CHAPTER 19:

LOVE AND MONSTERS

Tired from jetlag and lack of sleep, as well as heightened emotion, Harry fell asleep in Eto's arms, in her bed, until it came to late afternoon. Her smell was so enticing, and the fact that she could smell that way hit it home that he wasn't wholly human anymore. And it brought forth the emotions he had suppressed when he first transformed.

Eto held him, not to draw comfort from him, but to give him comfort. Her very presence allowed him to have a catharsis of emotion, of hysterical weeping, screaming, and laughter. And once it was all over, she led him back out of the bedroom, not caring that, while she had been in bed with him, she was down to a shirt and panties. Then again, Eto didn't truly care about societal norms. Ghouls broke one of the big ones, the one against cannibalism, all the time, after all. Of course, it was more than likely she did so to get a rise out of him anyway.

She had listened to his story as they lay in bed, and now, in her kitchen, nursing a cup of coffee, she looked thoughtful. "So, the CCG had something in place for a situation like this. I should have guessed. Hypocrites, the lot of them. Still, at least it means you won't be hunted down. For now, anyway."

Harry nodded. "But the moment I step out of line…"

"We'll burn that bridge when we come to it. Ditto bringing you in as the One-Eyed King," Eto said. "You've just gone through the transformation, we don't need to heap that onto you yet. Besides, we have greater priorities. Namely, tracking down whoever the fuck that did this to you and turn them into food. Voldemort, and either Rookwood, or whoever they got to transform you. Plus, whoever slipped you whatever changed you. Plus, training you to take them down. An ukaku kagune, as you know, isn't very good for prolonged combat. And I think we should get you started on developing a kakuja. But we'll need to be careful when doing that. I speak from experience when I say that developing a kakuja isn't good for one's mental stability."

"Yeah. Plus, making me bulkier just makes me a bigger target for spells if I can't move faster."

"Hey! Are you saying I'm fat in my kakuja?" Eto demanded in mock-indignation.

"Well, I will say that you need to eat less junk food," Harry said with a smirk. "Too many trashy Ghouls, filled with empty carbs and RC Cells."

Eto's mock indignation clashed with her desire to just break down laughing. If anyone else had said that to her, even in a facetious way, she probably would have torn out their entrails and ate them. But she was so comfortable with her relationship with Harry, it was all she could do to keep up her glare, enhanced by her kakugan, before she finally gave into her desire to laugh. They both laughed, using humour to try and dispel some of the more serious emotions they were feeling. With Harry, it was a touch hysterical, given what he went through, but it was laughter all the same.

Wiping tears from her eyes, Eto sighed. "Oh, I needed that. But seriously, even if it's a liability against wizards, a kakuja is still not a bad trump card to have. And thankfully, as you're a Dove and have had dealings with me, you know many ins and outs about Ghouls most people wouldn't know. Hell, you're more knowledgeable than some Ghouls. I swear, before he fucked off to Britain, Naki was such a retard. I know Ghouls find it hard to get an education, but there's a difference between uneducated and stupid. Naki is abysmally stupid. He also has the luck of the devil and the tenacity of a cockroach."

"Why you wanted him in Aogiri Tree, I have no idea," Harry muttered.

"He was useful, as long as he had babysitters. So was Jason. Not that it stopped them from jumping ship when Voldemort's little cocksuckers came around." Her smile changed to a warm, contemplative one. "You know…it's a little scary how well you have adapted to your circumstances. I guess part of it is your past as a Scrapper, as well as knowing me, and the truth behind the Washuu and V. But most people would be freaking out, trying to claw out their kakuhou or something."

Harry nodded. "I know. I just…I told you how I wanted to be the one to give big brother the end he wanted. And to share your burden."

"Well, at least you weren't a moron enough to seek it out, Mini-Reaper," she said. "You're still able to eat normal food?"

"Yeah. It still smells and tastes fine. Big brother says he's getting me meat from where they source Cochlea's food for me, to make sure my hunger for human flesh doesn't become an issue."

She nodded. "Anyway…to many, becoming a Ghoul would be part of a tragedy, a horror story, a nightmare they couldn't wake from. Whereas to you…you embrace it. With caution and respect, true, but you already view it as a part of you. I think I know why. You already had to deal with Edward, a split personality. But from the beginning, you cooperated, despite his viciousness, because he was your protector while you were a Scrapper. He was a monster so you didn't have to be. I guess you could say he was your big brother before Arima came along."

"Hmm…I guess I thought of him like that, even if not consciously. But you have a point. Then again, given your profession, to say nothing of what you actually write, you have to be fairly good at analysing people and making connections even they may not have made."

"Thanks," Eto said. "Of Aogiri, I'll only be telling Noro and Tatara. Should the CCG decide to discard you, we will accept you into Aogiri Tree fully, though." She clapped her hands together. "Anyway…let's celebrate your new status as a One-Eyed Ghoul!" She got up from the table, and went to the fridge, where she opened up a drawer, hidden by a Notice Me Not, and fished out a small package. She then plonked two lumps of meat from the package onto a pair of plates, placing one in front of Harry.

It didn't look that different from normal raw meat. He knew where it came from, it was once part of a human being (and wasn't he grateful that, for a joke, she didn't give him something recognisable like an eyeball, a tongue, or, heaven help him, a penis?), but it just looked like normal meat. And yet, that smell was tickling at his nostrils, smelling like the best meat he had ever smelled in his life.

