Edited on the 10th of August 2017.
Some of you might have noticed that I have started editing 'Metempsychosis'. I have done my best to correct all of my mistakes and hopefully this story is now as good as it can be without me rewriting the whole thing.
Apparently, deleting a chapter shows up as an update. I am truly sorry if anyone was happy about this or the previous supposed update. Chapter one and two as well as ten and eleven have been put together, that's why I needed to delete some things.
Anyway, I haven't really changed anything when it comes to the plot. There are a few more sentences describing Rei's death, but the rest were just some grammatical or spelling mistakes, so you don't really have to read the whole story anew.
I will try updating the next chapter soon, though I haven't started writing it yet.
nariai
This wasn't an easy chapter to write and I am not completely satisfied with it. I had to change the rating of this story because there are some graphic scenes in this chapter.
Thank you all for reviewing and supporting this story.
Some self-promoting: I have published two new stories. A Bleach Drabble-Story and a Self-Insert into Vampire Knight. Check them out if you like those fandoms.
There is a poll on my profile which will help me choose Kaneki's pairing. Although I do have to admit that I am a complete Touken fan. Have you read the last few chapters?! (Spoiler alert here) Touka is pregnant. Sadly, I'm not sure if that's actually a good thing. Still, I do wish for them to have a happy ending, despite knowing that it is highly unlikely in the world of Tokyo Ghoul.
Before you read chapter nine, I would like to say that I'm sorry if I offended anyone. This wasn't easy to write and I can't claim to truly know anything about this topic.
Once again, I apologize if I offended anyone.
Summary: About three things I was absolutely positive. First, I was screwed. Second, I somehow got reborn as the twin sister of Kaneki Ken. And third, the world was wrong. Self-Insert
Have fun.
Chapter 9
A Lost Childhood
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Where The Winter Started
"I've been homesick for countries I've never been, and longed to be where I couldn't be." — John Cheever
"Childhood should be carefree, playing in the sun; not living a nightmare in the darkness of the soul."
― Dave Pelzer, A Child Called "It"
There was shuffling outside our room. Bright light shone through the small gap between door and floor and illuminated the previously dark space.
I could hear a pair of keys falling to the ground and Mother's quiet cursing. Then there was another voice. Someone foreign and strange. Someone most definitely male. ''Why so angry? Nothing happened.''
Mother moved away from our room, most likely into the kitchen. I could hear the tinkering of keys being put into the small bowl that stood on a shelve in our hallway and then her voice as clearly as if she was standing next to me. ''I have two children in that room, so please do try being more quiet.'' She exhaled loudly, her tone changing from irritated to something akin to a purr. ''Come. I'll show you the way.''
Show him the way? Who the hell was the man and what was he...
...Oh.
A loud moan filled the silence of our home. My eyes widened and I looked to the side to make sure that Ken was still soundly asleep. To my relief he was, so I did not have to worry about him witnessing something he shouldn't.
But that did not stop me from hearing what happened next.
The door to my parents' bedroom clicked open and the man must have accidentally walked into my father's bookshelf because some objects collided loudly with the floor. This time Mother did not reprimand him for his loud behavior. Akemi giggled as she carelessly discarded her heels.
''Such soft skin.'' The stranger whispered huskily. ''Let me help you with that dress.''
Slowly and sensually a zipper was slid open. Clothes rustled and the bed squeaked. Mother panted slightly and I closed my eyes. As the seconds passed by, I was beginning to feel like some peeping tom. Though it wasn't as if I wanted to witness this.
My mother sleeping with a man other than my father.
I might not have been truly a child, but that did not make this situation any less awkward. Especially when the stranger started grunting dirty things into the silence of our home. ''Fuck. You're so good. Such a tight little pussy you have.''
Mother's moaning intensified and was soon accompanied by the stranger's grunts. The bed in my parents' bedroom creaked loudly and the man grumbled hoarsely, ''Yes, such a nice ass.''
He started moaning even louder and I heard the sound of flesh slapping against flesh. Mother cried out, whether it was from pleasure or pain I did not know.
''So good...'' Some more panting and then silence from her. The man must have continued pounding into her, his moans getting louder with each second.
