From afar, she was only a white and wilted spider lily, spinning into different colors when she so desired as the background to a tragedy unfolding. How closely she watched the life of a young man deteriorate into one of false security and implanted memories and she wondered if it were really so long to wear that mask if a sense of fulfillment still existed. It mattered not to her if his acts and decisions were based on selfish desires; she was merely a watcher, judging and being entertained.

So it came as a personal surprise when she found herself following along the same path with her heart being puppeteered along. Looking back, it was merely an obvious consequence, for she was only human after all. But then, the spider lily became a focus rather than a symbol scattered around the stained tile floor.

Sacrifice wilted away in derision and heroism inked away in the ancient, unused dictionary. She stopped a death with a promise, not an act based on no reason. The act of gouging out another's eyes disgusted her, but more than that, it shamed her when she had put so much blind faith into the stranger who was now at the brink of death. She would not stand to watch it happen; she would judge this time. The background would become a player in the game and she would create the future out of the guise of entertainment and the inner denial of empathy.

She had been standing in front of the near dead body for a while now, staring blankly into the open space before her as though the wielder of the weapon were not there. The city scape acted as grounding ornaments, tying her attention to the reality that she rarely spared a glance. Bodies of the injured and the dead were scattered along the roads, leaking red onto the snow that prevented it from turning crusty brown. How ironic it was for her to stand there, perhaps in all her glory, like someone important—someone who drew the focus from others like water forced a drowning person to reach towards the surface.

"Who are you?" He asked softly, slowly, as though it took all the effort in the world to twist his mouth to create those sounds—as though she did not warrant words. His hand on his weapon did not tighten its grip, maintaining the relaxing and near comforting hold. It did not look like a scythe but rather a hybrid of weapons fused into one unbalanced, slightly revolting contraption. How unfitting of the man who befits a reaper, she mused.

The corners of her lips pulled up slightly as an innocent smile decorated her mask of a face. Who was she? What a question! She was background, a secondary character attempting to become part of the amalgam of chaos as fueled by her ego and her insidious subconscious. Her foot crushed the snow beneath her into a dense layer while flurries landed on her hair and shoulders, but the cold felt foreign—a numbness neither pleasant nor painful, but new and yet nostalgic of a time she had sat in a cafe, sipping a coffee and drinking in a story of reality through her eyes.

He did not wait for an answer after he saw her smile, which said all. Swinging his weapon, he ran forward with a grace that defied his intentions.

But she was not such a weak being as to let him slide past her to impale the faintly breathing creature she endeavored to protect. No. she may not have been as strong and powerful, but she was fast and more importantly, without morals. Before he had even arrived, the trap was set—ruthless and calculating and destructive. More than protecting, she craved to see the tall and erect bodies of flesh and stone turn to rubble, crumbling down around her. Perhaps protection was a guise, but she thought little of it.

She would craft her own tragedy from the one that was already beginning to implode on itself as a spectator with simply too much time on her hands.

Several years ago, too many or at least too insignificant to count, she had lived quite differently. A spineless coward, she called herself. A brave hero, others called her. But it was not as though her path of life was actively determined by her own will; she simply followed along through curiosity and the careful consideration of costs and benefits (in other words, whichever decision led to the least annoyances). Oh, how curiosity creates the best destruction.

She remembered joining the junior CCG academy, a funny ordeal of sorts but now a very distant memory. She would sit in the corner of the class, watching the interesting characters interact as though they were mindless specimen under her pressing microscope.

There was the little boy who looked like a girl, decorated in stitches and scars with a perpetually bored look on his face. She paid particular attention to the way he twirled a sharpened pencil between his fingers and how he absentmindedly picked at the strings sewn into his arms. But her pleasure and satisfaction were derived from the looks of displeasure and unease that the little boy—Rei Suzuya—evoked.

What was but a little flesh and string? They all had it didn't they? The plump looking, moist substance shielding their innards from the external environment, put together by cells or string all the same.

So she stared at Suzuya who was most certainly too oblivious and socially inept to notice or react. Everything else maintained a status of insignificance and annoyance. Particularly that man she had immediately deemed a nuisance when he stepped foot into the classroom to speak about the career of a ghoul investigator. Amon Kotarou.

The first time Amon had stepped into the classroom, her classmates were awed. She could perhaps see his intimidating physical build and the mysterious anticipation, allure, and slight fear behind the unassuming suitcase that carried, but the second that the man opened his mouth, her thoughts were confirmed.

He was a complete idiot, she concluded. No, beyond an idiot. A being with potential who has laid all of that potential to waste beneath ideals of dreaming and dead practicality. Her attention switched back to Suzuya who had decided to grace Amon with a modicum of attention, but ultimately his arm full of artistically placed stitches was of greater importance.

"The purpose of CCG investigators is to instill justice on this world. Evil cannot be excused or forgiven so leniently, especially by beings who are inherently dangerous and cruel to society,"Amon had stated.

Her eyebrow nearly twitched, but instead, as though by reflex, the corners of her mouth lifted slightly. This was the type of man she would like to watch crash and burn in a frozen, unmoving world. She wondered briefly what kind of block headed, near-indestructible wall Amon had to construct in order to allow him to continue living in such a forgiving thought. Such a one sided forgiveness would give rise to the very thing he sought to destroy.

She relished in the possible opportunity to watch his hypocritical philosophy backfire on him as he continued to march through his crusade of justice. How long would it take until that blind eye became clear? Until that clear eye was destroyed? She hoped to live long enough to tell.

But Amon was merely that: a man whose doom she could foretell and would willingly examine under her own eyes' lens. A specimen of interest.

The next man who had come into her class was different. Before his full figure had even stepped into the room, she spotted the white hair, a lightened and false version of a grey. It had irked her and an insatiable itch began to emerge within her mind and soul. Suddenly, she was very upset from an dissatisfaction she never knew that she had. It could have simply been because she disliked sharing the same sense of detachment to the world as another man, but regardless, the itch was there.

He had walked in as though no one else was there, as though he had no care for the world. When he turned to face the crowd of eager and anticipating faces, his directed gaze seemed to stare into nothing. However, the truly perplexing thing was that she could not tell if he lacked emotion that once had a permanent place, thus leaving a gaping hole, or if there was simply nothing to begin with.

"Arima Kishou. Special Class Ghoul Investigator."

She would remember his name and the blank gaze that held her attention for the briefest moment before she began to question her own resolve and desire. She would remember the toneless voice that was not bothersome but also not soothing; no, it was like the constant hum of white noise that one could continue listening to but never quite get used to.

What kind of past did Arima harbor? She wondered. What kind of future did he want? Was he simply a functioning shell of a human? Where were the cracks that she could normally so easily pick out?

Half of her found the idea of someone who was so fundamentally different intriguing. The other half of her was flooded with fear. Then again, without any notion of coward or hero, she acknowledged the fear and then discarded it like shards of information that no one uses for anything. Sharp, painful, and exciting to stumble upon after leaving them in the dark for so long.