Chapter Text
"How did Kanou get involved with the Clowns to begin with? How did Hide end up in the custody of Uta and Itori anyway?/Roma and Hide growing up together./How much did Renji know about Hide considering his long standing Friendship with Uta and Itori? That was kind of unclear? Was Yomo a weird uncle to Hide? Or did Hide learn to act like just a kid Itori or Uta was looking after for the day if Renji came around…"
The night that changed her life started out absurdly mundane. Simply put, it was due to not much more than coincidence, boredom, and alcohol.
Looking back, she would regret the sheer amount of fermented blood she had consumed previously. And the fact that she had gotten Uta to consume an unsightly amount as well, and the both of them were rather tipsy. She blamed their questionable decisions on their drinking-- because the deal they struck that night was the most questionable and strange that she would ever make, in all of her years as a Clown. Which was saying something, because Itori had made many questionable and strange decisions.
Itori had a fondness for alcohol and entertainment. Also, pretty men, but not much more than that. She loved a good tragedy when one came around, had questionable morals, delighted in causing strangers pain, and perhaps that's why she fit in so well with the Clowns.
She was also very responsible when she wanted to be, like making sure she had enough alcohol in her bar, not accidentally giving human customers alcoholic drinks with real blood when they asked for a Bloody Mary, and making sure she paid all of her bills on time. Ninety percent of the time, however, she was as irresponsible as her heart desired-- which was a lot.
So when she and Uta went out to a Ghoul Restaurant-- Nico was busy with his latest fling, Ganbo was... doing something or other, Itori wasn't very sure about him, and Roma (the daring little girl) was apparently planning on toying with the Doves, despite Nico's cautions that she would end up getting caught one day-- ready for a night of carefree, drunken acts that they would never regret in the morning, she did not expect to be approached by a man with dark hair that was just beginning to show grey at the edges.
Most people steered clear of the Clowns. Most ghouls steered clear of them, lest they end up on the bad list of strangers that need tortured. So while this man, who wore only a simple white mask to cover his eyes (boring), was intriguing, Itori had no interests in him. He smelled like a hospital, and faintly like dead bodies, and hospitals were boring places.
"Hello," The boring man said, offering them a polite bow. Itori dipped her head to him in return, and Uta waved. "I'll assume you're the Information Broker, and then you're No-Face?"
"That's us indeed," Uta said cheerily, from behind his mask. His hair, still dyed a pale, corn-silk blond-- he'd told Itori he was considering to let it grow back in black, but she had suggested dying it pink and he vetoed to leave it blonde-- stuck up behind his mask in tuffs. "And who might you be, mister human?"
Human? Oh my, my. This did just get a whole lot more interesting.
The man smiled. "I'm Kanou Akihiro. And I've come with a proposition for the both of you."
"You want us..." Itori trailed incredulous. "...to raise your child? Us?"
"Why should we, anyways?" Uta asked, sipping alcohol-laced blood from a fancy wineglass. "Not that it doesn't sound entertaining and all. It's not every day we're approached by a stranger and asked to raise a baby, but it does sound like a hassle. We aren't exactly parent material."
"Oh, but my dear ghouls, you are exactly the type of parents I want to raise my experiment," Kanou explained delightedly. He held a glass of alcohol that remained untouched, unlike Itori and Uta's own. "You're both rather strong folks, and you're both living very dangerous, fight-riddled lives-- you, No-Face, control the Fourth Ward, do you not? And that's exactly how I want my experiment raised: always in the midst of a battle. That way, his regeneration will always be improving, and he'll always be getting stronger. The fear of death is an excellent motivator, after all."
"You sound like quite the interesting parent," Itori commended, amused. "Most parents would fear for their child's safety, I think."
"But that's the thing," Kanou said, just as cordially. "Experiment 49 will be perfectly safe with you both. You're both more than adequately strong to protect it from death, and if it's wounds are too serious, I can patch it up. It's the ideal set up."
"Not that raising a test-tube baby doesn't sound interesting, because it does," Uta said, stopping for a moment as he paused to peered over the balcony's edge to watch the Scrapper tear into tonight's meal. "Oh wow, look at that little fellow go. She's got a nice set of knives, doesn't she?"
"And you said I had a short attention span," Itori snickered. "Look at yourself, U-chan."
