Notes:
- Kaneki: the successor of Hades, god of the underworld
- Itori: the goddess of wine, revelry, ritual madness, fertility, and theater (Dionysus)
- Amon: god of the sea, earthquakes, storms, and horses (Poseidon)
- Akira: the goddess of wisdom, war, poetry, and art (Athena)
- Nishiki: god of trade, thieves, travelers, sports, and border crossings; guide to the Underworld and messenger of the gods (Hermes)
- Kimi: goddess of magic, crossroads, ghosts, witchcraft, and necromancy (Hecate)
- Hinami: goddess of strength, speed, and victory (Nike)
Itori loves her brother. He's a bit of a self-effacing character with a terrible martyr complex and lingering, pesky human emotions that, more often than not, cloud his judgement on all things macabre and unseemly. It would have been funny had he not been the god of death himself, the patron deity of all that lay beneath the earth—her jewels, her gold, and her rotting, inevitable decay. It's a hideous picture but Itori doesn't mind—she's made of far sterner stuff and is, for the most part, deliciously inebriated most of the time.
Being the goddess of wine and revelry is a terrifically wonderful excuse to drink to excess without any clamoring from her more conservative siblings. Hinami, of course, would never dare chide Itori—at least not publicly and even then her rebuke was gentle—but Kaneki. Oh Kaneki would skew her with those disarmingly gentle eyes, filled to the brim with concern and tender affection and the slightest hint of worry even though she is a goddess and goddesses would never be found dead in their bathtubs.
She says as much when Kaneki opens his mouth during their private supper, those big grey eyes of his sad and mournful all over again when Itori cuts him off.
"There are times, dear brother, when you mind others so insensibly that your concern turns to smothering—and that, in turn, forces me to wreck havoc throughout your realm until you remember that I am not only far older than you but also far less patient." She says with a fatal gleam in her dark amber eyes, looking more predatory than playful.
Kaneki, sensible boy he is, takes the hint.
"My apologies, sister." He nods and Itori pours herself a sloshing glass of honey wine in full view of his face.
He says nothing.
"Wonderful!" She cheers gamely, snapping her fingers so she is now seated next to Kaneki. The banquet table—a lush rectangular plane of ebony wood—has more than enough food placed on it to feed all of Caesar's armies but Itori prefers drink to lamb and her brother's appetite is a wretchedly unpredictable thing. "Now that the obvious has been addressed, let us begin on another topic of discussion."
His lips quirk at his sister's exuberant statements that have him feeling far older than his half century and her, far younger. "What would you like to discuss, sister?"
"Your depressingly pathetic misery." She replies blithely, watching from the corner of her eye as Kaneki chokes (on what she has no idea—didn't he remember? Gods don't need to breathe) before coughing indelicately, cheeks tinged pink. "Oh sweet mercy, it's worse than I thought." Itori mocks though not at all unkindly—there is a faint gleam of sympathy in her pretty, pretty eyes and she bites her tongue to keep the harsher comments at bay. "You look, dearest brother, like a wounded puppy."
"I—it's not…that is—"
"Are we going to take turns speaking in fragments or is there a sentence behind all that gibberish you're sprouting?"
"It…isn't anything of particular importance." He manages after a while, eyes flickering to his polished onyx ring before fixing Itori with an impressively imperial gaze.
Unfortunately, she is his sister—his older, flamboyant, gorgeously intuitive sister—and she will not be deterred.
"You're a wretched liar when it comes to affairs of the heart, Kaneki-love." She smiles. "My, my—imagine the scandal! The underworld king scavenging the earthly realm for a mortal. Truly brother, you are far too literary for my tastes. Perhaps you were a poet in another life."
"I was no poet." He says darkly though his eyes are clear. His control, then, has improved greatly—there is a new stateliness about him that was entirely absent five decades ago, when he blushed and stammered at every address, when his hands were so gentle they provoked mockery and his heart so soft it was sickening.
Now, however, now her brother, seated with careless grace on a chair that is rather modest in comparison to his palace, legs spread apart and no crown on his head—well.
He radiates an aura of spectacular infamy, marred only by the longing that he still can't quite shake.
