Chapter Text
Ever since escaping the Aogiri compound, Amon had been slowly starving to death. Ghoul meat could only carry one so far and his continued penchant for ‘sampling’ human food (a futile hope for days long gone) helped him lose more nutrients than he gained. Arata, as he had taken to calling his armour, was also a hungry beast.
It seemed to like ghoul meat.
It liked his blood more (though…sometimes it felt like it was taking less. Almost like it approved of his decisions. He didn’t like to think of the points it melded to his skin or the soft male voice he heard in his dream).
Kurona told him on countless occasions that,
“The hunger will get bad, Papa.”
And he’d responded,
“It already is. I can hold out.”
Just as many times.
Amon was a man who prided himself on self-control and discipline. He was certain that he could avoid the inevitable (despite the dream-voice sighing unhappily in his ears or the way his armour pulled his legs towards certain people, mumbling “wicked, wicked”).
Despite the limits he set on himself, Amon let Kurona eat however much she needed. He justified it a thousand ways: she was a growing girl, she’d gotten used to a ghoul’s diet, he couldn’t control another person…
He’d been a fool.
He’d let himself get used to the scent of human meat. He let himself associate it with food.
He hadn’t accounted for situations in which he’d lose control.
Amon had been watching over the CCG for the past year. He had tried to stay away for so long (too risky, too likely to get caught), but had ultimately failed. Akita was getting too involved in large risks and Aogiri was making too many big moves.
Everyone was playing tug of war with someone and Amon hadn’t been able to ignore the signs. Like a lamb to slaughter, he followed the traces of war, violence, and conspiracy.
His foolish instinct led him to the Cochlea breakout instead of Rue Island (the name Ayato, an Aogiri general, rattled around in his brain, however he pushed it to the side).
Amon usually avoided staying in gruesome scenes for too long (pools of blood called to him akin to a siren’s song). However, the scene in Cochlea had alarm bells ringing in his head. Not only was Donato there…
But an investigator had started it all.
An investigator who was part-ghoul.
The sick feeling that had been dogging his steps since he saved the half-ghoul girl (with her tiny body, massive kagune, and the scent of someone familiar on her CCG-issued clothing) loomed over him. There were not many people who fell into that category. Not many ghoul sympathizers amongst humans.
As he made his way to the bottom floors, Amon couldn’t help but feel he walked in the footsteps of the reaper.
Deep enough that the alarms had stopped ringing and death was his only company, Amon realized his vision was blurring. He felt lightheaded and his footsteps were sluggish.
He recognized his symptoms from blood-loss in the past. Arata was draining him (in preparation of…what?).
There was a ragtag gathering of ghouls fleeing one of the rooms in the epicentre of carnage. Electrical burns covered the floor as if an angry god had descended there. The terrified faces of the ghouls told Amon that might as well be the case.
“Touka, wait! I smell d-”
“That’s impossible, Ayato. Let’s go.”
Two of the ghouls, ones who could pass for siblings, argued briefly, with the sister watching him carefully from the corner of her eye. Arata bit deeply into Amon’s arms in response.
“I…I know him. He’s an investigator!”
A young brown-haired woman shouted, dragging the siblings and a grey-haired man behind her. She unveiled massive white and red wings…along with a tail…
He recognized that chimera kagune (a deep pang of guilt blended with the nausea from bleeding out).
“I won’t hurt you.”
Amon found himself rasping, holding his arms out in an awkward surrender. His mind was going fuzzy and blurry. He was pretty sure his speech was slurring.
“I just need to reach him.”
He blurted (the biting pain in his body lessened and Amon had to wonder if Arata approved). It wasn’t a sentence that made sense and Amon expected the ghouls to attack immediately.
The sister smiled at him (a bitter smile filled with painful understanding).
“Somebody needs to reach him, don’t they?”
She responded, perhaps rhetorically, before tearing up. She grabbed onto the little girl (because that’s what she was to Amon, lost in guilt and memories) and waved at the others.
“We’re leaving…but make sure he doesn’t die.”
She said to Amon, turning to pin him with an ominous stare over her shoulder,
“It won’t make up for what you’ve done, though.”
Entering the room caused Amon’s vision to red out.
Red on the ground.
Red on a familiar face’s back, hands, legs…
Torso…
Face…
All over Arima’s second favourite weapon.
There had never been a fight he wanted to win quite so badly.
“What time is it, Koutarou-kun?”
“Seven hours to heal, seven days to regenerate, seven times you should’ve died…”
“So slow, Koutarou-kun.”
“As someone who was fed in childhood, as the 0.001%, shouldn’t you be less of a failure?”
“Floppy, floppy, floppy~”
Her voice blended with his own, resounding over the ticking of a clock and the beating of his own heart.
Amon couldn’t see, but those words guided him in lashing out wildly. Other words, in a voice he didn’t know, pushed him even harder.
“Don’t let him leave.”
“I won’t let him leave.”
“He’ll take my children.”
Not even two people could stand up to a God.
Not even a thousand.
“If you would just eat, Koutarou-kun, maybe you could k-n-i-t yourself back together?”
Eto’s voice murmured in his ear, her hands clawing at his Arata armour again and again (trying to cut it from his flesh, trying to eat it, trying to feed it).
There were bodies and flesh scattered around.
He was hungry.
An elbow slammed into his head and Amon heard the wet noise of a blade sliding through flesh. A choked voice, bubbling with blood, reached his ears,
“Are you going to eat that?”
Kaneki Ken asked him (smiling the same pained way he had when Amon saw him last). The tone, the situation, the scent in his nose were all so desperately familiar and terribly wrong that Amon curled in on himself.
“I don’t want to eat anymore…”
He whispered in horror.
“I’m so happy you aren’t dead. I always wanted to see you again. Before I-”
Kaneki’s voice cut off abruptly under the sound of concrete shattering under something heavy.
“Arima, it’s rude to interrupt a conversation.”
Kaneki’s voice was strained with false humour and a thread of genuine fear. The whites of his eyes were completely visible to Amon as they rolled desperately.
“I said I’d kill them all,”
Arima’s voice, chilling in its intent (Amon had never heard it sound quite like that), seemingly rose from the ground itself.
“I meant it.”
Something changed in Kaneki’s face at that sentence. Whatever tension had been there, whatever doubt, dissolved. The expression that took its place was awful in its disappointment.
“I can’t let you do that.”
Kaneki flatly stated, his kagune expanding in size and red scales creeping over his neck. He looked like he’d been possessed.
He was planning to die here. After Amon had finally…
…
There was still meat on the floor.
There was still a chance to make wrongs right.
…
Human pride was such a worthless thing (Amon ate).