Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

His head hurt. Ringing in his ears, a splitting migraine already forming from the crashing wave of twenty years of memories drowning out his thoughts. His hands—hand, a singular hand—was slick with blood and a steady rivulet dripped past his left eye. Kanae must have cracked his skull open.

He sighed. He really needed to stop getting near-fatal head injuries.

Were the Quinx okay? He’d had to leave them behind on Ui’s orders…they were stronger now, more capable, but with Aogiri here, who knew who they could’ve run into?

Kaneki—Haise—he didn't know yet—quickened his pace, wiping off the bloody remnants of Eto’s kakuja from his mouth. He didn’t want to unnerve them.

He was so glad he still remembered them, still cared as much as before they embarked on this death sentence of a raid.

Down the stairs, stumbling over debris and into the hall. Corpses littered the room, both human and ghoul. From the far end, he heard sobbing.

Three hunched figures and one limp one. His heart thudded to a halt.

Urie was the first to notice him. As situationally aware as ever, even with the tears running down his face.

No. No, no no no—

“Shirazu—” Urie croaked helplessly and he spotted the blond buzzed head in Mutsuki’s lap and he heard no more.

Urie was still talking, haltingly, then yelling, and Saiko’s small frame was trembling with the force of her sobs, and Mutsuki was saying something, voice soothing and shattered, to the body in his lap and a whisper—

“Where did you guys go?”

Shirazu.

Sound crashed back and his legs finally moved, pulling himself out of Urie’s grip (when had he reached him?) and cries of help him and he was staring down at Shirazu bleeding, gutted form.

His child’s dying body.

Saiko and Mutsuki cried out to him but he couldn’t make out the words, taking Mutsuki’s place and pulling Shirazu’s head into his lap as gently as possible.

“Can you hear me, Ginshi?”

Shirazu’s unseeing eyes seemed to register the change of vigil and he stilled. Or maybe it was the emptiness of his voice that startled him out of his near-death haze.

“You’re going to be okay. I won’t let you die.”

He was calm, too calm, despite the roar in his head. Of faces, of voices, of people he had already failed.

“Maman?”

They had noticed, too. His mannerisms were different, though to him they felt familiar. The emptiness felt like returning to his childhood home after his mother had died, when he came to collect his belongings. To them, it must be foreign.

“R—Really?” Shirazu rasped, hope in his voice.

“I promise you. You trust me, don’t you?”

“Ye...ah. Always.”

The words broke his heart. It was undeserved, really, with the pile of bodies beneath his feet. He didn’t deserve that blind trust. It never ended well for those who put their lives in his hands.

He peeled back the tattered sleeve from the stump of his arm and silenced his thoughts, ignoring the gasp of Sensei!, and held it over Shirazu’s mouth.

“Eat.”

A stunned silence fell over the Qs.

“What (the hell) did you say, Sasaki?”

“It’s the only way. Eat, please.”

Shirazu’s mouth opened then closed soundlessly, even the falling pall of death not enough to dull the shock.

He didn’t blame him. He remembered his first time, the sheer terror and revulsion and confusion he’d felt. But everyone at Anteiku had gotten him through it, and he had to do the same for his kid now.

“I know it’ll be unpleasant, Ginshi. Trust me, I know. But you need to walk out of here to see your sister again, right?” Shirazu stilled. “You need to stay alive to get Noro’s subjugation bounty for her treatment.”

He lightly ran his hand over Shirazu’s head, hoping his cold, bloodied touch was comforting.

“Eat,” he repeated.

And Shirazu did.

-- -- --

Sasaki didn’t even flinch as Shirazu’s teeth dug into his stump of an arm. Urie knew the pain, and on an open wound? Was his brain really fried? (Something was wrong.)

His lips were pursed but his gaze was steady as flesh was ripped from his bones. Mutsuki was pale with horror, flinching and turning away as if it were his arm, and Yonebayashi was watching her Maman with concern through bloodshot eyes. All Urie felt was bone-deep disgust. Of course, he was the only one who would suggest something so barbaric (to save a life.)

Shirazu gave up quickly, after barely two bites, the sickliness on his face exacerbated, but Sasaki just patted him on the head.

“That’s it. Good job.” He smiled and Urie wanted to punch him. (It wasn’t his smile.) “That should be enough to trigger your healing factor.”

Shirazu nodded, the movement already stronger and steadier than he’d been so far. His mouth was smeared with blood, which Sasaki wiped off with a gentleness his voice didn’t carry anymore.

It was only then that Urie took inventory of their injuries. Mutsuki’s sleeve was mangled, but his arm looked partially healed from a nasty break. Yonebayashi looked mostly winded, with cuts and bruises, but otherwise unharmed. He himself had probably fractured a few of his ribs from being tossed around like a ragdoll and his tongue smarted with the metallic tang of blood, but he could move alright. Sasaki looked the worst off, second only to Shirazu. His hair was clumped with blood, dried rivulets over his temple, smears over the corner of his mouth (What the bloody hell happened?), and he was wrapping up his newly reopened amputated right arm with detached calm.

Special Class Ui showed up at some point, as did Matsuri Washuu, but the only part he cared about was the med team rushing in and carrying Shirazu out on a stretcher. There was a lot of discussion between the senior investigators, Washuu’s face distorted in undisguised disgust at Sasaki’s arm, which had already stopped bleeding. With that kind of instantaneous regeneration, you’d never need medical attention at all. Unstoppable. (He wanted it.)

Chapter Text

Shirazu’s skin felt warm, as if he were home. Did someone pull the curtains open again? Eugh. It was probably Sassan, a scolding on his tongue for sleeping in when they had work to do.

Work…work…the Rose operation. But Aogiri had been there…and the guy who wouldn’t die. He used it in the end—used her—but it did nothing, and there was pain. Pain so sharp it was blinding and he couldn’t hear through that numbing silence. Couldn’t think. Haru…what would happen to Haru?

Sassan had been there…Shirazu wasn’t sure, and then there was a metallic taste in the back of his throat that made his stomach coil.

With great effort, he wrenched his eyes open. Hospital. He was in a hospital. Was everyone okay? Rhythmic beeping reached his ears and the blurry shapes around his bed solidified, coalesced into faces he knew.

“Saiko?”

That was what he meant to say, but it came out all raspy and garbled.

Saiko’s head snapped up anyway.

“Shiragin?! Oh my god, you’re awake, you’re awake!” Her rambling was almost immediately swamped by sobbing and large blobby tears.

Then he noticed Urie and Tooru were there, too, with uncharacteristic concern and relief on their faces—at least for Kuki. Looking at his furrowed brows, Shirazu momentarily wondered if he’d really died.

“Don’t do that again, idiot,” Urie said, but his voice lacked any of his usual edge and there were bags under his eyes.

“Are you feeling okay?” Tooru moved to his other side and grabbed his arm, the one not hooked to the IV.

“Yea,” he managed to say. “Somehow. That was close, huh?”

He had wanted to lighten the mood but all it did was make Saiko cry harder. Tooru’s grip tightened, lip wobbling, and even Urie frowned.

“Wait, where’s Sassan?”

They all shared a look he didn’t like.

“Maman hasn’t been around much,” Saiko muttered, tugging on her ponytail. “He’s being…weird.”

“He has a hearing today, I believe,” Urie commented.

“A hearing?” Tooru’s expression of horror probably mirrored his own. “Why?!”

“Akira said the top brass were pretty upset with what he did,” he nodded at Shirazu.

“What he…” Shirazu frowned. Sasaki’s face flashed in his mind’s eye, eyes empty as he fed him. “Sassan saved my life.”

“He forced you to cannibalise,” Urie retorted flatly.

Tooru stared at his lap, silent. Saiko pressed her face into the thin mattress.

“To save my life!” His fists balled up. “How could they blame him for that?!”

“But he’s being weird,” Saiko mumbled into the bed. Urie turned away. He’d noticed too then.

“I…uh, I thought I was imagining it,” Shirazu said, slowly getting used to talking. “But his voice was all…off. Empty.”

“Yeah.”

They all lapsed into thick silence.

-- -- --

Shirazu was stuck in the hospital for another few days, pretty nurses bustling in every few hours for so many tests he lost track almost immediately. Apparently, they were worried about the side effects of what happened or something.

The other Qs dropped in regularly, chatting with him to distract him and themselves, catching him up on the news from the raid, and Saiko even lent him her handheld so he didn’t get bored. Tooru said they would’ve gotten him snacks but he wasn’t cleared to eat normally yet. He was mostly surviving off the IV for now while they figured out if he could ever return to a human diet after that. Kuki had irritably commented that he doubted once would make a permanent change and he didn’t know why they were fussing so much.

They also told him Sassan got off okay from the hearing, with Ui and Arima backing him up, and his achievement of fending off the One-Eyed Owl singlehandedly (literally, if Shirazu remembered right) had overshadowed his ‘mistake’ in the end. He couldn’t believe Sassan did that all by himself—of course, he knew he was strong, but didn’t that put him at the level of like a Special Class or something? Maybe even close to the White Reaper himself. No amount of worry would kill his admiration for his teacher.

Sassan himself hadn’t dropped by yet, though. Not until a soft knock resounded on his door, and a familiar face appeared.

“Sassan,” Shirazu breathed out in shock. He barely looked like the same person—hair nearly all black, glasses hiding impassive steel eyes lined with exhaustion, dressed head-to-toe in black except for the gloves the colour of fresh blood. His vibe had changed, too, so drastically it made the air in the room drop a few degrees.

Sassan stepped in and clicked the door shut. Then he smiled, a blankness to the usually familiar expression, almost mechanical. “Shirazu. How are you feeling?”

“Fine. What happened to you?”

He blinked in surprise.

Shirazu gestured vaguely at him. “You—what the hell happened?”

Sasaki simply shrugged. “Just a small wardrobe change. Can’t a guy experiment a little?”

He shook his head, dazed. Something was wrong. But from living with him for over a year, he knew he wouldn’t get Sassan to budge if he didn’t want to say anything.

Sasaki seemed to hesitate, then took the empty chair next to his bedside. “Did they tell you about why you’re here?” he asked softly.

“RC levels, side-effects, food, something, something.”

Sasaki nodded, a faintly amused smile on his face. “That sums it up. I’m sorry.”

“Huh?”

“I’m sorry. For what I did. I’ll admit I didn’t think through the consequences much at the time. I should have.”

Shirazu knew he was being genuine, felt it, but his voice remained unnervingly steady.

“Nah, nah, I—I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t, Sassan.”

“I might have altered the course of your life.”

Shirazu frowned. “‘Least I still got a life.”

Something shifted in his eyes, a heaviness flashing past that made Shirazu’s chest ache.

“I’m sorry.”

He left soon after, promising to drop by again later. It was the first promise to Shirazu he’d ever broken.

Chapter Text

He was finally discharged a whole week after he first woke up, on a cool mizzling night. The entire squad came to pick him up from the hospital, Saiko chattering at his side while Tooru pitched in from time to time, Urie following them in what Shirazu would call quiet fondness, though he’d likely earn a punch for saying that. Sasaki walked ahead, not speaking at all, not even once they got into the car. 

The ride home was tense, Saiko staring at her shoes the entire time, silent between him and Tooru, who wouldn’t stop fidgeting with his knives.

Shirazu wished whatever was happening with Sassan would sort itself out soon. He didn’t know how much longer he could deal with this.

Pushing down his unease and frustration, he watched the city lights flit past, ordinary people going about their ordinary lives with no threat of death or haunted voices of dying wishes. His eyes flickered over to Sassan’s stiff hands on the wheel and the scale-like scarred tissue peeking past his glove. He wondered if he was haunted, too.

As soon as they were home, Sasaki started preparing dinner, his movements as efficient and precise as always.

“Get some rest,” was all he said when Shirazu offered to help, not looking over his shoulder as he chopped a large onion detachedly.

Taking the hint, Shirazu trudged upstairs, glad to finally have a proper bed, and decided he was tired enough to sleep, despite having spent a good portion of the past week stuck in a hospital bed. He pulled the covers over his head, shifted around to get comfortable, and tried not to dream of gaping mouths and blackened teeth.

He woke to shuffling outside the door. It creaked open and Saiko peered inside with a single wide eye.

“Are you awake?” she whispered loudly.

Shirazu rubbed his eyes and sat up on his elbows, glancing at the clock. An hour had passed already.

“Dinner?” he mumbled.

“Yeah.”

Even his sleep-addled brain didn’t like her uncharacteristic sullenness. Did something happen?

Saiko glanced back, then slipped inside. She closed the door and he sat up straighter. “Kuki was picking a fight again.”

Shirazu groaned. How was that new? Though he had hoped Urie had become more cooperative since the raid, and sensible enough not to mess around when everyone was so tense already.

She shuffled her feet. “Maman scolded him.”

“Okay…?” he said, still not picking up why this was an issue.

She stared hard at the floor. “He said Uribo was being an idiot, lashing out because he felt useless. Because he lacked ability? Something like that.”

Shirazu frowned. “That’s a harsh way of putting it.”

“No. Those were his words.” Saiko finally looked up. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “He didn’t even sound mad.”

Shirazu lay back down, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t have the energy to both hold himself up and think over this simultaneously. “Maybe he’s just tired.”

When Saiko didn’t respond, only shuffled her feet again, scuffing the floor, he continued, forcing more certainty into his voice than he felt. “I mean, a lot’s been going on, right? He’s probably just tired. Even Sassan’s gotta get sick of his attitude at some point.”

He chuckled weakly. Saiko didn’t.

“Yeah.”

-- -- --

Dinner was a solemn affair and Shirazu was about to explode. Tired or not, Sasaki’s stupid cold composure was starting to get on his nerves. He didn’t respond to Tooru’s attempt at a usual compliment of his cooking, only sipping his coffee with a transient smile. An uneasy silence settled on the house.

“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” Sasaki said, finally breaking the silence. Shirazu thought he saw the others wilt with relief alongside him.

He paused then, stirring his half-empty cup with an oddly wistful frown.

“That night against the Owl…I regained my memories.”

The clatter of utensils ceased.

“Wait—WHAT?” Shirazu jumped to his feet.

“Everything?” Tooru whispered, eyes wide.

“Everything.”

“So that’s why you’re being weird,” Saiko mumbled. “I thought you were mad at us.”

Sasaki tilted his head, the warm ceiling lights shifting across his glasses. “Why would I be mad?”

“Cause we let Shiragin nearly die…”

Shock coloured his blankness. “What—”

“Huh? How was that your fault!?” Shirazu cut in. “I was the idiot who jumped into that thing’s mouth—stuff happens, you can’t blame yourself!”

“Exactly. I’m not mad at you, any of you,” Sasaki said sternly. “You did your best against an enemy you were barely equipped for. Noro was entirely too strong for you and you should never have had to fight him at all. If anything I…”

He smiled then, and it felt like Sassan again. “I’m very proud of you all. You did well.”

Shirazu felt rather bashful under the sudden warmth and sunk into his chair. “I—we—”

“So what now?” Urie asked, cutting straight to the point. He seemed grumpier than usual. “What changes?”

Sasaki sighed. “I don’t know yet—rather, I don’t know how much. Somehow, instead of being demoted for what I pulled, I’m getting an immediate promotion for fending off the One-Eyed Owl, so that’s one change.”

“Woah, so you’re an Associate Special Class now, Maman?” Saiko breathed out. “That’s the same as Akira.”

He hummed in agreement. “The other change is that I won’t be leading your squad anymore.”

Silence fell again.

“The top brass believes it’s better for me to work separately. I agreed.”

“But—”

“Let me finish, Ginshi. This is a good opportunity for you guys, too. You can grow as an independent squad. With your victory against Noro, they see your potential in dealing with higher rated ghouls. I’ll stick around as your mentor—I convinced them of that—but I won’t work alongside you on missions. You can work out better coordination and you, Shirazu, can hone your leadership skills further.”

“So you’ll get assigned somewhere else?” Tooru asked, after a digestive silence.

“I’m not sure. Most likely I’ll work with S3 but I don’t know if I’m getting a partner, or when.”

“Do they know?”

Sassan looked at Shirazu and he couldn’t help but think his mentor felt more full when he didn’t remember a thing.

“No.” he said quietly. “Though I’m sure Akira and Arima have figured it out already.”

— — —

Shirazu frowned. “Your cooking doesn’t taste any different to me. It should, yeah, if it’s too high?”

Sassan nodded, looking over his medical files with him in the living room after dinner. He was only just realising how many tests they had conducted and how much blood they had taken over the past week. He was sure he should have developed anaemia by now.

“Your RC levels haven’t spiked that much, not yet. But you’re borderline right now—if you were to cross the thousand mark, you might be at risk.”

“So his base RC level’s gotten higher without the frame release surgery?” Urie asked, leaning over the back of the sofa, his earbuds out and resting on his shoulders.

“Yes and no. In a sense, it was a forced release of your frames.” He grew more serious, which Shirazu didn’t think possible. “You’re only one frame away from a frame out so you have to be careful about your kagune use.”

Shirazu was stunned. “Only one away…?” 

“But why did it have such a strong effect?” Tooru frowned. “Two bites and Shirazu’s nearly at ghoul levels?”

Sasaki shifted uncomfortably. “Probably because it was me. I am part ghoul and my RC levels are much, much higher than yours—about three times.”

He sighed, touching his chin briefly, and the heaviness came back and Shirazu wished he looked empty again instead. “And I’d just come back from battle. It was probably even higher at the moment.”

Chapter Text

Kaneki straightened his black Squad Zero coat, then knocked sharply on the door.

“Come in,” rang Arima’s voice.

He was seated behind his desk when Kaneki entered, a file open in front of him. He glimpsed a photograph of a smiling face at the corner of the page. His left eye twinged.

“You wanted to see me?”

Arima watched him in silence, hands steepled under his chin. He seemed made of marble, an unflinching white, with the sunlight streaming over rooftops from the window in the back lighting him up in a halo.

An angel of death, indeed.

“You’ve been assigned a partner as of today.”

Ui had told him as much when he alerted Kaneki to Arima’s summons the previous day. Ui had begun treating much more warmly to his surprise, despite the incident . Despite Hairu. The two of them had never gotten along well, Arima’s preoccupation with him sparking nothing but jealousy in her even as he attempted to befriend her, but Kaneki found he missed her. Her jabs at him had long since turned into banter, and he couldn’t deny she had been one of his favourite colleagues to spar with during his early days at the CCG. He suppressed a sigh and the urge to rub away the heaviness that seeped from his soul into his chest at the realisation that he had only found more to lose over the years.

“He is from Division II. I’ve decided your combat abilities are better when unhindered on the field, so your partner’s job will be mostly investigation support.”

That was rather unusual, but not unexpected after the investigation rights he’d demanded the other day.

“Marude recommended him.” Arima smiled in that quiet way of his. “I think you’ll get along well.”

He knew. Kaneki knew he knew, so why did he talk to him as—as fatherly as he had with Haise?

His chest panged hollowly, an empty can rolling down the street. His eyes burned from the inside out, his melting brain pushing uncomfortably against them.

The door slammed open then, and a figure stumbled into the room.

“Sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean to be late, I swear, I just ran into someone on the way.”

He straightened his bleached blond head and Kaneki wondered if he’d died at Eto’s hands.

Hide's smiling eyes met his empty, aching ones.

“Rank 3 Hideyoshi Nagachika. Nice to meet you, partner!”

-- -- --

The sky was a clear blue, as bright and untainted as the day he went on that date with Rize. The canned coffee in front of him was untouched, unopened, while Hide watched him, his expression somewhere between sympathy and wistfulness.

“Kane—”

“Don’t call me that,” Kaneki said softly, words sharp. “Not here.”

“Okay,” he said without skipping a beat, as energetic and unapologetically happy as ever. As if nothing had changed since their lunch breaks in high school. As if Kaneki hadn’t ripped flesh off his bones— “Haise.”

That felt even more wrong, but he didn’t interrupt him again.

“I know this is a lot. I know.” His mechanical voice was as gentle as he could make it. “But please look at me.”

“How?” Kaneki’s voice trembled as his control shattered. It took all he had not to burst into tears. “How can I…?” 

Your mask, Hide. Your mask.

His fists clenched in his lap.

Hide’s hand reached into his field of vision and knocked the table. “Hey.” He waited until Kaneki gathered his broken pieces enough to look up into warm brown eyes. “I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here.”

His vision blurred, but he didn’t have the strength to even blink the tears away. It didn’t matter anyway. Not anymore. Nothing did. Hide was gone. Hide was gone. Hide was here.

Hysterical laughter bubbled up his throat.

He wanted to vomit.

“I’m not.” Kaneki looked away. Couldn’t watch as the face that had changed so little and so much all at once realised the truth. “I’m not the person you knew, Hide. He’s…he’s gone. He’s not coming back.”

He felt like a child again, caught under his mother’s kind, violent gaze.

“I’m sorry.”

Hide was silent for a long moment.

“That’s okay,” he said finally. “I’ll take you in whatever form you are. Whoever you’ve become.”

His tone was light and airy, as if unaware of the weight of his words.

“I’m not—”

“Whatever form,” he reiterated. “It just has to be you.”

Kaneki sighed, covering his face with his hands and discreetly wiping his eyes, not that it was saving him any dignity in front of Hide, who had already seen him as vulnerable as he could get in those sewers.

“How did you do this?” he asked, waving at them and the outdoor picnic bench they were seated at outside the Main Office, referring to their team-up. He straightened, becoming more the Black Reaper he was starting to be called. “And don’t say it was a coincidence, I know you too well.”

Hide’s eyes turned sly. “Not telling,” he said mischievously and Kaneki could almost see the impish smirk under the mask.

