Here's a little poem about Kaneki's thoughts on Arima I came up with. Pieces of this have been bouncing around in my head for a while.
Atop a mountain of death,
a throne of corpses,
he stands.
The Reaper.
My Reaper.
For a moment I couldn't help but admire
but a moment was all it took for
the god to begin his duty.
Counting. Whispering. Remembering. Fighting. Pain, pain, pain.
Blinding pain.
And then everything ended.
But just because it ended
doesn't mean it can't begin again
if the reaper wishes to show mercy
So strip me of what I once was,
and rebuild me from the bottom up.
Take my power and make it your own
as I lie there, unconscious of the world.
Give me new eyes, so I may see things as you wish.
Give me a weapon, to defend myself from your enemies
Give me a new father, to replace the one I never knew.
Give me a new mother, so I may no longer morn her.
Give me new friends, to keep me grounded in this life.
Give me children, so my future will be as you wish.
Show me mercy I would never have expected
of someone surrounded with death.
Oh Reaper, you coddle me and love me and shower me with affection
and bind yourself to me
until I have such devotion to you and your actions
that even if my past returns
and I find you on that mountain of death once again
I can not hate you.
But if the past does return,
and the disparity between it and my present
devours my very being,
would you tell me
if the Reaper's mercy was worth it?
I actually headcanon that Kaneki wrote this later on in life, after he got his memories back and ended up becoming a famous author. A lot of critics thought it was about reincarnation, but his close friends knew the truth. What do you think?