Author's Note
Weelll, it's been awhile but I promised you all a sequel with the Quinx so here it is amigos! Ah well... I have no clue what I'm doing, but hey, the best humor is unplanned. So more of the Crack universe! Yeahhhhhh! (Cue insanity) A few ground rules- Quinx isn't Quinx here. They're just Mado Squad, because there's no Haise Sasaki, even though Ishida eventually won me over on :re as a whole. Other than that, Quinx IS Quinx- Urie, Shirazu, Mutsuki, Saiko- and they are just as unruly, earning them some haters. Kaneki is with the Anteiku group. Hide is also with Anteiku. Shironeki is ... mmm ... different. I don't know the right word for this Shironeki yet, I really don't. Sassy comes close, though. The reason CCG is even bothering to tap their phones is that in this AU Kaneki earned an SS rating for the kakuja incident in Kanou's lab- Shinohara made sure of that.
Side note: Throning means "sitting as though on a throne". It is a word made up by the fanfiction author misscam for the use of the world at large. Her story The Official Fanfiction University of Middle-Earth- where the word throning was first mentioned- is incredibly funny and worth checking out if one likes humor. I will say it's a little bit funnier if you're into LotR, but even if you're not a Lord of the Rings fan it's still quite entertaining.
Another side note: This last chapter has more than doubled the length of this story.
ooookeyyyyy I have reviews to answer. Here are the answers you're looking for.
HiddenOne15: I'm glad you found it hilarious :) Hope you didn't get in too much trouble with your parents for going to detention. Weeell by now you know that Sasaki Haise isn't the Quinx mentor in this fic but I hope you still find the sequel as funny as the main story.
Winddemon199 and IfAPersonCouldFly: thank you for all the reviews! Goodness there are so many I can't reply to them all... and IfAPersonCouldFly, it's cool to like nikujaga. That wasn't an 'I-dislike-nikujaga' type of thing, it was just this kinda 'Can you believe the monster police?' Winddemon199, I have no idea if anyone's ever passed out from laughter. Though if they have, I'll have a field day thinking of this fic.
Now here's the story you've been looking for.
The Mado Squad had half an afternoon left on duty and no work left to do.
"Can't we just say we finished early and leeaaavvvvve?" Saiko whined.
"No, Yonebayshi. We still have two hours left." Akira Mado said, her clipped voice like honed stone. She would tolerate no more of Saiko's argument. Seemingly sensing this, Saiko stood up, grabbed a Sharpie off Akira's desk, and joined Shirazu doodling on the window. Urie glanced over, did a double take when he noticed the window, and with raised eyebrows he returned to studying the Torso case file. Mutsuki paced back and forth, back and forth, and no one could take him seriously because his shoes had been painted on with bright and sprightly finger paint. Also because he'd stepped in green Kool-Aid five times that morning, which made his shoes squeak like some carnival attraction.
Mutsuki's squeaking shoes attracted the attention of Shimoguchi, whom Akira heard coming and quickly powered up her computer to appear as though she had actually been working rather than simply trying to fall asleep at her desk. She clicked into a random file and stared at the screen, which now had something random about how a civilian had driven off a ghoul by spraying a power washer into its face. She raised an eyebrow and continued reading as Shimoguchi walked past, peering in her door.
Shirazu and Saiko had, thankfully, closed the curtains just before Shimoguchi had walked in with the intention of playing with them. However, neither Shirazu nor Saiko reopened it, as they noticed Shimoguchi in time.
"Oy, Mado. Slacking off, are you?" Shimoguchi asked.
"Slacking off?" Mado said, turning in her chair with an imperious air. "And what does one call walking past in order to criticize their coworkers, hm?"
"Ensuring that said coworkers are doing their jobs as they should, Mado," Shimoguchi said. "Seeing as there is loud and repulsive squealing coming from your room."
"Mutsuki, that means you, stop pacing," Urie said apathetically. He continued to read over the case file.
"Leave my office," Akira said, throning in her desk chair.