''Forgive me...'' I almost missed the quiet whisper. Soft and filled with more emotion than I have ever heard in my mother's voice. A loud sob was masked by the sound of tearing flesh. The smell of blood froze me in place and if possible my eyes widened even more than they already had. A shallow breath escaped my lips and perspiration gathered on my temple.
The man whimpered in pain and glass shattered against the floor. A body fell to the ground with a loud thud. ''Help...''
Carefully, I raised myself and stepped onto the cool floor, the blanket that had covered my body silently pooled around my feet. Before I knew what was happening, the door of our room was already open and my feet leading me to my parents' bedroom.
The socks on my feet muffled my footsteps and after what felt like an eternity I finally reached my destination. The door was sightly ajar and made no sounds when I pushed it open a little farther.
Terror, the purest form of terror coursed through my veins when I saw what the darkness of the night failed to hide.
My nude mother sat upon the naked body of a middle aged man, both of them still joined at the middle. His head was turned in my direction, hazelnut brown eyes glazed over. Blood pooled around his body and his skin seemed to be loosing color with each second. Its pallor highlighted the dark shadows under his eyes.
He wasn't moving.
At that very moment I knew, without a doubt, that the man was dead.
Unfortunately, my mother did not seem to notice that as she continued stabbing a kitchen knife into his abdomen. Her face was illuminated by the silvery moon and her eyes looked feral. Up and down, up and down, her arms repeated that motion continuously. The knife pierced the man's skin again and again and again.
Tilting to the side, I collided with the cabinet that stood next to the entrance. A few candles fell onto the floor, one of them hitting my toes painfully. Whimpering in distress, I looked towards my mother.
Motionless, she sat upon the man, her gaze slowly wandering in my direction. ''Rei...'' The knife slid out of her hands and clattered loudly onto the ground. ''I...I...You shouldn't be here.''
I could only stand there stock-still as she stood up, his member sliding out of her body and falling limply onto his stomach. Fluids trickled between her legs and crimson blood dripped down her nude form. Strands of mahogany hair clung to her sweaty face. ''Come here, Rei.'' A pale hand and long fingers reached out to me.
On trembling legs, I walked a step forward. The sweet smell of blood tickled my nose and I could feel how my eye bled red. Mother's lips quirked upwards in an unsettling manner and her hand once again prompted me to move forward. When I was finally in her reach, her left hand grabbed my shoulder in a just slightly too tight grip and pushed me in her victim's direction. Slipping on the bloody floor, I fell to my knees right next to the corpse.
Saliva slid down my chin and I could practically taste the flesh on my tongue.
While I focused on the food in front of me, Mother left the room. Her intention stayed hidden until it was too late. It was only when she came back with Ken in her arms that I snapped out of my trance.
Before I could have said something, reprimanded her for showing this to my brother, Ken had already rushed pass me and was gorging himself on the human's flesh.
Seeing the way he fed, feeling how the hunger was slowly overwhelming me, my instincts shouting at me to eat as long as there was still something left and knowing that there was nothing I could do anymore, I let the part of me that was human go. Something primal took over and blood filled my vision and mouth. It dripped down my chin as my tiny fingers found their way towards the stranger's abdomen. His skin showed no resistance when I pushed my hand into his body, gripping whatever organ I found first.
It just so happened to be the liver. I grasped the slippery flesh with both of my hands and lowered my face.
The tender flesh was spicy with a tinge of sourness. My hunger did not allow me to take some time to enjoy my meal, large bites slid down my throat and filled my empty stomach. Ken was sitting next to me and stuffing his mouth with one of the lungs.
Something touched my back softly and I realized that mother was kneeling behind us, rubbing both of our backs soothingly. She did not seem to mind the blood puddle under us, neither the fact that we were currently devouring a man she had murdered a few minutes ago.
Mother just continued gently rubbing our back until the moon disappeared and the bright sun took its place. Once the first sun rays hit our skin all the edible organs were gone and my backside hurt from being in the same position for too long.
The room looked as if a butcher had completed a weeks worth of work inside it and dried blood clung to most parts of my clothes and skin. Neither Ken nor Mother were in a better condition than I. If possible, Kaneki Akemi seemed to be even worse off.