"Tell me, have you fallen in love with her or is she simply an amusement to wile away the hours? Eternity, brother dearest, can be quite dull without the proper entertainm—"
"She is no such thing!" Kaneki protests with a force that knocks the two off kilter—the open, easy smile on Itori's face vanishes and, for a brief moment, the crimson in her brother's eyes bleeds a warning that is just shy of death. His knuckles are white as he grips at the armrests of his dining chair, too afraid to let go for fear of unleashing mass murder and Itori—
Oh, Itori laughs. At first she attempts to smother her giggles but honestly, it's just too much. The honey wine in her chalice spills and Kaneki watches in amazement as his graceful, seductive sister is reduced to a fit of hysterical laughter that confuses and irritates him beyond measure.
"Itori!"
"No, no," she manages, "brother dearest, I just—" Itori breaks into another fit of giggles before placing one hand over her heart in the truest imitation of honesty, "apologies—again." She takes a breath, rights her chalice, and smiles. "My dear foolish younger brother—you are truly following in the footsteps of your predecessor are you not?"
He frowns, unsure and handsome and blessedly unaware—
"Tell me this," Itori tries, "what does little Amon feel for Akira?"
"Love." Kaneki answers—immediate, sharp, and sure.
"Yes." She nods sagely, wizened and drunk as she is. "Very good. Now tell me this, what does that messenger brat feel for little Kimi? Think carefully brother dear, lest you end up biting your own tongue."
The god of death frowns again but answers in that same sharp, clear voice: "Love, sister. Nishiki loves Kimi. It is a fact that I have known since I was a child on earth—theirs is a story the singers sing every spring during the hyacinth festival."
"Indeed!" Itori laughs and uncoils a gold panther from her right arm, lying it flat on her palm. Kaneki watches as the armband springs to life, allowing a miniature panther of the purest gold to dance in his sister's hand. "Now suppose my panther falls for—oh, let's say a serpent. How do you suppose such affection with live when there is an undeniable difference that separates one from the other?" She poses the question with a blunt-edged delicacy that could only be charming coming from one such as herself. Yet, when she raises her head and amber collides with steely grey, Itori knows her brother has finally recognized her point.
"Enough, Itori." He says lowly and she offers him half a smile.
"You love her. That much is clear."
"I refuse to steal away her life—to rob her from all she holds dear, her family, her friends—"
"Being consort to a god is hardly the worst sort of punishment Tartarus could dish out." Itori interrupts, rolling her eyes. "If she's caught your eye then she must be made of sterner stuff. The girl you're describing hardly sounds like the woman you've fallen in love with."
"I—" He begins before Itori cuts him off.
She stands suddenly, looming over Kaneki with an expression that is all at once open and unreadable. "Don't make decisions too rashly, oh lord of death. Keep an open mind but remember—there are those who are uniquely unfit for immortality." Her words linger, crawling over Kaneki's skin as he remembers the twisted, blood-smeared visage of Seidou Takizawa and the ripped flesh, the sinew from muscle splayed and broken in a half-formed cackle of broken delight—
"You're suggesting I test her, aren't you?" He says faintly, eyes distant and dark, focusing only on the indigo color of Touka's hair, how gently the Roman breeze caressed it against her rose-pale cheek…
"I am." Itori answers, knowing her little brother has drifted away but unable to find herself feeling anything other than apprehensive joy. "Test her and you'll see—if she's captured your interest then this should be a simple matter of sport."
This drags him back to reality with all the force and fury of an ill-tempered Zeus. "And if it's not?"
Itori pats his cheek. "Don't think so negatively, king of all below—I'm sure you have enough dead philosophers to answer that question for you." She laughs lightly, kissing the tip of his nose before vanishing in a flurry of gold and violet.
He blinks. Really, Kaneki thinks, he must get those portal seals fixed. He can't have Itori barging in all the time simply because she's cracked one of their codes.
There is something sinister in her father's face—something dark and vile and ill-tempered but Touka says nothing, drinks nothing, eats nothing. Across sits her future husband and his father, acting as if they hadn't just insulted their host in every which way, continuing to talk and preen as if they had only livened the conversation.
Pompous, ignorant, atrocious sons of bitches—
"Touka." The quiet, dignified voice of her uncle interrupts Touka's inner tirade.
"Yes?"
"Start coughing."