"Alright, Mado," Shimoguchi said with a snake smile. He left. Mado crossed her arms and put her head down to catch some z's. Saiko and Shirazu sighed in relief, whispered "Jinx!", and started playing with the curtains.
Juuzou watched the Serpent ghoul flee the battleground and raced after it. He darted around corners, flew through back alleys, ignoring the fading protests of Hanbee. He switched on Suzuya's Jason... and missed the Serpent. Huh?
Oh.
Serpent stood atop a building, disappearing into the lazy afternoon sky. In his place on the ground stood White Rabbit- Suzuya backed around the corner out of her onslaught of ukaku rounds -and peered around. Crouching a little behind her in the shadows was Eyepatch. Ah, so that's why Serpent got up so quickly.
Suzuya rushed them, zigzagging out of White Rabbit's volley and over one of Eyepatch's kagune. Something suddenly clicked in Juuzou's mind, and he laughed as he slashed for one of Eyepatch's kagune. He laughed more as the ghoul tried to counter by swiping at Jason with its other kagune, and Juuzou used the tangled kagune to throw the ghoul back, yelling, "Rabbit was right to crown you King of the Idiots!"
"What?!" two now-outraged ghouls yelled.
"Jinx!" Juuzou called. The ghouls started giving him hell.
Mutsuki paced again after Shimoguchi left the room. And after he closed the door, of course. He stared at his shoes, trying to figure out who'd painted them. Shirazu was the most likely suspect, but he couldn't paint well enough to have made the brilliant zentangle designs. Urie could make the design, but he was too dignified- look, even now as he reread the case file he was throning! Mutsuki had no idea why Saiko would do such a thing, or even if she could. She certainly wouldn't have had enough energy.
Mutsuki glanced over to see Saiko and Shirazu rolling the curtains down. Mutsuki paused long enough to watch them raise it, and his mouth dropped open at the sight of the window.
"Heyyyyy," Saiko said.
After a few seconds, she added, "Muu-chan, you're supposed to say 'Hey' back,"
"Hey," Mutsuki gasped, staring at the window.
"Let's ask Mado if we can look up old case evidence," Saiko continued.
"You do that," Mutsuki said distantly, reevaluating Saiko's capability and desire to paint his shoes.
After valiantly trying to beat up Suzuya and equally valiantly running away when they found the only thing they could do to him was give him hell for a fight, Kaneki and Touka stood above :re arguing over how Suzuya knew Kaneki was King of the Idiots.
"I don't walk around calling myself King of the Idiots! You must have told him!" Kaneki yelled.
"I did NOT you asshole! I'm telling you, they must know it from somewhere else!" Touka shot back.
"No they- shh, I think someone's coming on the street," Kaneki said. The two ghouls walked toward the edge of the roof and settled down on their bellies side-by-side, peering over the edge at Juuzou and Hanbee.
"Sooo... you're saying... you saw a video of these ghouls two years ago?" Hanbee said. Kaneki and Touka were shocked by Hanbee's long hair.
"Yes!" Juuzou replied happily.
"From a tapped phone conversation?" Hanbee continued.
"Yes!" Juuzou chirped.
"And you riled them up with an insult you heard from this conversation?"
"Geez, yes! I already told you!"
"... after we catch them you need to show me this wiretap."
The two investigators went on their way. The two ghouls looked at each other. Kaneki half cringed and looked down- I'm sorry. Touka blew out a breath and glared out at the street. An honest mistake, I guess. Touka and Kaneki looked deep into each others' eyes, and in tandem they said, "We have a seek and destroy mission."
Saiko and Shirazu had stopped playing with the curtains and swapped places with Akira, so Akira was asleep on the couch while all the Quinx except Urie were looking through old CCG files for interesting things.
"Why can't we just look up videogames on the Internet? Mado's sleeping," Saiko whined from her place at the side of the desk.
"Yeah, videogames would be more interesting than this. This is all death, death, and more death with a side of guts." Shirazu said, sinking back into the chair.
"No, guys! Someone would check Mado's browser history- Shimoguchi, for example- and they'll see the game site and report it, and Mado will hear, and she will be extremely displeased," Mutsuki argued from Shirazu's other side.