Her eyes had a crazed quality to them and blood wasn't the only fluid that stained her skin. A sheen of sweat coated her whole body and there were a few bruises near her ribs. The man must have fought back, hitting mother's sensitive skin in the process.
Legs trembling, she raised herself and helped Ken and me onto our feet. ''Let's get us clean, hmm?''
She guided us into the bathroom with one hand on each of our heads. Even though there was a smile on her face, the woman seemed to be only a step away from a nervous breakdown. Only shallow breaths passed her lips and her fingers clutched our hair uncomfortably.
The light in the bathroom was too bright for my eyes and I had to blink a few times. My vision finally focused on the sight of my mother helping Ken take off his clothes. I followed their example and discarded my own sleepwear.
And then the three of us stood together in our cramped shower and let the at first cold water wash away the signs of the sin we had committed the night before. Rusty blood gathered at the bottom of the shower and I wiggled my toes childishly.
I did not truly mind that man's death. By now I had learned that this was how the world worked. Ghouls ate humans to survive. There was no place for guilt in our existence. Of course there were still moments during which I found myself morally challenged. Killing a child would be something I hopefully would never have to do. Neither did I enjoy meaningless massacres and gorging myself with flesh when I was not hungry. While I knew that I could not care about my victims, that did not mean that I had to completely objectify them either.
(Besides, a part of me—Hisako, the part that was Hisako.—would always care.)
The thing that bothered me about the previous night the most, however, was my mother. She seemed to be near a nervous breakdown. After shoving a bottle of shampoo in my hands, she started washing her own skin. Almost compulsively she scrubbed a green sponge over her whole body until her skin was red and raw.
Cleaning myself as fast as I could, I put myself between Mother and Ken. He did not need to see her bleeding hands or the tears streaming down her cheeks. As soon as I felt mostly clean, I started helping Ken wash his own hair. The strands were glued together by the stranger's life fluid.
Afterwards, I assisted him in getting dressed and led him out of the bathroom before he could notice that there was something wrong with our mother.
(I tried to ignore that he had already witnessed more than any child ever should.)
I left our mother alone in the bathroom, too tired to play the adult and unwilling to risk Ken's safety and innocence.
Her sobs echoed through our home, but the unsettling smile never did leave her face.
It started with a few mean words and slightly too tight grips that left pale bruises on our arms. Ghouls healed faster than humans, so any blemishes often disappeared a few hours after they formed.
But the truth was that our healing wasn't advanced enough to heal every wound within seconds. We were malnourished children and that meant that our skin was not even half as resilient as I had thought it would be.
Besides, we still felt the pain of being hit and if I had to guess our skin wasn't hard enough to stop a knife from piercing our body.
As such our slight forms quickly started gathering small marks inflicted by our own mother. Like I said, everything was pretty small at the beginning. Sometimes she would grasp our arms too tightly or raise her voice. There were also those remarks that questioned our intelligence in a roundabout way. Ken was too young to understand them and seeing the stress and pain Mother had to go through after Father's disappearance, it wasn't hard for me to just brush them aside.
I pitied her for a while. Kaneki Akemi was such a gentle person and I knew that she was slowly breaking under the pressure that had been put upon her shoulders.
Since killing her first victim Mother had changed a lot. She seemed paranoid, frustrated, fearful and filled with more hatred than a single being could handle.
But none of that excused what she gradually started to change into.
By the time I truly realized that something was wrong and that we needed help, it was already too late. Being a child made it impossible for me to change anything. I couldn't go out hunting to alleviate mother's burden.
Suicidal wasn't among the characteristics I would use to describe myself.
Sadly, in this world full of prejudices I couldn't ask any human facility for help either. None of them would assists us when they finally found out what we were. If we were lucky, they would let us run before calling the CCG.
I had never been lucky though, so I knew that seeking assistance from the humans wasn't a smart move. Being caught by the CCG would probably mean becoming test subjects. From what I knew, Ken and I were most likely one of the rarest natural occurrences in this world. There had probably only been about a handful of naturally born Half-Ghouls ever. No one would be stupid enough to let a possibility such as us actually escape.