Kaneki sniffled and rubbed his nose. “Okay,” he said simply. “Why did you do this?”

“Maybe I just wanted my best friend back.”

Kaneki nearly started crying again. Rize leaned against his side and giggled.

Gone, gone, gone, she cackled.

“Big Girl’s?” Hide asked.

What was there to celebrate? Kaneki almost shot back.

Alive. Reunited. Talking. Here. Alive.

“Okay, but their coffee better not suck.”

-- -- --

“I’m sorry,” Kaneki said, speaking over the rim of his emblazoned disposable cup, “that I never told you.”

Hide just shrugged it off as if he hadn’t spilled on his biggest regret for the past three years. “It's okay, man. I get it. I mean, what human would be chill about their friend suddenly turning ghoul?”

He put down his half-eaten burger and fixed his mask. Kaneki forced himself to watch even as his heart clenched painfully at the sight of the torn muscle. He’d felt a scream bubble up when Hide had first shifted it to eat—or maybe it had been a sob, or laughter, he couldn’t tell anymore—but he’d choked it back. He deserved this. He deserved to see the true extent of what he’d done.

“If anything, I was more upset that you left without saying goodbye.”

It took him a moment to process the words over his skittering thoughts. When he did, he swallowed thickly and tried to breathe.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to the coffee, his gaze dropping. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean to hurt you. I promise, I just—”

So much happened. I think I died when I turned nineteen, Hide, and when I crawled out of my grave, I was wrong. Stronger than I’d ever been, but warped. A monstrosity of nature. You’d have died at my side. Another distortion. So I killed you myself.

Kaneki put the coffee down, his hand trembling. “I have no excuses. I’m sorry.”

Hide perched his chin on his hands and scrutinised him with narrowed eyes. “I’m not asking for excuses, Kaneki,” he said, uncharacteristically serious. “I know you didn’t do it to hurt me. I know you. You probably thought it was safer, right? I get it. But it doesn’t change the fact that you did, in the end.

“But,” he stretched his arms with a satisfied noise, “that’s beside the point now. I’ve sort of already forgiven you anyway. So let’s get to business. The scary boss said you’ve asked for investigation rights for something?”

It felt surreal, speaking to him about work of all things. Work that revolved around hunting ghouls. That wasn’t a life Hide belonged to.

He nodded anyway, letting his new persona slip through to settle on him like a tight skin that loosened with every wear, growing more and more comfortable.

“I asked Arima for the investigation rights over the One-Eyed Owl. No one had encountered her since the raid of the 20th ward until the Tsukiyama raid, and there I was the only one to deal with her directly.”

His eyes flicked to Hide.

“I saw her face. I know who the leader of Aogiri is.”

Hide whistled. “Damn, Kaneki. You make a pretty good investigator, you know.”

Kaneki managed to crack a smile.

“So? Spill. Who is she?”

He slid over his phone, a picture of his target smiling lazily at a book signing from over a month ago.

“Sen Takatsuki.”

“You’re kidding.”

He shook his head, smiling genuinely at the comfort his presence brought despite everything that had transpired, despite the topic of their conversation.

“She’s going to be difficult to arrest since she’s a public figure. We’ll need an infallible case against her before we can do anything.”

Hide nodded, eyes still on the picture, thoughtful.

“Speaking of her, you were the one who sent me the book, right?”

He looked up, eyes smiling. “You got it, then? I know it was an old book already but I had to get you something for your birthday.”

“Thank you. Though you should know, I didn’t know at the time that it was my birthday.”

Hide laughed, the sound crackling the speaker implanted in his throat, then puffed out his chest in a hidden pout. “Yeah, but I didn’t know your new birthday so what was I supposed to do?”

Kaneki chuckled at his antics, still the same. “April 2nd. But it helped. I wasn’t sure until then what my name had been, or how to spell it.”

Hide calmed and looked at him in that odd way again. “You’re welcome,” he said softly.

The chatter of the fast food joint washed over them, rippling over the sudden tension. The fluorescent lights hummed louder, their reflection on the wood laminate tables brightening into a glare.

“Kaneki,” Hide said abruptly, serious once more. “Be careful, okay? You’re entering troubled waters. We don’t know who might retaliate.”

Chapter Text

Urie ducked under the spindly kagune that shot out from the folds of the cloak, slashing upwards across its chest. Its distinctive red Aogiri Tree cloak swished in a last futile grasp at life before the ghoul groaned and crumpled over, the last of the group they’d followed into the parking lot stilling. Shirazu came over and ripped its mask off, taking pictures to identify them for their reports. No one matched their list of targets. Tch.

Mutsuki looked over everyone for injuries and Yonebayashi crouched, hands cupped around her ears with a dramatic scrunch on her face as she listened for stragglers, and Urie’s mind wandered to their newly missing member. What kind of ghouls did Sasaki go after now? Higher priority targets than this, no doubt. Even easier for him to climb the ranks now. He was just one promotion away from Special Class, but it wasn’t so easy to make it. (Sasaki could manage it.)

It had been two weeks since the Tsukiyama raid and assignments had only just started being handed out again after the lull that always followed major operations, yet Sasaki had already racked up an impressive number of kills in that short time. His sudden brutality had sent alarms through the CCG, whose officers seemed to avoid him now more than ever. Earlier it had been suspicion, but now it was fear that they looked at him with, the moniker of the Black Reaper making rounds in whispers across the main office.

Sasaki had apparently been assigned a partner yesterday, but he’d said nothing when he came home that evening. He had been lost in thought all night, burning the rice right after nearly chopping his finger off when cooking dinner. They had ended up ordering take-out, in the end, at Mutsuki’s reluctant suggestion.

Urie’s eye caught the Nutcracker in Shirazu’s hand, currently in a dormant state. He was getting better at using it.

“I heard Noro’s quinque will be ready in a week.”

Shirazu looked over, then glanced away quickly, scratching the back of his head. “Yeah.”

(Trouble again, huh?) It wasn’t any of Urie’s business.

He nodded at the ghouls on the ground. “We could cross-check their identities with an Aogiri ghoul in custody. (Maybe they had been lucky and found someone from their higher ranks.)”

“I don’t, um,” Mutsuki started, then finished in a lower, meeker tone Urie hadn't heard from him in a while, “I don’t think I’ll go. Last time wasn’t so nice so…”

“Wait,” Shirazu said, “you’ve been to Cochlea?”

(When?)

Mutsuki smoothed his coat’s sleeve over a crease that didn’t exist. “Yeah. Sensei and I went to talk to Donato Porpora when we were tracking Torso.” He shrunk into himself. “He was scary.”

“Damn, so that’s how you guys caught up so quickly to Kuki and I, huh?”

They settled against a low wall of the parking lot, the distant sound of traffic floating over. Someone in an apartment somewhere above them was watching television at an obnoxiously high volume, unaware of how close they were to red-eyed death today. They’d have to stay until the CCG’s cleanup crew came to collect the bodies, ensure no civilians wandered in here or hunt down any ghouls who came looking for missing friends.

Urie was curious about something else, though. “He talked to Sasaki?”

He had heard rumours about the Russian ghoul’s uncooperativeness. Either he’d terrify investigators, frustrate them, or disturb them into nightmares with graphic descriptions of devouring them bit by bit.

Mutsuki nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “Porpora was pretty friendly with him, actually. I think he helped without any difficulty as well.”

(Interesting.)

“I’ll be going, then,” Urie said, getting to his feet. “Yotsume is an executive. She might be able to identify them.”

Yonebayashi sprang up. “I can come with!”

Urie raised an eyebrow. “Whatever.”

He turned on his heel and headed out.

“Tooru and I’ll stay, then,” Shirazu called after them as Saiko hopped to his side in the narrow alley. “We’ll let Akira know too!”

-- -- --

They entered Cochlea’s looming façade in silence. Past the checkpoints with ease. It seemed a lot of investigators had been moving through here lately, dropping off detainees, questioning prisoners. Their steps echoed the barren hallways. It had the atmosphere of something dead, carved and hollowed out. The steps spiralled past the floors to the third level, where the SS-rated ghouls were kept contained deep underground.

Sasaki was an SS-rate. Had he ever been here before, on the other side of these quinque-steel barred doors? Perhaps before he became an investigator? Urie suddenly realised he didn’t know how Sasaki had even ended up at the CCG. Yes, he had joined three years ago, but how? Why had the CCG ever spared him?

How long had he been a ghoul before that?

He’d caught wind of what happened on the roof the night of the Operation from muttering investigators at the hospital. What Special Class Ui had seen, what he’d been caught doing. Eating. The One-Eyed Owl’s kakuja, no less. His chest simmered with anger and disgust, (with protectiveness). No wonder Shirazu’s RC levels were so close to a ghoul’s; some of that had probably passed on through Sasaki. No wonder he ended up on trial. 

He hadn’t meant to snap at him that day, after Shirazu had come home from the hospital. It had just happened. The way he was acting, like nothing mattered to him anymore, (like they didn’t). All that spiel about looking out for each other and he’d disappeared the moment Shirazu nearly died. Hypocrite.

“All losses in this world are due to a lack of ability. If you want to curse something, curse your own weakness.”

His chest burnt (with shame).

“Here,” Yonebayashi pointed to the door on their right.

The interrogation room was not large, but somehow Yotsume looked dwarfed in her sterile surroundings. A glass pane separated them from the ghoul, a metal folding chair in front of it. Saiko moved to grab a second one from the stack near the far wall while Urie settled and prepared to interrogate her.

She was dangerous, an Aogiri Tree executive with dozens of ghouls following her lead, a high-priority target for years, a chimera. She was smaller than he’d expected. She seemed younger than him, face still rounded with teenage inexperience, and she was surprised to see them, like she had been expecting someone else.

“Hello,” she said softly, inclining her head politely.

Urie, taken aback, only nodded stiffly.

“I have some questions for you. I expect your full cooperation.”

They moved through the pictures of the eradicated ghouls quickly, Yotsume offering up whatever she knew with little hesitation. No one they caught this time was high ranking. Nothing more than canon fodder.

Patient. He had to be patient. The higher ups had only just announced that Aogiri Tree would be their first priority across all squads, but they couldn’t be lazy; they had to get there first, grab all the executives, the higher ranks. They needed information for that.

“What is your relation to the Black Rabbit?”

Her demeanor changed. “We are both executives at the same organisation. We work in different areas,” she answered curtly.

“You both have worked in the same organisation for a while.”

“Unfortunately, we don’t interact outside of that.” Her childish eyes were closed off.

“We saw you with the Three Blades and White Suits.”

She inclined her head. “The same goes for them.”

Not the sociable type, huh? He didn’t believe it for a second. Time for a different approach.

“How did you end up with the Aogiri Tree?”

“How does anyone?”

He glared at her. “I’m the one asking the questions here.”

“I was approached by their leadership,” she acquiesced slowly.

“Why?”

“I’m not sure, to be honest.”

“Have you ever met the One-Eyed Owl?”

“I don’t believe I have.”

“What about the One-Eyed King?”

She shook her head again. “I’m sorry.”

He suppressed a sigh. That would’ve been too easy, anyway.

“What do you know of him?”

But she merely shook her head once more. “Almost nothing. Only the rumours that he would be the saviour of ghoulkind, that he’s the true leader of Aogiri.”

Urie mulled it over. If even an exec only knew this much, would any of their members know anything at all? Perhaps only their leaders knew the truth. That was the best way to hide the ghoul’s identity—reveal it to no one at all.

Yonebayashi remained quiet throughout the interrogation, swinging her legs rather impatiently. Why had she even tagged along if she wasn’t going to contribute? Actually, he preferred that she didn’t; she knew to stay out of his way. (She was being uncharacteristically quiet).

Urie swept the sheets back into their file, wrapping up, ready to leave the heavy greys of the prison.

“Can I ask you something?”

He glanced sharply over at Yonebayashi, who was now sitting straighter in her chair, leaning forward with nervous eagerness.

Yotsume nodded cordially.

“Do you—oh, wait, I’m, uh, I’m Saiko Yonebayashi,” she offered the ghoul a smile. (What the hell are you doing?)

Yotusme stared at her with wide eyes, then smiled back. She almost looked like a normal girl, the type you would pass by on the street and never think twice about. That’s what made ghouls so dangerous, though, their ability to blend in, to wear their skin. (She looked sweet.)

“Hinami Fueguchi, but I think you would know that already,” she said wryly.

But Yonebayashi seemed to relax instead. “Hinami, do you know Maman—uh, Haise Sasaki?”

She tilted her head. “The investigator visits me from time to time.” Sorrow passed over her gentle eyes. “He used to visit me.”

“He doesn’t anymore?” Saiko asked, frowning.

“No,” she said quietly. “Is that all?”

Her expression had grown guarded once more. A reaction linked to her acquaintances in Aogiri. Urie leaned back in his chair and let Yonebayashi keep talking.

(Just how many ghouls are you connected to, Sasaki?)

“I meant before,” Saiko said. “Before he joined, did you know him?”

Fueguchi locked her gaze on the floor. “It doesn’t matter if I did. I think…I think the person I knew is gone. That’s what he told me.”

“He’s back.”

Her head shot up just as Urie’s head snapped to bore holes through the side of Saiko’s skull.

“What?” Her voice was timorous, eyes shining with fervent hope. “Onii-chan is…back?”

Yonebayashi beamed at her. “Yeah! He said he remembers everything now, so the person you knew is back.”

Fueguchi’s expression shifted then, sad once more. “That’s…but that’s not good,” she said, more to herself than to them. She gazed imploringly at Saiko. “Will he be okay? If he’s who he once was, they won’t hurt him, will they?”

Saiko’s smile dropped. “No. No! Why would they?”

It was the ghoul’s turn to look sorrowfully confused. “He remembers being a ghoul, living with us, living with targets of the CCG, and they’re…okay…with that?”

“Thought you’d be happier if you knew him once,” Urie interrupted.

She turned to him with a look that suggested she had forgotten he was there.

“I am.” She nodded ferociously. “I am, really, I am. Even I could see how much it hurt him to be so incomplete . To live around those gaps in his life, but I thought that was what he wanted. But those gaps are dangerous, I mean, the people he knew—” She clapped her hands over her mouth, horrified.

“And who did he know, Fueguchi?” Urie leaned forward on his elbow.

She turned her head, speaking to the wall, back stiff. “I’m sorry, investigator. I don’t think I have anything helpful to say to that.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Non-cooperation could cost you greatly.”

“That’s okay,” Yonebayashi said, nullifying his threat. He glared at her. She ignored it and got to her feet. “Thanks for helping us,” she said with another friendly smile and walked out.

Urie stared at her short, retreating figure, then shot to his feet and followed her out, the reinforced door slamming shut behind him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he hissed at her as he caught up in the corridor outside.

She looked up at him lazily. “What, Uribo? We got what we needed, didn’t we?”

“Why are you speaking to her like that? (If it had been anyone outside our squad here, you’d be labelled a sympathiser).”

Yonebayashi just tilted her head at him in confusion. “Like what?”

“Like it’s human.”

She gazed down the corridor ahead of them with a thoughtful silence.

“She protected Maman against T-Owl. She worried for him, just like I did.” She looked up at him. “She’s important to him, too.”

She’s a ghoul, he wanted to spit out. But so was Sasaki, in the end.

So instead, Urie huffed and marched ahead of her towards the exit.

(He supposed he did get what he needed, after all.)

Chapter Text

The fluorescent hum of sleek tube lights was drowned by the heated discussion in the Special Class Investigator Meeting room. Yoshitoki Washuu watched over his steepled fingers with concern evident on his furrowed brow.

“It’s simply unnatural,” Matsuri Washuu was saying. “He could barely kill a ghoul before, to the point his sympathy was concerning for an investigator, and now he doesn’t care at all? He’s wiping them out like flies.”

“His record was impressive before,” Mougan Tanakamaru said, nodding and twirling his moustache between thick fingers, “but now it’s inhuman.”

“Maybe the raid changed him,” Koori Ui argued. “People respond in strange ways to an opponent as strong as One-eyed Owl. Plus he was close to losing a member of his squad, and we all know how fond he is of those kids.”

“Stop defending the ghoul like he’s one of us.” Matsuri tsked , then shot at their once-in-a-blue-moon participant, “You’re losing control of your mutt.”

Kisho Arima, attending the Special Class Meeting for possibly the first time, spoke with his usual impassivity. “His performance has improved. I don't see the issue.”

“Matsuri, such language is unnecessary,” Kiyoko Aura chided. “But you have a point. Are we sure Associate Special Class Sasaki is still on our side?”

“He’s acting a lot like him ,” Kousuke Houji remarked. “I remember the reports of his activity before the Owl Suppression Operation. It’s similar, if not more brutal, the most concerning part being his recent…eating habits.”

The air shivered with tension as the Special Classes recalled Ui’s report.

“Suzuya,” Itsuki Marude nodded at their youngest participant. “You dealt with him once back then, didn’t you?”

Juuzou Suzuya leaned back in his chair, candy in his mouth, foot on the table. “Yep. I fought him at Kanou’s lab, but he was all crazy then so I dunno. He isn't that bad yet.”

“Put your foot down,” Marude griped.

“I see the concern—” he popped his other foot on the table, crossing his ankles— “but he hasn't shown any signs of disloyalty, right?”

“That doesn’t change the fact that he’s growing into a potential threat to us,” Shinme Haisaki muttered. “Why hasn’t he been locked up yet?”

Mutters of agreement resounded in the vast room. Ui frowned, while Suzuya remained silent.

Yoshitoki held up a hand to silence them. “Arima? He’s your responsibility. What do you suggest we do?”

“If his loyalty is a concern, that can be tested. The right target should be enough.” He pulled out a file, the attention shifting to the moniker spelled out in damning print and the blurry photograph of a snake-head mask slipping out.

-- -- -- 

Shirazu had suggested walking back to the Chateau once the clean-up crew relieved them of guard duty. Mutsuki suspected he just wanted time to clear his head, a frown and an uncharacteristic silence plastered on his face ever since Urie had mentioned Noro. It would have been more surprising if he was over his discomfort with quinques already just because he had managed to use Nutcracker in a moment of desperation. Mutsuki glanced at the case in his hand. Still, he was getting used to it, bit by bit.

The 3rd ward was crowded at this time of day, late in the evening, as people returned home to their families after work or school. A young man in a beanie wandered past them with a go-to coffee cup in his hand. The scent wafting over was delicious and familiar. Mutsuki twisted to snatch a glimpse of the logo meticulously stamped on the side. :re.

“Hey,” he called out to Shirazu, who had wandered a little farther ahead, lost in thought. “Should we get some coffee? We can pick some up for the others too.” Mutsuki glanced down the line of shops on the left. “I think that café Sensei brought us to is nearby.”

Shirazu nodded. “Sure.”

Mutsuki fell into step beside him. Shirazu rubbed his chin, as if the words he was trying to voice itched him.

“No one got hurt today,” Shirazu finally said.

“Yeah,” Mutsuki replied, unsure.

“It’s good.” He shifted his coat, absently watching a pick-up speed past them with a blaring horn. Other passers-by glared at it. “No one’s coming after us anymore.”

Oh. Mutsuki had noticed that Shirazu had become more serious since Sensei had left the squad, as if suddenly weighed down by responsibility.

“But we did good.” He smiled at Shirazu, hoping it was reassuring. “We trust you to look after us.”

Shirazu glanced over uncomfortably.

“Really, we do,” Mutsuki reiterated. “I know Sensei does too. He wouldn’t have been confident leaving if he didn’t have faith in you to take up his role in the squad.”

Shirazu rubbed the back of his head feverishly. “Maybe, but—is he still him? What if he left cause he doesn’t—I dunno.” He fell silent, eyes glued to his boots.

Mutsuki furrowed his brow. “He still cares.”

Shirazu shook his head, more in confusion than disagreement. “He broke a promise, you know?” he mumbled out. “Maybe I’m just being childish but I keep wondering if it’ll be the first of many. He once promised me he wouldn’t quit if he remembered. What if that changes?”

“But he’s here, isn’t he? He’s keeping it.”

“What if that’s the only thing keeping him here?”

Mutsuki frowned deeper. “Shirazu…”

He chuckled and looked up. “Sorry. He’s probably just dealing with a lot right now, I know that. It’s just…he barely acts the same. Makes me all anxious that something’s gonna change in a way we can’t undo.”

“Give him time,” Mustuki said softly, well aware of exactly what he meant.

He’d never voice how sometimes he thought that their real mentor had died on that roof and someone else had come back in his place. Sasaki didn’t joke around with them anymore, neither did he ensure they had dinner together. Most days he would cook as a break from work—when he was physically incapable of sitting any longer and poring over files without falling asleep and never earlier than that—and leave dinner on the table or in the refrigerator depending on the time, then disappear back into his room. He still mentored them, sure, but that was it. Training, mission debriefs, reviewing strategies. He had always been dedicated to his work but this was…something else.

Shirazu grunted in agreement, slowing down as the sign for :re came into view. Mutsuki still had no idea what the name was supposed to mean, the logo seeming starkly random in front of the care put into the ambience and decor. The bell tinkled as they entered and the woman was at the counter this time instead of the scary man from before. She smiled at them.

“Welcome!”

A memory flashed from months ago of their first visit, the way Sensei was frozen the moment he’d seen her, the way he’d teared up at her coffee. He had been genuinely surprised at his own reaction, like he didn’t know why he was getting emotional, like he was reacting to something he couldn’t recall…

No, that couldn’t be it. But he’d been off all day after that, zoning out during meetings and conversations and cooking. Maybe it was just her? The thought made Mutsuki’s gut twist with something ugly but that was the more likely explanation.

Right?