"Fine, you're right," Saiko sighed.
Shirazu reached in front of Saiko and tapped on a random file. It came up in two parts- the first a text messaging file, the second a video file.
"Hey, is this a log of Arima and Akira corresponding?" Mutsuki asked apprehensively.
"Yes it is," grinned Shirazu.
"Let's open it," said Saiko.
Kaneki and Touka ran along Tokyo's rooftops toward the first ward CCG office. They still wore their criminal getup- camouflage sweatpants, dark grey hoodies modified to accomodate kagune, ghoul masks, boots.
When they reached the building beside the CCG's twentieth ward branch office, they immediately began arguing over how to get inside and find the files.
"Should we get in through the air vents?" Touka asked.
"Air vents? They're too loud. We could, I guess, but they'd be difficult," Ken replied.
"Oh? You have a better idea?" Touka asked.
"Windows maybe?" Kaneki shrugged.
"How we gonna manage that?"
"We could see if there's an open one first," Kaneki explained, "and if there isn't, we can figure something out from there."
"This is no better than the HVAC idea," Touka deadpanned.
"True, but it's less noisy," Kaneki argued.
"You look for an open window, and I'll look for an air vent, and we'll meet back here in thirty minutes," Touka told him.
"Okay," Kaneki said.
"ooohhhhh..." Saiko and Shirazu chorused.
"Shush," Urie ordered.
"Yes, please, shut up! I think someone's coming," Mutsuki said, glancing around furtively.
"Oh come on," Saiko told him. "Now you're just being paranoid."
Shirazu clicked the mouse to keep the computer from going to sleep. "C'mon guys! We have this," he said.
Akira
[No, chicken! Ducking autocucumber!]
[Ah. That sounded purely cannibalistic. What's an autocucumber, Akira? And how does it duck?]
[I was trying to flip the bird at autocucumber.
Autocucumber
Autocucumber
Autocorrect]
[oh ok.]
[See you at 5 then.]
[See you.]
[Turn on your Skype?]
This comprised the last of that first text message between Arima and Akira. Saiko and Shirazu were ecstatically laughing. Mutsuki was nervously glancing at the closed door, but dared not open it to check for innocent passersby for fear of said laughter being audible. Urie calmly and primly turned the page of his report. Akira snored. Arima wondered why the sound of near-maniacal laughter was coming from Mado's room and decided to do his job and investigate.
Circling the building, Kaneki found no open windows. He did, however, find a window with garish fingerpaint smeared on it, which he took a picture of on his cellphone to show to Touka.
When the designated time arrived, the ghouls met up on the rooftop to compare mental notes.
"Did you find any good windows?" Touka asked.
"Depends on what you mean by 'good'. I didn't find any open windows, if that's what you're asking." Kaneki told her.
"Damn it. We'll have to think up another way in. The HVAC isn't an option." Touka said.
"That's unfortunate. If the windows fail and the vents fail, how to get into the enemy fortress?"
As it happened, the answer to Kaneki's question was 'you walk in the back door'. Sidling past the back entrance, they found themselves confronted by- oddly -no cameras.
"I don't like this," Touka said. "Where's all the security? What have they done with the cameras and the guards?"
"Sh, they'll hear us. That's a good question though..." Kaneki said.
"Let's see. I don't suppose CCG'd put up maps for uninvited ghoulish guests wanting to destroy all evidence that ghouls goof off, would they?"
"No, of course not," Kaneki assured her.
What is going on in there? Arima wondered. So he did the only logical thing to find out.
He opened the door.
Inside the room, Arima found two of Mado Squad seated at the computer, laughing their asses off. The other three were hanging around the room. Mutsuki paced, Urie sat throning as he imperiously studied his report, and Akira Mado herself lay stretched out napping on the couch.
Mutsuki froze. Urie raised an eyebrow. Akira drooled. Saiko and Shirazu sat at the computer sounding vaguely reminescent of hyenas.
Arima asked, "What exactly is happening?"
"Ah- uhm- Arima, sir! We finished our work and so we're doing things until we can go home for the day!" Mutsuki's fumbled reply rushed out.