As for Mother, she would most likely be executed for treason. Yeah, that's what getting involved with a ghoul was called here.
Treason of the worst kind.
They would most likely consider her relationship with our father to be more of a sin than all the murders she had committed.
We lived in a world where murder had no meaning and child abuse was preferable to human help. That thought alone made the despair I felt since finding out what I was ten times worse. When I was still Hisako something like this would have been unacceptable. Claiming that my previous life had been a completely safe one was impossible, but compared to my current situation it might have just as well equaled heaven.
However, I knew that thinking about the past would only make me feel worse. Knowing that somewhere in this wide web of universes a peaceful world existed, made me long for something I would never have.
Peace, how wonderful and yet unreachable that one word sounded.
As bloody as my hands now were, I knew that it was the one thing I could never even hope to receive. Not in this world of flesh eating monsters and not in any world that might come after this one.
I knew that not even reincarnating into a new body would grant me the peace I so yearned for. My mind would forever recall what I had seen with these eyes of mine and remind me of the deeds my parents and I had committed.
I would never forget the first man Mother had killed, nor would I ever stop remembering the morning after that horrible night. The smell of bleach still sometimes forced my nostrils to scrunch up.
In some of my dreams I saw Mother kneeling in a puddle of blood and cleaning the floor with bleach, a blank expression on her pale face and arms trembling. She did not manage to clean the stains fully, so she brought a giant carpet home a few days later.
Her next kills weren't so messy anymore, but she did start being a little more artistic as the time passed.
She started enjoying it.
Perhaps it was the only way she could cope with the whole situation and continue doing it or maybe there had always been something dark inside of her. At the end I could not judge her for anything she did to those people because I knew that it was all for us. She was a mother who was ensuring her children's survival.
There was no other way. Mother knew no one who could help us and it wasn't if we could just go to the supermarket and order a pound of human meat.
That wouldn't go over well.
Yet, I was pretty sure that our current situation wouldn't go over well either. Since our father's disappearance Akemi had started working part time at a bar at night. She always came home after 2 p.m. and sometimes she brought a 'guest' with her. Afterwards Mother slept for a few hours, only to leave at about 9 o'clock in the morning once again. I had seen some of her work clothes, so guessed that she also worked as a cleaning lady in a hotel.
Whether she did all that because we needed the money or so that she could avoid us wasn't all that clear to me. But I did think that it was probably a mixture of both. I had read one of the letters we had received and easily found out that our rent had been raised and after all that she had done for us it was quite understandable why our mother would want to stay away from her two children.
Besides, I preferred her staying away to being hit during one of her anger fits.
Those could last for a while, though Akemi always seemed apologetic afterwards. Maybe that was the reason why I just couldn't fully hate her. It was sick, the way our relationship developed.
Mother would first inflict injuries upon us and then treat them after her anger subsided. Being aware of the fact that I should have despised her, did not make the longing I currently felt for her any weaker.
Three years after father's death, I knew better than to leave our room without a good reason at night. Mother hated being woken up from her sleep and she could get especially vicious when it happened.
And yet, I could not have let Ken go alone to the bathroom. More than once had the toilette flushing disturbed her slumber, so I needed to make sure that my twin wouldn't forget not to use it after finishing his business.
Long story short, we did not flush the toilette, but Mother was still awoken by our nightly endeavors.
No child should fear their parent as we did.
When we left the bathroom she was already waiting for us, a furious expression distorting her face.
Trembling slightly, I had put myself between her and my brother. The truth was that I would have done anything to protect him, but that did not make me any less fearful and reluctant of actually putting myself in Mother's path.
By now Ken knew what he needed to do, and yet he always stayed to watch the beginning, trying to be brave when he shouldn't have to. I always begged him to leave before she turned on him. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.
Fortunately, he did it this time and left before he had to see how my shoulder was dislocated. Often, I tried telling myself that it wasn't on purpose, but I knew that Mother had started giving us less to eat so that she could injure us more easily. Thus it wasn't hard for her to dislocate my shoulder. She just had to push me hard enough and I fell against the small cabinet in our hallway.