They picked a table to the side and gave her their orders. The café was rather busy this time, since they’d come by at rush hour. There was a second woman helping around the far corner, older than the owner, with short dark hair and an air of practiced professionalism, as if she’d been doing this her whole life.

The manager bustled around the room one more time with refills before darting to the counter and starting on their orders. They were close enough to the counter to see her work, the way she heaped the freshly-ground coffee beans into the filter, the way she soaked each of them with care to maximise the taste. Mutsuki could almost envision Sensei making it in her place, calloused hands moving effortlessly in place of her smaller, softer ones.

“Hey, has Sasaki been coming by lately?” Shirazu asked. “I remember he used to, by himself.”

Mutsuki stared at him, then at her, whose hands had stilled only momentarily.

“No, he hasn’t, now that you mention it,” she said without looking up. “Not for a few weeks.”

Mutsuki perked up before guilt immediately flooded him. This was only proof that he was changing—he had changed. He wasn’t spending as much time with them as before, he wasn’t visiting his favourite café, he wasn’t coming by to see her anymore. It wasn’t a good thing, as much as the last part pleased him.

Shirazu caught his eye.

He decided to take a risk. After all, things were changing; he should, too, or he’d be left behind. Leaning forward, Mutsuki muttered, “Do you think he knew her?”

He nodded slowly, as if already sharing his train of thought. “It’d make sense, why he’s avoiding this place.”

A thought struck Mutsuki then, stuttering the rest of his reeling thoughts. “You don’t think…? She can’t be—”

The manager set two cups of steaming coffee in front of them. The aroma was heavenly; his mouth was watering already. The light caught her badge. Kirishima. It was strange, knowing her name. She suddenly felt more real, more like a person.

“Is he alright?” she asked casually. “He used to drop by almost everyday.”

Something possessive burned in Mutsuki’s chest. Why the hell did she care so much anyway?

“You guys were close?” Shirazu asked with a keen glint in his eyes.

Kirishima’s eyebrows rose before she chuckled. “Hey, you gotta look out for your regulars to run a successful business. We have a community here, not just coffee.” She shrugged. “And he was nice to talk to, especially since he tended to come round during slack hours.”

Just talk? Mutsuki thought bitterly, but kept his expression cool. Distantly, he was aware that his bitterness wasn’t really targeted at her. 

“He’s got a promotion so he’s busier these days,” Shirazu said.

“Again? That’s nice,” she said, moving back to the counter to take a new order from the other woman. “That did happen last time, too. I suppose he’ll be back eventually then.”

“Oh.” Shirazu scratched his head and glanced at Mutsuki awkwardly. “I don’t know about this time,” he muttered. “But I could tell him for you? That you were asking?”

Kirishima shot them a startled look that made her look like a spooked rabbit, peering over a cup she was carefully pouring foam into. “No, no,” she said, shaking her head rather vigorously, but somehow maintaining the steadiness of her hands as she continued to work. “That’s not necessary. I don’t want to make him feel obligated.”

A smooth voice reached Mustuki’s ears then, wafting from the door behind the counter that likely led to the break room, too soft for humans to pick up on but loud enough for the Quinx. Shirazu frowned and tilted his head as if thinking very hard about something. Strangely enough, Mutsuki thought the voice was familiar.

Kirishima set the finished latte on the counter with pursed lips for the other woman to deliver, who looked like she was trying very hard not to laugh.

A loud crash resounded from the break room, with more talking, louder this time.

“Wait—was that French?” Shirazu asked.

Kirishima stared at them for a split second, then, pale, smiled stiffly. “I think a very unwelcome friend might have dropped by for a visit. Excuse me—” and she all but wrenched the door open and disappeared inside.

Chapter Text

“I yield,” Kaneki declared, and the pen nib stopped an inch from his left eye.

Would he have kept going, if he’d said nothing?

Letting out his breath slowly with his heart pounding in his ears, he slipped off the desk and grabbed his glasses from the chair.

“You’ve gotten better,” Arima said, pocketing his pen, yet he sounded disappointed. Still not enough, at the end of the day. He seemed to be mirroring Kaneki’s mannerisms this time—as much as his mannerisms could change anyway—he’d been less enthusiastic, putting less energy and effort into their meeting-disguised-as-a-sparring-session.

Arima already knew he wasn’t Haise, though they were both playing pretend, so it didn’t matter either way. It was a simple respite to not have to tighten his mask in this room. It was dangerous.

“Your new assignment,” Arima said, holding out a file. Kaneki simply nodded and took it, deciding he could look at it later. “I’m counting on you,” he said and Kaneki paused in the middle of pulling on his coat.

“Alright.”

They wiped down the desk in silence. Arima’s eyes pierced him like his quinque once had—like his pen almost did—and there was a weight he didn’t want to decipher in his gaze as the door to the S3 meeting room clicked shut between them.

The hallway was quiet save for his suffocated footsteps on the carpet. The file in his hands eventually pulled his attention and Rize’s nail trailed under the name on the front. Oh. Oh.

His chest grew tight, vision blurring near the edges, blackening. A wave of dizziness—nausea—washed over him—the city lights turning oval glasses opaque as they sat side-by-side the night the world ended—a heaviness in his heart then that had never really gone away—that skittered upwards now—

Heels clacked down the hall and his vision snapped to the blonde woman marching towards him. She did not look at him as she walked past, not even a twitch in her face, a falter in her step. She did not smile at him like she usually would, nor did she scold him for not having spoken to her for so long, no playful We’re the same rank now so you’ll snub me, hm, Haise? or concerned Are your wounds all healed? Are you sure you should be out there fighting so recklessly in your state?

She paused before the meeting room, rapping her knuckles against the door twice. Her impassive eyes were fixed on the wood, which she pulled open at Arima’s invitation and disappeared inside.

Akira had approached him when he returned to the Main Office after the raid, checking on him and inspecting his wounds, an irritation on her face that he was refusing medical attention for his arm that had vanished the instant their eyes met. A deep shock had flashed over her face before smoothing over. Her words had been curt after that, moving quickly to the Quinx and Shirazu, who had laughed weakly and assured her he was alright, half-conscious in the stretcher the medical team was carrying him in.

She did not defend him during his trial, her voice flat as she stated she could not give her input since she hadn’t been present during the raid, but that she was grateful Shirazu had come back in one piece. Her words had been paired with a glare that had injected his lungs with lead.

That was the last time she had looked at him.

The door to the bathroom gave way beneath his gloved fingers. The tiled floor swayed beneath him as he stumbled to the sink, wrenching his glasses off and splashing cold water on his face. It should have calmed him— it should have worked goddamnit but his gloves—hands—were red, bloodied and his nostrils were filled with musty dampness and something gut-wrenchingly metallic and sweetness coated his taste buds, a mangled body in front of him as he kneeled in the darkness—

He inhaled sharply, gripping the ceramic.

He had done everything he could, he’d tried so hard, so why? Why was everything falling apart now? He’d locked up Hinami, abandoned Touka, killed Amon, disfigured Hide, wrecked Shirazu’s life all because he was so stupid . And now he was going to add Nishio to the list.

His stuttering breathing reached his ears, echoing in the empty bathroom. His face was wet from more than the still-running tap water, his leather gloves sticking oddly to his hands from the moisture that had seeped under them, the raw sensation on his kagune-hand numbed by the scales.

He peeled off the glove, gaze fixed on the sink and determinedly away from the mirror and looked at the evidence of his rotten soul. It was strangely grounding to curl each of his fingers one by one, watching the light shift over the scales, a tinge of iridescence to the crimson edges. Proof that it wasn’t all in his head.

Kaneki pulled the glove back on, wiped his face, fixed his hair, and set his glasses back on his face. He turned off the tap, an oppressive silence falling over him, and made the mistake of looking up at his reflection.

Why had he picked these glasses, out of every option available? It suited him, the shape of his face, the one he had inherited. It hadn’t bothered him before, but now…his hair had darkened to hers and it…he was like her, in the end, wasn’t he? A kind façade, a violent soul, trying their best to protect but only hurting everyone around them instead. An exhaustion he couldn’t sleep away, a loneliness he couldn’t burn out. An early end.

What had she felt that day, when she began to drift off? Had she known it was more than simple sleep? Had it been peaceful? Had she closed her eyes and felt relief like a warm embrace realising that her fight was over?

His phone buzzed with a silenced call. Kaneki fished it out of his coat’s pocket to find Hide’s name on the screen.

He glanced at the mirror once more.

Not yet, mom. I still have work to do .

-- -- --

Kaneki scrolled past another article on Sen Takatsuki’s public appearances this month, feeling like his eyes would peel out of his sockets. There had to be something, somewhere she had slipped up, that could be linked to the One-Eyed Owl’s activity. So far he’d managed to confirm Takatsuki had been out of the public eye since the Operation, likely recovering from her injuries, but it wasn’t good enough.

He must be overlooking something.

His gaze drifted to the unopened file beside his computer, feeling like he was swallowing sand. Did Hide know about Nishio? He must, if he knew about himself. How long had he known, yet Kaneki had insisted on pushing him away anyway?

“You don’t deserve his help after all you’ve done,” Rize tutted, lounging on the desk and playing with a lock of silky hair. “You should cut him off but you’re too selfish, aren’t you?”

It’s not like it worked the first time.

“You’ll only hurt him again.”

He went so far to find me again.

“Did he? Or is it that you can’t think beyond yourself? He could be here for himself, for some goal that has nothing to do with you. The world doesn’t revolve around you—” she leaned over— “Ken Kaneki.” She tapped the screen with every syllable of his name.

But he told me—

“You’ll ruin him, just like you ruined the Quinx. Your mere presence is destructive.”

Kaneki sighed. He knew, of course he knew. But the CCG was dangerous, he couldn’t leave them alone. Whatever happened to Shirazu was his responsibility. If the worst came to be, he had to be here to protect him, all of them. There was no one he could trust to look after them within these walls.

A disgruntled noise from his right made him look over at Hide, who was flipping through archived files on the Owl with a bored expression. He stretched, arching his back like a cat and sighed in relief when his shoulders popped. There was something in this room at this moment, silent except for the soft hum of his computer, the rifling of paper, lit in the mundane glow of the afternoon sun that quietened his mind. He was reminded abruptly of their college days and the nights they spent on the floor of his apartment, vending machine coffee and convenience store snacks on the coffee table, books and loose sheets strewn across every visible surface as they crammed for their exams the night before.

Those memories belonged to another life now.

Shockingly, the thought didn’t bring as much anguish as it used to, years ago. Things had changed and there was no going back now.

The sunlight streaming in from the windows behind them fluttered with the shadow of a flock of birds, dancing between the gridlines of the panes before vanishing and leaving behind untainted polished wood glistening like still water.

Water—calm, sliding green above the weir; water—a sky-lit alley for his boat…

“Want a break?” Kaneki offered and Hide jumped to his feet immediately, as if waiting for this moment.

“There’s this sushi place I saw yesterday that I wanted to check out just outside campus and I. Am. Starving. Let’s go, let’s go!”

…bird-voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers and shaken hues of summer: drifting down…

Kaneki smiled despite himself and shut down his computer. He shoved the offending file into a drawer, absently noting the desk was empty, and followed Hide out the door, words from years ago leaping off the page to echo in his ears:

…he dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept.

Chapter Text

The hallways on the upper floors were deserted at this time of day, giving Urie the perfect opportunity to drop by the archives. The others had left for lunch, and what with Shirazu and Saiko’s grumbling over the past half hour, he knew they wouldn’t follow him when he made an excuse about looking for a lead for their new assignment.

Just as he pulled the door open, he glimpsed Sasaki pass by the end of the hallway, some guy about their age chattering loudly at his side. He was dressed even more inappropriately for work than Shirazu and his stupid fur coat in sneakers and a bright windcheater. Urie scowled at the bandana over his mouth and bleached spiky hair, wondering how that was even allowed in the CCG. Was he the new partner? How the hell did such a goof get paired with an S3 Associate Special Class?

His grating voice disappeared down the hall, as did that strange electric scent that hung around Sasaki these days. He hoped Sasaki hadn’t seen him; he’d grill Urie about what was so important to be skipping meals otherwise. Besides, he was the last person Urie wanted to know what he was really doing here.

He avoided the middle-aged man typing tiredly behind his desk and bee-lined for the computers’ section, picking one with a screen facing away from the door so he could keep an eye on anyone coming in as well as the archivist.

Getting comfortable in the rolling chair, Urie considered how to find what he needed. A ghoul active from three years ago, but he didn’t know what code name the CCG had assigned Sasaki. Hirako Squad had only referred to him as “the SS-rated ghoul Haise” last year on the highway. He must have been referred to as something else before joining.

He typed in the criteria he did know: rinkaku, 19 years old, and SS-rate , then set it to the right date range. The server came up empty. He changed the age specifics to a simple young . There were a couple of hits, only one who was familiar: Yotsume. He opened up her file and scrolled through the list of her known acquaintances. Pretty much everyone was in the Aogiri Tree. Had Sasaki been a part of Aogiri once? Shirazu and Yonebayashi had said T-Owl recognised him during the Auction Raid…It would make sense, give him the necessary connections to powerful ghouls like Yotsume and Donato Porpora.

Rabbit was one of Yotsume’s first known acquaintances, dating back to four years ago when they murdered First Class Kureo Mado. And she knew Sasaki—no wonder Akira had been avoiding him.

If he was a part of Aogiri Tree, that would connect him to the One-Eyed Owl as well. He had fought her on the roof, but they might not have always been at odds. His father’s…Urie’s gut twisted.

Maybe the rating he was using was off? Sasaki might have been moved up after he joined. S-rate then. More hits this time, but again, no one that could be Sasaki.

Urie sighed. This wasn’t working. He needed something more concrete, yet he couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was wrong. He should have gotten some kind of lead by now, even if it was a small or insignificant one.

Donato Porpora’s connections were another clue, but he came up empty once more. There didn’t seem to be a common factor between him and Yotsume, either. Surprisingly, an investigator's name popped up under his file. The legendary late Amon Kotarou. Huh.

He tapped his fingers against the table’s glossy surface, sorting out his memories since the formation of the Quinx Squad, of every time he had used his kagune around them. What could his code name be? Why would they have dropped it after he joined?

A thought struck him—was Sasaki even his real name? Last Christmas there had been a book at their doorstep, wishing someone a happy birthday. (There had been a name on it, what was the name?) There were only two readers in the Chateau and Mutsuki showed no indication of recognising it. And it had come alongside with a mask—very evidently a ghoul mask in hindsight—and one he then used as a ghoul mask. The threads were connecting to form proof that he had been an active ghoul once.

The one who had made the mask—HySy. The man had struck Urie as a ghoul—that could be another lead. He could track him down again but his level was unknown. It could be dangerous to go alone. The other option was reporting it up. He was a mask-maker for ghouls, taking him out could be a major victory. Operation Mask was over either way. But then again, he’d lose all credit if he reported it instead. (It could get Sasaki into trouble.) Urie grit his teeth. He’d leave it as a last resort, same as interrogating Porpora. It could be enlightening but that ghoul was no amateur at intimidation. It would be far harder than interrogating Yotsume.

How did a human-turned-ghoul even make connections like that? He was powerful but he had barely been out of high school. The thought made him simmer with envy. At his age Sasaki had already become one of the CCG’s highest rated targets and grown influential among ghouls, and where was Urie? (Not even close. He couldn’t hold a candle to him no matter how hard he tried.)

He squeezed the bridge of his nose. Something was wrong. There was no way there was nothing on someone like that. He glanced at the shelves further down the room. Perhaps in the older archives?

The archivist pointed him in the right direction without looking away from his screen and Urie found himself staring at the shelves overflowing with files, journals, envelopes, even a flier or two. He grumbled under his breath and started pulling out records.

An hour later, he had found absolutely zero information and was running low on patience and time. He had about another half hour before the others started looking for him. It was impossible for there to be no mention of him whatsoever. That couldn’t be true for any ghoul in Tokyo at all, so either he was on a goose chase or the files were missing.

Could they have been removed intentionally? Or they were under restricted access. He glanced around the shelf to eye the archivist's hunched back. He couldn’t ask without sending an alert up the chain of command. It would make sense to avoid other investigators knowing his past—no, it wouldn’t. They should all know what they were dealing with. Ignorance made them easier to kill. There was some other logic at play here.

Urie’s eyes flicked over the serrated outline of the stuffed shelves. Did they not want him to know? If they had files on things he had done before he was Haise Sasaki, they essentially held his memories.

Why didn’t the CCG want him to remember? To go so far to keep him in the dark…were they afraid? Why?

He needed to approach this from a different direction if that was the case. If Sasaki’s files weren’t there, he’d just have to use others’ to find a link. He wasn’t an honour student for nothing. He could figure this out himself. The gaps would eventually form a pattern and his answer would lie within its shadow.

Urie tugged his sleeve to check his watch. Twenty minutes. He could pick up some files to look over at home. He left the aisle and darted towards the still-running computer, hurriedly opening up the page on known Aogiri Tree members. He skipped to the ‘K’ section, and there he was, their notorious mad scientist, smiling banally in a pressed suit.

Chapter Text

The restaurant was lively and loud, as Hide had expected, but also soothing, with low music winding its way through the many patrons and dim gold lights washing over them. It wasn’t so crowded as to be overwhelming, but just enough to disappear into the background. It was the type of place Kaneki would have liked going to, but he was staring blankly at the window instead.

His mannerisms had changed a lot in the time they’d spent apart, and although the thought made his chest twinge, he had gotten a bit of a read on him over the past few days, figured out what his new highly reserved gestures and expressions meant. This face meant something was bothering him. Hide would have guessed it had something to do with the restaurant if it hadn’t been there even back in the office.

Something work-related then? He’d had a meeting with Arima in the morning.

“Yo,” he said, and Kaneki looked at him. “What was that new file for?”

Kaneki flinched. Bingo .

“We’re partners, man,” he said when Kaneki didn’t respond. “You weren’t planning on dealing with whatever is in that on your own, were you?”

His gaze flicked back to the window. “It’s not something you should deal with.”

“That’s not for you to decide,” Hide said as gently as possible. “You’re doing it again. Pushing me away to protect me.”

He glanced askance at Hide, doubt in his clear grey eyes that had never looked so exhausted, not even when they had been pulling all-nighter after all-nighter the week before their college entrance exams.

“C’mon now. I didn’t go so far to get us teamed up and everything for you to just keep important things to yourself.”

Kaneki looked down at the gap on the table in front of him, successfully chided. “I just…it’s not…”

He sighed and Hide knew he’d won. He’d have grinned if he still could.

This was the first step after all. Kaneki needed to understand they were together in this before anything else, or it would all go off the rails way too quickly. It was harder because of how much he’d changed and how much he hadn’t—he wouldn’t bother Hide with the heavy stuff, not back when they were kids and not now—but Kaneki needed to learn to rely on him for more than just company while he dealt with everything on his own.

“Did you know,” Kaneki asked, voice low, “about the others at the café?”

Hide hummed, the sensation odd in his throat. “I knew about Touka and Nishio from that, uh—” he chuckled— “remember the time he tried to kill me? I woke up later at the café. Kinda overheard a lot. So I found out the manager was, too, way before the raid happened. And since all of them were, I’d guessed the entire staff must have been.” The significance of the question sunk in as Kaneki muttered under his breath in annoyance. “Why?”

Kaneki leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes, and Hide steeled himself. “Arima assigned us a new target. It’s Nishio.”

Hide let the silence fester, taking a moment to absorb the new information. This was going to be a huge problem, which of course he was trying to sort out himself, the idiot. But this also had more significant implications. “Does he know you knew him?”

A pinched expression passed over Kaneki’s face. “I think he does,” he said quietly, not opening his eyes as if that would make everything go away. “I ran into him sometime last year. We fought. He ended up unmasked and it…messed with my head. I didn’t get the chance to tell Arima directly about it but there’s a good chance he connected the dots. I think—” and he paused to take a deep breath, forcing himself to remain composed— “he’s punishing me. I don’t know—or a test of some kind—he knows, you know? He knows I’m not—not him anymore—and maybe he wants me to kill someone I knew, someone I cared about once to prove my loyalty to the CCG.”

He went silent, his ramble taking the breath out of him.

“Kaneki,” Hide murmured, leaning over the table; there didn’t seem to be any investigators close enough to hear. “Breathe. We’ll figure it out. You’ve got me now, you’re not in this alone.”

Kaneki took another deep breath and cracked his eyes open, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “I’ve got you now,” he whispered.

They dropped the subject after that, talking about everything and anything under the sun like they once used to. The tension seemed to seep out of Kaneki’s shoulders slowly, returning only momentarily whenever Hide moved his mask to eat. He didn’t laugh like he used to, but Hide wrangled a few chuckles out of him anyway, which was a win in his book.

Hide blocked his eyes from the bright sun as they left the restaurant, the echoing chatter of the restaurant abruptly replaced with the expansive noise of pedestrians and traffic. Kaneki rubbed his eyes behind his glasses.

“Are your eyes more sensitive to light too now?”

Kaneki looked over as they started walking back to the Main Office. “Kind of? Sunlight isn’t so bad—except when it’s so sudden. Artificial light’s worse.” He chuckled. “It took ages to get used to the lighting in the office, and then all the computer work. It still burns sometimes when I have to work longer til late in the night.”

“Can you see in the dark?”

“Hide.”

“What? I’ve wanted to ask for ages,” he whined. “My curiosity is literally killing me.”

“Better than before,” he replied exasperatedly and Hide pumped the air with his fist, “but not as good as a lot of other ghouls. Even Mutsuki sees better than I do.”

“I see, I see. That’s one of those kids you’re mentoring, right? The Quinx?”