With a rueful expression, knowing he was taking another step away from humanity, a humanity he was nonetheless holding onto, he used a fork to spear the piece of meat, and ate it. He couldn't help the pleased moan that escaped his lips from the explosion of flavour. He heard Eto snickering.

"You do know you sounded like you jizzed in your pants from having a man's meat in your mouth," she snarked, chewing her own piece of meat.

Harry shot her a flat look, and retorted, "Like you haven't done the same while eating out a woman."

She shrugged, still grinning unrepentantly. "Yeah, you'll be fine. If you're making bad jokes about sex, you'll be all right." Taking their plates to the sink and washing them thoroughly, she said, "It's rare that Ghouls eat together. Because of our hunger, we tend to eat as solitary beings. My father tries to correct that. I can see his logic. Humans are social beings, unable to live without each other as much as we are unable to live with each other. We need to be social, if only to act as camouflage. But how many of us are truly friends with each other? Maybe it's the predatory instinct. Even humans have that, as they are omnivores, and thus prey on other animals. Every other human or Ghoul is possible competition. Or maybe it's what Schopenhauer called the Hedgehog's Dilemma, the one from Evangelion. Speaking of, we need to break out the plugsuits again come Halloween. I've been invited to a do at the publisher's, and you can be my Plus One."

Harry rolled his eyes. "You just want to grope me again."

"Yeah. Don't you?" she asked with a merry twinkle in her eyes.

"I just don't like to voice my thoughts, unlike Edward."

Love ya too, Harry, retorted Edward's cheerful tones within his head. Come on, just give in and fuck her, already.

"He just told you to have me do the horizontal tango, didn't he?" Eto asked. "You always have the same expression when he says something lewd. I know more than a few of your tics and tells. Harry…even before you had your little Kafka-esque metamorphosis, we knew we would be together. Some part of me calls me a moron for falling in love with a human, and a Dove at that, the brother of the Reaper. And yet…I don't regret this. I don't think I ever will. Life is filled with pain. Maybe that's the point of pain…to throw into relief the good things in life. Sometimes, they will fall into your lap, but other times, they have to be striven for, fought for. Besides, it's probably in my genes, given that my father fell for a human. But unlike him, I don't intend to sit idly by. I will change the world, and I intend to ensure that it's for the better. Not in little increments like he is with Anteiku and his little cabal."

"Yeah. You once wanted to just burn the world, didn't you?" Harry asked. "But now, you want to refine it. Rather than a wildfire, you want to put it through a crucible."

"Yeah. At the time, I just wanted to burn away with it. Heh. You've given me a reason to live beyond that, Harry. You'd better take responsibility."

"A bit rich, coming from Little Miss Tardy-to-Signings," Harry snarked.

"Meh, I need my beauty sleep to maintain my perfect good looks," the green-haired Ghoul retorted. "Shiono is a whiny little bitch of an editor. About the only thing he is good at is keeping my secret. Anyway, if you've actually got some leave, we are going to make the most of it. You and I are going on another date tonight. My treat this time, I think…"

Voldemort was not happy. True, he rarely was in a happy state of mind, usually stewing in a corrosive mire of hatred and anger. But at the moment, he was more mildly annoyed and miffed.

The reason why? Harry Arima, formerly Harry Potter, had slipped through his grasp. Instead of his transformation causing panic at Hogwarts, the boy had managed to keep his transformation a secret, and slipped back to Japan. Severus had told him nothing, and not even a rather precise use of the Cruciatus would get him to say much more than Harry leaving Hogwarts shortly after his dinner.

Well, that was more than a little irritating. It seemed that Harry had more nous than he'd considered. There was no sign of anything from the newspapers, Muggle or magical, and he was certain that there would have been an uproar about a Ghoul suddenly appearing within the ranks of the CCG. It would be a massive scandal after all.

Hmm. Perhaps something else would be needed, something to make Harry unleash the monster within, and thus discredit him. Voldemort remembered something Severus had told him, about some Japanese Muggle author called Sen Takatsuki, who wrote horror and thriller stories. Yes…yes, that had potential.

Had he heard the whole prophecy, and heard the line about a power he knows not, Voldemort would have sneered in contempt. He knew love very well, and spurned it as a weakness. Love was a weakness, one that Voldemort knew all too well how to exploit. When the bonds of love were severed, it could send the survivor into deepest despair or the hottest of furies. Love was something to exploit.

Voldemort knew he was poking a sleeping dragon, but a Ghoul was inferior to a wizard. Even a Ghoul with magic. Governed, in the end, by the basest of instincts. And when he saw the tortured and raped corpse of the love of his life, despair and anguish would cause him to rampage most publicly, thus further dividing those who would have the temerity to oppose him.

Poor Voldemort. He didn't know he was poking a sleeping dragon even worse than Harry Arima. Or rather, an Owl…

CHAPTER 19 ANNOTATIONS:

Oh dear. Voldemort is about to make a VERY bad mistake…

Review-answering time! Jostanos: Harry and Eto were always going to be lovers, before Harry was turned into a One-Eyed Ghoul. This just made their bond stronger, oddly enough. And no, because it would raise way too many questions, unless Eto, somehow, passed off herself as having been doped up by Voldemort using the potion. I don't think that's going to work, especially if she uses her kakuja, which people will recognise as that of the One-Eyed Owl.

georgiaboy: A good question, but for the sake of this story, I'm going to go with 'no'.

No numbered annotations this time.