There wasn't any vet visits, nor did she take any tests, but Blue knew deep within her heart that she was pregnant. After so many kids, she could just sort of tell when she was pregnant again.
Although it was odd to know she was carrying Tatara's child inside of her -a monster- it didn't really feel different from carrying any other child. For a few days she entertained the idea of stabbing herself in the abdomen. To carve out the monster-child hidden within her womb. Sometimes, when women at the farms knew it was their last year, they did just that to their swollen bellies, as a sort of 'fuck you' to the ghouls waiting to feast on both mother and child. Of course, the only thing it accomplished was putting the two out of their misery. Nobody was a martyr at the farms.
Blue wasn't able to carry out her twisted seppuku however, because Takatsuki soon realized something was up. Ghouls, or at least her caretaker, had a knack for smelling suspicion and secrets in the air.
"You look different today Blue-chan," she said to her one morning, showing off her brilliant pearly whites. "Do you have a secret you aren't telling me?"
Damn it. There was no use lying to these ghouls, Blue figured.
"I think I might... be pregnant," she said quietly. Takatsuki's jaw dropped in a sort of horrific joy before she squealed in excitement. Instantly, the green-haired ghoul ran off out the door, yelling something about calling the vet.
What stuck out the most in this whole scene however, was the image of the door being left wide open. Ajar and unbolted. Mysterious Light poured into the Room and Blue rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't hallucinating. Takatsuki's story about the forbidden fruit rang through her ears, for whatever that meant.
Unable to drown the embers of her curiousity, Blue slowly grasped the metal door in her fragile hands and peeked her head out into the empty hallway. To the left, the familiar bathroom area. To the right, Salvation. That was somewhere in the forbidden fruit story, wasn't it?
Blue began to sweat and her heart beat wildly in her chest as she approached the hall Door (Door of Fate?) to find it unbolted as well. Since her arrival, she only had the pleasure of glancing at it from the inside, using it as some sort of gateway for her fantasies about escape. Again she peaked out, one eye at a time.
Ahead of her appeared to be large corridor filled with more Mysterious Light, although Blue was used to that by now. Other than the Light that could not be escaped, the place seemed deserted.
She made her way down one end of the empty hall, bare feet sticking to the cold floor with every step. Lining the walls were pictures of what appeared to be ghouls in horrible masks, smiling their sickly smiles. Taunting her. Egging her on.
The hall reared left and she peaked down it, surprised to find a deliberately cut square hole in the side of the building, with real Sunlight pouring out onto the floor. Salvation.
Her feet were wobbly underneath her, but she forcibly picked up the pace of her stride until she was at a full run towards the hole, towards Salvation. Just like her exit from the farms three months ago, she vowed she would run and run until she couldn't anymore. Run towards the sun, and never look back. After all, she knew where her parents were right now, and that would inevitably be her Fate too, if she stayed behind.
Once at the edge of the hall, she was shocked to find some sort of hard, translucent material covering over the hole. She pressed her thin hands on it and pushed hard, but it didn't budge. Tightening her hands into balled fist, she began to furiously pound on the glass.
"Move!" she screamed at the barrier hysterically as if it could understand her, still pounding. "Don't get in my way!"
Immediately something collided with her torso, and her face hit the wooden floorboards at her feet. She was forcibly turned over onto her back by two, violent hands, and pinned to the cold ground.
"Leave me alone!" she screamed into the ghoul's face. It was Arata. "You're in my way! I need to make it towards Salvation!" Blue began to cry uncontrollably, but went limp. It was no use trying to win a strength contest against a ghoul, and any efforts would end up hurting her more in the end.
Arata looked down at her with a smirk. "You're fucking nuts." He kept his one hand clamped tightly against her neck, as his face lowered just until his lips grazed against her throat. A primal growl escaped from the pit of his stomach.
Blue cried out in pain when his teeth tore their way into her flesh there. Everything went red. But... how could it end like this when she was so close to Salvation?
And then, as if it were a sudden gust of wind, Arata was picked up off of her and thrusted against the window until it shattered. Or was it real wind?
Blue could feel the warm rush of outside air push its way in from the hole in the wall and brush against her hair and cheeks as particles of glass scattered around her. It glittered about in the air like snow, before coming down hard and landing all over her. It had been too long since she last saw the outside world, even just a piece of it. It smelled like dirt and sewer, but it was still welcomed.
"Stupid Arata-kun," said the giggling voice of Takatsuki from one end of the hall. "You can't eat it. It's not yours!"