His eyes flicked over sharply, both aware that Kaneki himself hadn’t mentioned that. “Yeah, he is,” he said anyway.

“When do I get to meet them?”

“Why do you want to? They’re a headache,” he said with a fond smile.

Hide laughed. “Yeah?”

Kaneki groaned, as if he’d brought up awful memories and let his head fall back. “God, you have no idea. I don’t know how I’ve kept them alive for so long. It’s like they see danger and they have to run directly towards it. I’m worried out of my mind about how they’re managing on their own now, like I’ll go home and find someone missing a limb or something.”

He snorted. “But they can grow ‘em back, so that can't be that bad.”

Kaneki glared playfully at him. “It still hurts like hell. Trust me, I’d know.”

Hide hummed. “Still. Infinite limb glitch.”

“Huh?”

He laughed and slung his arm around his shoulders. “Nevermind. Tell me something though, how did you get so ripped ?” He poked Kaneki’s bicep and whistled, making him smile half in abashment, half in amusement.

“By getting my ass kicked, mostly.”

Hide nodded as if he’d said something extremely wise.

“Hide?” Kaneki said abruptly with a thoughtful frown. “Something’s been bothering me for a while. Why were you at the raid in the 20th ward?”

“Ah, that. Long story short, I got a random promotion from part-time errand boy to investigation assistant to helping out Division II for the raid.”

His brows furrowed in confusion. “You were untrained, not even onboarded properly, and they sent you into such a dangerous operation? That breaks protocol in so many ways, regardless of how important the raid was or how many personnel they lacked for the scale they had planned. Considering the target’s rank and the fact that Aogiri was pretty active around that time so they must have expected intervention, you should have never even been an option.”

Hide shrugged it off, knowing full well why he’d been sent despite the very valid points he’d listed. “The CCG’s a weird bunch.”

But Kaneki shook his head. “And you still came back?” He gave him a pitiful expression that made him look rather like a wet cat. “They cared so little for your safety and life, yet you came back…for me?”

Hide gave him a bright smile. “Of course!” He swallowed the painful realisation that Kaneki couldn’t comprehend the idea, like it was beyond fantasy that someone would want to protect him as fiercely as he did for others.

Kaneki stared at him for a moment longer with that heavy emotion behind his eyes, then at the ground, then opened his mouth to say something when he suddenly tensed up. The emotion vanished instantly, replaced with that horribly vacant expression Hide had seen too often these days. His gaze snapped to the roofs then scanned the crowds around them with the predatory glare of a hawk—or, well, a ghoul.

Hide’s phone buzzed in two short spasms—a message from Marude. He surreptitiously glanced at the one-worded text box on the screen: “tail.” There must have been unusual movement in the cameras they were monitoring in and around near the commercial area outside the CCG’s campus.

Kaneki could sense them—that would be useful. Hide slipped his phone into his pocket and asked casually, “What’s wrong?”

He pursed his lips, scratching his chin. “Nothing. Let’s go.”

He grabbed Hide’s arm and all but dragged him to the CCG’s gates in silence, staying on high alert the entire time, scrutinising every alley they crossed, watching the buildings above them without slowing his pace for even a moment.

His urgency almost made Hide laugh. It was absurd that they were walking right into the base of those who had been following them for the past fifteen minutes. 

They crossed the doors, hit with a wall of air conditioning, yet Kaneki didn’t seem any more relieved. His vigilance didn’t die down as he watched the reception desk, passed through the RC scanners, and entered the elevator. His stony expression didn’t falter as the numbers on the little screen on the elevator panel climbed higher and higher.

Did he have a hunch they were connected? He was technically behaving as he was expected to, showing he considered the CCG a ‘safe’ place when he ran into danger. None of the files Marude has snagged for Hide revealed any kind of monitoring system in place for him, but they might have been keeping an eye on him all along, considering what Hide knew.

The elevator doors slid open to reveal the floor used by S3 squads. Some employees had returned to work and milled about the hallway in post-lunch lethargy. Among them, a pair of keen eyes were watching them, following every step as they made their way past the loose crowds to the office they’d been using for the past few days.

Hide closed the door behind them and Kaneki released his breath slowly, shoulders dropping a little. He’d never seen them move so openly before.

This was getting interesting.

Chapter Text

“That should be a good few months,” Shirazu said, unsure if he was talking to the prone body on the hospital bed, the silent figure beside him, or himself. “Urie was technically the one who beat him but he gave all the money to me anyway. Acting all high and mighty, the prick.”

He cracked an uneasy smile and glanced at Sasaki, hoping he would say something, anything, but he simply stared at Haru. 

“You…knew, right?”

He nodded.

Shirazu was confused again, as he often was around this new Sassan. He never seemed to know what to say anymore, so he turned to gaze at Haru instead. She was asleep right now, so they were keeping their distance and speaking in low tones. The morning had broken bright and clear, with birds chirping, white wispy clouds, a crisp breeze flowing in through the open window—the picture of a good day, the type of day Haru would love to go out in play in—but no, that was years ago, before she had been hospitalised, she was probably too old for that now—yet it sat at odds with the awkward mood in the room.

Finally, Sasaki spoke, not looking away from her. “You really love your sister, don’t you?”

Shirazu stuffed his hands into his pockets and furrowed his brows at him. “Uh-huh...”

“You would probably do anything for her.”

“Y—Yeah.”

“Even die for her?”

“Sassan, where’s this coming from?”

Sasaki looked over at him, a flicker of surprise as if he hadn’t really registered what he had been saying, then he gave him a tight smile. “Nevermind me. I’ll give you two some space,” he said, and left.

Shirazu turned to Haru once more, who stirred a little.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Sorry it’s taken me so long to drop by this time.”

She mumbled a response that he guessed was along the lines of berating him. Even now, she was the same, snarking him at every turn. Well, he kinda did that with other people, too. Apparently, it was a shared trait.

“...Som’un else here?”

“Yeah. That was my mentor, Sassan. Remember? I’ve told you about him. I'm getting a new quinque today so he’s coming with me again since I kinda sucked at it the first time.” He chuckled sheepishly, scratching his head.

“—diot.”

“Hey! Be nice to your brother.”

He sighed, the good cheer draining out of him almost immediately. “I just keep thinking, you know, about what he must have been thinking at—at the end. Was it like Nutcracker? Was someone that insanely powerful also doing all this for some reason just like me?”

Haru was silent and only then he realised what he had been saying. “But that’s for me to worry about, you just focus on getting better, ‘kay? His bounty was crazy high so you’ll be fine; it’ll easily cover your treatments and pain meds—everything.” He paused, then repeated in a whisper to himself, “Everything.” 

“Anyway,” he said loudly, grabbing a cheap plastic chair that sat out of place in the sleek, sterile surroundings, and, pulling it over to the bedside, settled down. “I got so much stuff to tell you. Saiko and I hit this flea market last weekend…”

-- -- --

“You think that’ll work?”

Shirazu paused as he left Haru’s hospital room, closing the door behind him, but not moving further down the hall to Sasaki. He was talking on the phone, leaning back against the wall with his head down and voice low.

“I don’t know—won’t that be more dangerous?” His thumb worried over his first knuckle, as if resisting the urge to crack it. “Yes, I know that, Hide—” He looked up then and locked eyes with Shirazu. The worry in the creases of his brow vanished immediately. “I’ll call you back.”

Shirazu forced the grin back on his face and walked over, apologetic. “It wasn’t supposed to take so long.”

Sasaki shook his head and pocketed his phone, the screen dark. “It’s fine. Ready to go?”

And back to the monotone. Shirazu nodded and followed him towards the elevator, overcome with a strange déjà vu of his own discharge from weeks ago. He eyed Sasaki’s back. Who was he talking to? Hide? He hadn’t heard him speak like that in ages, with actual inflection instead of some artificial emotion that didn’t reach his eyes.

A pair of investigators rounded the corner, whom Shirazu recognised straight away from the bright polka-dotted suspenders. Suzuya and a guy from his squad—Nakarai, was it? They’d never interacted much, the guy kinda scared him with his serious intensity. Nakarai bowed politely when he spotted them and Suzuya waved, energetic as ever and seemingly unfazed by the changes around Sassan. They passed by them and Suzuya patted Shirazu’s arm, seemingly in sympathy.

Right. His mentor was in this hospital too, comatose. He must understand what it was like for Shirazu, to come back here day after day and feel the hope drain out of him every time he laid eyes on his most important person and find no improvement, no matter what he did, no matter how much he waited.

“It’s been three years for him, huh?” Shirazu said when they arrived at the elevator. Sasaki pressed the call button. “Probably takes a lotta grit to keep seeing him in that state. At least I can talk to Haru on her better days, like today.”

Sasaki hummed, glancing over his shoulder even though the pair of them were no longer in their line of sight. “He’s tough, his mentor. Juuzou’s hoping he’ll still pull through, eventually.”

Shirazu was startled at his words. The elevator ding ed and the doors opened, thankfully revealing an empty compartment. Once they slid shut and the elevator began to drop smoothly, he moved closer and whispered over the bland music, “You’ve…met?”

Sasaki gave him a faint smile. “I guess you could say that.”

“What’s that mean?”

But he merely shook his head, grey eyes flicking upwards to the corner of the elevator. Shirazu followed his gaze and found a spherical security camera staring at them like a singular unblinking eye. He frowned but didn’t ask again.

-- -- -- 

The CCG laboratory was busier than usual—not that Shirazu really knew what ‘usual’ looked like here, he didn’t exactly drop by often, unlike Akira, but he could guess—since it seemed many of the achievers of the Tsukiyama Family Extermination Operation were here to pick up their spoils. Chigyou had been striding around the entire premises with a bounce in his step when they’d arrived, talking to a million investigators and researchers all at once, and now stood before them with a nondescript silver briefcase, gushing about his newest masterpiece.

“—he’s designed to make full use of his unique abilities! Ah, I haven’t gotten the chance to make such a beautiful baby in so long. It’s a real work of art—powerful, flexible to the user’s needs, durable. One of the best in the entire bureau, no doubt!”

He probably would’ve gone on for an hour longer if Sassan hadn’t gently interrupted, “Do you want to open it here or later?”

Shirazu, who had been zoning out the scientist, snapped back to reality and looked at the case in Chigyou’s hands. He was glad his memories of Noro’s death were hazy from some debilitatingly murky combination of blood loss and adrenaline so there were no haunting last words to torment him when he gingerly took the quinque case.

“I want to be... beautiful…”

His grip on the handle tightened as he thought about how Haru would say something similar to her sometimes, the only sign of the emotional turmoil the irremovable kagune-like tumour on her face gave her. He thought of Noro and his monstrous appearance, then his silent, human figure when they had first encountered him, before his transformation. Had he had a family? Did he say goodbye to someone as he left the world for good?

He avoided Chigyou’s gaze to stare at the briefcase in silence, which the scientist took as a sign that he wasn’t going to open it. Chigyou muttered under his breath about “no appreciation” and left them to deliver another creation to, hopefully, a more discerning customer.

They exited the sprawling research buildings to find the sun high in the sky, illuminating the CCG campus in blinding white. The faint rumble of the city ran under the asphalt and buzzed in the air, even though the busy roads were quite far from here; sometimes the CCG offices felt like they formed a miniature city of their own, encased in a bubble separate from the rest of Tokyo.

“I think I’ll let Urie have it,” he said without preamble and Sasaki stopped beside him. “Nutcracker is…good enough for me. “I’ve barely gotten a hang of her, and he kinda wanted a better quinque anyway.” He looked down at the case once more, solidifying his resolve. “Neither do I wanna owe that prick for the bounty—sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen.” He laughed awkwardly and turned to the once-again silent Sasaki, waiting for a response, the laugh fizzling out on his lips.

He inclined his head. “Alright.”

“Yeah?” Shirazu said, strangely relieved. It wasn’t like Sassan was gonna lecture him about it or his combat preferences. He was stricter with their training now than ever before, but he could see glimpses of the old him through the cracks sometimes; the care and kindness he’d held towards them wasn’t gone entirely.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s up to you guys. And,” Sassan paused then, pursing his lips with hesitation. “Let me know if you need any more help with using her.”

Shirazu felt surprised, unsure why. It took him a few moments to place the source of his bewilderment, but then it clicked. “Sassan, I haven’t seen you use a quinque in ages. Not since…”

Sasaki smiled askance at him, something cold and calculating in that smirk that made him wonder momentarily who he was speaking to. Could the mere presence of memories change someone so much? Or rather the effect those memories had had than the events themselves.

They got into the car in silence, moving about to settle in comfortably, putting his seat belt on—he’d gotten one hell of a lecture about road safety once, a long time ago, when he hadn’t and he’d never risked his wrath again—when Shirazu finally worked up the courage to ask the question that the others had been insisting he had to ask, because he was the squad leader or some crap.

He took a deep breath. “Sassan?”

“Hm?” He turned the key to the ignition and the car rumbled to a start.

“Are you free tonight?”

“More and less.” They backed out of the parking area and were waved through the security gates of the CCG Laboratory Division.

“I—well, all of us actually—we, uh, we were thinking we haven’t had any time to talk to you lately, you know?”

“Getting lonely, are we?”

Shirazu couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped him at the familiar sense of humour; so that was still intact. “Nah. I just meant—um, no offense, but you’ve changed a lot.” He turned to look out the window, feeling too awkward to risk the possibility of eye contact as they circled down to the point of his question. He silently cursed Mutsuki, who had been the one to most vehemently insist it had to be him, then spared a couple of silent swears for the other two too.

“I have been busy,” Sassan said slowly. His coat rustled with movement. “I’m not trying to avoid you.”

“No, no.” He kept his focus split on both his words and the outside world, or he’d grow too self-conscious to continue. He picked a hooded figure with a face mask to follow, but he disappeared rather quickly into an alley. Ugh. “I'm not accusing you of anything. Just that…we don’t really know how to, like, be around you.” He gulped his mortification down and rushed ahead, “So, uh, maybe we should have some bondingtimeorsomethingidontknow.”

The silence that followed his suggestion was charged and made his inside curl. God, what he’d give to rewind the past ten minutes but the words were out and he couldn’t suck them back into his lungs.

“Okay.”

The moment the car slowed in front of the Chateau an agonising thirty minutes later, Shirazu shoved the door open and ran inside, desperate for escape, and did his best not to think about how sad Sassan’s response had sounded.

Chapter Text

Maman had been different for a long time now, and slowly, begrudgingly, Saiko was getting used to it. She would admit under little persuasion that she had approached Hinami Fueguchi to learn more about the new Sasaki—rather, the old one—or maybe a different one altogether; she seemed just as bewildered and upset about his withdrawn behaviour as Saiko herself was. Finding an excuse to speak to her again, though, was hard. She still had so many questions.

Where had it started?

That was easy to answer: when he walked towards them in that hallway, doing his best to help them even if others saw it as repulsive or twisted. He wanted Shirazu to live, and so he made sure he did. Sasaki had never had anything but good intentions towards them—did even now. She could see it, she could, but…she didn’t know how to speak to him anymore.

Saiko wasn’t used to the cold, the emptiness in those warm eyes. The Quinx were a ragtag group thrown together out of mere circumstance. They had little in common, from goals to temperament to life experience. Sometimes she wondered what their squad, their family, would look like if someone else had been assigned their mentor. Would it have been a family at all?

That was easy to answer, too: no.

They had all been frustrated at first. Maybe it had been the aftershocks of such a traumatic raid, of Shirazu’s near-death, that had stressed them out. Urie seemed to have tried to return their normalcy in his own strange way, but that argument had only proved more than ever that the Sasaki they once knew was gone. His confession was only confirmation.

Mutsuki was spending more time with Suzuya for his training, evidently uncomfortable with Sasaki now, not that Maman was trying to spend time with them. Maybe he could convince the others he was just busy, maybe he could even convince himself, but Saiko knew better. 

“He’s avoiding us,” she’d said one day to Shirazu, not long after his discharge, while they were lounging in the living room. Rather, she was lounging with her handheld gaming console while he sat with his head in his hands and stared at an investigation file on the coffee table like it would spit out answers if he just stared long enough. It had been their first independent case.

“Huh?” he said, not looking up.

“Maman. He’s avoiding us.”

Finally, he looked away and turned his stare towards her instead. “Why d’you think that?”

She shrugged and put her console down. “He doesn’t seem to want to talk to us anymore. He used to try all the time, remember? He’d ask about my games, your bike, Mutsuki’s books, Urie’s paintings… He used to try so hard to understand us and our hobbies so we could get along better.”

Shirazu pursed his lips and turned back to his file with a hum. Ten minutes later, he gave up and grumbled under his breath that he couldn’t focus. He trudged out of the room, then Saiko heard him take his bike out of the garage, rumbling loudly down the street like he did when he needed a distraction.

He wasn’t the only one who needed distractions, as she’d found out soon enough.

Two days after visiting Hinami Fueguchi, late at night, Saiko had found Mutsuki sitting on his bed, reading in his room. It wasn’t unusual, yet she went in, pushing open the door more than a crack.

“Didn’t Maman recommend that one?”

Mutsuki’s head snapped up, unaware of her presence until then, then he took a few seconds to process her words. “Um—” he looked at the cover like he’d forgotten what he was reading— “yeah.”

“Is it nice?”

“It is,” he said softly, wistfully, then put the book down after carefully marking the page he was on. “What are you doing up so late?”

Saiko considered this, not quite sure herself. “Couldn’t sleep, I suppose.”

Mutsuki chuckled. “That makes two of us, huh?” He patted the empty spot on the bed in front of him. “Keep me company?”

“You were reading, though,” she said, but came over without a moment's hesitation and plopped on the bed anyway, immediately getting comfortable with Mutsuki’s blanket and draping it over her shoulders.

“Yeah, but it’s not helping,” he said with that downcast look again.

“'Cause it’s Maman’s?”

He jolted. “No—that’s not—” He stopped, then smiled ruefully. “You’re very sharp, Saiko.”

She nodded sagely. “You’ve uncovered Yonebayashi’s greatest hidden skill” —she pointed at him— “so never try to hide things from the Eye of Knowing again. ‘Tis futile.”

“The what?” Mutsuki shook his head. “Nevermind. I was thinking…we need to do something. About this. We can’t keep walking on eggshells inside the house, it—it feels wrong .” He wrapped his arms around his knees, protectively, and whispered, seemingly to himself. “This place is supposed to be safe.”

Saiko watched him and the faraway look in his eyes. It was the same one she’d spotted in Maman’s eyes many times before when he thought no one was looking.

“Why (the hell) are you guys awake so late?”

They both looked to the door to find Urie frowning in the hallway, hand on the doorknob. His hair was slightly unkept and there were dark circles under his eyes.

“The light’s making the entire hallway too bright.”

Like Saiko would believe that to be his reasoning. He was almost as bad as Maman sometimes.

“Was Uribo working out again?” she asked in lieu of answering, spotting the towel on his shoulder. “You’re gonna get too jacked to fit through the door soon.”

“That doesn’t happen. And yes, I was. I didn’t get the chance to train properly in the morning with Sasaki, so I had to make up for it.”

“Why not?” Mutsuki asked.

Urie looked down the hall, likely at the sliver of light around Maman’s door that Saiko had noticed earlier, and said, “Some work call interrupted us.”

“Urie.” He looked over at Mustuki, who was staring earnestly at him, leaning forward on his hands. “Don’t you think we need to do something?”

Urie didn’t reply but his jaw ticked, like the question had annoyed him.

“The house doesn’t feel normal anymore,” Mutsuki insisted.

Urie adjusted the towel on his shoulder, then glanced down the hallway again. “You’re making too big a deal out of it. Stop taking it personally.”

“But can’t we, you know, make him his old self again?”

Saiko turned to him at that, not sure if she could hide her shock. Urie’s eyebrows rose. Mutsuki coloured. “I just meant—something’s wrong with him, so if we fix it—or help him fix it—he’d go back to normal, right?”

“I don’t think there’s a normal anymore,” Urie said, then took the towel off his shoulder. “I’m going to take a bath. You guys go to bed too, you’re keeping the house awake.”

He disappeared into the darkness beyond the illuminated space carved out by the bedroom lights. Mutsuki stared at the bed, fumbling with the edge of the sheets between his long fingers. Saiko reached out and held his hands, stilling them. He looked up.

“Mutsi, try to get some sleep,” she said. “We’ll figure out what to do in the morning, ‘kay?”

He smiled weakly and nodded. “Okay. You too,” he said as she slid off the bed and headed towards her own room. “Get some sleep, I mean.”

She didn’t end up getting any that night, the games she usually used to distract herself falling short, failing to silence her thoughts enough for sleep. No, she didn’t normally sleep at night anyway, preferring that time for her hobbies, but she couldn’t focus; she felt too tired to do anything, yet too uneasy to sleep.

The next morning, Akira called them in early for a meeting and a new assignment, so their family meeting—sans Maman—couldn’t happen until that evening.

“Well?” Urie had bitten out irritably, fidgeting with his earphones. His knee kept bouncing, as if impatient.

They were using the Chateau’s meeting room, fairly certain that Maman would leave them alone in here since he’d assume they were working, unlike if he ran into them in the living room. Not that he was home right now, but precautions had to be taken.

Shirazu laced his fingers, leaning forward on his elbows. Saiko thought he was playing the role of squad leader pretty well these days, like the way he used to earlier whenever he stole Maman’s glasses, except this time it was for real. “Tooru? You wanna start?”

Mutsuki took a deep breath. “Okay. We’ve all noticed Sensei’s been acting strange since the raid. I wouldn’t say it’s a bad thing except—I’m not the only one who’s struggling to talk to him like I used to, right?” He looked around at them expectantly.