"I see," Arima said, mind going through possibilities as Saiko and Shirazu finally seemed to notice Arima's presence. Noting what was on the computer screen- and the fact that the squad had at least the decency to appear guilty -Arima decided they needed something to focus on. Fortunately, he knew exactly the thing to get his ends accomplished. "Come with me, I know the perfect wiretap for you..."
Kaneki and Touka snuck together through the CCG building. They knew enough about horror movies and novels not to split up and common sense told them to be quiet.
"Hey, Touka," Ken said, noticing something. "Look at these. There's enough doves manning this outpost that if they see one they don't recognize they won't instantly be suspicious, right?"
"Yeah, I think so," she replied. "Should we do it, then?"
"Wouldn't kill us to try- hopefully," he shrugged.
"Hopefully is the operative word there," Touka pointed out.
"True. Still- less suspicious than walking around a CCG building in ghoul masks." Ken said.
"Point taken," Touka nodded.
Arima led three of the miscreants called Mado Squad toward the evidence room. Arima was having some difficulty deciding what tapes to play. He knew what he'd been planning- but he now knew what he'd been planning was nowhere near enough to handle them.
Once there, Arima still hadn't quite decided what to put on. Perhaps an educating course...?
"No! Muu-chan, you're gonna get the plug in. Shiragin, you can be in charge of the projector." Saiko said.
"Why do I have to be the tech guy?!" Shirazu whined.
Ah, yes. THAT tape.
Arima now knew exactly what he should play.
Kaneki and Touka walked through the CCG building wearing gray trench coats far too large for them over their clothes, masks hidden in the coats' deep pockets.
"Where are we supposed to go? We still don't have a map," Touka said.
"Oh suck it up," Ken said. "There's a dove right over there."
"So what, you're just gonna go ask him?" Touka said.
She watched as Kaneki walked right up to him.
"Ah, excuse me, sir? Where is the evidence room?" Kaneki asked.
"It's upstairs, back in the corner. Go up those stairs right there, the evidence room's the last one on the left." Shimoguchi replied.
"Thank you very much," Kaneki said, bowing low.
The officer paid Ken no more attention as Ken turned and went back over to Touka.
"There, see? Asking for directions isn't that hard," Ken told Touka.
In Mado's office, Urie yawned, stretching in his chair. Mado was still sleeping on the couch, but he decided it couldn't hurt to open the curtains.
Ugh, Mutsuki's shoes left so much paint on the floor... Urie thought. He cleaned it off with some paper towels. Then Urie opened the curtains.
Urie's eyes grew wide and his mouth went slack in horror as he stared at the foul masterpiece on the window.
Arima quickly found the piece he was looking for and returned to the room where he'd left the Mado Squad.
Just after Arima had left, Kaneki and Touka walked into the evidence room.
"Oh, wonderful," Kaneki said. "We have a lot to slog through."
"Yup," Touka agreed. "I wonder how they organize this place."
"Me too," Ken said.
They set to work sifting through the evidence.
Suzuya and Hanbee continued in scanning the area. Suzuya was being just a tad crazier than normal, yelling out, "Hey! Come out! I can feel your eyes! Come out, come out, Eyepatch, Rabbit! I know you're out theeeeeeere! WaHAH!"
Hanbee tried to focus, really he did, but he found himself wondering what the tape would be like. He wondered how the two ghouls, known allies, had fallen into insult-slinging so far as for Rabbit to call Eyepatch king of the idiots.
"Suzuya-senpai, please, you're making a huge fool of us..." Hanbee said, looking around the alleyways. We're lost, we're hopelessly lost... he thought.
"Uh, hi?"
Hanbee whirled around to see a blonde man in a black jacket and green cargo pants standing a few meters behind him.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Suzuya screamed, jumping at him with Suzuya's Jason.
"Yiiiiiiiii!" the blonde man shrieked, now out of the way of Suzuya. His hands were up, eyes wide open.