Blue opened her eyes to find her caretaker's kagune looming dangerously over her head, pinning Arata against the wall. In a sudden movement, Takatsuki thrashed him against the adjacent wall, knocking pictures down and shattering more glass.
Bricks sprayed out everywhere from the wall, shards narrowly missing her face, and clopped against the floor boards. "Fucking girl!" he spat, being smashed into the walls over and over again. "You're going to kill me! Stop!"
At Aratas warning Takatsuki's kagune retracted, dropping him to the ground with a thud. The sound of bells laughing was the last thing Blue remembered before everything went black.
…..
"Listen, just don't say anything about it, alright?" said a gruff voice from above Blue. She stirred awake to the sound of people arguing. "Dad?" she whispered to the bright room filled with Light. Her own voice sounded raspy from disuse. "Where are you? Dad?" She was so happy she was finally dead, about to meet her family again for the first time in years, that she cried uncontrollably when she heard familiar, deadly voices.
"You're awake Blue-chan!" said the voice unmistakably belonging to Takatsuki.
"Don't ignore me!" Said the gruff voice again. "Do we have a deal or not?"
Blue's eyes parted slightly, taking in the harshness of the Lights, and through the haze she noticed a man standing tall who she had never met before. Although the resemblance was enough to give it away.
"I don't know," responded Takatsuki, in the voice she uses when she's trying to get something she wants. "It'll be hard to cover up. Especially…. since our family's don't have such good relations to begin with."
The man reached over Blue's bed to grab onto Takatsuki's shoulders tightly. It scared her enough to wake her up completely, but she didn't dare adjust herself on the bed. The strange man was no doubt related to Arata, and she realized it must be his father, Ayato.
"Don't threaten me, you scum! I'll... tell him you let the human escape on purpose! How else could it have gotten out? It's too suspicious to be seen as a careless move."
It was a confusing enough conversation to have woken up right in the middle of. Were they talking about her?
Takatsuki threw her head back and laughed in his grasp, obviously not taking the man's intimidation attempts seriously. "Do you really think he'd believe you? Don't make me laugh. Tatara might not like me, but he likes you less. If you tell Tatara about my... slip up... it still won't account for how Arata got there in the first place. Or are we planning on telling him why your son was wandering around Tatara's Palace?"
At this, Ayato let Takatsuki go, the anger from his cheeks whitening with some sort of realization. What did Takatsuki mean by 'slip up'? The ghoul said it so eerily, as if it wasn't a 'slip up' at all.
"Wait a minute. What I actually think happened," said Takatsuki, watching the man's disturbed countenance with a sadistic joy. "Was that I did lock the doors. That Arata... was lying in wait, and tried to take Pet-chan away while I wasn't there monitoring. Luckily I came just in time to stop him from escaping out the window with her.
The man gritted his teeth. "Shitty brat. You're just like your mother."
Takatsuki began to laugh again, obviously reveling in the compliment. "But you know I would never do that to poor Arata! I'm afraid that I love your son too dearly to leave him to Tatara's wrath." There was a certain whimsical tone to her voice that began to scare Blue, leaving a poisonous feeling in the pit of her stomach. Or maybe it was just that thing growing inside of her. She wondered if it had survived Arata's blow. He did end up colliding right into her stomach.
The Room she was currently caged in was a crisp white color that could never be found on the farms. There were loud beeping boxes with cords connecting them to her arms and chest. It reminded her of the vet on the farms, but more clean.
"But... what you are going to say," began Arata's father, Ayato, nodding his head. He appeared to have the look of a man that was just defeated.
"What I'm going to say instead," Takatsuki cut in. "Is that while we were transporting poor Pet-chan to the vet, one of the servants went wild with its soft scent, and I had to restrain her. The servant was reprimanded and I took care of her." She lolled her head on one side to face Blue. "That's what happened. Isn't it Blue-chan? That scary servant won't hurt you again."
In the bed Blue nodded her head as much as the gaping neck wound would allow. It was deeper than any of the chunks Tatara had ever taken out of her.
"Then it's settled!" she said, shaking herself free from Ayato's grasp. "I'm glad you came to visit Mrs. Kirishima-san. Please tell Arata-kun I said hello, and send my regards to Ayato... as we all know Tatara banned men from visiting our dear Pet-chan!" Takatsuki smiled gravely, not breaking eye contact with the man who did not like being addressed by his wife's title.
What felt like several minutes passed by of the harsh staring contest between the two, but finally Ayato turned on his heel for the door, swearing under his breath at her. When the door slammed shut, it felt as though a throbbing pain had been lifted from Blue's chest.