Shirazu nodded. “Yeah. It’s kinda intimidating now.”

“Wow, I didn’t know you knew that word, Shiragin.” Saiko snickered at the look of offence he shot her. “But yeah. I don’t think I’ve even mentioned my games around him recently. Feels like I have to talk about work or training or serious stuff.”

“Like with any other superior officer of ours at the CCG,” Urie said blandly. Saiko couldn’t tell through his unchanged expression if he was mocking them or sympathising with them.

“Yeah, but it’s Sassan,” Shirazu griped, apparently picking the mocking undertone. “He isn’t any other superior officer to us. Never has been.”

“You realise we’re dealing with someone different now?” Urie snapped back.

“He said he chose to stick with us,” Shirazu said. “He had the option, but he didn’t go. That means he doesn’t want that kinda distance.” He said it with confidence, but looked to the others for agreement anyway.

Urie shrugged, backing down, while Mutsuki nodded enthusiastically.

“Maybe he doesn’t know it’s awkward for us?” Saiko suggested.

Mutsuki paused. “Oh. I didn’t even think of that. He hasn’t been around us enough to notice.”

“Can we stop waffling on about this nonsense?” Urie griped, “(Get to the point already.) You guys want to talk to him, properly , so go do it.”

“What the hell’s gotten into you?” Shirazu frowned. “You’re always an ass, but you’re like, ten times worse today.”

Urie just huffed and turned away, answering with stubborn defiance. Saiko narrowed her eyes at him and filed his antsiness away to pursue another time. He always acted that way when he was up to something shady, which usually meant something stupid, too.

“So, uh, who’s bringing it up?” Shirazy turned back to them and the topic at hand, only to find three pairs of eyes on him: Mutsuki’s wide, Saiko’s sly, and Urie’s as deadpan as ever. He realised what they meant with growing horror. “No. I’m not doing this. That’s just awkward, man.”

“But you’re the squad leader,” Mustuki said with a sheepish grin, as if guilty about pushing this onto him. Saiko was pretty sure he was more relieved than anything that someone else was the first option, because he was definitely the second.

“Yeah, squad leader, take one for the team!” Saiko cheered him on.

“Shut up, Saiko. I’m not doing it. I ain’t good at this stuff.”

“But he’ll listen,” Mutsuki insisted. “You’ve got more credibility with him than us, and he’ll know it’s coming from all of us if it’s you.”

Shirazu crossed his arms. The stubbornness he shared with Urie was probably why they butted heads so often. “Nope. Not happening.”

A couple of days later, he sprinted into the kitchen and stared at Saiko—who was perched on a stool over a fresh cup of coffee at the counter, one the others would call “the worst thing they’d ever smelt” and “you’ve created mustard gas, Yonebayashi (dumbass)”—and whisper-yelled, “It’s happening!”

As the sun began to set, they settled in the living room, a much better-smelling batch of coffee on the table between them. Maman put his own cup down with a clink , the last one to be made, and the Quinx shifted uncomfortably. It was tense and awkward and it made Saiko sad to see her family reduced to this fumbling mess, darting around their core like this. They had grown closer to each other these past few weeks—the raid had changed something in them all, fundamentally—but they had lost touch with Sasaki. It wasn’t a price any of them were willing to pay, really.

Sasaki sighed, pushing his glasses up his nose,  shifting the lights’ reflection on them and turning them momentarily opaque, and looked around at his kids. “Alright, what do you want to talk about?”

Chapter Text

Kaneki was getting hungry, much too early considering how much he’d eaten of Eto. The warm coffee kept it down, as it once did all those years ago. His memories of Anteiku had become simultaneously hazy and painfully sharp. He couldn’t quite remember the kind lilt of the manager’s voice anymore, but he did remember every crease in his smile when he offered him a home. He had never bothered to commit everything about his old family to memory, he had never expected to lose them in such a manner; did anyone, ever, or were they always filled with regret with nothing but ash in their hands and smoke in their lungs?

He looked at Shirazu first, since he was the one who had brought it up, as a way to ground himself.

He had found he would get lost in his thoughts too often these days, as if the past few years of ignorance begged to be re-examined in slow jarring detail, every laugh and every tear forgotten had to be re-worked and gathered in his fingers until he couldn’t tell what year it was anymore. Sometimes he woke up at his desk with a blanket over his shoulders that hadn’t been there before, sometimes he woke up on the couch in Anteiku’s break room, sometimes he woke up bound to a wooden chair in chains, skittering in his ears and laughter in his bones.

The Quinx shared a nervous glance, then Mutsuki spoke up, “We just thought, um, you remember a lot now, and we have a lot of questions about…a lot.” He chuckled, scratching his cheek. “Can we ask?”

He hadn’t even considered this, if he was being honest. Kaneki had wanted to keep his distance so he didn’t hurt them—he never thought his distance could be hurtful in itself.

“Silly boy, you can’t ever learn,” Rize tutted, perched on the arm of his armchair. Her hair caught the light in startling vividity, the very same locks that had caught his eye three lifetimes ago, glistening raven feathers. “Isn’t this exactly what you did with your previous family? Hurt them, left them, gutted them, killed them.”

Shirazu and Mutsuki shared a look.

“Of course. Ask away,” he said somewhat drily.

To his surprise, it was Urie who spoke up first, his coffee untouched on the table. “Is your name actually Sasaki?”

Kaneki considered answering. “Technically, yes, it has been for the past few years, and it’s best if that’s the one you stick with.”

“Because then people would know you remember everything?” Saiko asked.

“That,” he said, nodding, “and the fact that it’s not a name the CCG likes.” He smirked into his coffee as he recollected the unadulterated fear they had received him with back when he’d crashed their raid of the 20th ward.

“Enjoyed it, didn’t you?” Rize tittered, leaning over and whispering in his ear. “The smell of their fear, the tremble of their weak bodies. Delectable.”

His smirk vanished.

“Ken Kaneki,” he said to the Quinx, softly. “But please don’t use it.”

Mustuki nodded. “What about your family? We know all about each others’ families, but not yours.”

“I suppose I have a couple of living relatives, but that’s it.”

“Oh,” said Shirazu. “Ghouls?”

Kaneki looked down at the dark liquid, trying to focus on his chosen family, think of the warmth of their smiles and their concern, their light scoldings when he messed up a customer’s orders rather than the stinging warmth of his mother’s palms, the fading warmth of her cheeks on a cold winter morning.

“No. Just…ordinary causes. Ghouls hardly existed for me until I turned.”

Turned . What a simple word for an experience that had been anything but. There was no word that could capture it though, the pain, confusion, the joys he had found…so turned it was.

“You remember living as a human now,” Saiko commented thoughtfully. “I’d never even thought about the fact that you didn't before.”

“I do,” he answered simply, not wanting to go into the details of his disrupted memory. It had been painful enough living through it, re-living it was unnecessary, especially when it insisted on coming back whenever he closed his eyes, whenever he walked through the halls of the CCG, whenever he looked at the people he had considered colleagues and friends.

“How long were you a ghoul before joining the CCG?” Urie asked, an almost interrogative barb to his words that put Kaneki on edge.

“A while.”

“So you had old ghoul contacts?” Shirazu asked, glancing at Mutsuki, who stiffened and cleared his throat, looking away nervously. “Like ghouls who would recognise you even now?”

Rize laughed.

“Why are you asking that?” He hadn't meant for his words to come out so sharp, but Shirazu flinched nonetheless, then chuckled, scratching his buzz-cut head.

“No reason, just curious.”

Kaneki wasn’t the best at reading people, but he knew the Quinx well enough now to know when they were hiding something. His questions were too pointed. He glanced at all of them, landing on Urie.

How long were you a ghoul before joining the CCG? Not were you a ghoul before , but how long . He was merely confirming, not asking.

“They know something,” Rize crowed. “They know everything.”

His memory stirred.

I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

“I’m not sure,” he said curtly.

Saiko frowned and glared at Shirazu. Mutsuki looked into his lap, guilty. Urie seemed to fail to take the hint, and leaned forward on his elbows.

“I saw your partner the other day. Strange guy.”

Saiko leapt at the change in subject. “Oooh, yeah, we haven’t met your new partner, Maman! It’s been a while since you got paired up.”

Kaneki sipped slowly on his coffee. He shouldn’t punish them like this. They were trying. It wasn't their fault he had become difficult to talk to since—

He sighed. “Hide. He was saying he wanted to meet you guys as well. I knew him once.”

“Eh?!” Shirazu perked up. “Like before the CCG?”

Kaneki nodded, his resolve hardening as he continued to speak. “Before my surgery. He’s a childhood friend of mine, actually.” He smiled, hesitantly. “I can introduce you guys.”

He needed to. Hide was the only one he could truly trust within these walls. If what he was thinking was going to come to pass, he needed someone to look after the Quinx in his stead. They needed to not merely be in contact, but rely on Hide like they did for him or it wouldn’t work. Hide would turn against the CCG if required, he was certain of it. He wouldn’t be loyal to an organisation that hunted ghouls if he’d known all along Kaneki was one. He had an ulterior motive to coming back and Kaneki needed that right now.

“That makes even less sense,” Urie muttered.

Kaneki’s gaze zeroed in on him, realising when he must have seen Hide with him. “You were at the archive the other day. Why?”

Urie seemed startled, his usually deadpan expression breaking before he recovered. “Work.”

“You got an assignment that very morning. Even you’re not that dedicated.”

“Why do you care all of a sudden?”

“Oi, Kuki,” Shirazu snapped, frowning. “What the hell, man?”

Urie just leaned back into the sofa, crossing his arms and looking down his nose at Kaneki. “I’m just asking, you've barely been around and now you want to know everything we’ve been up to?”

Kaneki narrowed his eyes at him, leashing his irritation at his blatant disrespect. “Talking goes both ways, doesn’t it?”

“Alright, so tell me—”

Kaneki rolled his eyes.

“—did you know the Non-Killing Owl?”

Rize shrieked with laughter, doubling over and nearly falling off the armchair.

Kaneki stared at him, frozen.

“Did you?” he egged him on, jaw set.

“Urie,” Mutsuki said, stunned. “What are you talking about?”

Urie ignored him. “What about the Rabbit? Fueguchi? The Clowns?”

Kaneki wanted to retort, shut down his line of questioning, but his voice had died. The room felt small—too small—shrinking—Rize wouldn’t stop giggling—

“Why did the CCG let you live?”

Why, indeed?

Before he realised what was happening, Kaneki was on his feet. The floor swayed, checkered and splattered, and flat words were slipping through his lips, “If that’s all, I’ve got work to do.”

His head hurt, his stomach hurt, he was so hungry, his disfigured hand ached dully, as if draining his energy, his ears hurt from Rize’s shrill laughter, the echo of a deeper manic male voice beneath it. The door to his bedroom closed, but he didn’t switch the lights on. Loud voices floated up the stairs, filtered through the gap between his door and the doorframe, and Kaneki realised he’d never finished his coffee, left it still warm on the coffee table, half empty.

Always half empty.

What had he even been doing? He had so much to do, so much to think about, like Nishio, like Hinami. He had an inkling of a plan for her, but it would never work. It had to work, he had to make it work, he was running out of time. It had been almost a month since he’d stopped visiting; just a few more without contact from her owner and they’d put her down for disposal.

He should go see her.

He wouldn’t dare go see her.

Kaneki didn’t know how much time had passed, he didn’t know when Rize had left him alone, when the voices had quietened, when the lights of the house had been switched off, but the Chateau was asleep when he finally got up off the floor. When had he sat down against the door? The window told him it was late in the night, the Tokyo skyline brighter than when they’d settled in to talk downstairs.

He felt weak with hunger—it wasn’t supposed to progress so quickly—but he had no food from the CCG at the moment. It could take a week or two for it to arrive, they always fed him just enough, drugged, a caged rabid animal they had to keep weakened, but he couldn’t wait.

Kaneki opened the door, listening into the silence, then he moved.

-- -- -- 

The car rumbled to a stop at the bend of the road, high up in the mountains. His grip was sweaty, his gloves uncomfortably slick, so he wrenched them off. There was little moonlight tonight, hiding his hand, but his ghoul senses picked up the slack immediately. He kept his hands out of sight as he stepped outside.

There were no other cars here, unlike the night Yomo had first brought him out to a similar spot on the other side of the city. It had been so long since he’d been to the 20th ward, so long since he’d been home that the ache felt tangible in his gut, solid and cold, sucking up any warmth that had ever grown in him.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

The night air ripped at his clothes and hair as he jumped, landing easily at the bottom without a scratch. Nishio had been there the night he first saw a ghoul feeding. A dry laugh escaped him. He’d been such an asshole back then. It was strange to think he’d grown on him so quickly after that. He was family now. He couldn’t hurt him.

There were no bodies, not tonight. It had been a gamble, and he’d lost, like he’d lost everything he’d had once. Taken it all for granted like an idiot, couldn’t appreciate them more—no, instead he’d brought them ruin the moment he’d stepped through those doors. He’d brought them ruin and death and a pile of rubble where their sanctuary had been.

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

He couldn’t lose someone again, he wouldn’t survive it, not his family, not them, anyone but them.

Arima stood over him in his cell, declaring coldly, “I killed them all.”

The first lie of many—how many lies had he been told? Tied down with as many as they could spit, locking him up in his confusion and loneliness because they had never cared what it did to him as long as he marched when he was told to, and killed who he was supposed to.

He couldn’t do this again.

Distantly, he grew aware of the sound of a car engine, far above him.

He was so hungry.

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

The ground moved under him, the cliffside under his fingers, now the railing, the night sky unobstructed by forest, now a pale face peering over the edge just a few feet away. The man turned, his mouth opened, white teeth glistening in the darkness, a scream erupting from his throat, now closer, now inches away—

Now silenced.

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

-- -- --

Far above the hillside, perched on a thick overhanging branch, Nimura Furuta gasped a quiet “Oh my.”

He tucked away a pair of sleek binoculars in his coat and straightened. He usually hated doing V’s grunt work, but being assigned such a boring job seemed to have paid off today. Stifling a giggle, he moved towards the ground to get more comfortable—he’d have to wait until his target returned home—and murmured to himself in amusement, “Aren’t you just cruel, Arima?”

Chapter Text

The night was quiet now, after the pandemonium down in the living room collapsed in on itself. Everyone had retired to their rooms one by one by some unspoken agreement that they needed space to cool off. So here Mutsuki was, alone in his room, staring at the blank wall in front of him, some curdling combination of anger, sorrow, and guilt swirling in his chest.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Shirazu had spat at Urie, who sat frozen on the couch. It didn’t look like he had intended for that to happen, Mutsuki told himself in vain comfort.

What did it matter?

Saiko had burst into tears when Sensei walked out and was curled around a cushion, clutching it like it was her lifeline.

A pillow lay between his own arms now. He understood why she had done that—it felt nice, like maybe nothing was happening at all.

There had been a lot of shouting once Urie had recovered. He defended himself, of course, vehemently. Apparently, he’d found proof Sasaki couldn’t be trusted. Shirazu had had to be held back from punching him at that.

Hours later, Mutsuki wished he hadn’t intervened at all. But they wouldn’t have heard it then; it would’ve just dissolved into a fistfight, the type only Sensei could break up. The boys were taller than him, they looked stronger too, but Sensei always managed to cleave them apart effortlessly. Mutsuki stifled a snort as he remembered the one time they had picked a fight within the office. Sensei had been so mad he’d dragged them out by the ears. The public humiliation had ensured they never pulled that one again.

But Sensei was gone. Sasaki—Kaneki—wouldn’t be coming to break up this one.

“Don’t you see?” Urie had hissed. “The CCG was wrong about him. Whatever he did before, they thought it was gone with his memories. But that brutality was always in him, and now it’s clear as day. What makes you think a bloodthirsty monster like that will leave us alone?”

More shouting, but Mutsuki hadn’t really heard much after that. The silence of the house felt jarring in contrast, a numbing static pressing against his ears. The walls’ blankness felt suffocating.

He needed to decorate more tomorrow.

He’d only zoned in again when the words had wobbled, when the composure had cracked, and Urie had screeched at them all, “You think it’s ever coming back? This place is never going to be home again, because of him! You idiots can keep playing house like delusional children or you can wake up and realise you cannot. Fix. This.”

Shirazu didn’t have anything to say then, stunned into being uncharacteristically silent. Saiko had vanished at some point. Mutsuki only remembered seeing the floor, spotless from Sensei’s stress-cleaning.

It had been the most upset he’d seen Urie act since the Auction Raid. It had been the most honest he had been since the Auction Raid.

And he was right, wasn’t he? Their family was irreparably shattered. It had only ever worked as long as they ignored Sensei’s past, as long as they ignored Kaneki. He forbade them from using the name, but that was just throwing a pane of rose-tinted glass on the giant bleeding hole in the wall. That’s who he was now.

Ken Kaneki. A stranger who had ripped them apart.

Mutsuki sniffled, the sound echoing in the dwarfingly empty room. It was impossible to hate him, though, because when he looked at him all he saw was Sensei and his kindness.

He had to believe that kindness was still there somewhere. He had to or he wouldn’t know what to do with himself.

The floor outside his room creaked, softly and almost inaudibly. The weightlessness of it told Mutsuki it was Sensei. Even most ghouls wouldn’t have heard him; Mutsuki was only able to tell in the utter silence that had fallen over the house tonight.

Had he always been able to do that or was it something he gained with his surgery, the only one out of all of them who had become ghoul involuntarily, a victim of a violent procedure that the CCG was now capitalising on?

Urie had implied Kaneki was allied with ghouls once. Had…had the CCG captured him, like a common ghoul?

The hours ticked by, Mutsuki shifted on the bed and listened to the clock on the bedside table. There was little moonlight tonight, nor was there any wind. The world was as quiet as the Chateau, waiting with bated breath to see what the outcome of tonight would be.

Silence pressed on his exposed face, too open without his eyepatch, too vulnerable. Being able to see the world out of both eyes was almost uncomfortable, he had gotten so accustomed to its feeling of safety. Mutsuki didn’t even need to wear it anymore—he could control his kakugan just fine now—but he couldn’t bring himself to go out without it.

It felt ridiculous from time to time, making such a big deal out of this, but the one thing Mutsuki had found they all had in common was a lack of anything to go back to. They’d stumbled into the Quinx squad and found home and family and solace, most of them for the first time in years. Losing that…losing that was like having a piece of his soul carved out. No, that expression wasn’t quite right. It was like losing the glue that kept his soul together.

It didn’t sound like Sasaki had a good relationship with his blood family, but maybe he had had a Quinx squad of his own before this, people who had become home to him. Like that new partner. It had been impossible to ignore how he’d lit up when he’d spoken of his old friend.

The Quinx had had nothing before, but he couldn’t truly say the same for Sensei. What did he have to lose to gain them? What if they were all daily reminders of all he’d lost, a burden, a blight on his happiness?

The thought brought with it a visceral dread, piercing through the bedrock of his mind into the abyss under it. Mutsuki hadn’t quite realised it had been there; he didn’t know what had festered under there anymore.

It reminded him of the feeling he got around Torso, when he thought of that ghoul and imagined what he would do if Torso showed up again, somewhere unexpected. It had happened twice already as it was.

Why did he have to look at Mutsuki like that, with those eyes that made him unsure if he wanted to gouge out the flesh on his own bones or Torso’s face?

Mutsuki shuddered and tried to think about something else, the abyss leaking in a tiny spring.

What had Kaneki done that was so unforgivable anyway? Murder? Most ghouls did that. It wasn’t so bad, was it? Mutsuki could forgive that, because if Sensei could be forgiven for it, then maybe he himself could…

What? he asked the ceiling. He himself could what? His mind drew a blank, like a word at the tip of his tongue that existed beyond a glass wall.

Urie wouldn’t be so upset about murder. There must be something else in that proof. He really needed to see it for himself.

Maybe it was more about the principle of the matter. Sensei had finally been acknowledging his skills openly, and the other Quinx were warming up to him after their rough start, but all that progress had been disrupted. Kaneki was more parsimonious with his praise, though still patient with teaching. Mutsuki swore his skills were on another level compared to before—of course they were, he fought the Owl, damnit—yet he never made them feel stupid. He had been patient even earlier, not snapping at Urie nor leaving until he had crossed the line. Sensei had already been uncomfortable with their line of questioning, yet he gave them another chance.

The least they could do was return the favour. Maybe he just needed time; twenty years was a lot to sort out, and with his strange allegiances, it might even be painful. He must see the CCG and ghouls so differently now, if he really had been among ghouls before.

Mutsuki couldn’t help but wonder what that must be like, how ghouls behaved around each other when there were no humans to observe. He recalled Saiko and Shirazu’s report from Operation Mask. Saiko had called them nice, helpful even. Had they treated Kaneki well despite his human origin?

He wasn’t sure he was allowed to think such things.

Chapter Text

The clock continued to tick on, but the door to the office didn’t open. Hide scowled at the news articles he was skimming and closed his laptop, pausing his music and tucking his headphones around his neck. Kaneki was late. He was never late.

He checked their texts; their last conversation was yesterday evening. Nothing since. He would’ve told Hide if he wasn’t coming in. He always told him. Sure, that pattern had been severely disrupted after his surgery, but Kaneki had been making an effort lately to make up for it. He wouldn’t cut him off again—would he?

Not unless something really bad had happened.