Uta bopped her on the head half-heartedly, turning back to Kanou.
"Anyways, what's in it for us? Entertainment is always a nice motivator, but not enough for this sort of deal."
"Straight to the point, U-chan," Itori let out a giggle. "Maybe you should slow down with your drinks, after all."
"Not a chance," Uta said cheerfully, sipping at his glass to find his drink gone. Not deterred in the slightest, he reached an arm out and caught some of the blood-splatter from the Scrapper (a dainty little girl, with what appeared to be a giant set of butcher knives, chasing after the meals with a crooked grin) tearing into the appetizer.
"I do have a nice reimbursement fee prepared, of course," Kanou waved a hand. "But I'm sure monetary benefits aren't what your after. I'll pull some strings with a friend of mine, and he'll give you a nice Family Registry that is more than up to the CCG's standards. If you've got any particular demands, let me know, and I'll see if I can arrange it."
"Hmm..." Itori finished her glass, and sat it down with a sigh. Her long, well-kept fingernails made a tinkling sound against the glass. "It sounds interesting enough, I suppose."
"Mmm-hmm!" Uta hummed, and Itori noted that his mask was beginning to slip off. For some strange reason (she suspected it was the alcohol-- she vowed later to never drink that much in a night again), she found it downright hilarious, and let out a peal of laughter.
"We'll do it, Mister Human!"
Itori came to the next morning with a faint headache and a dry mouth, but otherwise no signs of the hangover she was sure she would have had, if she was human. She was stretched out over the couch of Uta's apartment in the Fourth Ward, and Uta was napping, curled up like a cat and partially concealed by a white sheet, on top of one of the glass cases his precious masks were placed in. On closer inspection, the sheet had been knotted at his throat so that it hung like a cape from his shoulders. Itori vaguely remembered doing that-- she thought.
Somebody was knocking at the door. Itori picked up one of her heels, which were strewn near the couch, and threw it at Uta's head, pleased when it startled him enough to knock him off the case and onto the floor in a sprawling heap, tangled in his sheet.
"Wha--"
"Somebody's knocking," Itori said brightly, beaming. "Go answer the door! It isn't polite to keep your neighbors-- or whoever it is-- waiting!"
"I let you sleep here," Uta sniffed, looking wounded. "And you repay me like this?"
"I saved you from a Dove with my sexy charm, and you repay me like this?"
Uta pouted, his tone falsely whiny. "You're no fun."
"I'm tons of fun," Itori said, with a sharp grin. "I'll go make the coffee if you answer the door. And you know my coffee is better than yours is~."
Uta threw his hands up and walked to the door, shirtless and with wild blonde bedhead, the sheet draped around his shoulders like a cape. When he pulled it open, the woman behind it actually seemed to do a double take.
"...hello. Who might you be?" Uta asked, blinking at the young woman in the nurse's uniform, who held a basket-like thing that Itori didn't recognize in one hand.
"A representative of Doctor Kanou," The nurse said simply, shoving the basket into Uta's hands. "This is the package. The money has already been transferred to the offshore bank account, and the account number and pass-code is on here," She slipped a folded piece of paper into his other hand. "There's basic medical information on the paper with the package. Have a pleasant day. The Doctor wishes you the best of luck."
She turned around with that, and was gone.
Uta sat the basket down on one of the glass cases, sniffing sheet-covered surface curiously.
"It doesn't smell terrible, so I suppose she wasn't dropping off please-stop-partying-so-loud-on-weekdays bribery food," Uta announced, and he lifted the corner of the sheet that was draped over the basket to peer at the mystery basket's contents.
"Oh my. Itori, did you, by chance, order a baby last night?"
"A baby?" She not-so-gently pushed Uta out of the way to remove the sheet, revealing a very small, blanket-wrapped infant, sleeping soundly inside the basket. "I don't think you can order children. It smells nice, though. Do you think it would taste good?"
"Nah. Even we wouldn't eat a baby, silly. They've got too many bones."
Itori's eyes widened as she peered at the infant. "Well, unless your in the mood for cannibalism, we wouldn't be able to eat it anyways." She pointed a finger to the infant, whose eyes had opened. The left eye was a warm, chocolate-brown color, but the right was a kakugan, the black veins stark against pale skin. "Would you look at that! We ordered a one-eye! Even when we're drunk, we've got good taste!"