"I'm so sorry for Suzuya... ah, um. Ahem. I'm Hanbee Abara, and this is my superior, Special Class Investigator Suzuya Juuzou. We're from CCG, and we're looking for two ghouls, Rabbit and Eyepatch. Have you seen any figures in black shirts and camouflage pants?" Hanbee said.
The man eyed them for a second, and Hanbee really couldn't blame him after Suzuya's behavior. "I'm Kenji Ieyasu, and no, I haven't seen anyone like you described," said Ieyasu.
"Ah, well! Thank you for your hellllllllpppppp!" Suzuya yelled as he took off again.
"Kenji Ieyasu" pulled out his phone and began texting as soon as the investigators rounded the corner of the alleyway. At first glance, they didn't seem like much, but the crazy one had been introduced as Suzuya. He recognized that name. After he finished texting, he followed the investigators, sure they wouldn't notice him.
Kaneki yawned, and Touka stretched. The two of them had been sifting through evidence for thirty minutes, and now Kaneki's phone vibrated. He pulled it out.
[Hey Suzuya on ur tail where r u]
"What is it?" Touka asked.
"Hide says Suzuya's on us."
"Where?"
"Don't know. I'll ask."
Kaneki texted back [Where's Suzuya?]
A few seconds later the reply came. [Dunno. He's got a lackey and they're heading for the hood.]
[Ok he won't get us. Keep an eye on him though.]
[K]
"Says Suzuya has a minion but they're heading for the fish town." Kaneki told Touka.
"Ah, good. We got time."
Touka and Kaneki resumed their search for the file. Both of them were really beginning to wonder if CCG put out an organization map so newbies knew how to clean this branch.
Arima watched the Mado Squad dissolve into giggles as Rabbit announced the insult contest.
"A-arima," Mutsuki asked quietly. "Is there much more to this?"
"Yes indeed," Arima promised, fully enjoying not being the tech guy.
Shirazu eyed Arima. Arima was sitting there calmly, but Shirazu could swear that Arima was thoroughly enjoying himself. He wasn't speaking, wasn't moving, wasn't even smiling, but Shirazu could practically feel the smugness rolling off of him.
Shirazu wanted to know why.
"Upstairs, in aisle forty! 'S on floor three, cowardly bunny!"
"I wish I had a knife as sharp as your tongue, I'd cut inch-thick steel with it!"
For now, however, Shirazu had a funny video to watch.
Meanwhile, Urie was trying to scrub Shirazu and Saiko's horrifyingly glorious finger painting of Shimoguchi and Akira off the window quietly enough that Akira herself didn't wake up and see the nightmare-inducing picture on her window.
The paint, Urie decided, was the most disgusting shade of purple in existence, and their sense of human anatomy was nonexistent. Of course, considering the way Akira had been portrayed, perhaps Saiko and Shirazu had been trying to make a statement on that point.
Mado stirred, and Urie doubted he had ever been so frightened anyone would wake up in his life.
She snored and rolled over, and Urie let his sigh of relief out silently.
Hide followed Suzuya and Hanbee carefully. Suzuya had been creepy when Hide had followed him to a fight, but now Suzuya was off-kilter and whimsical. Hide didn't know what to make of this, so he decided it was scarier than anything else he'd seen Suzuya do.
The tall, long-haired one -Hanbee- seemed to be trying to convince Suzuya that Kaneki and Touka were lost to them.
Along with whatever job benefits taking one of those ghouls down would bring.
Wait, where were Touka and Kaneki?
Hide
[where r u?]
Ken was about to reply to Hide's newest text when the door to the evidence room burst open. Both ghouls inside the room went white and furiously tugged their coats tighter as Ken shoved the phone away.
Shimoguchi rounded the corner to see both of them standing there, overlarge trench coats brushing the floor.
"You two're newbies, right?"
They nodded mutely.
"Here, take these down to Mado's office. She needs 'em." Shimoguchi turned to leave but was interrupted by Touka.
"W-where's Mado's office?" she asked.
"Down the hall, right at the end. It's the one with the fingerprints on the nameplate, you can't miss it." Shimoguchi left the room and disappeared into the building.