Hide had been out ‘working’ last night, but he hadn’t seen or heard anything that could refer to Kaneki, so they probably weren’t involved…except the sudden activity late at night, far past midnight. He hadn’t been able to trace the source of their excitement, but it gave him an awful feeling in his gut now. He could go to the Chateau and check on him, or ask the Quinx if they knew what was up, but he had a feeling Kaneki wasn’t going to appreciate that. Hide glanced at the clock and the hour hand rising towards ten o’clock. If he heard nothing by noon, he was going. He could apologise later. Hide had always had unlimited second chances with him anyway, just like how he’d always give Kaneki a second chance no matter what.

Had something happened with the Quinx last night? When Kaneki had texted him, he’d said they had booked his evening for him, in the type of weak humour he used when he was nervous.

He groaned and pushed his chair away from the desk with a loud screech, heading out to find some answers.

-- -- -- 

Arima’s office was sparkling clean, to the point it felt unlived in. Sparse decorations and an artificial whiteness to everything. He himself seemed to blend into his surroundings, washed out in fluorescent tubelight. In the corners though, he could pick out signs of discord under the placidity—the edges of papers sticking out of the closed filing cabinet, a single folded sheet of thick paper with colour bleeding through stashed under the desk lamp, with a tie pin of a horse placed on its warped edge. Didn’t his surname mean horse? That was a strange thing to buy, unless it was a gift. It was the type of silly wordplay Kaneki would do, the nerd. He couldn’t count the number of jokes Kaneki had cracked about Hide realising his destiny by picking English as his major in college.

“—And we’ve got a lead on the Owl’s identity but we’re still pinning down Orochi’s area of recent activity. Associate Special Class Sasaki suggested we take our time to predict its next appearance considering how random it is. By the way, is he taking the day off? I haven’t seen him around.”

Arima didn’t even blink as he stated, “He won’t be coming to the office today.” He was stiff, too stiff, even for him, the fingers laced under his chin rigid with…something. It was hard to read someone who only ever held a poker face. Hide bit down the urge to suggest he try his hand at it whenever he was short on cash.

Hide gave him a bright smile instead. “Alrighty then. Guess I’m alone for the day. You won’t mind if I use it for some Division II stuff, do you? Marude wanted a couple of updates on this project I was on before.”

Arima merely waved him on. Honestly, Hide thought he was far more chill than his reputation made him seem. Not a bad boss, though he did seem to have high expectations, especially from Kaneki.

As he made his way down the corridor towards the elevator, he wondered how Arima really saw Kaneki. He was the one who’d arrested him, but then covered it up from the media—he recalled seeing the news months later stating there had been a no-arrest policy for the raid. He’d been certain he’d sent his best friend to his death. It was only when Marude had mentioned, much later, the half-ghoul stray the CCG had taken in that his soul finally unclenched because his plan had worked, the most dangerous gamble he’d ever played.

Kaneki would have told him if he wasn't coming in. He didn’t, but he told Arima? That wasn’t right. Arima knew through some other channel.

Considering what he knew about their connection to Kaneki, there was a possible explanation down that path. Hide still couldn’t figure out why exactly the White Reaper had gone so far to keep him alive and even protect him in certain ways from the CCG. The CCG choosing to raise Haise Sasaki as an investigator instead of killing him made sense, despite how much he despised how he’d been stripped of his humanity to be used as a weapon—apart from lip service about treating him as a human that no one seemed to listen to. If the two parties keeping him alive were one and the same…training him under one of their people would only benefit them further.

Agents working openly in the CCG’s ranks gave his job a whole nother difficulty level, and made it far more dangerous. He’d heard of Arima’s almost superhuman ability, not unlike the agents he’d come across so far. The top investigator being in league with their leadership clicked so perfectly it made Hide shudder that he hadn’t seen the connection before. How and when that connection was created without sending any alerts among the ranks was another thing entirely, but definitely something Marude needed a heads-up for.

They had to proceed with much greater caution than they already were.

-- -- -- 

The CCG headquarters in the 1st ward was a huge, sprawling campus, far bigger than the 20th’s Branch Office. It was easy to get lost in, and easier to lose other people. Kaneki had already shown him a couple of good spots for privacy—which he said he’d discovered way back in his early days as a Rank 3, like the recluse he was—and which Hide had found made it difficult for anyone to watch him in person. There were even a couple of blind spots from the security cameras. He was in one of these places now, in a corner of the terrace, when he found someone already hogging his spot.

“Mado!” he chirped at the woman, who startled a mere minute flinch and turned away from the railing she was leaning on.

“Nagachika.”

Akira Mado had changed a lot since the last time they’d spoken, on the eve of the battle of the 20th. She’d wished him luck, Amon had given him a firm pat on the shoulder, and he’d in return promised to show them the best joint for spicy curry in the ward. “The type that makes you wish your tongue just fell off instead,” he’d said. Amon had paled and Akira had laughed. He missed those days, despite the risks he had been taking, despite the inevitable betrayal.

She had become softer, he’d found. More relaxed. She had always been good company, but it felt as though her emotions ran closer to the surface now and the iciness had warmed, just a tad. Maybe it had been time and loss, but Hide suspected Kaneki had played a part in that change too.

“Playing hooky, too?”

Mado raised an eyebrow. “Some of us are responsible, kid.” She turned to gaze out at the city once more. “I’m on break.”

Hide moved to stand beside her, clocking what it was she was looking at so intently immediately. At the edge of the campus were low rolling hills, dotted by grey stone in a regular pattern that kind of reminded him of those laser grids ghosthunters used in the way it warped with the surface of the earth. A couple of people moved across the area, one or two stopped in front of particular graves.

“May I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“Where have you been all these years? What happened to you?”

Hide adjusted his bandana—a bright orange one today, to match his sneakers; who said fashion had to be abandoned just because your best friend mauled your face off?—and figured he could at least give her a half-truth. “I got injured pretty bad in the raid when I ran into some ghoul and got attacked. I got out, somehow, but it took a while to recover enough to come back.”

Mado was eyeing his mask, as well as the device implanted in his neck under it, he was sure. 

She nodded slowly, digesting his words. “Then why come back at all? You were only a part-timer. You could have gone back to college, finished your degree.”

Hide let out a whine. “Don’t remind me of my wasted tuition, Mado! It haunts my every waking moment.”

She laughed, but her gaze was steady, demanding a proper response.

“It sounded like some fun stuff had been going on around here while I was away on sabbatical, so I thought I’d join the party properly this time.”

Mado made an expression like she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or scold him for his levity. She chose to sigh instead, closing her eyes in the breeze which was far stronger this high up. The city’s noise was dulled within the CCG’s grounds, but on the terrace, it was startlingly quiet, with nothing but the breeze and the birds for company under the endless blue sky.

“Your friend was turned into a ghoul.”

“Yeah.” He’d completely forgotten that Kaneki had been confirmed as a ghoul by the CCG only after the raid. He wondered if she had been let in on all the details of his ghoul past when he became her student.

“It must have been quite a shock.”

Hide shrugged. “He’s still the same guy I knew.”

Mado narrowed her eyes at him and said, “He eats people.”

To this, Hide could only laugh. “I know, right? Weird how life does that to you sometimes.”

She looked at him for a long minute before resuming her staring competition with the empty graves of her colleagues. “You don’t care then,” she said finally, quietly.

“No,” he said simply, the most honest statement he’d made in years. “I’m just happy he came home.”

He took a deep breath and a leap of faith, knowing he might be the only one who could. “I heard about Takizawa.”

“Do you mean it? When you say he’s still the same guy you knew?”

Hide glanced askance at her. He could hardly be surprised. Apparently, even those three years of change couldn’t make Akira Mado put her heart on her sleeve. “Yep. Sure, a lot’s changed in the years we haven’t spoken, but he’s the same at his core.”

“He’s become one of the most dangerous individuals in Tokyo.”

Hide grinned at her. “And isn’t that amazing?!”

Mado made a face.

He sighed and acquiesced. “Okay, yes, I know, but he is the same. He cares too much about other people and too little about himself. And when anything at all happens to them or could happen to them, he becomes incapable of being logical.”

When Mado didn’t reply, he continued, “It makes him so stupid sometimes, you know? He stopped speaking to me when he thought he was too dangerous to be around me. He never told me he became a ghoul because he thought I’d hate him.” He scoffed. “Like I’d ever be scared of him. He can murderise as many ghouls as he wants, I knew him when he was missing his front teeth and reading books equal to his entire body weight. Don’t ask if those are related.”

She snorted.

“I’m not the only one he’s done that to before, and I think he’s doing it again.”

Her smile evaporated.

“He thinks he’s doing the right thing,” Hide continued, softly. “It doesn’t even occur to him that people care about him and they hate it when he pushes them away.”

She spoke only after a long, tense silence, dropping her words off the railing and down the side of the building. “Be careful, Nagachika.”

Hide hummed, well aware of how careful he had to be about everyone and everything. Honestly, Kaneki might be the one person he didn’t have to be so careful around. He was feeling it out right now, but if things went well, there wouldn’t need to be any secrets there anymore. He hated lying to his best friend.

He turned to leave, figuring he should let her sort her thoughts out in the peace she was no doubt looking for in the first place. He owed that to her anyway, for helping him work through his own feelings about what he was doing. Hide tapped out a mindless rhythm on the railing and pushed away.

“See ya around, Mado. —Oh, and for what it’s worth, there’s a good chance there was more than one survivor.”

Mado whirled around just as he walked out of sight, the sound of the door to the terrace swinging shut behind him drowned by a gust of wind.

-- -- -- 

The presence of a particular weight on the back of his neck left Hide unable to visit the Chateau as noon came and went. He’d taken a huge risk yesterday—the first time he’d gone out since he’d joined the CCG—and he couldn’t take another so soon. He could only hope that Kaneki would be alright for a little longer.

The hours blurred together as Hide tacked red thread across his brain, scratching mental notes, filing away bits of information for later. Kaneki didn’t realise what a goldmine of an assignment he’d gotten Hide involved in.

The One-Eyed Owl was the highest priority target for V right now, and so she was for the CCG too. Kaneki hadn’t reported any of his hunches up the chain of command yet, saying he needed proof before he could make any claims, never mind arrests, so the CCG—and V—shouldn’t know who the Owl was. No movement on their side suggested otherwise either. He’d been given a head start on his enemy’s biggest enemy and he’d be an idiot if he let this opportunity go to waste.

Kaneki had also suggested once that she could be the One-Eyed King as well, a guess he hesitated to explain so Hide figured the source was a ghoul. Information was precious among ghouls; sure, rumours could get out of hand, but in general, he’d found misinformation didn’t spread all that easily within their own circles. There could be truth to the claim, which meant Takatsuki Sen was double the win for him—and double the loss if he let V have its way.

The employees in the office dwindled as the sky dulled to a sharp gold on the horizon, yet the weight never quite disappeared. They were on higher alert today. It was worrying.

Strolling down the corridor, Hide paused at the wall lined with hundreds upon hundreds of photographs of officers in prim uniform and proud posture. He ghosted over the pale faces until he found who he was looking for, a face he hadn’t seen in a long while. His father gazed down at him from one of the photos higher up—older—with the inquisitive brown eyes he’d inherited from him. Hide didn’t remember much of his life before he became a Nagachika, so he could only imagine what his dad would think of him now. He would probably be disappointed; Hide was doing the exact opposite of what he died for, undoing his life’s work and tainting his legacy.

He tore his eyes away from the last official photograph of the late First Class to find another—former—First Class’ photo with his squad. So those were the Quinx; he hadn’t been able to find any pictures of them. The discomfort in his chest melted at Kaneki’s beaming face, though tamped down for professionalism. The plaque and their uniforms told him it was the kids’ first promotion. He always knew Kaneki would be a good teacher. So shy, but always too kind to turn away anyone in need, even if they never worked up the courage to ask directly. He’d just know. It was the one time he would talk to people voluntarily, though those interactions never turned into genuine friendships. It always spiralled into someone trying to take advantage of him or bully him for being too bookish, the ungrateful brats. He stopped, eventually, by the time high school rolled around. He still helped Hide though, no matter how much he was struggling himself. No complaints, ever, only a kind smile and sigh before he pulled open a book and set it in front of them and explained advanced sociological theories in ways that could make a five-year-old a genius.

Hide couldn’t fight for a dead man he barely knew. He could only fight for the boy who gave him a home when he was lost and alone.

His phone buzzed. Hide snapped out of it to find a text from said boy.

sassyki: I’m sorry, something came up

not an explanation dude >:(

He typed for a long time, the dots on the screen appearing and disappearing for a whole minute.

I’ll explain later

I promise

He disappeared again, then came back.

Do you want to come over to the chateau this weekend?

The kids really want to meet you

-- -- -- 

The response was immediate.

Hide: !!

HELL YEAH

Kaneki couldn’t help but smile at his enthusiasm. He dropped the leather jacket on the floor—he’d have to wash it before returning it—and figured he should hit the shower before passing out. The bed pulled at him after the 36 hours he’d spent without rest but he needed to stay awake just a little longer.

-- -- -- 

How long had he been walking?—he couldn’t remember. The forest seemed never-ending—how could that be? He was certain he was still in Tokyo—the sky hidden, the scent of wet earth and blood clogging his nostrils. His senses were simultaneously on high alert and dulled, the world turned up in saturation yet locked behind a glass wall. They weren’t his feet moving, stumbling, not his hands trembling as he stabilised himself on a tree trunk, not his tongue quivering with fresh human blood. When was the last time he’d tasted it?

Hide—Hide—he’d fucked up so bad—

Help me—

The tree above him rustled with a weight that couldn’t be wind. He leapt back, kagune out and hissing at the branch. More blood, it smelled ghoul—he was still so hungry—

The foliage shifted and the moonlight caught the sheen of black resin shaped into a familiar shape. A dog. 

A dog?

The figure dropped to the ground in front of him with but a whisper and a pale hand moved the mask out of the way. Kaya Irimi gazed at him with a sad, sombre stare.

Dead—dead—she was— “You’re dead,” he croaked.

His kagune was gone, his left eye back to normal—he couldn’t tell—he couldn’t feel anything but the wind in his lungs, her familiar scent—blood.

She gave him a lopsided smile. “No. Thanks to you.”

She didn’t attempt to close the gap between them, letting the forest thrive in the rift of time and distance and reality. The small corner of his mind that was still sane muttered of gratitude; he might cry if she did. She was surreal where she stood, in the dim shade of canopy, shadows flitting over her dark clothes, dark hair, cut into a bob. It suited her. It was new.

Oh. He was crying already.

“Irimi,” he sobbed.

She vanished behind a blur of light and muted greens, he was on his knees, of course she wasn’t really here, he’d killed her, but then a gentle pressure on his shoulder before he was pulled into a warm embrace.

“What have you been up to, Ken?” she murmured, smoothing her hand over his hair.

He wasn’t aware of much after that, remembering only the cool air, the grass and leaves crunching under his knees, the arms that reminded him of home. No, he was home.

Minutes—hours—a lifetime later, they were sitting side by side with their backs to a sturdy trunk, rough bark pricking him through his shirt. Irimi hadn’t let go of him yet, hand hooked around his elbow as though he’d sink into the ground if she did. He felt like he would. Kaneki tried to focus on it, anchor himself to reality, but that just made the vines of dread tighten further around his chest. A different part, then.

“How—” His voice caught, but after a few tries, he managed to say, “How are you here?”

“All of us need to eat, kid.”

“Oh. Right.” He looked down at the dirt, the dark stains on his shoes. “The…café?”

Irimi hummed in agreement. 

“I never…saw you. There.”

She let out a long, slow breath. “No. Enji and I usually take the busier shifts, and, well, we figured it might freak you out. Nishiki told us what happened, and though you seemed alright with Touka and Yomo, more or less—” here she smirked and Kaneki coloured as he recalled his reaction— “we couldn't predict how you would feel seeing us after everything that happened that night.”

She frowned at him, something both scrutinising and sympathetic in her dark eyes, and muttered, “I suppose we made the right decision.”

Kaneki slowly wound his fingers together, trying to dredge words from the depths of his mind. He was usually rather proud of his vocabulary from being raised by literature, but now even the simplest ones eluded him. How many times had he imagined a conversation like this, another chance to speak to those he had failed?

“I’m sorry.”

Irimi made a face. “What for? We only made it out because of you. If you hadn't turned back that night, we would have met the same fate as our comrades at the Reaper’s hands.” She pursed her lips and Kaneki got the distinct impression this was something she had been mulling over for a long time too. “If anything, we’re sorry. We put you through a lot.”

Kaneki chuckled but it came out more of a sniffle. “It’s okay. I’m glad you both are alright.” He met her eyes to find his own battered remorse reflected back at him. “Really.”

“I meant—damnit—” She huffed and shifted so she was facing him properly. Her hand had yet to leave his arm. “Not just for the raid, but for before, too. We…you came to Anteiku, to us, for protection and I feel like we’ve failed you, over and over, especially when it counted the most.”

Kaneki stared at her, gobsmacked.

She squeezed her eyes shut momentarily. “We should have been there when they came to the café. We should have come for you quicker. We were too late and you’ve suffered so much for it.” Her voice cracked.

He could only shake his head in disbelief. “They would have come another day. Banjou may have found me but Aogiri would have just waited for the right moment. I don’t…I don’t think it was a coincidence that no one else was around.”

Clouds glided in overhead and they were momentarily enshrouded in darkness, leaving only the glint of her jacket’s zipper. A small animal moved through the thicket deeper in the forest somewhere on his right.

A weary smile greeted him when the diffused light of dawn filtered through the canopy once more. “Of course, you won’t agree.”

She sat back against the tree and moved her grip on him to tuck his head under her chin. “How have you been?” she murmured, the sound of her voice reverberating in his skull at the right frequency to keep the voices away.

Kaneki felt his eyelids flutter, warmed by the oncoming daybreak. “Tired,” he mumbled back and then knew no more.

When he awoke, the sun was high in the sky and he was on the ground. His heart sank—he was getting worse—before he realised his head was propped up on a rolled-up leather jacket that smelled faintly of coffee, wet dirt, and peppermint. A twig snapped a few feet away and he looked up to see Irimi smirking down at him.

“Finally awake, Sleeping Beauty?”

He chuckled and pulled himself up, rubbing his eyes blearily, feeling as though the sun had already blinded him.

“What time’s it?” he said, words slurring together. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept so well, a peaceful dreamless sleep—no screams, no pain, no dread that stalked him with skeletal hands into the morning.

“About noon.”

Irimi dropped a large body bag on the ground beside her with a thud, raising small clouds of dust. He hadn’t remembered seeing that bag anywhere on her last night.

She followed his gaze to it and asked, “Need any more? We have more than enough to go around.”

Kaneki shook his head. “I’m alright.”

For the first time in years, he wasn’t hungry. The suppressants in his food supply likely kept him from being truly satisfied with his meals, always feeling as though he was missing something, the bitter aftertaste of decay suffocating him for days afterwards.

Irimi held out her hand. “Ready to go back?”

Her hand, slim and pale, seemed to glow a halo from within under the sun. The edges of her manicured nails, the grass and mud stains on her sleeve, the lingering scent of human blood on her palms.

“No.”

He didn’t look up in time to see her reaction, but he sensed her surprise in the twitch of her index finger.

“How about a walk then?”

They hiked up to the road Kaneki had used the previous night, his car parked not far from another, smaller sedan that would now be forever abandoned. His brows furrowed at the spotless crime scene and realised Irimi had cleaned up for him, a stained wallet placed carefully on the base of the guardrail. It made him feel oddly warm and vulnerable, like an exposed nerve.

“Where did you find that one?” he asked, nodding at the bag she was lugging further up the road.

“She wasn’t far from where we were, but she’s been here a while. We hadn’t dropped by this spot lately.”

“Oh.” If he’d just found her, he wouldn’t have—

“You had a tail, by the way.”

Kaneki’s head snapped up, heart pounding in his ears. No, no, no—they weren’t supposed to—he wasn’t even supposed to be here—this couldn’t get worse—shit, Irimi—

“He ran before I could catch his face, not long before I found you.” She slowed as they reached a black van, sliding the side door open. “Not sure if he was a dove or someone else, he smelled weird. Kind of…void. Like there was something there but it was emptied out.”

A void scent? He hadn’t picked up on that anywhere around the CCG, but his nose wasn’t as good as Irimi’s. He narrowed his eyes at the foliage surrounding them, the tense silence jarring against the bright summer morning. If they weren’t CCG, that wasn’t any better. Another player.

Irimi straightened with a “Whew,” having tucked the bag carefully under a seat, then glanced over at him and the leather jacket he held out to her.

“Keep it. You look like a serial killer,” she tossed over her shoulder, marching even further up the road before branching off into the woods.

Kaneki looked down at himself and his shirt, drenched in dried blood stains and which now felt uncomfortably stiff. He sighed. The one day he wasn’t wearing black. No one had really prepared him for how many clothes he would ruin after becoming a ghoul. At least the CCG paid well enough to replace his wardrobe as many times as needed.

He shrugged on the jacket and followed Irimi, pushing the underbrush out of the way and wondering if a thorough salt wash would do the trick. A faintly worn trail led them to a ledge near the top of the mountain, where Irimi perched with a nonchalance only ghouls could have at that height. He took the spot next to her and only then realised why she’d picked this place.

In front of them lay a sprawling view of the city, breathtaking in its tranquil tumult. The jagged skyline glistened against the clear blue sky that reminded him of bandaged fingers and warm coffee. A black kite swirled lazily far above them, its shrill cries echoing in its endless realm over the dull cacophony that couldn’t quite reach them here, aside from the occasional adventurer rumbling through the winding mountain roads. Wisps of cloud floated by as the hours ticked on, the sun soon beginning to dip and the buildings were transformed into beacons of deep gold brushed with rose.

