Clay's head felt like it was full of locusts. All buzzing at once, eating at his thoughts. Fighting and buzzing and bringing with them a plague that couldn't be cured.

This was supposed to be an easy job. It was supposed to be easy.

A voice chimed from somewhere to his left, and he just barely glanced at the person who was speaking. A redhead, ukaku user. He looked tired. Clay could vaguely remember who that guy was.

"You doin alright over there man?"

Right. Aaron. Clay nodded, shoving off Aaron's words. He didn't have the time to completely answer silly questions like that. There was a fight going on.

Clay ducked under a long tendril of flesh that was swinging at him violently, then turned on his heel and cut it from the rest of the mass it belonged to. It writhed on the ground for a minute, then lay still. Clay grit his teeth and watched as a near identical tendril grew from the stump that he had created.

Stupid S-Classes and their stupid regenerative abilities. They were near impossible to kill, and it was getting kind of annoying to deal with.

The freshly new grown piece of meat swung at him, and flung him back into a nearby wall. Clay grunted, and bit down on his tongue with the impact. He felt blood welling from where he had bitten.

A person that he knew, but again couldn't recall completely, ran over to him and put an arm on his shoulder. Clay looked up, and found himself staring into a pair of very scared, but adrenaline filled, blue eyes.

"Clay, we just got orders to retreat," The person said, trying with all their might to lift Clay up, "The Queen's squad is supposed to take over, this is too much for us."

He shoved off the person, then paused as memories bubbled to the surface of his mind.

That one was Robin. His brother. He frowned at Robin and tried his hardest to soak in what he had just been told. Finally, things clicked.

"What do you mean retreat?" He asked, wiping the blood that had spilled onto his face off, "This is our fight."

Robin shook his head, and moved once again to help Clay up. Clay suddenly felt too tired to shove him off again.

"Not anymore." Robin said, "There's a chance that this one's involved with the Lava Monster gang. You know those cases are handled by the Queen. There's nothing we can do."

Clay looked up at the S-rated ghoul that they had been fighting. A kakuja, a cannibal. The thing had been wrapped up in its kagune early on, and at this point it was just a hulking mass of grey meat that was harder than steel. The CCG called these ones grimrocks, and recently they had been multiplying dangerously. It was just their luck that this one was not only S-rated, but also had a chance to be linked to a dangerous gang of ghouls.

A growl formed in the back of Clay's throat.

"We should be the ones to finish it though." He said. Robin paused for a second at that, his eyes flashing with momentary fear, and then he was back to helping his brother up.

"But we're not." Robin told Clay, "Now let's get going before anyone gets k-"

The word 'killed' froze on Robin's tongue as he stared at an incoming bar of meat. It was aiming straight at them, and Clay's heart stopped.

"Robin, duck!"

It was too late.

The rod of kagune meat had speared directly between the two, and shot Robin's lower jaw clean off. Robin reeled backwards, hands desperately holding where the lower half of his mouth should be, but somehow managed to stay standing.

His eyes were wide with shock, and all he could do was stare at Clay. It was like he was trying to scream, but couldn't. A moment of pure silence passed. Nobody seemed to move or breathe.

And then things went from bad to worse.

The Grimrock's kagune reeled back around, and subsequently sliced off Robin's left arm and leg, sending them flying. In near slow motion, Robin toppled over onto the ground and lay in a puddle of his own blood. There he shook silently, more like a lost dog than anything else.

"Robin!"

A scream ripped through the air, and although Clay couldn't physically tear his eyes away from his brother, he knew it was Ava. Clay dropped to his knees, and gently reached out towards Robin, shaken and scared, and more than anything, unsure of what to do. He met Robin's eyes, and then he was crying.

The sound of heavy footsteps crossing the ground grew closer and closer, but Clay was too late to notice them. His head turned to look just as the large Grimrock sucked Robin up into its mouth, and then climbed up the side of the building next to Clay. It scrambled across the rooftop, and then started hurriedly making its way across the town.

It took Clay a moment to take in what had just happened. And when he did, he screamed until he felt blood burning in the back of his throat. He couldn't move, but every fiber of his being was screaming at him to lead a chase. To go after his brother's murderer. To kill. To rip that thing's flesh apart under his own teeth.

But he couldn't. He was too tired now.

As his screams died down, he slowly curled himself into a ball and sobbed. The smell of Robin's blood filled his senses, but he was too tired to move away from it. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and very distantly, he could hear the sound of sirens.

Clay's crying slowed as the amount of tears he had to cry dwindled down to nothing. And when he was finally done, he uncurled and looked at the person who was touching him.

The quinx squad stood around him, but only Aaron had his hand on Clay. Aaron's eyes were dark, and his face was still and unmoving. It looked like he was barely holding himself together with a couple of strings.

Next to him stood Macy, her dark red hair was barely held back by a ponytail, and most of it was falling around her shoulders and eyes like a grim veil. She too wasn't crying, but her face looked empty as opposed to Aaron's. It was like she was in so much shock, that she had just shut down completely.

At her side was Ava, who was, contrary to Macy and Aaron, crying so hard that she could barely stand. She was half leaning on Macy, sobs and half screams coming from her. Her hands made small fists from where they held onto Macy.

The others, Lance and Axl, were off in the distance, reporting with broken spirits and tired souls.

Robin was dead, and although they were all torn with grief, they knew that there was still one thing that had to be done. Someone had to tell Micah, Robin's dad. Someone had to tell Micah that the last living piece of his family was dead.

Clay knew it had to be him. He, who couldn't move when Robin needed him.

Clay wished that those buzzing locusts that had been so keen to rid him of his thoughts would return.

Two weeks later, when the funeral was done and over with, and the grieving was still in full swing, something happened.

Deep underground in a hidden facility, Robin woke up.

((I am in pain. This physically hurt to write, and I am so sorry my sweet brother Robin. Anyway Here's my Tokyo Ghoul:Re Au. It gets. Worse. But I probably won't write that part so I'm throwing this up on this fic))