The two ghouls stood there shocked for a few seconds before Kaneki said, "Well, I guess we should take her the papers."
Hide waited for his friend to reply. When, after ten minutes, he realized a reply was not coming, he almost freaked out.
Did Suzuya get them...? No, he can't have. Can he? Dammit I need to get ahead of Suzuya and stop him from doing anything...
Wait no, first I need to get Kaneki to reply.
Hide sent another text and then set out to stop Suzuya.
Ken and Touka did indeed find Mado's office.
The door was opened slightly, so they walked in. Inside the dark office they found a cluttered desk with a computer on top, a comfortable-looking chair, and a number of bags piled in a corner. The room was dark because the curtains had been pulled shut, but... wasn't this Mado using it? Why else would there be bags piled in the corner? Maybe Mado had simply gone to the bathroom. Touka walked over and pulled open the window curtains as Ken set the papers on the desk.
Someone was sleeping on the couch, until now unnoticed by the ghouls.
"Oh," Touka said.
"Oh," Kaneki said.
The woman on the couch stirred and continued sleeping.
"Hey, that's that weird window I saw earlier," Ken said, looking at the picture. "Looks like someone tried to clean it. Ah well, I have a picture of the original. Wanna see?"
"Sure," said Touka. Ken pulled up the picture on his phone. Touka snorted.
"Looks like whoever drew this really didn't like the guy that told us to bring those papers here," she smirked.
"Or her," Kaneki said, gesturing at the couch. He closed the curtains again, and the two of them left the room.
Halfway down the hallway, Kaneki walked into a young man.
"Hey! Watch it," the man said, headphones around his neck.
"Oh, I'm sorry..." Ken said, helping the man pick up the paper towels he'd spilled when they collided. Touka decided this must be who cleaned the window and debated in her head which one was more pathetic, Kaneki or this guy as she watched them scramble around on the floor with folded arms.
It was all over in a few minutes and soon enough the two ghouls were sorting through the evidence room again, having completely forgotten Hide.
Hide followed Suzuya and Hanbee onto the subway. He was getting worried for Kaneki and Touka. Hopefully Touka had kept Kaneki from doing anything too stupid.
In the meantime, Hide decided the best thing he could do was make sure Suzuya and Hanbee got back to the CCG office and stayed there.
He texted again.
Almost fifteen minutes after the little adventure at Mado's office, Kaneki and Touka were at it again in the evidence room. Neither one of them could figure out any semblance of an order the evidence had been arranged in, so the two ghouls were now organizing everything they found as they went along.
The door opened again. Welcoming a distraction, they glanced over... only to see white hair, a white coat, and black shoes behind the racks.
Kaneki and Touka hid instead of greeting the Reaper.
For his part, Arima didn't notice the terrified ghouls crouching side-by-side on the other side of the evidence rack. He was annoyed that the tape had been constantly interrupted, and it had taken forty-five minutes to finish instead of the ten it should have. Arima now understood why Mado always looked so frazzled after dealing with these morons.
Arima put the flash drive in its hiding place.
Or tried to, anyway. The glorious hiding place he'd constructed was gone. Someone had been in here organizing things.
Arima stepped back and frowned. This was highly unfortunate. Now the precious tape would need another hiding place so it wouldn't be thrown out. He decided to look around for one.
Kaneki and Touka were very glad Arima had chosen noisy shoes that morning, because if he hadn't they would have been toast.
By the time Arima went around to the other side of the rack, the ghouls had crawled under it and scuttled around another one for good measure. They were now arguing with gestures and expressions.
Kaneki glared and waved a hand in Arima's direction. We should go.
Touka shook her head, but glanced Arima's way all the same. No, we just need to be really careful.
Kaneki looked at her like she was crazy. That is Arima.
Touka pressed her lips into a thin line and made a circle with her thumb and pointer finger. Yes. So we hide.
Arima clicked toward them, and Touka and Kaneki hid under another rack. Arima muttered something about 'damn maintenance coming in here messing with everything and moving this shit around' and walked out the door, closing it behind him.
"Okay, now we run," Touka said.
