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Eto had never been one for nostalgia.
She had always been too busy, too focused on other things to look backwards. The past was a place of pain, of longing, and of what would never be again. It was not a source of strength, but evidence of weakness. Only by looking forward could she grab an inkling of the strength she sought.
And yet, the moment her feet touched mainland Tokyo, she went here: the old shrine where it all began.
It had long since fallen into disrepair; it was on no map in the first place, and no one who knew about it bothered to tell. She remembered being attracted to it for that very reason. After all, she was similarly discarded. With her mother dead, her father had seen fit to discard the very thing that reminded him of his failure, and a tool was no longer necessary when everything was fixed. In occupying it as a fellow forgotten one, they would remember each other.
It was stupid, really; places never remembered the people that trampled upon it, but foolish girls were wont to dream.
Eto traced the branch of one of the trees, which had grown tall and strong these past thirteen years. Its trunk was thick and sturdy, and it towered above her, when before it was but a mere sapling, under threat of being crushed on a whim. Not only that, but its roots had finally broken the stone before the shrine, the spot where her world finally began to turn.
Time really did fly; being here now, she almost remembered the scene like it was yesterday. Her, missing an arm and collapsed in a heap within her kakuja. The shrine, broken from the weight. And then, suddenly—
“You’re here.”
Eto looked up and, upon seeing who it was, smirked. There was only one person who could sneak up on her like that, and as the years went by, she minded it less and less.
Seeing him here, it almost made her think the past had caught up to her, but she knew that wasn’t true. There were little differences to this new old meeting that made it so. Stark white hair instead of a nightshade blue. Her own hair, grown into a wild mane. An eye that couldn’t see anything anymore, and hers that had to squint when reading text on a book.
“Well, well, well,” she said with a mirthless giggle. “Come to bask in your glory days?”
“No,” he said simply, as flat as ever. “I was just on my way to the 23rd.”
It was a little frustrating, to be honest, how little she could get out of him, but at the same time, that veil— or rather, that wall— was a comfort. The idea that there would always be something she could never truly understand, that there would always be something more to discover— It kept her going on some days. It meant she could keep digging, keep searching, keep fighting, and there would still be more. The Sysyphian assurance of an expected, if infinite, battle.
“And you?” Arima brought Eto out of her thoughts. “Why?”
The nostalgic question made her scoff. There were many people who asked similar things, but he was the only one she answered. “You’re asking that now? Are you truly so—”
“I am,” he interrupted. “Why?”
His gaze was unwavering, but a trick of the light made her think that there was a twinkle to them. Maybe, deep down in his empty void for a soul, he was actually amused. She chuckled at the prospect, then decided to indulge it. “I’ve just come back from Rushima, and I got a call that my editor is being ‘interrogated’.”
“By who?”
“You know who.” She didn’t have to say the name. “He had that look, you know. Almost reminded me of you.”
Arima paused. “He’s begun reading your work again. They remind him of himself, it seems.”
“So I noticed. And you? What do you think of them?”
He shrugged. “They’re wordy.”
She rolled her eyes at that. He never was one to talk at length, even about books, which he supposedly liked. Even now, where the end for them was in sight, he did not waver in this.
“Anyway,” she shrugged, “cutting through here is faster to get to where he is.”
It was a lie, just like Arima’s reason. This place was far too out of the way to justify coming here, regardless of destination; that was why Eto had chosen it in the first place. However, neither of them called the other out; they knew without saying.
“You’ve made your decision, then?” she asked, as if she even needed to.
He nodded. “The raid’s set to happen soon, and Squad 0 will be guarding Cochlea.”
“I feel safer already.” She smiled, but it faded soon enough. “It will be difficult for him.”
“He’ll succeed,” Arima said, and he almost sounded reassuring. “I’ll make him.”
“So you will.” A chuckle. “You always were one to force things.”
“Better than never letting things happen at all.”
“Hmph.”
Forcing things— that was the way of the One-Eyed King. Forcing his way to the top, clambering over the corpses, and creating a living legend that ghouls all over Tokyo despaired over. To supplement it, Eto became the Owl, his shadow, to give humans a reason to cling to him and justify their needless killing. She ate and ate and ate, taking the corpses and creating a shawl with which to conceal herself.
