Hiya! Welp, i noticed a gross lack of Tokyo Ghoul Fanfics, so i figured that i'd contribute to the rising count! I own nothing! Nothing at All! It all goes to Ishida Sui (aside from the fic itself, but you knew that)! I hope you guys enjoy this story!

"I… am a Ghoul Investigator…"

The breeze was cold that night.

"And I am their Mentor"

Touka sucked in a breath of the bitter air, the frost filling her lungs, before she released it in white, chilled puffs. She pulled her hood up to shield her frozen ears from the touch of Jack Frost, hiding her hair from moonlight. Her palms were glove-clad, however, her fingers were exposed to the night, giving her cause to ball her calloused hands together, guiding them to her pale lips. She sighed a heavy breath into her interlocked fingers, warming them for a few seconds, before the chilly air attacked that heat. Squatting down, she surveyed down the side of the skyscraper, her eyes gliding down slick windows that reflected the life coming and going below. Not many people traveled the streets at this hour, especially not in this spine-chilling cold, or at this peculiar hour. Though it wasn't the cold, nor the dark that kept people off the streets at night. It was fear. Fear of Ghouls.

Fear of her.

After she came to the conclusion that she wasn't attracting any unwanted attention, she turned her gaze up to the night sky. Gray clouds hazed and muddled up the sky, leaving patches of grey against a glittering blue stretch. The Moon was floating high, and shone wholesome and bright, illuminating a path far above the streets of Tokyo. Suddenly, Touka broke into a sprint towards the opposite ledge of the building. Outstandingly, she sprung off the ledged and whirled her body around, successfully flipping around midair. Soon, her feet made contact with the solid roof of another, shorter building. With great agility, she glided rooftop to rooftop, the wind ripping at her dark coat, adrenaline pumping through her veins. The cold didn't matter right now, because one misstep would cause her to crash down to the distant at a breakneck speed. At this particular moment, she didn't feel like walking home with a broken neck.

Soon, she was away from the taller buildings, now trouncing on the tops of small shops. She launched herself off the ledge of what seemed to be a small convenience store, and latched onto an old street lamp. Expertly, she swung her legs into the air, causing her to whip around the pole as she descended. Then, mid-turn, she let go of the pole and landed gracefully in a squat on the cold stone of the sidewalk. Standing back up, she arched her back and brought her arm across her chest, holding it by the elbow with her opposing hand, stretching her now-sore limbs. She let out another white breathe as she began to stalk further from the streetlight and into the murky darkness of the nearby alleyways. Letting the cold sting her nostrils, chuckled inwardly.

"Maybe I should have tried out for the Gymnastics team back in high school."

That was her last sane thought as the blackness of the alleyway enveloped her.

"The Auction's in a couple of days now" Yomo said nonchalantly, as if to no one in particular. His eyes were glued to a white porcelain cup in his hands.

"Yeah" Touka replied, as she finished shining the countertop she had been polishing. "I guess it is"

Yomo didn't raise nor turn his head, but his eyes shifted from the cup to her, keen to any clue as to what the twenty-year old ghoul was thinking. She pretended not to notice.

"Are you planning on going?"

"Pardon?"

"To the auction."

Touka stood in her place for a minute, and then turned to look out the large windows behind her.

:Re was no Anteiku, that was to be certain. It had a modern feel that her old home lacked, but she felt her heart sink as remembered that the new café meant the burying of all she held dear. Everything in her old life that she worked so hard to build was gone.

Like him.

Sighing, Touka leaned back against the counter, letting her head fall back.

"I haven't decided yet"

Yomo shifted from his lax stance and placed the cup on the counter in front of him. With long strides, he traveled to the door, and paused. Silently, he traced his slender finger along the bottom of the 'OPEN' sign, as if he was contemplated flipping it and letting the world in, rather than manually doing it as they did everyday. Touka decided now was a good time to get some water boiling, and began to exit to the back of the building to prepare for the day.

"Touka"

She stopped in her tracks, and turned her head slightly to notion she was listening.

"Don't do anything stupid" He flipped the sigh, so the side that read 'OPEN' became visible to the passerby's on the streets outside.

Continuing, Touka lowered her head and silently responded to Yomo's concern.

"I can't promise you anything"

The day was monotonous as usual. Touka mindlessly served various patrons with many orders of coffees, lattes, and whatever else they could think of her to concoct. Throughout the day she half expected The Investigator and his crew to come barreling through the doors of the new café, carelessly pull up a chair and order their drinks while babbling about missions gone and coming. They never did of course. Part of her was happy about that.