"Oh, uh-huh. I see," Uta was chatting on the phone to the 'Doctor' mentioned by the nurse who had left the baby, as Itori watched over the infant. The phone number had been on the sheet with the details to an offshore bank account. "Well then, that clears up a lot!"
Itori, who had been listening in on their conversation, had thought that this was perhaps their greatest drunken feat in their entire history of drunken adventures. Which was saying something, considering they'd had quite a lot of drunken adventures, seventy-five percent of which ended in the death of irritating strangers and Doves that tried to ruin their fun, twenty-five perfect of which ended in almost-fatal bloodshed.
"We don't have a receipt, so I guess we can't return it, huh?" Itori mused, watching the swaddled baby, who watched her back in turn with those eerily intelligent, wide, brown (and black and red) eyes. "I think we actually made a commitment, U-chan! Just wait 'till Nico hears about this!"
"We really did make a rather large commitment, didn't we?" Uta pondered, voicing his thoughts. "Maybe we should lay off the alcohol for awhile, after all."
"I am horrified to hear you say that," Itori sniffed. "Who are you, and what have you done with my U-chan?"
Uta thwacked her on the back of the head with his sketchpad, and Itori took the sketchpad and hit him with it.
"U-chan, that's mean! You don't hit women!"
"That's a rather double-standard," Uta said amusedly, ducking out of the way of Itori's attacks. "So I can't hit you but you can hit me? That's-- ouch!"
Itori was about to make a satisfied comment, but paused when the infant let out a high-pitched peal of laughter, like the pealing of bells. She and Uta both stared at it (him, according to the papers tucked into the basket with the infant) in mild surprise.
"He likes violence, does he?" Uta asked, though it was more of a statement, nonplussed.
Itori beamed. "Maybe we don't need a receipt-- it looks like he'll fit right in!"
To Nico and Roma's utter bemusement, that was exactly how it turned out-- the experiment (Itori and Uta had called it 'Hideyoshi') fit into place with them like a puzzle piece would in a puzzle. He needed surprisingly little care-- from what Nico had heard, infants were a wailing, snotty mess for the majority of their young lives that needed to be hovered about and doted on. This one had to be an oddity, and not for any reason that included his species.
He never wailed, the terrible, temper-tantrum wails that deprive parents of sleep in the middle of the night. He cried when he was wet or hungry (or curious, at first, which made for a lot of quiet tears), and once his needs had been sated, he cried no more. He was a rather serious child at first, but by the first month or so had passed, it was almost as if he had begun to mirror Itori and Uta's mannerisms, becoming a bright, bubbly child, though his eyes always studied everything with that shockingly sharp intelligence.
Roma had expected parenthood to dull the Clown in Itori and Uta, but it seemed far from the truth. Itori and Uta did anything and everything they had before Hide had came along (though, she hadn't been with them for very long before that, just long enough to gain appraisal as a genuine sadist and to be accepted as one of the Clowns), they simply did it with a child.
When they went out to the Ghoul Restaurant, they brought baby bottles filled with a mix of blood and milk. When Uta went out to settle a spat in the Fourth Ward, he brought along Hide (an affectionate nickname-- Hideyoshi was a mouthful) and entrusted him to the care of one of his gang, and the baby boy would watch, delighted, as his adopted father tore ghouls apart, giving bright peals of laughter at the gore. When Itori made an information deal, she would do it with Hide sitting on the counter of the bar, propped up with a pillow and watching everything with those too-intelligent eyes. When they hunted, which was often an every-other-night occurrence, Hide tagged along in a baby carrier (Uta and Itori flipped coins to see who would carry him).
Roma thought that she would dislike the baby, but as it came to be known, she rather enjoyed his company. She had been the youngest Clown until he had came around (she was just-turned nine, and had the mentality of a child-like, sadistic serial killer), and now that she didn't have to bear the nickname 'squirt' or 'shorty', she was definitely fond of him. Less time being annoyed by the others teasing her about her age meant more time teasing the Doves.