She blinks, looking mildly confused before deciding why the hell not. Death, at this point, might be more interesting.
Seconds later, Touka's slightly over-exaggerated coughs fill the air and her father turns to look at her with growing alarm. "Touka? Are you alright?" He asks worriedly and she feels the tiniest bit of guilt surging through her but honestly, she can't stand this any longer. This—this pathetic, inexcusable farce.
She already feels half ready to scream.
Their dinner guests, ever observant people, take notice.
"Gracious child! What in Jupiter's name—! Arata, you didn't tell me the girl was ill!" The fat man with the awful, ruddy cheeks shouts with an accusatory gaze, leaning away from the banquet table as if Touka were infectious. "Is it the plague? Jupiter almighty—! It isn't the plague is it?"
"Hardly." Her Uncle Yomo intercedes before Touka can lash out. "A mild spring fever is all. It's been going around the inner city." His smooth, placid voice instantly quells the tension and Touka wonders if that particular characteristic simply bypassed both her and Ayato when they were being born.
"Apologies senator," she smiles prettily at the obnoxious oxen with the red face and affronted expression, "general," she nods at his son, a handsome young man with sharp, glass-cut features and coloring as pale as the winter sun. His ash-blonde hair and pale grey eyes are not unhandsome but his silence—stony and ice-cold—unnerve (and if she's being honest, irritate) her.
Her soon-to-be fiancé gives her a stoic nod. "My lady." He acknowledges, voice as wintry as the rest of him.
"Get some rest girl, we can't have you falling ill before the wedding!" His pompous, overbearing father adds and the last of Touka's control snaps.
Her uncle, if he notices, says nothing.
Rising, Touka fixes the man with a sharp-edged smile that's more vicious than amiable. "I thank you for your careful attention to my health but I beg you take some of that same consideration and turn it towards yourself—after all, the feast is not yet over and our table has already been half-cleared. Indigestion is a terrible thing." She smiles again, watching with savage glee as Senator Tertius Viridius Petreius chokes on his own indignation, sputtering out half-formed words and turning a rather hideous shade of purple.
His son, she notes quietly, says nothing though the corner of his mouth has quirked up slightly—as if…amused?
She blinks, wondering if her life sentence of marriage might not be as terrible as she first thought.
To her right her father looks more appalled than embarrassed but, bound by social convention, manages a very convincing Touka! shouted with just the right amount of admonition and reprimand.
Her uncle, Touka notes, has merely taken another deep—very deep—drink of wine.
She laughs.
The spiraling staircase that leads to her room allows the indigo-haired girl a moment to catch her breathe and soothe her frantic heartbeat. She knows—knows—that she has been born for this, to one day be sold like chattel to the highest bidder because it was the norm. Convention, tradition, honor, and duty dictated their lives and she is the daughter to one of Rome's most prominent senators. Her brother has secured fame and fortune and now she must secure the alliances. It's unfair that Ayato must be the one to bleed for their family, to be sent thousands of miles away to some foreign land to govern foreign people and learn a foreign tongue while Touka remains in Rome, surrounded by familiarity—
But…
Some part of her—some wretched, curious part of her—thinks it's Ayato who's gotten the better part of the deal. Perhaps they should have left when they had to chance—escaped Rome for Alexandria because at least then, they could be together. Her, father, Ayato, and Uncle Yomo. They could be together, free from the scrutiny they now lived under, free to remember what family felt like before mother died and war broke out and death was all they knew.
Taking a breathe, Touka steadies herself against the cool cream walls of the villa, eyes closing as she remembers that this is not the end of the world. Thousands—millions—of young women have been bargained off for the same purposes she was now to serve—some, to far crueler men and at a far younger age. It was a miracle her father held out for so long, waiting until Touka's eighteenth year before marriage negotiations took place at all.
There have never been any particular aspirations Touka aspired to as a child—to be a great lady like her mother, a loving daughter to her father, a good sister to her brother.
But now her mother was dead, her father was half-gone, and Ayato was gone—long ago, Touka had thought the implications of her life fair and beautiful but war, strife, and death taught her otherwise. The world was an eclipse, thinly veiled delights hiding the greater torment of men. And war, that heady, fragrant cesspool of blood and hatred, was a yearning every man with even a shred of ambition ran towards, hands outstretched and eyes wide with greed.