The pain was unbelievable and I cried out loudly. For a moment I feared what would happen if one of the neighbors heard me, then I remembered that they just didn't care. We did not live in a good neighborhood and I doubted that anyone wanted to invite the police here.
Still, I bit my lip harshly to muffle my cries, tears freely falling from my eyes.
Akemi just looked down at me, her gaze harsh and cold. ''You both are just like your good for nothing father. A disappointment and one of my biggest mistakes.''
It hurt more than it should have to hear her say that. Being my tormentor, did not change that she was also my mother. The woman who gave birth to me, took care of me when I couldn't do anything by myself and gave up on everything for both Ken and me.
Ken was probably hearing it as well and suffering almost as much as I did. The only good thing was that tonight he would sleep without any blemishes on his tiny body.
Leaving, Mother managed to just heighten my suffering.
After sending me a frosty glare, she did not turn around even once.
As such, I had to reach my room by myself, without a helping hand or some blood to alleviate my pain. My arm hung helplessly at my side and my shoulder throbbed painfully as I entered our room.
Ken was waiting for me at the door, silent tears streaming down his cheeks. He helped me onto my bed, gently pulling the covers over me. Then he laid down next to me and started stroking my head softly.
I should have been comforting him, not the other way around.
''Rei, does Okaa-san hate us?'' He asked, his voice nothing but a whisper.
And what could I say to that? I did not want to lie to him, but telling the truth wasn't an option either. ''I...I don't think she hates us, Ken.'' Sometimes hate is not a strong enough word. ''But Okaa-san has done a lot to protect us, you know.''
His lips tilted slightly upwards and I caught one of his hands with my still functioning one. Bringing it to my lips, I gave it a kiss and blew a raspberry. Ken giggled and made an 'eww' sound. Next he pouted an wiped his hand against my blanket.
A few seconds passed in silence and the next time my brother said something his voice was heavy and serious. ''Are we going to be alright?''
Turning my head to look at him, I aggravated my wounded shoulder. A wince made the pain even worse and tears once again gather in my eyes. I had to bite my tongue to stop a whimper from escaping my lips. My twin really did not need to know how much our mother had actually hurt me.
Forcing a smile onto my lips, I grabbed his hand tightly. ''You're going to be alright, Ken.''
During her two years at the university Mother had learned a few useful things. Among them how to treat a dislocated shoulder.
I did not sleep through the whole night, the pain too severe to even thing about rest. As my medical knowledge mostly consisted of knowing what pills one could take to alleviate a headache and what medicine was good against a fever, I could not treat my injury by myself.
Unfortunately, my shoulder wouldn't heal as long as it wasn't returned to its normal position. And so I had laid in bed for the whole night, eyes wide open and soft whimpers leaving my lips. I was lucky that Ken was a heavy sleeper, otherwise he would have seen me in a state he shouldn't ever have to witness.
The only unfortunate thing was that he awoke to the sight of my sweaty and pain contorted face. Immediately, I tried to smile and reassure my brother. ''It's a little early for you to wake up, don't you think, Ken?''
''Should I get Okaa-san?'' He asked once he saw my rather purplish skin, his lips trembling in trepidation and slight reluctance. It was quite obvious that he did not want to be alone with our mother.
Raising myself from the bed, I hissed loudly in discomfort. ''No, I'm fine.''
The problem was that I certainly wasn't fine and although I didn't want Ken to go to our mother, I myself wasn't far away from storming into her room and begging for mercy. In this new life I had received a lot of injuries, but none of them had ever been as severe as my current one.
Neither had any of them hurt as much.
I gritted my teeth to keep myself from grimacing. Meeting Ken's gaze, I knew that I wasn't a good actress. ''Could you just give me some water?''
Scrambling from the bed, my brother instantly moved towards his own nightstand. A small glass and water bottle rested upon it. After pouring some of the water into the blue container, Ken carefully carried it over to me. Instead of letting me take it, he helped me drink the water. It was probably better that way. Although I could still use one of my arms, my whole body was trembling from the pain and I would have most likely spilled at least half of it. ''Why don't you read me one of the books you have taken from Otou-san's cabinet?''
