Chapter Four

Thorned Roses

"You said you needed to see me?" Juuzou Suzuya popped his head in Nami's cell. "Oh!"

Nami sat stiffly on her cot, her eyes downcast, as a woman dressed in white held her head down.

The nurse started Suzuya's presence and pulled a long thermometer out of Nami's mouth. "I think we're all set."

"If you still need her, it's fine," squeaked Suzuya. He didn't want to hurt Nami's health. For science.

"Well, no matter," insisted the nurse.

"Shouldn't it matter, to make sure she's okay?" Suzuya found himself surprised at the nurse's clipped tones.

"She's a ghoul." The nurse shrugged. "But here." She held out two fuzzy black-and-white images to Nami. "Ultrasound. Can't see much yet. But it's there." She paused. "Almost cute."

Nami took the glossy strips and dropped them onto her lap without a glance.

As the nurse strode past Suzuya, he couldn't help but frown. Something felt wrong here, though he didn't quite comprehend how.

The cell bars clanged behind them, and Suzuya pounced on the ultrasound pictures.

Nami cried out. Someone had touched her lap –

"Are you hurt?" Suzuya teetered back in surprise.

Nami felt frozen. Finally she eked out, "I don't like being touched."

She'd been fine when he'd cuffed and uncuffed her. She'd leant close to him not long ago! Suzuya couldn't understand. "Why?"

Nami colored. "Just … there." She rubbed her thighs. "You could slice off my head and I'd find it less painful."

"No," Suzuya said on instinct. What – oh.

Things like sex never really occurred to him. There was no point in a cut boy thinking of it. He tried very hard not to.

Suzuya now had a very disturbing question about this father she refused to name.

"I'm sorry."

Nami laughed, a biting edge to her tone. "I'm your prisoner. It doesn't matter."

Suzuya knew he should agree and shut her up. But … he pitied this ghoul. Just like he pitied Haise. "I just wanted to see your baby."

He squinted at the image. "Oh, there's its head. It's so cute."

"You think so?" Nami brightened. Hesitantly, she stood and peered at the image herself.

"What do you think? You're the mom," Suzuya chattered.

Nami stood peering over his shoulder, her eyes wide and teary.

"Here, sit down. Investigator Mutsuki said rest is good. And to insist you eat." He tugged her towards her cot.

Actually, in light of the increasing clown threat, he'd welcomed Mutsuki as a tenderhearted, even if brief, member of his team. Still, he hadn't expected to discover Mutsuki reading three different pregnancy guides along with his breakfast.

"All I do is rest in this prison," she said wryly, lying down obediently. Too obediently.

Suzuya sat cross-legged on the floor, just in case she didn't like sharing her bed. His scarlet eyes shone. "So what did you call me for?"

Nami cleared her throat, unable to ignore the lavender eye staring down at them. Waiting.

"Were you familiar with the Rose Extermination?"

"Why?"

"I was, too." Nami grabbed his hands. "There's a rumor that the subject lives, and someone in CCG faked their death to use them later."

"I heard –"

"Investigate that and I'll tell you who the father is," Nami promised.

Suzuya tilted his head. "What if I say I have and I've found nothing, but I'm just lying?"

Nami shrugged. "You could. I'd be sad. But, Juuzou, you're like me. Practical. So I don't think you would lie."

"You think we're alike?" Suzuya blinked back lollipops and her breath caressing his neck. He rather liked her comparison, and that scared him. She was a ghoul. "Don't insult me."

"I was merely complimenting myself," Nami said.

"You don't need to insult yourself either."

Nami's eyes widened, and for a second he felt good solely because she did, for whatever reason.

When had he started holding her hand? Suzuya dropped his grip. "I – eh –will get back to you."

"Thank you, Liebling," said Kanae. This girl had known Master Shuu, had told her of his recovery, and so anything else was kindness she couldn't possibly repay.

"Although if he looks into me, I might be sent to extermination. Alas! " She sighed. '"Twould still be better than waiting forever, though. You know, Liebling, this place isn't the most terrible I've been? It was Aogiri who sewed my eyes shut."

"What?" Nami gasped. She was too short to reach through the cracked ceiling, but Kanae appreciated her outstretched fingers.

"They knew. I don't know how, but they found out I loved Master Shuu. And so they used me." Kanae's voice thickened. She'd been a pliable fool, and every night she relived the needles on her eyes, on her mouth. How that investigator tortured himself willingly scared her.

"I miss him."