"Just a second," Ken told her trotting over toward the shelf Arima was last standing by. "Here it is! What we were looking for!" He held up the plastic bag with the USB in it.
"What is that?" Touka asked. Kaneki tossed it to her, and she smiled as she looked at what was written on it.
"So the next bit is find a sledgehammer and squash that thing, right?" Kaneki asked as they were walking down the hallway with the USB in Touka's coat pocket.
"I had been planning to use a foot, but I like the way you think, " Touka smiled.
"Sledgehammer it is then," Ken said, glancing around.
"Heeeyyyyy, it's the ones from the video!" Both ghouls whirled in surprise at this, then fled as Shirazu started chasing.
"Whaaah? Hey, yeah, it is!" Saiko said. A second set of footsteps joined Shirazu in his chase.
"Get 'em, Muu-chan!" Saiko yelled.
Hide sighed in relief as Suzuya and Hanbee walked into the CCG building. Now he could text Touka this time.
Arima heard a commotion at the back of the building, and broke off his conversation with the investigator in charge of the office.
"Excuse me, that sounds like the rank 3 investigators I was just in charge of," Arima said.
"It's all right, it's all right, go keep them out of trouble," said the investigator. Arima walked to the stairs, where he looked up and his eyes met one of the strangest things he had ever seen.
Eyepatch and Rabbit were both wearing CCG coats much too big for them to go with their masks. They skidded to a halt at the top of the steps, frozen like Arima, and then all three of them ran- Arima up the steps, Eyepatch and Rabbit continuing down the hall.
Arima slammed into Shirazu and they both fell down the stairs. Mutsuki continued chasing the ghouls. Suzuya walked over to the pile of Arima and Shirazu and asked, "What happened here?"
Urie stepped back to admire his work on the window. Finally, it's clean.
What's all that noise?
Urie opened the door and walked into the hall.
"Urie! Help!" Mutsuki yelled.
Urie unsheathed his quinque and engaged the two ghouls. They slashed at him halfheartedly, then slipped by him.
"You hold him off! I have the window!" Rabbit called.
Eyepatch fought Urie, hard. Urie found it easy to block- this was not a rinkaku ghoul's element. Urie's main problem was Rabbit, whom he couldn't reach. Urie debated trying to wake Mado, but decided against it in favor of the promotion he'd get if he took them down alone.
"Don't worry, Urie!" Mutsuki gasped. "I'll help!"
"Okay (no you won't)," Urie said, stabbing with his quinque. Instead of retaliating, Eyepatch's kagune wrapped around the quinque and yanked. Urie fell on his nose as Rabbit removed the window and jumped through, followed by Eyepatch. Arima jumped over Urie and sailed out the window.
Mutsuki skidded into the room, then put his hands on his knees and started panting. Urie rolled his eyes. Shirazu ran through, glanced around the room, jumped on the couch to get a good view of what was going on outside, and promptly fell out the window.
"SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!" Shirazu yelled as he fell. This finally woke Mado.
Akira shot up, studied the room, and her eyes turned to frozen daggers. "What the hell happened to my room?"
Outside the window, Kaneki and Touka didn't bother fighting. They just ran for their lives.
Arima was gaining on them until Shirazu fell out of the sky in front of him. Arima caught Shirazu, and when he looked up from saving Shirazu neither ghoul was anywhere to be found.
"WHEEEEEEEEEEE!" Arima looked up again.
"Suzuya, you have a cable. I'm not saving you." Arima said. Suzuya used his cable. The three ghoul investigators stood awkwardly in the alley beside the CCG building.
Two alleys down, Hide wondered why people were falling out the side of the CCG building. First it had been two investigators, then it had been an investigator wearing only white, third it had been a civilian clad head to toe in safety orange, and the last he assumed was Suzuya who fell yelling WHEE at the top of his lungs. Hide wondered what was wrong with Suzuya, unaware that Hanbee was wondering the same thing.
Hide was about to text his friends again when he saw them both come running towards him wearing CCG coats with their masks in their hands.
"What the hell happened around here? Why are you guys wearing CCG coats?!" Hide asked.