Before she killed them, anyways. Roma had taken to bringing little Pierrot (because every Clown needed an alias) out with her when she killed, and the boy absolutely loved it. Hearing his laughter added to her own merely made killing the Doves more fun-- they couldn't believe that a little girl (Roma hated her height-- she looked five-- but she could use it to her advantage) with an infant would be dangerous. Oftentimes, she would lure them in with false tears and some sob story or other ("Please! Help! Mommy-- Mommy's hurt!") and the foolish Doves would have no idea what hit them until they were already alone with herself and Hide in a dark alley with a rinkaku tentacle through their abdomen and the delicious blood flying through the air.
Babysitting was fun, even if Roma didn't actually get to sit on any children.
When Hide was old enough to hunt on his own, he and Roma often sparred, and headed out for a snack afterwards. Most of the time, it was in the underground tunnels that made up the Twenty-Fourth Ward or occasionally on the rooftops, and it was always terribly exciting. Hide was strong in his own right, with his chimera kagune, and Roma was absurdly strong for someone so small and young.
Then again, she was also absurdly sadistic and downright psychotic for someone so small and young, which was the precise reason she had been accepted into the Clowns without issue.
It was one of those nights, and he and Roma sat on the edge of the rooftop, sharing a corpse between the two of them-- they'd hit the jackpot, the corpse was just fatty enough to be easy to eat, and since Hide's permanent front two teeth hadn't grown in yet, it was perfect-- dreaming up horror stories and trying to get a reaction from the other. But neither the six year old Hide nor the fourteen-and-a-half year old Roma was budging.
"And then--" Hide was cut off as the door flew open and Uta, looking mildly irritated but also mildly intrigued.
"After you finish up your snack, head inside, the both of you," Uta muttered. "I've got to go play peacemaker again, and it sounds like it might actually get interesting this time-- and by that, I mean Nico said that it was 'too dangerous for children to go'."
Roma snorted. "Worry-wart. I rip his kidney out, if he'll say it to my face~."
"Again?" Hide asked Uta, ignoring Roma's comment, reaching into his front pocket and drawing out a neon-colored handkerchief, wiping his hands and his face free of blood. After he tucked the cloth neatly back into his pocket, he was on his feet, eyes eager. "Okay! Let's go!"
"Nico doesn't want you to go, this time," Uta repeated. "This ghoul is a cannibal. And since I haven't had time to scope him out before, it'd might end up being fairly nasty." He sighed. "I hope it's something exciting. I'm growing bored of playing peacemaker. Besides, you're eating."
"Pleeeeeaaaassseee, Uta?" Hide asked, with a grin showing off bloodstained teeth. "I can finish my snack when we get back home!"
"I'll cover for you if you let me eat the head," Roma piped, with a smile that seemed eerie with the blood that stained her face. "Nico isn't hard to fool. I'll tell him you were up here with me the entire time!"
"That's fine! You can have the head!" Hide agreed, then bounced over to Uta, with his missing-toothed, bloodstained smile. "See, Uta? It'll all work out!"
Uta shrugged. "Alright, that's fine. It's not like you can't take care of yourself-- Nico's just a big worry-wort, spoil-sport."
"You're a poet and you didn't know it," Hide snickered, as he held out a hand to Uta, who accepted it. Hide was long since able to clear the buildings in his own power, and there was really no need for Uta to hold his hand anymore, but it was an old habit that Uta found no need to break. Not yet.
He grew up too fast anyways.
"Oh, shut up," Uta said, bopping Hide on the back of his head. "You better not tell Itori about this. She's been nagging me to get you to eat more, and if she finds out that I let you leave a meal to come with me, she'll be angry. And she's scary when she's mad."
"I won't tell I-chan," Hide promised, his voice a clear in the night air. "I won't tell Nico-neesan, either, 'cause he'll tell I-chan."
"Good boy," Uta praised, but his running halted when he paused to sniff the air, teetering on the edge of the roof. "Well, I'd say we're here."
Hide raised an eyebrow.
"Y'think?"
"When did you start sassing me so often, hmm?" Uta asked, cheerful despite the gory scene he'd come upon. A ghoul was crouching over the body of another ghoul, and his hands and face were smeared in the foul-smelling blood of his victim. "I didn't raise you like that. It was Itori, wasn't it?"
"It was I-chan. Oh, gee, look at that," Hide commented idly. "Nico-neesan was right. It is a cannibal."
"Nasty things, that," Uta added. "Minor side effects tend to include insanity."