They remained mostly silent, watching the city prepare for nightfall, one flickering light after another. While the streets filled up as rush hour traffic poured in, a muted carnival of red and white LED, the forest around them grew alive in the gloaming, chirping cicadas silenced under the approaching darkness to give way to nocturnal cries, quiet howls, and distant rapid footfalls on the leaf-strew ground.

Irimi had shot off a text a few hours ago. Kaneki knew he should too, but he couldn’t think of anything but the here and now. His life at the CCG, its fear and paranoia and betrayal, didn’t belong to him anymore.

Kaneki closed his eyes, sighing, and leaned back on his arms, letting the sun warm his face one last time. The air held a coolness to it, the faint scent of rain in the breeze. He allowed it to fill his lungs, injecting him with the courage to face what was no doubt waiting for him at home.

“Let’s go.”

-- -- -- 

The bedsheets felt jarringly soft after the dirt and stone of the day, the silence buzzing with city bustle.

Kaneki’s eyes snapped open. Silence?

He wrenched himself out of bed and listened intently to the utter lack of noise inside the Chateau. No one was home—he hadn’t noticed on his way in. The Quinx should have come back by now, they never stayed out late unless there was something important.

Or something went wrong.

Finally, the full force of what he had done last night slammed into him and left him unable to breathe.

Someone had been following him—might’ve seen him kil—even seen Irimi—

She hadn’t stayed out all day for him to fall apart like this already. He couldn’t—he had to get a grip. Kaneki took a deep shuddering breath, feeling the pounding in his chest subside a little, and dragged his hands over his face. He just needed to think. The Quinx were an important project, they wouldn’t hurt them because of his stupidity. He’d distanced himself just enough for them to no longer be seen as leverage as well. They were probably fine.

They were fine.

His fingers wrapped around his work phone, left behind on the bedside table, and he found a text waiting for him on the screen, sent thirty minutes ago. His chest loosened. They were fine.

Shirazu: hey sassan

i dont wanna freak u out

but u might have to drop by shibas office

like 2nite

kuki bein an idiot

Kaneki narrowed his eyes at the Edited label on the last text. At the very least he was listening to all those lectures on watching his words when at work, even if only in hindsight.

idek if your back but yea

He pursed his lips, guilt creeping in. He didn’t want them to think he had refused to return because of them. Kaneki could never be mad at them, not truly, and they were trying so hard to bridge the rift that had formed in their little make-believe family. The least he could do was answer their call.

The bed felt more inviting than ever, but he huffed a sigh and moved to get dressed. Rest had to wait just a few more hours.

Chapter Text

The house was quiet when Urie awoke, the faint alluring scent of pancakes wafting up the stairs. The facade of an ordinary morning, unlike that morning after, when it took hours for them to realise Sasaki never came back. Saiko hadn’t spoken at breakfast, morosely nibbling at the toast and eggs Mutsuki haphazardly put together for them. A meeting with Akira, hours spent under the blazing sun in the busy streets looking for leads, a run-in with some B-rank, and then a regular check up, where it had all fallen apart. Shirazu dragged them to it, taking his role far too seriously. (It was like filling a hole in a brick wall with cement. It held, but it wasn’t the same.)

They were all still awkward around each other, around Urie, not that he cared. They bothered him less, letting him train as much as he wanted. (He hadn’t meant to say those things, not like this, but there was the Owl and his father and the thought that someone under the same roof could betray him in such a way…)

That was until Sasaki had banned him from training too much without supervision.

Urie scowled at the paint he was cleaning off his brushes as he recalled that disastrous check up. Shiba had insisted on alerting Sasaki, Shirazu agreed, still pissed at him since their argument, and of course that was the moment Sasaki picked to come back. He’d been at the office less than an hour after Shirazu had texted him—who’d muttered something about not wanting to bother him with a call—looking far more drained than usual (What the hell had been up to for the past day anyway? He hadn't come in to work at all.)

Sasaki had only looked at the results sheet with all their RC cell counts and raised his eyebrows. Their eyes had met over the report but Urie had resisted the urge to look away. He’d done nothing wrong.

He’d then kicked them all out and talked to the doctor alone, like they were a bunch of kids (still pretending to care). When he joined them in the hallway again, he thanked Shiba, saying, “I’ll handle it from here.”

Which meant blocking his training, apparently. Yes, he’ll admit his RC cell count was a little high and the sandwich Sasaki had made him test the other day tasted awful, but he’d eaten just fine the morning after and every day since. He’d attempted arguing with him that it was likely just a temporary spike after their altercation that afternoon. He was irritated enough as it was that they'd spent the day on a goose chase, running into some common alleyway ghouls instead of finding anything concrete for their investigation before Sasaki decided to butt into his life again. The vengeful part of him that had been rearing its head lately bitterly wished he’d just go away for good instead of half-assing it.

Despite the ban, Sasaki was yet to actually ‘handle’ anything. Maybe he was saving it for after their guest’s visit today.

Hardly a big deal—except that said guest was someone who had known Ken Kaneki, not Haise Sasaki. Urie found it unbelievable the others didn’t find this coincidence suspicious in the slightest. The moment he gets his memories back, some guy joins Division II—as a Rank 3 from outside the Academies, no less—and immediately becomes his new partner? He wasn’t buying it.

The fact that Sasaki was being cooperative at all was bizarre. Urie had said so much to him that night that he should be at least a little upset about, if not as a person then as a superior officer and mentor. It almost made Urie want to provoke him again just to get a reaction out of that impassiveness. He hadn’t mentioned it once, not to him, not to the others. They seemed put off by it too, especially when he’d told them the next morning that his old friend would drop by that weekend.

Urie carefully put his brushes away and moved the easel with his current, half-finished project propped up, to the corner of the room. He glanced at the paint stains on hands and figured he could take a shower, unless he wanted to hear Shirazu and Saiko’s “stinky” drivel again. The hell was their problem, it was just turpentine. (It reminded him of home and his mother’s room, always scented with oil and flowers and smeared with pigment. An unfortunate accident a long time ago and her room had been left stale and dusty. His dad had been away on an emergency mission and so ghouls had never been involved, but certainly been blamed.)

Downstairs was a nervous liveliness. Maybe they felt normal too, finally (all pretense). Saiko was on the couch, competing with Shirazu on some racing game, Mutsuki was reading, and Sasaki was missing. Huh. No wonder it felt normal.

Then the front door knob clicked and squealed downstairs (they really needed to lubricate it again or he was going to start losing sleep from Sasaki’s shitty sleep schedule) and voices filled the foyer. Two in particular, one Sasaki’s quiet intone, the other loud and grating, yet…robotic?

Footsteps bounded up the stairs and the bleached-blond guy he’d spotted over a week ago appeared in the doorway. 

“Hey, hey! We finally meet!” 

Saiko, who, for once in her life, had actually paused her game the moment heard the door, leapt over the back of the couch with a cheerful, “HI!”

Mutsuki gave him a nervous smile and an awkward wave as Shirazu joined Saiko and somehow managed to wedge introductions between their overly energetic conversation that Urie could not be bothered to follow.

Sasaki trudged in after Nagachika with a small, still tired, yet fond smile tugging at his face.

“The creep standing in the corner like slenderman is Urie,” Shirazu was saying. 

(That asshole.) Urie nodded at blondie and considered his options for a quick retreat.

“You wanna join us for a game?” Shirazu held up a controller. Saiko didn’t bother waiting for a response before dragging Nagachika to the couch. They were all distracted—he could just make some excuse and leave. He doubted anyone would stop him after the mood in the house the last couple of days.

(It was his fault.)

He hesitated a moment too long and Shirazu frowned at him, as if in warning; he’d lost his chance. Urie resigned himself to hovering near the edge of the living room, earbuds in but silent. Sasaki noticed and he swore genuine gratitude flickered over his face, though he said nothing.

“Sassan?” Shirazu asked hesitantly but Sasaki shook his head, retreating to the kitchen to start on lunch.

“Hide’s here for you guys. I tolerate him enough at work as it is.”

Mutsuki’s surprised expression met Urie’s. He sounded…completely like himself.

Nagachika wiped faux tears from his masked face. “I’ve been abandoned, I see.”

Urie tuned out the conversation that followed, figuring he was going above and beyond merely by continuing to be here. As Mutsuki lost his third match, collapsing into the cushions in despair while Saiko patted his head in smug sympathy, the aroma of spices filled the living room.

“I swear Haise was holding out on me,” Nagachika said, detracting from the chatter on dentist visits (how did they even end up there?), and Urie narrowed his eyes at the casual use of his childhood friend’s new name. He wondered how aware he was of Sasaki’s ghoul past and the reasons for the forced construction of this new identity. Nagachika slung an arm over the back of the couch to face Sasaki, sounding rather offended. “You never cooked for me.”

“Because I hardly cooked before.” Sasaki dismissed him with a shrug. “Too bad.”

“Do not tell me you learnt to be this good when you couldn’t even taste it,” Shirazu said, flinging his controller onto the coffee table to stretch his lanky frame.

Urie’s eyebrows rose against his will. Sasaki’s cooking was the one thing he would never argue with the others on, though he may never say it aloud, and he couldn’t decide if he was more disgruntled or impressed that those skills were purely ghoul.

“Won’t say it then,” he said lightly. “On that note, you’ll stay for lunch?”

Nagachika shook his head, even though Sasaki wasn’t even facing them. “Nah. I got plans.”

Sasaki stifled a snort. “With whom? I’m your only friend.”

“Okay, ouch. But not really a social one, just. Stuff.”

(What kind of answer was that?)

Sasaki glanced over his shoulder but said nothing.

“Hey,” Saiko interrupted the strange tension that had overcome them, “did you do your hair yourself?”

“Hell yeah, I did.” Nagachika did a dramatic hair flip that failed to evoke any flair whatsoever from its lack of length. Rather, it should’ve sprained his neck. “Pro-level, right?”

“The CCG allows that?” Mutsuki asked, his earlier shyness evaporating over their shared pathetic losses in whatever racing game they’d been playing.

“It doesn’t,” Sasaki answered for him, an undertone of disapproval in his voice. “Especially if it’s so messy. I can fix it next time you’re over.”

“Thank you, I love you.”

Sasaki waved him off with a ladle and a chuckle.

“That’s how you get free labour out of him,” he said in a stage-whisper to Saiko, who nodded as though this were vital information. Then, as though suddenly remembering something, turned back to Sasaki. “But you’ll be busier starting next week.”

“It only takes an hour or so? And we’ve done it in less before.”

“So my dad didn’t catch us holed up in the bathroom at three in the morning?” Nagachika laughed. “Yeah, I remember.”

It was the first time the Quinx were hearing about their mentor’s old life and Urie hated how it made them sound like any other human teenager doing stupid things just because they could, experiencing the joys of being alive in the stolen hours of the night. He hated how it made the past month feel like it hadn’t happened at all.

“Whaddaya mean busier?” Shirazu asked, brows knitted in confusion.

Nagachika gave Sasaki’s back a weird look, which he seemed to sense.

“It…slipped my mind. I was going to tell them.” He turned to talk to them properly, wiping his hands on the corner of the pastel pink kiss the chef apron Saiko had bought him that felt jarringly out of place with his new emo ensemble. “I’ll be taking up S3’s secretarial work from Monday.” He sighed, world-weary. “Apparently, I'm about to get swamped immediately, but of course Arima won't tell me why.”

There were expressions of surprise and congratulations all around, with Saiko throwing in a demand for a party—Sasaki refused point blank, but not without a familiar smile that made her beam anyway—yet the only voice in Urie’s head rang sharp and bitter.

He’d heard the rumours floating about in the office, but hadn’t paid it much mind what with everything that had been going on at the time; between the treasure trove that had been Kanou’s files, the disaster of their “bonding night”, and his RC factor scare and consequent restrictions, Urie was overwhelmed even in his dreams. But now he could recall an eavesdropped conversation from the break room clearly:

“—do our achievements even matter?”

An older investigator scoffed in agreement. “God knows how they decide these promotions. Nothing we do earns one even after all these years of keeping our noses to the grindstone, but that ghoul—” and his voice dripped with derision— “just keeps climbing.”

Noises of agreement followed, almost drowning out the low sad mutter of a young woman, “Is the CCG even for humans anymore? Or have we all gone defunct?”

Sasaki wasn’t just S3 now, he was basically helping Arima run the most elite squad in the bureau. Urie’s fists clenched at his sides. When would it be his turn to make it, to finally get his revenge? Sasaki got to fight the Owl, Sasaki got promoted to S3…he grit his teeth. The only thing he could be grateful for was his failure at killing the Owl, or he would’ve lost his chance to even the scales forever.

(But the longer this went on, the more danger they would be in. What if there was another Noro out there? Would they be able to survive again?...Did it matter if he never got to kill the Owl himself as long as he lost no one else?)

A thought he’d never even considered pierced the simmering static in his head. What if he let the ghoul go? Protected it? He was associated with the Non-Killing Owl, had been spotted at several of Aogiri's locations. The question that had been burning him for days resurfaced—could they really trust him?

Urie’s scrutinising gaze fell on Nagachika. He didn’t trust that guy either, even if he was human. Something about his charm was so disarming it put him on edge. Why would someone like that choose to associate with a dangerous ghoul? Sasaki could’ve planned it, sneaking him into the CCG to help him.

(Help him with what? Not dying?)

Urie suppressed a sigh and flopped into the nearest empty spot on the couch. Whatever, he couldn’t deal with this today. He grabbed the last controller from the coffee table as everyone settled in for a rematch at a lower difficulty level. Saiko had attempted to teach him to play a few weeks ago and he wasn’t going to let his stupid colleagues be better at this stupid game than him.

Chapter Text

Guilt twisted Akira’s gut for rejecting the invitation, but she decided she wasn’t ready yet. She doubted she would ever truly be.

Perhaps Yonebayashi had hoped for reconciliation if she had come over at the Chateau today with the pretext of a proper celebration, but the moment she had suggested it, Akira was sent back to a month ago, the hallway full of injured investigators, the trial room, the cold eyes of a killer, and she had immediately turned her down. Her office would do, they had far too much work on their hands to waste time on such frivolous things. The girl was visibly disheartened, hence Akira’s current guilt as she stood on the first floor and gazed into the lobby, where Haise walked beside Shirazu, lagging behind the other Quinx, talking low but comfortably. He must have sensed her gaze for he glanced up. Akira looked away, marching down the hall, having forgotten why she had been there at all. She should get back to work. It was hardly nine o’clock. Work was the only thing that kept her from thinking.

Unfortunately, thoughts alone couldn’t divert what fate had in mind for her. As the Quinx filed into her office with enthusiastic greetings and happy birthdays and a suspiciously cake-shaped box in Urie’s hands, she spotted Mutsuki wave over his shoulder to the pair passing by the door.

Nagachika noticed her first.

“Yo!” he hollered over Yonebayashi and Shirazu’s babble, for once not dressed in neon colours. He hadn’t quite given up on his hoodie and sneakers, though he had switched out the usual rambunctiousness for achromatic ones. Seems like someone had finally chastised him for his unprofessionalism.

Haise’s eyes widened a fraction before settling into impassivity. He inclined his head and turned to leave. Her mouth moved before she had time to question the action.

“Not even a birthday wish this year?”

She should’ve expected Ken Kaneki. Their conversation in the archives the other day had been a blaring warning that Haise wasn’t going to last and…

He blinked owlishly at her before softening into a very Haise-like smile. “Happy birthday, Akira.” He looked away. “I…would have made you a cake again this year but I wasn’t sure if you would want it.”

…she’d given her approval, hadn’t she? She told him she’d accept him, regardless of the name he carried.

“I wish I could hate you.”

The words hung heavy in the air as he absorbed them, their meaning. She couldn’t see his gentle vacant eyes anymore under the glare of the fluorescent lights, sterile and ashen and dousing them in stark contrast. He opened his mouth, but she slammed the door shut between them.

When had she become such a coward?

Akira strode across the office to the desk—ignoring the tension in Mutsuki’s shoulders and Yonebayashi’s wide glistening eyes—put her hands on hips, and smiled with herculean effort. “How about that cake before we get to work?”

It took a while, but eventually they relaxed. Too much, if anyone asked her, babbling with too-full stomachs over open folders and laptops in the small meeting room they’d seized. She couldn’t bear to dampen the mood any further after this morning though, so she allowed them to take it easy for the day. Even Urie seemed to be in lighter spirits, earbuds in as he typed up a backlogged report for the squad without complaint despite Shirazu’s playful jabs. It was an easy enough case either way: an ukaku—suspected B+-rate—who’d made repeated contact with Torso during his stint as a taxi driver, yet Saiko was complaining about being assigned more work so soon, demanding holidays, as Mutsuki patted her head in comfort.

Legs sore from being seated too long and cursing the CCG for cutting corners on the office chairs despite their colossal budget, Akira left them to their devices and strolled down the hallway to the corner with the best view from the panoramic windows. It was a beautiful day out. Maybe she should drop by the park on her lunch break.

She and Haise would go there when the weather was pleasant like this and he would have insisted on grabbing some coffee on the way, the good kind rather than the cheap flavoured water they had in the office. He’d tell her about the last book he’d read, a new one every other day, and she wouldn’t really grasp anything he was saying when he talked of heroes and hamartias but she would listen anyway, just as he would for her.

Just as he would have, once. Not anymore.

She squeezed her eyes shut against the memories. When in doubt, take inventory.

Haise Sasaki, her mentee and subordinate and partner in the field for years that she had become quite fond of despite knowing his past, was no more. Ken Kaneki had replaced him. It was an assumption that this man was any different from the one she knew, but it was heavily supported.

He had cut himself off from her squad, only remaining loosely affiliated with the Quinx. He had not spoken to her at all since the operation—Haise could never dream of being so aloof. He had lost all his expressiveness and warmth in favour of emptiness that made her chest tighten.

Haise would never have hurt her father. Ken Kaneki did.

He had severed nearly all his previous friendships at the CCG. He no longer brought Suzuya sweets, stopped accompanying Itou for his lunch breaks, didn’t advise Takeomi on his sword techniques anymore. Ken Kaneki could not be trusted—this was now a certain fact. Nagachika was sharp but his previous devotion was blinding him.

Something horrible had happened to Haise and it was worrying her.

Akira spun on her heel and walked past the meeting room to her office, locked the door behind her, and wrenched open the top drawer of her desk in one smooth motion. Tucked away in the corner was a small key, which opened a lower drawer holding a single thick file. She pulled it out, settled in her chair, took a deep breath, and flipped it open.

Ken Kaneki was a heartless ghoul. He looked so sad these days.

He had killed her father. He may not have killed Amon.

-- -- --

When Kaneki had reached Shiba’s office, panic seizing him, he had expected the reports to show how he had sealed Shirazu’s fate, torn his life apart like others had done to him. He had not expected someone else entirely to cross the threshold of a thousand.

What’s 1000 - 7?

He should have noticed, he was too in over his head, couldn’t even do his damn job right anymore—

Kaneki took a deep breath. He should have avoided Akira’s office entirely, but the Quinx’s renewed comfort around him—not yet the same but maybe he could begin to hope they were getting there—made him reluctant to leave so abruptly after dropping them off. She had thrown him off.

She…didn’t hate him?

Urie was overusing his kagune. The fact did not come as a surprise at all, but he hadn’t expected such consequences and so soon. Simply reducing his use was not a complete solution—their line of work demanded combat, it couldn’t be avoided. Perhaps the issue wasn’t use but rather overreliance. He kept trying to prove himself with his ghoul abilities, that the Quinx project was an indisputable success, that he could use his kagune better than Kaneki himself. It was the opposite of how Kaneki had dealt with his new body…he needed a push the other way.

He paused before Arima's office, shoving his worries to the corner of his mind for her to feed on. He had a more urgent problem to deal with right now—he’d been assigned S3 Squad Secretary immediately after he vanished for a day, for which Arima hadn’t interrogated him at all? His tail had been CCG, no doubt. He could only hope Irimi wasn’t going to be targeted like Nishio now. 

To his surprise, the office was not vacant. He spotted Hirako beside Arima’s desk immediately, who nodded at him. Returning the greeting, his gaze landed on the other, far more confusing occupants.

Children. Four children, to be exact, though one girl looked a little older, about the expected age of new recruits.

The dark-haired boy on the right gave him a small smile as Arima cut straight to business. He held out a hand towards the children and said, “Squad Zero.”

They were young, so they must be from the Sunlit Garden—the Academies weren't allowed that exception—but even then…they seemed too young, too small and fragile and still holding onto untainted innocence to be in such a vicious place.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Kaneki said with an incline of his head.

The shortest one, too bright, his large eyes full of wonder, leapt forward. “Haise Sasaki, right? I’m Shio Ihei!”

The air in his lungs froze.

The boy furthest on the left, sombre and older, pushed Shio’s head into a bow, muttering, “Have some manners, Jesus." Then bowed himself—a perfect CCG style bow that even the Quinx often failed to do—with a, “Rank 3 Rikai Souzu. The honour is ours, sir.”

“Oho, so posh,” Shio quipped back under his breath with a lazy smile that stabbed through the back of his eyes, making the last boy laugh quietly. Realising the attention was on him, he quickly introduced himself, “Yusa Arima.”

“Ching-Li Hsiao,” the girl said stiffly. 

Arima did not give him time to question any of this, handing him a stack of files. “They’ll be forming the new Squad Zero with Take and I, though Hsiao will be transferring in a month when the Academy recruits come in. She’s Quinx. They need a briefing and the Bureau Chief wants an update on your requested case.”

Hirako muttered something along the lines of “why are you like this” while Kaneki blinked at the profiles in his hands. “I should handle the Bureau Chief first.”

“Very well. I’ll send the kids to your office then. Take and I have something to discuss.”

