasn't even a grave to mourn over because in this world, ghouls didn't get that right. The CCG had taken his body for something called processing. From what she had heard from the others in Night Raid, it sounded barbaric. She thought it sounded a lot like that Frankenstein book she had read with her father a couple of times. It was the fate of any ghoul killed by the doves to have their kagune ripped from their corpse and for any part that was high in RC cells to be filtered to provide the key ingredient of quinque steel. The rest of their bodies were simply disposed of with little regard to who or what they once were. And while their mother had been thankfully buried, they couldn't approach the grave at all or risk being spotted and turned in by one of their mother's relatives.

Thankfully sine it was already dark out, no human children were here. So she went over to the swing set and began to slowly swing on it. She looked up at the night sky again. It was a little hard to make out with all the light pollution around Tokyo but with her superior eyesight and the luck that in this one little corner of the ward, all the lights had been turned off, Kuro could make out quite a few stars that filled the night sky. It was beautiful. Kuro idly wondered if there was any life out there. 'What would aliens think of us?" she thought oddly. 'Could they think of us as individual people or would they just be like the humans and see us as just the other? As something that isn't human and therefore meant to be destroyed underfoot?'

She was so caught up in her musings that she didn't notice the other girl who had arrived until she was right in next to her. Kuro heard the chains on the other swing groan when the other girl sat down on it and snapped her head back to identify this newcomer. The scent gave it away that this was just another human. She looked normal overall but also somewhat more muscular then a girl her age should have been normally. She wore a rather simple but cute dress along with a coat and leg warmers to ward off the cold. When their eyes met, the other girl smiled and excitedly said, "Hello." However, Kuro didn't answer but instead turned her head away from the other girl and began to swing again. Now upset at being ignored, the other girl puffed out her cheeks and said, "Mou, you know it's rude to not answer someone when they say hello." Kuro snarkily replied with, "Momma said not to talk to strangers." Kuro was really not in the mood for this. She only wanted to be alone with her thoughts right now. Instead she found herself now dealing with some annoying human girl who couldn't be any older than her big brother. She hoped that she could get the girl to leave by giving her the cold shoulder.

But Kuro soon found herself with a literal cold should as a snowball smashed onto her right upper back. The projectile was squashed on impact and cold snow seeped into her clothing, causing Kuro to give a small "eep," in surprise. She heard the other girl laughing at her now and shot her a powerful death glare but the human was unfazed. "Hahaha. That's what you get for ignoring me. But still, that was great. I can't believe you just went "eep"." Kuro was now infuriated by this girl. The thought of killing her flashed before her mind but she soon discarded it as it would be too hard to cover up in this ward and she wasn't hungry right now. The fact that this thought did cross her mind though, did give Kuro pause. It showed her just how much she'd changed since the dove attack on her home. Before then she would have been disgusted with the idea of killing for any reason but now she here she was seriously thinking of ripping apart another girl for simply being annoying.

Kuro decided to just chase off the girl with the very same weapons that she had used on her before. Both girls proved to be ace shots with their snowballs and both of them soon found themselves on the receiving end of several blows. Despite being hit by the freezing snowballs, both girls were having a lot of fun. Even Kuro soon found herself forgetting her original goal due to all the fun that she was having. For the next two and a half hours, the two ran around the playground just letting themselves enjoy the moment. However this couldn't last forever. While they were both on the swings again Kuro heard the sound of someone calling out the girl's name far off in the distance. In a couple minutes the person calling had gotten close enough for the human girl to hear. "Oh shoot that's my dad. He must have finally noticed that I slipped out during my brother's school thing. I have to go now. Hopefully I won't get into too much trouble. See you next time," the girl said before running off to meet her worried father. "Ah, see you next time," Kuro lied. She knew that she would never see the girl again. They were leaving the ward within the week after all.