He'd told her he cared. His eyes had, at any rate. But did he still? He thought her dead, so perhaps he merely pitied her.

"Do you think he'd come for you, if he knew?" Nami wondered at love. Sweeping love, the kind Rize had spurned and the kind Furuta desperately sought. The kind she doubted.

"I don't know."

Before, she'd have screamed of course! and defended him when he didn't. But now she didn't know. All she knew was that she was Karren Von Rosewald, and Shuu had, for one moment, accepted her. And so she would forever accept him back.

"But you love him." Nami reached up again, as if by touching a being who loved might enlighten her.

Kanae brushed back a strand of violet hair. Someone saw. Did it mean anything?

Well, it did to her.

"You didn't love him, did you? The father? " Kanae tried to control the flush on her cheeks.

Nami wasn't sure why she trusted Kanae, yet she did. Both were united against Furuta. Still, she felt her jaw clench. "I'm, uh, bred."

"Bred?" Kanae's bushy eyebrows rose.

"Bred," she said tightly. She croaked in such a low voice Kanae strained to hear. "For the rich ghouls."

Kanae's eyebrows knotted together as the meager flesh in her stomach threatened to rise. "So you were a slave."

"Please don't." Nami lifted her hands to her ears.

"Please don't blame yourself." Kanae rolled over and pressed her eyes against the crack. She peered down at Nami's crimson waves. "Don't you dare. Don't you dare blame yourself for defying what you were bred into. I was supposed to save my line and let Master Shuu die, and did I? No, and I'll never regret it, even though that fool Furuta has me as his secret plaything now. Don't be who you were bred to be. Be who you are."

Nami shivered and tilted her head back to meet Kanae's eye. "All I am is who they asked me to be."

And then she'd joined GOAT, for a brief time, and tried to be useful, and gotten entangled investigating Hisen, and she'd lost herself trying to be useful for something other than children. She'd known the risk, but she'd done it – what was CCG compared to Tsuneyoshi fucking her until she struggled to walk?

"Then find who you want to be. I want to be both Kanae and Karren, and so I am. Master Shuu accepts me. That's all that matters to me, to my heart. You find who you are, and be her." Kanae's complexion glowed, glowed for herself and Shuu.

She was shaking, wasn't she? Kanae giggled. From passion, no less. She found encouraging someone who wasn't Master Shuu intoxicating.

Unlike the rest of CCG, Furuta hadn't needed to look outside. He could hear the approaching babble of clowns, hear the screeches of victims and crashes from people trying in vain to escape. And now Squad Suzuya and that freak Mutsuki faced a wall of clowns thirsting for their lifeblood.

"There are six wards currently being attacked," Furuta recited to himself, opening a notepad, though he didn't read off it. Instead his eyes focused on the fun outside. Tragic that he had to wait in the office. "As I predicted. Special class Kuriowa is fighting balloon clowns in the 9th ward. Civilians are panicking. Special Class Tanakamaru has the 18th ward. They're not facing as many; they should suppress these clowns imminently. The 2nd ward has the aronist wards, but there are so many bystanders they're running into trouble. The 22nd ward branch offices are under attack, but we've send Special Class Ui to assist. And now we're here, the main office."

He spread his lips in a grin. "Special Class Washuu is defending our rear. But at the front…"

Furuta bent over the rail and hollered into the wind. "Special Class Suzuya!"

Suzuya eyed him. The man who'd snuck an unregistered ghoul into Corniculum, if the paperwork he'd dug up was right. It'd been the most enjoyable paperwork of his life, at any rate.

"If they break past the bridge, they'll invade the office!" Furuta waved his hand about to indicate the fearful cluster of investigators inside who would become dinner. And they didn't know that he was a ghoul himself; how exciting! "Defend that bridge with your life!"

These were people's lives. And Furuta didn't care.

In response, Suzuya swung Jason at a row of clowns. Heads flew, and several survivors stumbled back.

He held his quinque high. Shinohara had trained him well. This fool could not break him so easily. "Oh, it's simple: I just have to kill them all."

Furuta giggled. "Oh, yes. Please kill them all."

If he thought Suzuya didn't notice his wink, he was quite wrong.

Outside CCG's laboratory, the mood was breathless and the air dark. People had fled and the dearth of clowns had the narrow streets eerily silent. The only motion now came from telephone wires swaying in the breeze.