The ghoul-- who looked to be about Uta's age, with strangely silver-colored hair-- looked up with flat eyes.
"Who are you?" He asked, in a surprisingly quiet and deep voice that commanded attention.
"Well, I'm the leader of this ward," Uta said, sounding bored. "You're causing quite a bit of a ruckus, coming into my ward and breaking my rules. You're causing havoc in the feeding grounds and committing cannibalism, both of which are no-no's here."
"Well, everybody tends to frown on cannibalism," Hide pipped. "But that's more of a morals thing. Personally, if it didn't have that rather nasty side-effect of insanity, it wouldn't be an issue."
"You brought... a child... to fight me?"
The incredulous tone was amusing, if a little confusing to Uta.
"I did. Is there something wrong with that?"
An ukaku, dark and flickering, taking the form of two black wings, emerged from the ghoul's back. His eyes flickered, bleeding into kakugan, and he didn't answer Uta right away.
"...I don't want to hurt children. I'll fight you, but not him."
Uta just shrugged, a wild, animalistic grin spreading across his face. He released Hide's hand and stepped off the roof, landing in a pool of the dead ghoul's blood.
"Fine by me. Let's have some fun, hmm, Raven-kun?"
As it turned out, the ghoul was surprisingly strong. Strong enough that every time they fought, Uta settled the dispute quickly, then withdrew. The fights were always explosive and gory, to Hide's utter delight, though after awhile they began to grow dull.
One morning, when the weather was fine, Uta tracked him down. He found Raven on the roof of a tall building, watching Tokyo pass by underneath his feet.
Birds like high places. It's fitting, isn't it?
"Yo," Uta called, giving Raven a grin that made his piercings glimmer in the sunlight. "Do you like high places, Raven-kun?"
The young man frowned. "...That's not my name."
Uta shrugged, leaping up the two stories that separated them to sit beside Raven on the rooftop, swinging his legs idly.
"Everyone calls you that because I do." Uta pointed down, far, far below them, beyond a human's eyesight, to point at a black bird. "They come from out of nowhere and search for dead flesh. That fits you perfectly, doesn't it?" Then, although he had already sat down, "Is it okay if I sit beside you?"
Raven never responded, merely giving Uta a shrug that Uta took as a yes.
"...If you hate being called that then suck it up and tell me your name," Uta beamed. "I'm Uta! You are?"
When Raven remained silent, Uta sighed, with a faint smirk playing at his lips. "Geez~ It's not like you're a woman being hit on."
Raven pursed his lips, but eventually muttered something Uta didn't catch all of.
"...Ji?"
*Uta said 'Ji' as in 'hemorrhoids'.
"Renji!" Raven corrected, startled and mildly offended.
Uta smiled innocently. "Renji-kun, why do you go around being so violent? Killing each other would be fun too, but let's get along! I want to have some friends my own age!"
"...I want to become stronger," Renji said, after a brief moment of silence.
"Why?"
"You... are strong," Renji said, avoiding the question. Uta let him. "Tell me, how did you get so strong?"
Uta shrugged. "I don't know that. What...? Are you on a journey to train yourself, Renji-kun?" He laughed.
"Shut up, don't laugh at me," Renji muttered, but Uta merely smiled.
They fell silent for a moment, and after a moment, Renji asked, "Why did you bring your child to our fights?"
"Oh, Hide?" Uta shrugged. "He can handle himself. He's a little short for six, but he packs a punch."
"Didn't I... scare him?"
Uta laughed. "Scare him? Oh, you're kidding me, right? He's a Clown. Nothing scares him."
Except disappointing Kanou.
Uta paused, seeing something flash across Renji's face, and he peered closer, intrigued. "You're really afraid you scared him, aren't you?" At Renji's silence, Uta leaned back on his hands, ignoring the uneven concrete that dug at his hands. "I'll prove that he isn't. What's say you come meet him, hmm?"
"I... don't know," Renji muttered. "I'm not very good with children."
"You seem to care quite a lot about them," Uta said, amused. "So I'm sure that's not true. In fact, I'd say that you have prior experience with them, hmm...?"
Renji turned his eyes to the stars. Uta let him have his silence-- he had already guessed that Renji wouldn't answer his proddings. But, to his surprise, after a long period of silence, Renji did answer him.
"You aren't wrong..."