"Well," Touka breathed heavily, "it's a long story."
"We'll tell you what happened when we get home," Ken said, stuffing his mask into a pocket and unzipping the front of the coat.
"Well then," Hide said, "let's go home."
Once at Cafe :re, the three of them sat in a back room, coats hung up and shoes lined up by the door.
"Okay," Hide said, "so how did you two wind up in CCG coats?"
"Well," Touka started, then glanced at Kaneki. "You wanna tell him?"
"We can both tell him," Kaneki said. "So it starts out that Touka and I saved Nishiki, but Suzuya was there and apparently they wiretapped our phones once-"
"No, no, no," Touka interrupted. "We saved Nishiki's sorry ass, and then Suzuya called you King of the Idiots, and then we were arguing but then Suzuya came along and he was talking to his guy and Suzuya explained that he'd heard me calling you that on a wiretap CCG had, so then we decided we had to go squash that thing like the bug it was-"
"Yeah, and then you wanted to break into CCG through the air vents," Kaneki said.
"Yeah? Your idea was to go through the windows cat-burglar style," Touka said.
"Yes, well, that may not have worked out but I got this funny picture," Ken said, showing them the photo of the painting on the window.
Hide snickered. "Somebody doesn't like their boss," he said. "We should post that."
"CCG would kill us," Touka said.
"I know how to do it untraceably. Continue with this story?" Hide asked.
"Yeah. Okay, so after that, we sneak in the back door, and there are these CCG coats. So we put them on, 'cause it's CCG. Anybody in the back without a coat doesn't belong there, right?" Ken said.
"Exactly. And then he got us directions to the evidence room, where we stayed on looking for this-" Touka held up a USB flash drive "-but couldn't find it for a long while. Then this ugly dude that looked like a frog with lips sent us over to give some investigator files-"
"Is that part really important enough to mention?" Kaneki interrupted.
"Of course it is, that's why you're King of the Idiots. And then-"
"Remember, if I'm king of the idiots you're one of my subjects."
"There are days, Kaneki, there are days. Now, as I was saying, that was the room where we found the window graffiti of the guy's face on an actual frog. Along with that lady as a ghoul, which was truly disgusting. Anyway, we got back to the evidence room- and they should thank us, by the way. We actually started organizing that room for them- and we were there for some two minutes before Arima walked in-"
"What'd you guys say to Arima?" Hide interrupted her.
"We didn't. We hid behind the evidence rack and snuck away from him," Kaneki said. At Hide's disappointed look, he added, "What? It was Arima."
"Eh, okay. Keep going."
"So anyway, Arima left the USB behind so we picked it up and started to leave because we had what we came for. On the way out, though, this kid recognized us- Arima must've been showing them the video- and so we ran out, or tried to. It was like, 'Hey! There's the ghouls from the video!' and then 'Oh hey yeah it is!' so they chased us down the hall, and we were about to run downstairs but Arima was at the bottom of the stairs so we couldn't, and he kinda snorted and said 'oh it IS them' and then he came after us so we ran and jumped out the window and we almost died but got lucky and then we ran into you." Kaneki said.
"And now," Touka said, "we just need a sledgehammer for that USB."
"I have a better idea for the USB," said Hide with a crazy grin.
A few days later, Arima was calmly drinking coffee at his desk when a text from Akira appeared on his mobile.
Arima opened it.
Akira
[Hey. There's a picture you should see. Google 'CCG fails Japan, fingerpaint'.]
Arima did as she told him. He stared. Arima couldn't believe his eyes, so he rubbed them vigorously. He looked again.
The picture of a fingerpainting of Akira with a kakuja (a kakuja with many mouths, no less) and Shimoguchi's face on a spotted frog throning on a pile of fecal matter with the frog's tongue lolling from its mouth and its eyes crossed was still there on his screen.
The two figures were framed by excellently painted zentangle designs in red, blue, and black.
Arima glanced out the door of his office, shut it, and laughed his ass off.
Urie didn't know why, but he suddenly felt as though he had royally failed. Saiko and Shirazu felt a similar sense of doom settle on their shoulders.