"It's been only twenty minutes." Kaneki surveyed those he'd helped kill, colorful and hairy and bald and wiry and fat and all of them dead. For Akira, he hadn't hesitated, and that worried him. "We can get to the lab quick –"

A suited man in a fedora leapt out of the building behind Kaneki.

Kaneki barely dodged the blade in time.

"Kaneki!" screamed Tsukiyama, but a glare from Take Hirako stopped him from running to his friend's aid.

The man kept his head low so none could see his eyes.

One by one, suited men emerged from the shadows like cockroaches. They leapt from nearby roofs, emerged from sewers, careened out of nearby offices.

When their leader spoke, his voice was soft. "We are the main branch special investigators."

Hirako jerked.

"You will be exterminated."

"I've never heard of them," fumed Rikai Souza.

"Well, that's troublesome, I see," murmured Tsukiyama in his obnoxiously cheerful voice. But he had to be cheerful – he had to, for Kaneki's sake.

"I thought of them as legend," said Hirako loudly. "The Washuu family's secret aids. When CCG falls into great distress, they appear, or that's what they say!"

"V," said Kaneki, angry to mask his hammering heart. V. V again. Life-ruiners. Yoshimura haunted him. "Furuta's lackeys."

"Indeed," said Hirako. He forced a shrug. "This is going to take too long. Go."

Kaneki hesitated. The man's lips spread across his face in a slimy smirk.

"Trust us," said Hirako.

The man swept out his quinque again.

With a howl, Tsukiyama rushed forward and shoved Kaneki aside to swipe at the man.

He's faster than me, thought Hirako. Impressive. Friendship could do wonders.

"No!" Kaneki shot out his kagune. Not another one of his friends would die. Not one. No one. He fought down the tremors that threatened to overpower him, even now.

Hinami was behind him– he couldn't let them –

"Stop," rang the clear voice of Irimi Kaya. She knew this boy, and she would use that knowledge, dammit. "Hina and I are nothing to laugh at. Leave them to us. If you choose to stand atop us, you must rely on us."

Kaneki wished he had time to cry, to scream that he wanted to be atop no one. He merely wanted to be by their side.

But he was a leader. This was his fate.

"Goat! I leave you under –" who was perpetually unfazed? "– under Tsukiyama's orders! Strike down the black-clothed guards and these clowns. Show them we are here to stay."

"Oui," said Tsukiyama with a wink. Him, a temporary leader, how about that. He touched his mask to remind him of Kanae's strength. "Oh, gentlemen and laides, it is time to let the earth shake with Goat hooves! In other words: time to dance!"

The firefighter didn't even have time to scream. He merely gagged as a long, speckled kagune swung him round and round.

But Higemaru, oh, he had time to scream. "Uncle!"

Urie blinked. Death was instantaneous. One moment an affectionate uncle, the next, a corpse.

Train this young man into a fine investigator. Those had practically been his last words, and fine ones, they were.

I will, Urie vowed. "Subject is up there. We'll cut him off at the top."

Higemaru wrestled tears as he gazed at the tall, abandoned warehouse. The kagune was gone. Uncle's body lay splayed on the asphalt.

And Urie had already spidering up the fire escape. Shit.

"I'm coming!" panted Higemaru, scrambling behind his squad leader. They could end this invasion of clowns. CCG was strong enough. And he was with Urie Kuki. He would be strong, for Uncle. He'd show that ghoul his uncle – humankind in general – was not a plaything.

If he had to guess, the kagune had come from the ninth floor. Urie motioned Higemaru to follow him down the dusky hallway.

His nose tingled, and he glanced behind him. Higemaru nodded; he smelt it too.

Urie thrust open the door to a cavernous room. A slim, leering ghoul with crosses over his eyes and gleaming silver hair stood far back, waiting for them.

"Meow. Looks like some kittens lost their way," he purred, stroking the gauzy curtain behind him.

Urie's heart pumped faster and faster, and Higemaru only knew enough to be terrified.

"Donato Popora."

Child-killer.

And here he was, before him. And Urie was leading his second generation, his child if you will, right into his claws. His voice became brittle. "Higemaru, stay focused or die."

"This can't be good," Nami muttered between the alarm's pulsating screams.

"It is if we can escape," Kanae replied dreamily as red lights flashed across their cells. They made her dizzy enough to imagine Shuu's arms around her, his promises forgiving her.

"You know Furuta's probably behind this," Nami said, peering out of her cell. Only a few guards remained – the rest had been summoned to CCG.

