With Every Step

16. Bereft

If Akira's intuition had started to nag her in the middle of the raid, it was practically screaming at her when the communication was transmitted to everybody.

"Contact with Squad 4 has been lost. Their estimated location coordinate is 3E."

Defeating the Owl was supposed to guarantee their victory. Chasing away the second Owl was supposed to be an achievement. And yet, at the end of it all...

Akira couldn't stay there for a moment more. Without a word, she turned and ran. 3E... she had studied the maps meticulously. She knew where it was. Maybe if she was fast enough, she could...

The pouring rain increased in intensity, but she barely registered the cold. Her every step caused water to splash and specked her boots with mud, while the wind whipped her hair out of her braid. Her appearance was probably about as chaotic as her current emotional state.

Amon's entire squad, and Takizawa who had gone based on her word alone... what the hell could have happened to them? Maybe they couldn't communicate in the rain, maybe they were still fighting and couldn't respond, maybe, maybe... she had to keep thinking of possibilities like that, because the other alternative wasn't one she could consider.

But on her way, she couldn't help but note all the blood there was. The death. Coworkers who she had known by sight, some she had perhaps exchanged a word with, they were lying there bloodied and disfigured.

Gritting her teeth and taking in deep breaths, Akira continued to walk. There had to be survivors. The ghouls possibly couldn't have killed everybody, at least not—

With her gaze to the ground, she immediately noticed a flash. Light reflected off a polished black frame no longer attached to anything, purplish-red shards scattered around it.

She knew what it was. She was the one who had made it, after all.

No longer having the strength to keep herself upright, Akira crumbled to the ground, hands pressed to it as if in supplication. Her gaze didn't leave the weapon.

She reached out to run a hand over it, uncaring of the cuts that the sharp fragments left on her gloves. It had been broken so thoroughly...

She had been in charge of remaking that quinque. Wasn't it her fault that it couldn't withstand whatever Amon had been up against?

A sudden cry rendered the air, and it took a moment for Akira to realise it was hers. Hanging her head, she attempted to calm herself down and bury her emotions, but she was betrayed by the shaking of her shoulders. She gasped as a few tears streamed down her face, the rain quickly erasing every trace of it, and that was the only weakness she let herself show.

Once again, she had lost everything and was left behind to see the ruins. Always chasing after footprints in the sand.

Amon and Takizawa... everybody she ever got close to only ended up in some grave before their time.