Down would fall the houses and amphitheaters, the pyramids and aqueducts—the perpetual hatred borne from difference would never die. One conquerer would always think himself greater than the rest and soon, blood would follow. It was an inevitable, bitter truth Touka had learned in a trial by fire—
After all, for women such as herself, for those who could not fight, what was there left to do except live?
He knocks on her door, waiting for the gauzy black veils to part before a rush of enchantment—cool and piercing—washes over Kaneki.
The door opens, and the god of death enters. The smell of blood and roses hangs heavy in the air, permeating his senses and making Kaneki half-blind to his surroundings.
But he knows these corridors—knows its crevices and halls, the shape-shifting walls and mounted heads. He knows them all.
"Well, well, well," a lush, teasing voice echoes.
He tenses.
"What have we here? My little darling of a protege—have you come to see me at long last?" The clinking of chains mingle with the sound of silk being dragged on the floor.
"I request an audience with you, Witch." He says as politely as his sane mind will allow. "Will you see me?"
From within the shadows, she purrs. "Oh, I always see you, Kaneki Ken—I've just been wondering how long it'd take for you to see me." Her voice sounds sad—neglected, almost—and for a brief, instantaneous second, Kaneki's eyes close and he is reminded of long, violet hair and soft, curving smiles. Of gentle touches and rose-red kisses, of her body pressed against his and her nails leaving rivulets of blood running down the front of his chest—
His eyes snap open and—there she is, standing right in front of him. Her face is an inch from his, that same slow, seductive smile on her rose mouth, her full chest is warm and soft and his hands are suddenly on fire—the need to touch her, to hold her in his arms for just a fraction of a second roars through him.
She is powerful still, even whilst condemned.
"Rize."
Her smile widens.
"Have some tea won't you?" She tilts her head. "Or are you not thirsty? You reek of the world above—"
Kaneki swallows. He can't let her deter him, can't let her words trick him because Rize has always adored toying with her prey.
"Once," he says, voice strained, "you were the goddess of love and beauty."
She nods. "Mmh, I do remember that stint—fun while it lasted." She laughs and it is a beautiful, monstrous sound that has him seeing red and he hates himself for it. Even after all this time, she knows how to make him dance like a puppet on strings.
"I need your help."
She moves closer and for some strange, inexplicable reason—he is frozen in place, unable to move, and for all his power, he...he doesn't want to move. Not with her body feels like this, not when he can trace the soft, generous curves of her figure, how the thin chiffon of her dress can be so easily ripped, how her pale, perfect throat is just begging to be ravaged. He's stronger now, stronger than he ever was when he was human—he can take her how he likes, make her scream if he wants—
He bites his tongue so hard he can taste blood.
Hera help him.
"You were stripped of your divinity but you have some power still." His voice is even and measured, even as his nails dig into his hands, cutting into his heart's palm. "I would ask that you perform a spell for me."
"Oh? A spell?" She lowers her voice, whispering conspiratorially. "Who should it be for? No, no—let me guess!" She taps her chin in mock concentration. "Ah! I think I know who it's for, little Kaneki—and, don't tell me! You've inherited the same predilections as that predecessor of yours—!"
"Rize—"
Suddenly, he's pressed against the wall and her hands are on his shoulders, crimson eyes piercing as a wicked, tortuous smile curves on her mouth. Slowly, she tilts her head, cheek pressing against his own as her words brush against his ear, "it's her, isn't it? The human. That silly, inane little girl who I ought to tear into with my bare hands—" the silkiness of her words, the softness of her breath, is cut short with sudden abruptness when Kaneki's hand shoots out and suddenly, Rize is being hoisted into the air, his fingers clutched tight around her throat as she chokes.
His eyes are wild, filled with hate and panic and whatever lust he felt for her has vanished, gone like the morning mist and replaced with a strange, inexplicable devotion Rize has only seen through potions and elixirs—
It's simply too much to handle.
In the dimly lit caverns of her prison, Rize laughs.
A/N: Er—I hadn't planned on a second chapter but my Itori muse was insistent and once that was written, Rize wanted her turn in the spotlight so...here it is—? XD
Feedback appreciated :)