Stones piled up in her belly – what if Furuta had done something to Squad Suzuya to halt their investigation? She'd hate herself.

"I wish I had kept my hair long so I'd have a pin right now. But I cut it so long ago. Do you know, Master Shuu taught me to pick a lock when I first arrived so we could investigate all the servant's rooms?" Kanae smiled.

"These locks are electronic."

"They wouldn't stop me," chuckled Kanae.

"Oh, I believe you," Nami said, sinking onto the stone floor.

"That can't be comfortable for you or the little peanut." Kanae fell quiet. "Though I suppose being pregnant by your rapist isn't comfortable on cushions or stone."

"Don't call him that!" Nami balled her hands into fists. "I didn't – I wanted to, because I guess I didn't know how not to want to –"

"Liebling, you mean you wanted an old man shoving his –"

"Stop!" screamed Nami, clapping her hands over her ears. "Shut up! Shut up!"

"You're worth more than that, Liebling." Kanae found herself using the cold tone she'd always wanted to use with Shuu, but she couldn't because his eyes were so, so sad and fragile.

Nami squeezed her eyes shut as the walls trembled.

An explosion ripped through her eardrums, and she was thrown onto her side.

Now her eyes popped open, and her palms met the stone floor, but she was too stunned to do anything but stare.

Urie unfurled his rinkaku. Vengeance for the children would be his –

"Urie!" cried Higemaru.

Urie blinked. "Where?"

Donato was gone.

"Impossible!" Or, at least, Urie meant to say so, but he never got the chance. The ceiling disintegrated, knocking Higemaru to his knees and Urie – Urie found himself entwined between a vile rinkaku kagune and the ceiling.

"No!" Urie howled as Donato pounced on a panting Higemaru.

"Oh, dear, this will be wonderful, won't it? You'll watch me dismember your man, watch from on high, and you won't be able to do a thing. It's so cruel, only being able to watch over others."

The priest bared his teeth. "Taste how it feels, Urie Kuki! Taste how I feel!"

Snap.

Higemaru screamed. His arm was being torn off and he – he was powerless – no, please, not like this – he wasn't a toy –

Suzuya was desperately in need of oxygen, but there was no time for breath. Two ghouls charged him from the right – and Tooru Mutsuki leapt forward to hurl his kagune like knives into their eyes and brains.

Suzuya bent over and heaved in air.

"You've changed since the island," said Keijin with a nod.

Mutsuki whirled around. Yes, yes he had – did they know? Did he read psychotic rapee and dismantled murderer to them?

"You can be aggressive and a baby enthusiast," said Suzuya, offering him a smile. "It's great."

Mutsuki smiled back. They thought his duality good. Perhaps – perhaps he ought not to fear it. Perhaps he could embrace it, and be a good person for these people.

A clown clamored to its feet and grappled for Suzuya, who sent his knife right into its neck.

And its mask came off – and Suzuya didn't see red eyes. He saw tears and lips sewn shut, and as bad as he'd been with self-mutilation, he'd never sewn his lips shut. No one would willingly.

"H – human?" stammered Suzuya. What have I done?

"Ha!" A familiar ghoul leapt before a shaking Suzuya. "Well, we haven't met since the auction, my pretty puppet."

Suzuya's eyes flashed. He was not pretty, and he'd never be Madam's puppet again. He was – he was a killer, and an investigator – he was a special class investigator!

"How about I draw on your face this time?"

"Oh, no." The ghoul giggled, deftly ducking to the right as Suzuya charged.

Mutsuki whirled around from the piles of humans – not ghouls, humans – and Suzuya knew, and he knew, but he couldn't stop; they were aligned with the enemy.

He froze at the undulating ghoul dancing around Suzuya.

He knew that ghoul.

That one had made him a woman, sold him like the piece of meat he was. "Hanbee!" he screeched to the nearest investigator. "Suzuya needs you!"

"You think it was Haise Sasaki, Urie? He's so famous. And clowns love fame." Donato ripped out Higemaru's collarbone. He made sure to sever it along the way.

"No," Urie said furiously. He would not bend to Donato's mind games. "No, it wasn't him. I know him."

"Did you?" Donato grinned.

"Urie, don't," cried Higemaru as half his trapezius was shredded off.

"How's it feel to be outside after so long?" growled Urie. He could push back. He could force mind games to be his domain. "Is it everything you dreamed, Donato? Working for clowns?"

"Ha." Donato clucked his tongue. "It's not bad. But the women are too thin." He grinned wide at Urie, sure to communicate that he knew women were not the type Urie would notice.