Luckily, Mother had decided to 'teach' us how to read. I had already learned everything once before, but Ken with his love for books needed someone who could teach him. Had she not done it, then I might have tried teaching him myself. However, it would have been highly suspicious and I would have had to make sure that our only parent did not find out.
There wouldn't have been any good excuse I could have told her for why I could already read.
As it was, Ken could already read a few easy things and I helped him as much as I could. Telling him a few of the unknown words wasn't too dangerous, I just couldn't do it too often.
Settling down besides me, Ken pulled out a thin book from under his pillow. A metallic blue glimmered in the morning sunlight and vanished as soon as my brother opened the novel. I glimpsed the head of a dragon at the first page and then came the first chapter.
Shakily, my brother started to read the first chapter. His words were slow and unsure, sometimes he read a word twice or thrice to make sure it was right. It was also clear that he did not know all the kanji and hiragana. Ken filled the spaces he couldn't read with his own imagination and formed a tale about a dragon and his friendship with a human.
The soothing words calmed me slightly, but the pain never truly disappeared. Ignoring as much of it as I could, I leaned my head against the wall and tried to calm my erratic breathing.
When only about an hour later Mother entered our room with two glasses of blood and an apologetic expression on her face, I almost cried out in relief. She relocated my shoulder before I was allowed to drink some of the heavenly substance and rubbed my back soothingly when I finally did.
Kaneki Akemi was both my tormentor and savior.
And sometimes I both loved and hated her in equal measures.
More than once had I told my brother not to leave our room when Mother invited a guest into our home.
I always tried to distract him with small meaningless games or exhaust him so that he would fall asleep. Being a child made him susceptible to my 'manipulations' and ensured his safety.
That is, until one night I fell asleep before he did and Lady Luck once again decided to disregard me. A man, about forty years old, entered our home with our mother while I was still trapped in my dreams.
The usual routine begun. Mother gave the man some of our strongest sake and turned on some music in the living room. Her bedroom was already prepared for our guest, plastic foil covered the whole floor. Should her victim have asked about its purpose, she would have probably claimed that we were planning to paint the walls.
But I doubted that he even had the time to ask.
When I was still asleep, Ken used my inattention and slipped out of the room. I could only guess that he followed the sound of the music into the living room which was at that time only occupied by the stranger, mother having left for the bathroom.
It was one of the stranger's inquiries that awoke me.
''Well, aren't you just a cute little thing?'' He had purred and my skin crawled in disgust. ''Perhaps you would like to join us.''
I bolted out of my bed and quickly made my way into the other room. Arriving there at the same time as Mother opened the door of our bathroom, I hastily walked towards my brother.
The man was kneeing before him, his dirty hand reaching out to touch my twin. Before it could make contact, I slapped it away with my own hand and pulled my brother behind me.
''Another one. Keiko did not tell me about you.'' This time he grabbed a strand of my hair, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. ''You wanna play a game with your mother and me?''
A disgusted sneer appeared on my lips and I had to force myself to stay calm as to not aggravate him unnecessarily. ''It's bedtime now. We need to leave and sleep.''
The man chuckled softly, his dark hair falling onto his forehead and shadowing one of his eyes. ''But...''
''They won't be playing with us.'' Mother hissed softly from the doorway. Her gaze never left the man as she spoke to us. ''Rei, Ken, go into your room now and close the door.''
Just this once not even Ken tried to argue with our mother's decision. Hand in hand, we left the living room and entered our own quarters as quickly as possible. I closed the door from the inside with a key and leaned my body heavily against it.
This whole situation could have had a terrible end. Had I not woken up when I did and Mother appeared so quickly, I dreaded to think about what would have happened then.
Relived, I watched how my brother laid down in his bed and fell asleep after some time. Afterwards I proceeded to listen to the happenings in the rest of our home.
Needless to say, the man suffered a painful death, his cries muffled by something being forced into his mouth.
For once I fully agreed with Kaneki Akemi's actions.
Not long after that Mother started closing the door of our room from the outside for the night.
I have published a new Tokyo Ghoul Self-Insert! This time my protagonist is reborn as Juuzou's twin.