Now alone again and tired, Kuro decided that she should return to the hideout face whatever punishment she would get for sneaking out. She smiled as she happily walked down the crowded street. This night had turned out to be unexpectedly nice. But Kuro found out that things could easily turn bad at the drop of a hat. She heard them first by the sounds of their shoes clicking on the pavement and the tiny but noticeable gasps of shock the people around them made when they noticed the two doves a few meters behind Kuro. She was able to finally see them through the reflections in the many large shop windows she walked past. From what she could tell, there was only one pair of doves and they were most definitely following her judging by the way the younger one kept his eyes on her back. The young one was most definitely a rookie judging by his youthful looks and how frightened of her he looked. His partner though was steel faced as he pushed aside anyone who didn't move out of their way fast enough but still keeping an eye on the entire area for any opurtunity or threat.

Kuro needed to act fast before they could trap and capture her. She was pretty certain that they would try to capture her alive since she could be used as a bait to get the other two siblings or at least reveal their location under interrogation. When Kuro turned at the next corner onto a far less crowded road, she used all of her ghoul strength in her legs to fly into the alleyway next to her. But the doves were faster than she had anticipated and before she could find a place to climb up and away they had also rushed into the alleyway. Kuro had been forced to hide in a corner behind some trash in a panic. Now she couldn't escape.

She soon heard the telltale sound of activating quinques as the older dove ordered the younger one to check the other side of the alley. They had her cornered in this dead end alley and he knew it. Kuro stayed absolutely still and waited for her best chance to strike. She watched as the two of them slowly creeped up the alleyway while looking for even the slightest hint of her. She held her breath as the scary older one approached. He was less than a half meter from her. She was so afraid that he'd see right through her hiding spot and just yank her out by her hair like some sort of prize in a claw machine. However luck was on her side it seems as the man suddenly turned back to his partner after some loud noise came from wherever he was.

Kuro decided to use this chance and shot out from her hiding place at the dove's back. He did notice her but his human reflexes weren't fast enough to stop her. She sunk both of her hands in his lower back. She felt her hand slide across his spinal cord as they dug deeper into his flesh causing him to scream in pain before coughing up some blood. The dove's partner appeared but Kuro used the injured dove as a shield by putting him between her and the rookie. With his mentor now trapped before him and Kuro safely hidden behind the larger man, the other dove couldn't do anything but panic at the situation. The injured dove though, continued to struggle. He couldn't really use his quinque on her with the way she had positioned herself behind him but he still was able to reach back and awkwardly punch and kick her a couple times. In response she twisted her hands in his wounds causing him more pain till he stopped. Eventually he turned to his partner and told him, "Do it. Take the bitch down!" The rookie responded, "But sir…I can't! If I do that then you'll…" "Forget about that!" the other cut him off. "Just do it! I'm dead either way." But before the other dove could gather the courage to attack her through his partner, Kuro moved first. She used one of her powerful legs to shove the dove into the other with enough force to cause both of them to tumble to the ground and then unleashed her kagune on them both. She didn't aim much. Her deadly rinkaku in all its unleashed fury repeatedly ripped into the spot where the two doves had landed. She heard their pained shouts and noticed when a bit of blood or flesh went flying across the alley.

Finally she ceased her attack, letting her kagune dissipate, and looked down at the two. The older one had taken the brunt of the attack and was obviously dead. The other one was in far better shape; though still badly injured. Kuro wondered if it was just chance or if the older one had used his own body to try to save the rookie from being ripped apart by her. But before she could check his body to see if his mentor had been successful in saving his life, she was spooked by a scream.

She looked to the entrance of the alley and saw a frightened woman now staring at her wide eyed in terror. A small crowd was now forming of more frightened onlookers with many of them already on their phones probably calling the CCG for reinforcements. Maybe because of her tiny looking size or being a just a little girl she saw several of the men grabbing improvised weapons that made her smile slightly at their bravado. Apparently they felt that they could overwhelm her with sheer numbers and perhaps save the doves she had taken down. However she decided that there was no reason to stick around anymore and found a place that she could climb up the buildings from. She looked back before leaving and saw some in the crowd rush over to help the fallen investigators. She spat at the alley way before leaping away and taking a roundabout way to their group's hideout.

Once she returned she ran to where her brother and sister were. When he saw her, Ken started to scold her but was interrupted by her leaping at him and sniffling a little bit. "What's wrong?" he asked. But Kuro didn't answer and just hugged harder with Shiro soon joining in. That night the three of them slept together with both of the girls holding onto their older brother like some sort of giant teddy bear.