"And the children are imbeciles. Do you know how enjoyable it use to be to roll around those wisdom-filled eyed like candy?"

Urie choked back a gag. "So that's why you ran the orphanage! You're disgusting!"

"The orphanage was my place of peace, and it was stolen from me!" hissed Donato. "And you know who the investigator was? Oh, let me think, let me try to recall –"

He tapped his fingers on his chin for effect – his hands were away from Higemaru!

Urie screamed then, ripping himself free from the ceiling. He dove on Donato, biting and clawing, anything and everything to wreck his monster – he'd known, he'd always known –

"Do you know, Kuki Urie? His name was Mikito Urie! Your daddy." Donato cast Urie into the wall like a doll.

Daddy, I want to be an investigator like you.

And he'd replied: Ooh, I look forward to working with you.

He hadn't ended up like Dad had wanted. Would Dad hate him now, half a ghoul?

Urie growled and stumbled forward.

"Oh, you can still fight? Ha! Goodbye, weakling." Donato smirked. "But thank you: I have enjoyed the show."

No – no –no – Urie had to pay him back. Pay Donato back, rip him to shreds for what he'd done to Higemaru, to Father, to the children –

All he felt was rage. Rage would make him strong. He must block out ever tender thought of Mutsuki, focus on the pain – he'd be able to kill him – kill – kill – kill –

"Suzuya, my boy."

Suzuya spun around, nearly dizzy from this ghoul. Shinohara?

And there he was, staring at him with those fatherly eyes.

"What –?"

His calloused, stumpy fingers touched his face, like they had the night of the Owl Raid.

"No!" Hanbee screamed, hurling a knife straight through Shinohara's face.

Suzuya shrieked. Not again!

"He's an illusion!" Hanbee shook Suzuya. "Wake up, please!"

Everything Suzuya felt was a lie, a lie as sharp as glass shards.

"Kanae!" Nami scrambled through the gaping hole in the ceiling. She ought to ignite her kagune and fly up, but she just couldn't. Not yet.

To her surprise, Kanae lay there unbloodied and unbruised, contemplating the sight of an open cell door.

Nami scowled. "What are you doing?"

"Is it right to escape? Or will I just hurt him more?" Kanae whispered with a shiver.

"You love him. Time to love yourself and escape to him," Nami said immediately. She decided she couldn't let herself care if she owed CCG, if her words betrayed Juuzou who'd saved her life.

Because she was back at eight years old, whispering those same words Souta as he cried over Rize's escape. But he never had listened. If he had, would she be here? Would he have turned out happy?

Kanae leapt to her feet.

"You, too." She seized Nami by her shoulders. "I'm sure Shuu would pay for your doctor."

In the distance a guard screamed. A ghoul was probably ripping out his flesh – and surely he'd been planning on coming home to his wife and enjoying his own dinner instead of dying –

"They're dying," Nami said. Like Iyo and Jiro. Her voice broke and she lunged for the door. "I can't!"

"Stop!" Kanae wrestled the smaller girl away from the cell door, now ajar and as off-kilter as her mind.

Nami had to think, fast. She'd never been strong enough to resist. "You wanted to bring down Furuta, right?"

"To help myself escape, but now I don't need that damned rat!"

"I do! I need to know what ate him alive from when we were kids. And – and they'll never stop looking for us, so you need his downfall, too." Nami tugged away, but despite her wiry build, Kanae was strong. "Let me – go – I'm going to stay, and I'm going to help bring down Furuta and by it save us all."

"Bringing down someone won't save you." Kanae, she'd been saved by bringing up Master Shuu. Without his affirmation guiding her happiness, she would never have survived long enough for Furuta to find her.

"Then I'll find something that will. Now I'm going to start by stopping these guards' slaughter." Nami's eyes blazed, and she felt as if she were slipping away again.

But this time, towards freedom, towards a freedom where she could choose to help her captors instead of something so stereotyped as hate.

Kanae removed her knuckled shackles. "Don't get you and the peanut killed. My conscience wouldn't accept that, and I'd get killed avenging you, and then where would we be?"

"Go kiss him," Nami replied. Should she hug Kanae? When were hugs appropriate – no one hugged in the Garden. Only Iyo did, when she'd arrived at Tsuneyoshi's mansion.

"Let's go. I'll help you as far as the door," said Kanae, shoving past her. She giggled. "It's been awhile. The rose has thorns!"