Honour

X : Teamwork

In no time, you and Urie ended up in the dark cafeteria, nervous and jumpy. Well, you were. You had no idea whether Kuki was as on the edge as you were. Probably not.

"We've been walking around for over ten minutes and we got nothing." You grumpily muttered. "Are you sure Haise spotted him? And not that girl that left the building?"

"A girl left the building?" Kuki asked. "Did you interrogate her?"

"No, bu--"

"She could have interfered with the whole operation." He informed as his walking pace became faster. Whoop, you made him mad.

"She said she had to go get her math binder! I didn't think much of it!" You attempted to defend.

Urie stopped and turned towards you, giving you a stern look. "Sasaki told us this. Don't trust anyone other than your own squad. Even there, I'd say don't trust anyone other than yourself."

Jeez, cynical much? It's not like you expected anything else. Kuki looked the part, after all. But he's not that wrong after all, she could have been a ghoul, and you'd have no idea. ...But she didn't exactly smell like one, so... Maybe your mistake can be forgiven after all?

"Anyways..." You sighed, trying to change the topic of conversation. "Screw up or no screw up, should we tell squad Suzuya and our squad that he's a no-show?"

Kuki reflected on the matter for a few moments until he seemed to make up his mind and opened his mouth to speak. However, before he could utter out a single sound, someone else interrupted him.

"Looking for me?" The unknown person asked. You cringed just at his voice tone. He sounded so full of himself... Ew.

The two of you did a complete 180 turn before coming face-to-face with an all-too-familiar man. His grey eyes seemed to pierce through you, sending uncomfortable shivers down your spine.

Upon seeing the ghoul, Urie drew his quinque, already ready for battle. With his free hand, he extended it in front of you, blocking your path. His head turned just enough for him to make eye contact with you. "Stay back. I'll deal with it while you contact back up."

The ghoul realized that your squad captain was giving you orders and cut halfway through his explanations, most likely an attempt to make sure no other investigators would interfere. Why was he so hell bent on killing you?

Kuki reacted rather quickly, however. As soon as the ghoul charged, he leapt forwards and countered his attack, pushing the ghoul away from you.

"As if I'd leave you hanging." You muttered, taking out your phone in order to call back up as quickly as possible. As soon as the text would send, you'd find a way to help your colleague through the fight. You were supposed to be bait, damn it! Not him!

As Kuki shifted into desperate defense, your phone decided to fuck with you just then. You don't know when or how, but it decided to shut off completely, meaning you'd have to wait over five minutes for it to open again. You didn't have those five minutes to spare, leaving you with two options.

Option number one, you wait for it to load and contact the others, meaning Kuki would have to deal with the powerful ghoul all alone. You didn't know how long he could last, but seeing how ruthlessly the thing was attacking your friend, you had an idea. A bad one.

Option number two (and the one you were leaning towards right now) consisted of forgetting about rescues and going up there to help Urie in any way you could. He's your friend, after all. If you could coordinate your attacks with his properly, your power would be combined with his, making it easier to keep up with the ghoul.

This choice was the lesser of two evils. Either risk Urie's life or yours AND his simultaneously (while increasing your chances of survival).

With your mind made up, you aggressively shoved your phone back into your pocket and charged at the two with absolutely no weapons. You hoped that either the one Urie dropped ten meters away from the fight would fly magically into your hand or that your body would make something up quickly.

You used the super-human strength you knew you had to jump over Kuki and block a hit that would have surely been fatal to him if the ghoul managed to hit him. What you weren't expecting, however, was to remain unharmed through your act of selflessness. Something else took the hit for you, and it took quite a while to figure out what took it.

The ghoul in front of you remained dumbfounded for a few moments, wondering why and how you were still standing, apparently intact.

"Are you insane?!" You heard Urie scold behind you. "I ordered you to stay out of this, (L/N)!"

"I'm not going to idly stand by while you're being defeated by one fucking ghoul, Urie." You shot back. "Now how the fuck am I not dead?" You asked again as the ghoul in front of you swung again, still being blocked by some kind of invisible force.

You glanced backwards, where Kuki was staring at your back. He seemed to think for a while before something clicked in his mind. "Your shirt's ripped and you're bleeding a bit. I think it's your kagune."

Your kagune? If it were your kagune, wouldn't you be able to see it?

You turned back towards the enemy. With Kuki's theory in mind, you did notice that there was a slight disturbance in the image you had in front of you. Sort of like looking through slightly curved glass.

"It's transparent." Urie muttered with a hint of amazement that he failed to hide.

"If that's the case, we've got a huge advantage." You smugly said when you took notice of the ghoul's alarmed face. Without further ado, the two of you jumped into action, you on the offensive and Urie close behind to back you up.

Two quinxes against one ghoul was nearly unfair. You could have almost pitied the guy if he weren't the source of your parents' terrible fate. The two of you attacked him relentlessly, with such synchronization that you could have thought you've been training together for years (while in reality it's only been a few weeks and Urie barely ever participated in teamwork drills). The only slight fault in your almost-flawless plan was that while your kagune was tough to spot on its own, it was easy to see once blood covered it, meaning you had to shake it off every once in a while. It was a pain, really. You splashing blood all over the ceiling, walls and dining tables.

While you switched to back up and Urie took over the lead offense, you managed to open up a hole in the ghoul's defense, allowing your colleague to render any movement from the enemy's part impossible. "Now!" Urie shouted at you while he used the last of his strength to keep the ghoul immobile.

Catching wind of what he meant, you jumped into action and impaled the ghoul in the throat, carefully avoiding Kuki as you did so. All resistance from the murderer ceased and he gurgled up blood for a few instants until Urie let him go and he disgracefully fell to the floor, dead.

The two of you stood next to each other for a few minutes, panting in an attempt to recover from the exhausting battle. Your first, to be exact. It wasn't so bad for a first, was it?

"We should call a clean up squad." Kuki proposed after a while, regarding the body on the floor with disgust.

"Since when do you use the term 'we'?" You asked, half-teasing. You couldn't deny being surprised hearing Urie speak like that, as if he was okay with working on a team. "What, do you not mind working alongside me now?" You sassed.

"Sort of." He answered, to your surprise. You both fell into a (stunned) silence before you turned to the cataclysmic-looking dining area, looking for another thing to discuss about (since it was too awkward otherwise).

"Look at the mess we made in this cafeteria."