"Maybe the reason Arata won't talk to you," Blue offered after a few moments of silence, them both staring at the door where Ayato just left. "Is because you treat his dad like that." It was a joke, and luckily Takatsuki took it as such. Blue came to realize that the ghoul didn't mind being teased as long as it was done so in a witty manner.
"Maybe you should be worried more about healing your fragile body than about the personal affairs of a ghoul," she said, feigning indignity. "We'll have to hose you down about a billion times to get Arata's sent off of you…. Damn that ghoul. Sometimes I forget why I'm in love with him."
And that was that.
When the vet came in, an ancient looking man with grey hair and aged features, he remade the announcement now that she was awake, that the baby was just fine. The human should get more exercise. Get a more varied diet. Maybe some sunlight.
"I'll go over everything Dr. Kanou said with Tatara," said Takatsuki as they were waiting to be discharged from the hospital. "I'm sure he'll have a fence built for you in the yard so you can run around in it to get your sunlight and exercise." The way the ghoul said it made Blue feel like a pet even more.
As they approached the outside, they were greeted by a number of women servants Blue had never met before, and she was reminded about the fact that Tatara only wanted female ghouls to take care of her. So what did that make Dr. Kanou?
However, she wasn't paying too much attention to anything anymore, because the Sunlight was all that filled her gaze. She didn't know where they were or how they got there, but it was beautiful, more fresh and more alive than the air that was at Tatara's Palace. It was a pity she missed the sight coming into the hospital.
Her momentary illusion of freedom was cut short however, when iron chains were tightly clasped onto her wrists.
"These can't be the most fun to wear," explained Takatsuki apologetically. "But I can't have you running off again!" Blue nodded as she was scolded like a child. "Plus, humans can't be out in public without restraints. It's for your own safety too." Takatsuki hastily pushed a hooded robe onto her pet's delicate frame.
Blue had a ton of questions to add to her list. Like why Arata was there in Tatara's Palace that day, and why that vet seemed so eerie? And what was it that Takatsuki and Ayato were scheming? The world of ghouls was growing shrouded in mystery everyday, but for now Blue was satisfied to bath in the Sunlight.
…..
Despite the fresh air of Tokyo however, the walk home was relatively horrifying. She kept receiving looks from the pedestrian ghouls - looks ranging from jealousy to hunger, from amusement to pity.
"Just keep your head down and don't make any sudden movements," whispered Takatsuki in her ear. That must be easy for a high-class ghoul to say. Blue noted that even the servants were beginning to feel uneasy. Takatsuki must really be showing off, because most ghouls in the area didn't travel about with possies of maids.
Just as their group was about to round the corner, Blue saw something that made her gasp and jump backwards - or as far as the handcuffs on her wrists would allow her to go.
"Don't make any sudden movements," she remembered Takatsuki saying, but she couldn't help it. Staring right in front of her were about six humans - and she could tell they were humans by their features.
They were standing all in a row in the window of some building, all shapes and sizes, wearing nothing more than loincloths and handcuffs chaining them to posts, keeping them from running away. Blue couldn't read the signs to tell what kind of shop this was, but she could tell by context clues that the -live- humans in the window were for sale.
"Ta… Taka…!.. Takat-"
"Get away from there Pet-chan," said Takatsuki, tugging on the leash, forcing her hands away from the glass. "I don't want those humans in heat from seeing you."
"Takatsuki! What is this place? Please don't tell me that -"
The ghoul spun around on her heel, long green hair spinning with her rhythmically. "Those are humans for sale. Ghouls can buy humans from the processing plants dead, or alive. You can get humans from other places too though. Humans bred for fighting, for serving tea, for gardening. Pretty much any kind of human can be bought or sold."
Blue's worldview slowly began to shatter around her as she realized the actual complexity of the Tokyo she was living in. She glanced up at the dead expressions in the eyes of the human slaves standing in front of her, through the glass window, wondering what their lives have been like. If they suffered as she had. Probably more.
"And I'm a human bought from the farms. To be an h-heir to Tatara's children," she said, thinking out loud and using the term the king had once used to explain the situation to her. Takatsuki nodded her head.
"And you're doing a great job so far with that," she responded, smiling eerily.
"Takatsuki. Please tell me something."
The ghoul widened her eyes towards her pet who was still looking at the humans in the window.
"What is this baby inside of me?"
A devilish smirk.
"Don't worry about that just yet. For now, let's get away from here and go back home, before the owner comes out and yells at me for dancing my pet in front of her store.