The next moment, Kaneki was in the hallway with the Garden kids beside him, the door closing behind them, sealing them and their fate.

“Take the left corridor that way,” Kaneki pointed down the hall for the four pairs of inquisitive eyes on him. “Second door on the right. My partner will be there.”

Honestly, swamped wasn’t a strong enough word.

-- -- -- 

In the opulent office too large for a single person, the overhead lights cast sharp shadows over the Bureau Chief’s eyes as he leaned forward on steepled fingers. “You’re certain about refusing any extra aid?” Yoshitoki Washuu enquired with a concerned frown. “You’ve taken up one of the CCG’s most dangerous targets to date.”

“I’m certain.”

“And you won’t tell me who your lead is?” he asked wryly.

“No, sir. I’d rather confirm it first with the required evidence. It’s a mere hunch until I do.”

“Your mentor would say that’s enough.”

“They aren’t someone I can pursue without evidence.”

“Alright then, if you insist,” he acquiesced. “We’re all counting on you, Sasaki. There’s few people I’d rather have on this case.” He beamed at him encouragingly and held out his hand in farewell.

Kaneki was always surprised by his friendliness towards him, despite knowing full well who he was and what he’d done. Entrusting him with the Quinx project, granting him promotion after promotion—he couldn't tell if maybe he was happy there was a ghoul in the ranks.

Though of course, the Quinx had been a double-edged sword. Kaneki was difficult to control physically—aside from Arima, as a last resort—but emotionally he knew he was as vulnerable as a child. What better way to leash him than to give him the mother he’d always wanted—now gone—and kids to look after? He'd never abandon them, even if it meant suffocating in his own insatiable loneliness and the CCG’s shackles.

Kaneki shook his hand across the desk, noting the callouses from decades of combat, softened from years of sitting behind a desk. His nose pricked suddenly and his stomach dropped.

“i’ll try to live up to your expectations, sir,” he said evenly.

He wandered the corridor in a daze. He'd never been close enough to pick up any scents and never realised there hadn’t been anything at all. Not ghoul, but not human. Just…nothing. Like darkness, where his eyes kept searching for something, the tiniest prick of light to tell him there was existence beyond himself.

The CCG putting a tail on him was not unexpected, but lately he’d noticed it was happening more often. Eyes watching his every movement from the office to the doorstep of the Chateau, occasionally even within the halls of the Main Office. He wouldn't care much except…it happened more when Hide was around. Hide, who the Bureau Chief had sent to his death three years ago, untrained and unarmed. His kindness meant nothing if he was pointing a gun at his best friend behind his back.

He paused his meandering to stare at the blank walls and Rize’s bloodthirst, egging him on to turn around and rip the man’s throat, warm his cold hands in the blood of the head of the CCG. Fools, to think they could keep him caged, an obedient pet when they'd forgotten he was rabid under the sheepskin. In a distant part of his mind echoed a sharp crunch rather like bones breaking.

His rage was pointless.

He’d done this before and where had that landed him? In a cell clawing his eyes out, his sanity suspect.

He’d lost so much, failed too many. The raid last month had been a harsh slap in the face, waking him up to the ugly truth of his new reality that Haise never wanted to face. Hairu had been one of the first people he’d met here. He’d trained alongside her, seen her grow over three years, maturing from a petulant seventeen year old to a seasoned investigator. Kijima had been cruel to ghouls and never cared about morals or ethics, yet had always been kind to him. Matsumae, Karren, everyone at the Tsukiyama Estate who had aided him in seemingly insignificant ways that piled into lifelong debt on his foolhardy hunt for Kanou and Aogiri. Tsukiyama himself had survived but at a grave cost that Kaneki had inflicted. Whom to grieve, whom to blame? No longer were the players faceless.

It was all pointless.

He didn’t know what to do anymore.

The sweet sting of blood broke his spiralling and he looked down to find his fingertips reddened by more than his gloves.

-- -- -- 

Perhaps the past few years had changed her perspective, perhaps they had merely given her more to work with. It was invasive, reading about Haise’s life like this. Of course, there were large gaps for the period immediately prior to his recruitment, but Akira wasn’t one of the CCG’s best for nothing.

Was this inevitable?

She plucked a thin, old sheet from the file. A health record from a childhood checkup, it looked like. Data the CCG had compiled in a hurry in the months he was locked up. It may have been the first time they’d had to rake through the life of a human target. She wondered how the people who had put this together felt as they had worked.

Wide eyed with uneven bangs. He made a cute kid. Clumsy, according to the nurse’s observations of frequent injuries. She wasn’t surprised, he looked like he would be. Eight year old Ken Kaneki was so unaware of the tragedy awaiting him it made her heart ache. Did it still keep him up at night, knowing he’d lost the one thing that should have never been up for debate: his very humanity?

Deemed a tragedy from the start, maybe there had been no saving him. Doomed by the narrative, as he’d put it.

She flipped a couple of pages and found a record of transfer of guardianship. She admittedly had never bothered to look at anything from before he became a ghoul. It felt irrelevant. A quick glance had been enough at the time, but now he remembered these things. He’d been young when he lost his mother, like she had.

No news of this woman though, his aunt. It surprised her to know he had living family still. She’d never come looking for him. Had she ever known what happened to that sweet little boy?

Further ahead, she pursed her lips at Amon’s report of the 11th ward raid. White hair, suddenly. What caused it? Torn clothes. She didn’t like the implications. The first time she’d seen this report, she’d skimmed it with forced professionalism and assumed it was a ghoul being a ghoul. Haise would never choose to dress like that.

The longer she looked at these pages, the more questions she had. For someone so sincerely cheerful, wearing his heart on his sleeve, Haise had always been enshrouded in mystery. Now, with the rift between them, she had no way of getting her answers. Nagachika might know, but her gut told her he wouldn’t say a word.

She closed the file and pressed her forehead to the cold plastic. What was she even doing, perusing his life crouched in her dark office like a criminal?

She had work to do.

-- -- -- 

Kaneki took a quick detour to scrub his hands in the sink before returning. The wound on his left hand had healed already thanks to the glove preventing anything more than a shallow gouge, though it held a scaly pink sheen his healing factor had never left behind before. 

He found Hide perched on the desk, work abandoned, swinging his legs back and forth as he talked animatedly with Hsiao. Rikai was in the back near the window, peering down and pointing out something he’d noticed to Yusa. Shio was strolling around the office admiring the drab corporate decor that neither of them had bothered changing.

Hide saw him and pointed at the girl, “She’s Quinx!”

“She is,” Kaneki agreed mildly. 

The others looked up at the sound of his voice and came over to him.

“Alright then, your briefing.” He paused, thinking back to how he’d managed the Quinx on the first day. introductions, usually. “You seem to know each other well enough already—” Shio nodded enthusiastically— “and I suppose your general command structure as well.” He decided he didn’t want to know how they knew him by name. “That's what you would usually do on your first day…”

“Ooh—how about a tour?” Hide suggested. 

“I've heard a lot about the training rooms here,” Hsiao added.

“And the labs,” Rikai said. 

“The gardens outside look nice,” Yusa prompted.

“The canteen first!” Shio sprung forward. 

“i suppose we can take a walk around and go over any questions you have,” Kaneki said, caving and biting back a sigh. it was like the Quinx all over again, overenthusiasm and all.

As it turned out, they had nothing but questions: How many days off a month? Where does the CCG get their coffee because it tastes awful? Are all the special classes as scary as they seem? How often do they serve the infamous fish teriyaki? Who picked the interior design because it's so boring? Has anyone ever jumped off the roof and survived? Even the quiet Yusa and the sombre Rikai joined in the barrage.

Hide, who'd tagged along, questioned them back. “Mad impressive,” he said to Hsiao’s achieved expertise in hand-to-hand combat, “but do you guys like not have school?”

According to Kaneki, that was probably the most important question.

“Basic education for the win,” Shio said with a thumbs up.

“We cover all the necessary subjects earlier if we’re joining ahead of the other recruits so it's really okay,” Rikai insisted at Kaneki’s frown. Though from what he recalled of Ui’s frequent complaints about Hairu’s wanting education, the Garden recruits were often primed for combat rather than intellectual pursuits.

It wasn’t a fault of the Garden, however, since the Academies seemed to do that too, outperforming the Garden only because they were attended after high school at the earliest. Investigators were far from dull, but were hardly raised to be critical thinkers. Perhaps it made the CCG run smoother if no one questioned their morality and ethics, didn’t peek past the lace curtains of justice at their rotten hypocrisy.

Their impromptu tour took the rest of the day, and by late evening Kaneki was ready to fall into bed. Even Hide, ever the energetic, flopped onto the table the moment they returned to the office. They dropped Squad 0 off at Arima's office. It was momentary, but he swore he saw something tense in Hirako and Arima’s usually phlegmatic demeanours before he left.

“Do we still have to work?” he said, his speaker audio echoed oddly over the wood he lay flat on.

Kaneki took the chair, falling into with as much grace as he could muster at the moment, which was hardly at all. He prodded Hide’s head. “You didn’t have to join me, you know.”

“Sure, but I was bored. I thought being a full-fledged investigator would be more fun than this.”

Kaneki snorted. “Yeah, it sure looks like that from the outside, though we weren’t supposed to end up going in circles so soon.” He sighed and lay his head on the desk beside Hide.

“Like you said, she’s a slippery one,” Hide said consolingly.

“Mhm, still. We won’t get a breakthrough unless we get in her head.”

“You’re the one who’s been reading her stuff for years, you know her better than me.”

Kaneki chuckled. “Yeah. Right from her debut…” He sat up suddenly as the pieces clicked. “Oh.”

Hide flipped his head to face him, registering the change in the tone.

“Thirteen years ago. She debuted thirteen years ago, the same year the One-Eyed Owl attacked the CCG.”

Chapter Text

“Where have you been?”

Touka turned off the tap and looked over her shoulder to spot whom Nishiki was addressing trudge through the back door. It was already pretty late out, the sun had set hours ago, and Irimi was smelling distinctly of wet earth, short hair windswept and jacket missing.

“Trouble?” Touka asked when she didn’t respond to Nishiki’s inquiries. She grabbed the last few cups from the sink and dried them for shelving. It was supposed to be shitty Nishiki’s job as closer for the café but what could she expect anyway? “You didn't say much in your texts except that you needed someone to cover your shift.”

“Wouldn’t call it that,” Irimi said. She propped open the door and went back outside to fetch her haul.

“Uh, and? What happened?” Nishiki asked impatiently, twisting in his seat on the couch. Touka didn't blame him, what with the CCG growing more intense in their raids lately. They seemed more determined than ever to wipe out the Aogiri Tree once and for all. So many of her patrons had vanished—gone into hiding, she hoped.

“Nothing to worry about yet. Just worry about this one.” She placed the body bag on the floor and dusted her hands on her jeans. “Who’s chopping today?

Touka pinned Nishiki with a meaningful glare, who put his hands up and relented. He stood, stretched painfully slowly, then lugged the body bag into a room further back that worked as a makeshift ‘kitchen.’

“Yeah, go make yourself useful,” She snapped at his back. He flipped her off over his shoulder. Irimi watched them with an inscrutable expression and Touka wondered again what had occurred for her to be so lost in thought.

Nearly two weeks later, her answer walked through the front door.

Touka smiled and greeted him as usual, biting back the dread that pooled her gut at the sight of him—dark under-eye circles, blood-red gloves, and lifeless grey eyes. Even his hair, darkened to when she first met him, felt ominous against his all-black get-up.

“Morning,” Kaneki said, something sad and heavy lurking behind his smile. God, he looked worse than last time.

The smile washed away and his eyes flicked around the otherwise empty cafe as it often was when he came by. She would always swallow her quips about him picking those times so he’d get her all to himself, consoling herself that one day she’d get to say it to his face and fluster him in that cute way of his. Looking at him now, that hope for a kinder future was dwindling.

He opened his mouth, closed it, then tried again. “Can…can we talk inside…Touka?”

Her eyes widened, the world spinning to a halt. She was getting ahead of herself, he couldn’t mean—

She dropped the kettle she was holding onto the counter, grabbed his wrist, and pulled him inside, thinking be damned.

Nishiki, who had been roped into helping Yomo re-stock and was now struggling under an impressively tall stack of boxes, raised his eyebrows at them in the hallway. Yomo directed him to a storage room, gaze solid on her back as if warning her not to be hasty.

She stopped her mad dash in the breakroom, pushing a stunned Kaneki into the couch. She sat expectantly opposite him on a stool she pulled from the corner.

When he didn’t speak, she plucked at her courage, took a deep breath, and asked, “Kaneki?”

He pursed his lips. “Touka. Hi.”

She chuckled as relief flooded her, eyes pricking but she passed a hand over her face to keep the tears in check. Later. She wasn’t going to cry in front of him already. Sniffling, she said, “Hey. What did you need to talk about?”

The ecstatic warmth blooming in her chest dampened at the sombre look on his face. He carefully intertwined his fingers.

“Can you call the others in, too? It’s important.” His voice was soft, gentle as if he didn’t want to spook her, and only then she remembered why he’d been gone so long away from home.

“Right.” And she rushed out.

She found Nishiki and Yomo down the hall, pinpointed by a resounding crash. Under the half-collapsed shelf of supplies, she figured it would take them a while to get out without bringing the whole storage room down.

Back in the breakroom, Kaneki longingly examined the interior and Touka called up the remaining two. Koma assured her they were on the way, sounding rather worried, and hung up.

She carefully sat on the stool again, patting down the creases of her skirt. “Tsukyiama’s alright,” she said.

Kaneki glanced over and nodded.

“You meant for him to get out.”

“I did.”

She pursed her lips. Silence filled the rift between them. Touka had imagined this day a million times over the past few years. She hadn’t considered it would be awkward after all they had been through together.

“Irimi and Koma got out too.”

“I know.”

“I see.” How? she wanted to ask, but the words died in her throat. She wasn’t sure how to interact with this Kaneki, exhausted and empty. Not for the first time, she wished they could return to simpler times spent bickering behind the counter at Anteiku. Yoshimura’s warm guiding hand, little Hina clutching a new book with a long list of words to question Kaneki about already. Kaneki’s innocence and naive kindness.

She stood. “I’ll check the storefront.”

He nodded absently, but she felt his eyes on her as she left the suffocating room. There were no customers at the moment and shouldn’t be for a few hours until the evening rush began. She wasn’t expecting any regulars either. Touka sighed. This talk was no doubt going to take a while. He wouldn’t have taken such a risk if it wasn’t a matter of life and death.

The first thing Kaneki did when the others filed in thirty minutes later was to hold out a jacket to Irimi with a sheepish “Thanks.”

“Am I in trouble?” she asked, taking it and tucking it under her arm.

Nishiki, who was perched on a chair the wrong way around and was closest to where Irimi stood, said at the same time, “That smells nice.”

“I’m not sure honestly.” He scratched his cheek. “It was definitely someone from the CCG, but I haven't heard of any important assignments being handed out so you should be alright.”

Yomo frowned. Kaneki still looked nervous.

Touka leaned forward, shoving aside her questions for later. “What is it?”

“Irimi’s fine…but Nishio’s being targeted,” he confessed quietly, not meeting their eyes. "He's my newest assignment.”

“Oh, fuck.”

Koma squeezed Nishiki’s shoulder. “But that’s the best outcome. I mean, it’s you. We’d be in real trouble if it had been some other bigshot dove.” 

But Kaneki shook his head, hand curled over his mouth like he was holding in a breakdown like it was vomit. “That’s why it’s worse. If it had been someone else all I’d have to do was sabotage their investigation. People lose targets all the time. But it’s me. I can't show up empty-handed because I never do. They’d know.” He pursed his lips and shook his head again. “It’d be an admittance of treason.”

Touka whirled around to glare at Nishiki, who sat pale and frozen. “This is why I told you not to go after those investigators, you dumbass. I told you you were being reckless, but no! You don’t know how to use your head, do you?!”

For once, he didn’t retort, and her harsh breathing filled the room, reverberating off every polished surface. This room, modelled after her childhood home, suddenly felt too much.

“Touka,” Yomo said. “That won’t help now.”

Her lower lip trembled and she took a shuddering breath, willing herself to calm. “We’ll figure this out,” she told Kaneki, who had yet to raise his gaze from the floor, as though he was personally responsible for this disaster.

“There’s one solution,” Irimi said, taking a seat next to him on the couch and patting his head. “Turn him in. He’d deserve it.”

“Very funny, Irimi.” Nishiki scowled, finally breaking out of his shock.

Touka snorted. “I like that option.”

“But seriously, that could work,” Koma jumped in, nodding at Irimi. “Arrest him instead of killing him. Both of you live.”

“No.”

“Consider it, Ken,” Yomo scolded.

“No,” he repeated more firmly. “Cochlea’s worse than death. He’ll be alive only for as long as he can be useful to them. You need a deal to survive or it’s only a matter of time. And the way they—nevermind. It’s worse, trust me.”

Is this your deal, Kaneki? Will they really kill you if you fail?

Are you as safe there as I thought?

“Can we fake a body?” she suggested instead.

“That won’t work either. They’ll check for kagune markings to identify it and we can’t imitate Nishio’s in any convincing manner.”

“You know, I’m surprised you actually came here to talk to us about this,” Koma said, voicing what Touka had been thinking, but choosing not to say because she didn’t want him to feel self-conscious about seeking help for once—more than usual, anyway. “We’re glad you did, really, but it’s not like you.”

“Ah.” And the seriousness of Haise Sasaki the dove flickered away to reveal the Ken Kaneki that had stumbled his way into Anteiku all those years ago. “It wasn’t my idea, honestly. It was my partner’s.”

“Eh?” Nishio said articulately.

He smiled hesitantly. “Do you remember Hide?”

Touka’s brows furrowed. “I do. What does he have to do with this?” The last she’d heard of him had been in that list of MIA doves and other CCG staff on the news from the raid three years ago. How he’d ended up there was another mystery entirely, though she had her guesses.

“He’s okay. He’s my new partner. Don’t ask how he orchestrated that, I don’t know and at this point I’m scared to ask.”

Nishio narrowed his eyes. “Dude hasn’t gotten any less suspicious in the past few years, huh?”

The faint smile that evoked was fond. “Nope. It’s definitely worse now. He even said he’d help cover up this—” and he gestured at the room at large— “so no one knows I came here. Perks of Division II, I guess.”

Irimi raised an eyebrow. “You usually get tracked like that?”

“No, no,” he assured them. “I think they know about my memories coming back. It’s got them on edge.”

“Does that have anything to do with your assignment?” Touka asked, dreading the answer.

“I don’t know,” Kaneki said, scratching his chin. “It could be a coincidence. They have no reason to believe we’re connected. It might just be because he’s a high-ranking ghoul who hasn’t been caught yet.”

“Dumbass,” Touka muttered.

“Hey, look, I had a reason, okay?” Nishiki defended himself. “I was looking for Torso, not messing with the doves, but these guys come at me out of nowhere and start interfering, what am I supposed to do?” He held his hands out to them as if expecting immediate sympathy.

“Not kill all of them?” Irimi suggested.

“Dumbass,” Touka reiterated.

“Ghouls kill doves all the time, I don’t get what the big deal is!”

“They really don’t, Nishio,” Kaneki explained exasperatedly. “Very, very few have ever killed an investigator outside of raids. It labels you an investigator-hunter, which didn’t pair well with your established record of killing other ghouls, so yes, it made you a priority target. Besides, you wiped out a Special Class and their whole squad—they can’t let it go so easily.”

“Shit, that was a Special Class? Old fart didn’t hold up at all.”

Yomo lightly smacked his head in reprimand.

“Okay, okay, sorry, I won’t talk about how useless the guy was.”

As though sensing the ensuing argument, Kaneki interrupted Touka’s budding snarl, “Why are you set on finding Torso anyway?”

Nishiki fixed his glasses, propping his elbow on the chair back and leaning into it. “He was going after women with scars so I needed to check if he’d gone after her.”

Kaneki tilted his head. “Kimi?”

“Yeah. She’s…she’s been missing awhile. Something to do with kanou. The bastard was working with Aogiri anyway. Two birds, one stone, and all that.” He shrugged.

Kaneki nodded slowly, sensing the gravity of his search and the anxiety behind it despite Nishiki’s stupid nonchalance. “I’ll keep an eye out for her,” he promised. “Now, I think your best shot at surviving is to simply stay under the radar until it’s clear. It's not foolproof, but if there’s no activity to use as a lead and the investigation drags on, they’ll move you down the priority list instead of wasting resources.”

“I've barely been doing anything lately! Touka was all up on my ass for last time,” he griped.

“I know,” he said sadly. “But please. Don’t hunt, don’t mess with Aogiri, and don’t look for Torso until I give you the all clear.”

“If she's managed this long, she’ll be okay for a little longer,” Koma said, patting his shoulder.

Nishiki stared hard at the floor. He nodded.

“Right. That’s sorted then.” Kaneki got to his feet and Touka followed. “I should go,” he told her with an expression that said the opposite.

“Stay for a cup?”

He made to shake his head no, then paused. “Can you make it a go-to? It might work as a cover.”

“Sounds like an excuse to not pass up free coffee but alright.” She bustled over to the shelves, pulling out a kettle to boil some water.

“I guess I missed it,” he said wistfully. “Wait—free?”

“Yeah,” she said over her shoulder to his dumbfounded face, “to celebrate your, you know, homecoming. Welcome back.”

She cleared her throat, ignoring shitty Nishiki’s snort and the exchange of pointed amused glances among the older ghouls, and slammed the bag of beans unnecessarily loud on the counter. 

What the hell are you saying, Touka?!