Chapter 43: omake 4: The way of the hero

Ken watched as his breath blew away as a white cloud in the cold night air. Of course it had to be freezing cold tonight. And thanks to the fact that he would most likely need to fight tonight, he couldn't afford the luxury of a coat that would limit his maneuverability; a most precious commodity for a rinkaku in battle. He sneezed loudly and hoped that he wouldn't get a cold. Having one of those was a huge pain when pretty much all medicine didn't work on you and only the most ridiculously powerful colds were able to get past a ghouls high-level immune system.

Something was thrown at Ken. He caught it, only to find out that it was a hot can of coffee. "I'm back," a friendly voice announced. Ken looked over to see Robin now sitting on one of the buildings industrial ac units and opening his own can. He smiled and replied, "Took you long enough." Ken took a sip of his coffee and reveled in the warmth of the dark colored ambrosia. 'Thank god for the first ghoul to discover we could drink coffee. Truly one of our kind's greatest heroes.' Ken happily thought.

His partner smiled back at him. "Well unlike others, I like to take my time with my patrols. Rushing will just cause you to miss something. But how about you? Spotted anything up here?" Ken's face became more neutral as he said, "No. I haven't even seen a single dove yet. Maybe we'll get lucky and finish this all before they show up." He heard Robin sigh. "I highly doubt that. My sources say that the doves on this case are planning to move in tonight. They got all the paperwork they need to initiate their hunt now and it appears they have noticed that somethings up now that some of their prey have mysteriously vanished." Ken didn't answer. He just looked back down towards the street.

The particular case his friend was talking about was a quiet family of ghouls who lived in an apartment just down the street. They were as peaceful as one could be in this ward. The mother ghoul just recently having another couple of kids that were still only twin babes. Ken didn't know what the family had done to get on the CCG radar and nor did he care. He was only in this both because his friend had cashed in a favor he owed him and the chance to screw up an easy dove operation.

They had first helped the family secure a safe place to go to in some other ward. Probably one more peaceful then this one. Robin was moving to get them some new identities as well. They had safely moved the mother with the younger children and her one older daughter to the safe house already. Having them pretend to be going out shopping then slipping away from their tails. Of course this was probably proof positive to the ghoul investigators that they were ghouls, so they had to work fast now before the doves could move in. That had been two days ago and now after finishing sneaking out a few belongings too precious to just leave behind, the father and his older sons would escape as well. The Kanekis and Robin would act as interference in case the doves showed up while Red would lead them to the safe house. The two of them took one half of the area around the apartment while the twins had the other. If they saw the doves then they would attack and send a warning for the others to move now. Everything was going to be fine. After all they were only going to face a small group of doves. The nest shouldn't spare no more than six or seven low skilled ones for a small mission like this.

Ken then saw a small convey of CCG vehicles stop just below them on the street; garnering the attention of several civilians on the street while others started scurrying away from what was obviously trouble. Ken was stunned. There had to be at least twenty or thirty of them down there and quite a few were one's that he recognized and knew had the skills to be quite troublesome. Robin looked down as well and Ken could tell he was thinking the same thing as him. That this was going to be a lot harder than they first planned. He pulled out his phone and sent the coded text message alerting the rest that they had spotted doves; a lot of them. "Why are there so many?" he asked no one but then heard some nervous laughing from Robin. He shot the other man a rather pointed glare. "You know something about this don't you?" He accused. Robin smiled nervously at him and answered, "I may have tried to intervene once or twice before I asked for your help." In other words, he tried to get the dove's attention off of the family and on him but failed, and now the CCG knew he was involved. So all of this was for taking him down; the annoying ghoul who had been a pain in the neck for them during several missions that were supposed be quick and easy. Ken fought the urge to smack his friend and instead facepalmed before pulling out his mask and starting to put it on. "Let's just get this done and meet up with the others back at the safe house."

He looked at the doves critically now as Robin put on his own mask. Right now they didn't seem to have noticed the two of them. Instead they had simply stopped here to set up for the raid. They wanted to take their targets by surprise so they didn't just drive right up to the front door of the apartment complex. He also noticed that a lot of them, now that they were activating their quinques, were using Ukaku types. Now that would be a pain. But since they were still all bunched up together, it wouldn't be that hard to just jump down there and rip them to pieces. Satisfied with his plan Ken turned to tell Robin it only to notice he was no longer next to him. Instead, the full ghoul suddenly jumped up onto the ledge of the building and posed dramatically above the doves; literally causing everyone to freeze up in surprise at such a ridiculous thing actually happening.

"Prepare yourselves villains!" he shouted, "For it is I, Hero Robin and I have come from the throne of justice to protect the innocent from your vile plans! I will not let you harm those who have done nothing to deserve such a punishment as death! Now, come!" Ken, thankfully , was the first to regather his wits after all of this and was able to yank his friend back down before a hail of Ukaku shards ripped into the side of the building and the screams of the fleeing passersbys filled the air. Ken now smacked his friend in the back of the head. "What the hell did you do that for you idiot?! For the last time, Talking is not a free action! You just lost us the element of surprise." Robin just looked at him with another cool pose that just came off as annoying to the half-ghoul before answering, "Hah?! A hero has no need for surprise attacks. He should always face his foes fairly and use his justice to win the day." Ken just coolly replied, "First, technically speaking, we are the bad guys here. We do eat people remember. And second, where was that bravado back when you tried to take out Rize. From behind?"

"… Sometimes one must put aside their ideals for the greater good."

"You know. You're making really hard not to just throw you off the side of this building and let the doves have at you."

Any more talking was stopped when the door behind them was ripped open and several doves ran onto the roof. Ken wasted no time and leapt forward unleashing his kagune and letting the thing spin around him as he flew by the doves; taking out three of them. Though it wasn't easy, the two of them were able to pull off their mission and hold off the doves here until a large red firework was shot into the air and exploded into the night sky. A sign that the rest of the family had been safely evacuated. After kicking a female dove into a couple others, Robin turned to Ken and shouted, "Cheese-it," and jumped off the side of the building. Ken jumped to the ledge and jokingly waved bye to the doves before leaping down himself and after running through a few back alleys, met up with Robin at the entryway for the underground tunnels that the ghouls used. They soon slipped inside them and headed for the safe house; giving a wide berth to the entryways to the twenty fourth ward that they passed.

Reaching the house, Ken was met with by his sisters, happy to see him safe. The ghoul family thanked him for his help and rewarded both him and Robin with a bit of money for their troubles before a car came to pick them up. The twins waved to them saying, "Good luck in the twentieth ward."

And so they finished the night, with a good chilled bottle of fermented wine. Though Shiro did make sure to keep an eye on their brother this time. They didn't want to have a repeat of what had happened last Valentine's day.