She wasn't a fool, and neither was Yomo. They both knew the man with a messy head of white and black hair was Ken Kaneki, or whatever was left of him. The first time he came in, he was accompanied by a small group of apprentices, as he had stated later. She remembered them quite well, though it was only a pair at the time.

There was a tall man with the teeth of a shark and a head of fiery orange hair, accompanied by another smaller woman. Her nose was still as sharp as any other ghouls, and she could tell clearly that the green haired petite was a female, but it was obvious that the way she carried herself that she much preferred to be male. When she caught broken bits of their conversation, they referred to the tanned investigator as 'he', so Touka decided she would respect that. Later, she recalled running into the taller man at the hospital, with a tired-eyed girl with long blue hair, drawn back in two pigtails. It was clear by their scent that all four of them had some sort of ghoul in them, and the last thing Touka wanted to think about was why. The CCG had killed some other Ghouls and placed the organs in the new investigators, so they could carry on the destructive ways.

Touka strode to the back of the store as Yomo helped the last of the customers. Closing time was drawing near, and her head was in a fog. Trying to keep her wits about her, she drew some water into the sink, preparing to wash the day's dishes. Suds rose from the steaming water as she started to rub the stains away from the porcelain cups, readying them for another day of use. Her mind began to wander back to the Doves. They had three humans with the parts of ghouls killed by their vicious hand implanted in them. She wondered absent-mindedly if Kaneki knew what he was doing, wondered if this was his way to get back at an organization like Aoigiri for what they did to him.

No, not plausible.

Nishki had told her that he didn't remember anything. The way he freaked out when he called his name was evident of that. But that also meant that deep down, the ghoul-turned-investigator was still Kaneki.

Her grip on the cup tightened.

How did he forget? Did they hurt him at all? How would he react when he learned he's hunting down and mercilessly slaughtering those he used to care about? Will he ever be back?

Would he ever remember her?

There was a loud crack, and a sharp sting immediately lashed up Touka's fingers. Red stained shards of porcelain fell limply from the ghoul's lacerated fingers and splashed into the soapy pond below. Crimson droplets trained down after them, tainting the water, as they slipped off her fingers like rivers.

A normal human with nothing special about their senses wouldn't have even had a clue about the predicament, but before Touka herself could even register what had just transpired, Yomo was at her side, immediately grabbing her trembling arms and yanking her away from the sink, now filled with the offending bloodstained glass. She couldn't even look up at him, she was shaking so bad. Her senses went crazy. She could smell then last remaining guests in the front of the building, and her mouth watered. The urge to break free from Yomo's grip and chase them down hit her like a brick wall. Bile rose in her throat as she thought about consuming them, ripping them limb from limb and sucking the bones dry.

"-ka! Touka, Look at me!"

Her eyes snapped up the silver-haired ghoul numbly gripping her arms. It became that he was gripping her with extreme force, as she felt his fingers practically pierce her flesh. She thanked the heavens for that, because if she had decided to follow her fantasies…

She immediately put the thought to the back of her mind.

In the end, Yomo had went back to help the customers at the front, hastily apologizing, making up some bogus story to excuse his actions. Touka was in the bathroom, running her shredded hands under cold water, watching the crimson flow down the drain. Reluctantly, she peered up at the mirror. Noticing that her Kakugan was clearly visible, her limbs once again began to shake violently. What happened? Why was she reduced to this pitiful state? What blew her composure?

Tears filled her eyes as she concluded that it was, indeed, Kaneki.

Would he even want to come back? Compared to his time spent at Anteiku, he's been with the CCG for much longer, and must have grown attached to them. That's what Kaneki did, made friends wherever he went. Where they his family? Did they love him as much as she did? More, perhaps? When he walked in with his students, he seemed so proud. If he didn't remember his life at Anteiku, does that mean he didn't remember al the atrocious things that happened to him? He seemed like he was more of his old self…

Was he happy?

Touka's frail body flung to the ground, ruby's staining the white tile of the bathroom floor. Hot tears bled from her eyes, and she furiously pressed her wounded hands to her face, staining her snowy skin with streaks of red. Painting the floor with blood and tears, Touka collapsed into to a pitiful sobbing heap, agonizingly tried to stifle her wails until she fell into a cold, dark, dreamless sleep.

All Yomo could do was silently lean on the door and listen to her muffled cries.