However, the thing about despair was that hope could just as easily be born from it. Were someone to topple that legend and create something new of it, ghouls would suddenly have a shining beacon of hope to look toward, and they would finally be willing to fight for their existence, finally be willing to live and not just survive. Not only that, but the humans who killed ghouls would finally be forced to turn inward and face the truth of the matter: they were played for fools.
But the thing about toppling such a legend was that it required a sacrifice. One unique sacrifice, and that, in and of itself, almost made it precious.
Eto stared at the coveted object as he turned on his heel and walked away. The way he still refused to really and truly look at her, even after thirteen long years, told her that there was still something he wasn’t telling her, but she couldn’t tell what.
It didn’t matter, of course; things were only ever going to end this way. The two of them were only cracks in the shell, crumbling in on themselves so that the real king could crawl out to the other side. Neither of them were strong enough on their own, nor did they have the tools or background to see it through themselves.
Still, they would try, and someone else, someone better, that made up the best parts of them, could do it when they couldn’t. They could find someone like that, surely, and they had. A miracle, not lying on cold concrete, but among glittering stars. As his predecessors fell into the abyss and closed their eyes to that sparkling beacon, they would go satisfied, knowing it wasn’t all for nothing.
Despite that, though, as Eto watched Arima, she wondered if things could be different. If he could find— or rather, if he could see a way where he didn’t choose death over the world. Where he survived, and continued the fight. Would that result in a better outcome? If the Reaper turned his blade on the strings keeping him down instead of going limp in their grasp, could things change?
… No. No, they couldn’t; he had come too far down his bloody path to try and pave a new one. Much like her, a bloody cannibal who couldn’t find the bottom of her own stomach, he had piled up a tower of corpses far too high to topple it over now. They were monsters, simple as that. They, who took lives on a whim, were not worthy of seeing the new world, nor should they be allowed to fight any longer than they had to. Death was just as much a part of life as living was, and so they would entrust their legacy to their successor— their better.
Their king.
Still, if death was to be their fate, she wanted to try something out. She wanted to leave nothing unsaid, and as much as she hated to admit it, this was one of them. With a step and a call, she spoke a single word:
“Kishou.”
He paused halfway down the road. She waited for a reaction, for anything, really. She didn’t fully understand why she wanted to say what she said; she just knew she had to say it before the coming end. It felt strange saying it, but it had to be said.
Perhaps a part of her wished for him to turn around, and in doing so, change his mind. Change his path. Because if he could, so could she. In saying his name, she was positing a question: could they defy the death that would inevitably catch up to them? Was there a world where miscreants like them could exist together?
A gust of wind blew through the area, and leftover dew on the tree leaves, like blood, slipped off and hit the ground. Eto stared at the white back of his coat as she waited. Always, she waited.
It felt a little ridiculous. What exactly was she waiting for, anyway? It wasn’t like changing what she called him would cause him to turn around and— and what? Smile at her? Touch her? Kiss her?
She frowned. That sort of thing wasn’t possible for people like them. They shouldn’t— they couldn’t seek something like that. There were always bigger, more important things than trash like them.
Eto wet her lips in the silence.
She wanted him to turn around. So, so badly. She wanted him to turn around and run back to her, enthusiasm, anticipation, and joy springing him forth instead of emptiness, anger, and despair. She wanted him to gather her into his arms and hold her like she was the world, like she was the only thing that mattered. She wanted to feel his lips on hers, desperate and longing for the touch of someone who knew his greatest secret, from someone he had bared his heart to, even if only slightly.
She could be that person. She could touch him like he wanted to, and he could do the same to her. They would fit quite well together, she imagined, like pieces of a broken puzzle. Two terrible souls who, at the bottom of the barrel, had found each other. It could work, if she were more delusional and presumptuous than she was.
Fortunately, her feet did not obey her misguided and silent desire; they stayed planted, waiting as they always did. Arima also seemed to remember himself, and continued walking as though she hadn’t said anything at all. All began to fit itself back together. He walked, she watched, until she was alone again.
With a practiced sigh, she shrugged off the heartache.