Corie=27

Sasaki=22

"What's 1000 minus 7?" Yamori asked lowly.

It was the fourth day of Kaneki's torture and he wasn't sure how much longer he could endure this. It would be one thing if there was some end in sight, but he was getting tortured just for Yamori's pleasure. There was no hope of it ever stopping.

"Please," he begged. "Please, don't!"

Yamori approached him with his large pliers.

Suddenly, the door burst open causing metal shards to fly in every direction.

"I found you," a familiar voice bit out.

"C…Corie?" Kaneki gasped. He couldn't see her since the chair was positioned away from the door, but he would recognize her voice anywhere.

"Get. Away. From him."

Yamori smiled sadistically. "You must be pretty skilled to make it all the way up here by yourself. I'd like to see how much it takes to break you. Maybe once I'm done with this kid, I can have my fun with you."

"I said get away from him."

Yamori dropped his pliers and exposed his spiked kagune. "I guess I can take a break for a second." He roughly patted the side of Kaneki's head. "Hold tight for me, okay, kid? This won't take long."

Kaneki's head drooped against his chest. After everything he'd been through, he was too weak to look up and see what was happening. He could hear Corie and Yamori's fight stretching all the way around the chamber, but he couldn't tell who was winning.

The fight ended with a loud squelch.

This was it. Corie was dead, and now Yamori was going to continue what he had started.

But then he felt the chains digging into his wrists and ankles loosen.

"Kaneki, it's okay, I'm here!" Corie said urgently. "I'm here!"

Corie wasn't dead.

She was alive and she was freeing him.

He was free. He wasn't Yamori's captive anymore. He wasn't going to be tortured again.

The chains fell away from the raw skin and he fell forward into her awaiting arms.

"I'm here!" she told him as she put her arms around him protectively.

He thought he could feel small tears drop onto his shoulder. Maybe it was his tears dropping onto her shoulder.

"It's over. It's all over. You're going to be okay. I'm here."

Corie's eyes opened and she found herself staring up at a plain white ceiling in the small claustrophobia-inducing cell.

She tossed her arm across her face and sighed heavily.

For the last two years, but especially in the last couple of months, she had had repeated dreams of rescuing Kaneki from Yamori's torture chamber before the ghoul could completely break him. Sometimes, she dreamt she rescued him back at the café before he could be abducted, sometimes she dreamt she had arrived in time to stop him from fighting Arima, sometimes it went all the way back to her rescuing him from Rize.

But each time, she eventually had to wake up to remember that she had never managed to rescue him at all. She had failed each and every time. All she could ever do was fail him.

She turned onto her side, holding her stomach.

Everything hurt. Her body, her mind, her soul, everything. She wasn't sure how much she would be able to handle before she just…broke.

The door opened, and Corie's heart skipped a beat when she thought it might be Jiro back for more.

But to her relief, it was Sasaki.

"Hey," she said quietly.

"You okay?" he asked.

"My stomach hurts. Jiro decided to cut off my food, not that the stuff they serve me could hardly even be called food."

"Why would he do that? I thought he made you eat so you'd heal faster and he could…um, continue what he was doing."

"Well, he got it into his head that it would be better to do everything when I'm hungry. Because then I feel it all even more and I don't heal as fast so the pain lasts longer. It's been a long time since I've eaten so I'm not really feeling too great."

Sasaki sighed heavily. This wasn't right. Even for a ghoul, this was just plain wrong. Why was he the only one here who seemed to understand that?

He slowly took his trench coat off and knelt down beside the bed. Then he pulled his shirt away from his shoulder. "Here."

Corie sat up in shock and shook her head. "No…I can't do that. You'll get in trouble if they find out you helped me."

"I'll be fine."

"But I…I can't hurt you."

"Corie…I can't stop what's happening to you…but at least I can make it a little more tolerable."

Tears in her eyes, Corie moved off the bed so she was on her knees in front of him. She gripped his shoulders and looked at the smooth white flesh before her. Despite herself, her stomach growled in anticipation. How long had it been since she'd had actual meat rather than Cochlea's poor knockoff?

"I'm sorry…" she whispered, her voice strained and broken.

Then she lowered her mouth to his shoulder and took a bite of his flesh. Sasaki winced in pain and tightened his fists.

Corie's fingers began to dig into his arms as she suddenly had the urge to consume more and more of his flesh until there was nothing left. It took almost all of her willpower to release him from her hold.

She sat back and put her hands to her blood-covered mouth, feeling somewhat nauseous now that she wasn't so consumed with desire anymore.

Sasaki put his coat back on and left the room without another word.

He then stood outside the door and put his hand to his face in frustration. He couldn't believe that he, an investigator, had offered her his flesh when she was most desperate and she had refused. And because she was worried about what might happen to him.

Even weak and nearly broken, she was still looking out for him. She truly didn't want to hurt him. She just wanted to protect him.

Inside the cell, Corie broke down into sobs. Sasaki was more Kaneki than he realized. She couldn't believe that he had willingly offered a piece of himself to her like that, knowing who and what she was and all of the things she had done.

She couldn't believe that she had let herself hurt him physically like that.

Judging from his scent and Tsukiyama's reaction, his flesh was supposed to be one of the best things anyone had ever eaten. But Corie couldn't remember at all what he had tasted like.

Thick fog began to pour into the room. Corie coughed and waved her hand in front of her face. This was new. She just hoped this wasn't more RC suppressants. Really, how much of that stuff did they want to give her?

"Corie…"

Corie whipped around, trying to see in the fog. Had someone walked into the room? Surely, she would've heard the door open or seen someone walk in. The room was painfully small.

Of course, at the moment, she couldn't see an inch in front of her so it was possible someone had managed to come inside without her knowing.

"Corie…"

She quickly turned around again and saw a very familiar face looking back at her.

"Mama?" she said softly.

A man appeared next to her.

"Daddy? How…how are you here? You died."

"Hey, sis."

Corie turned to find Reo before her, looking exactly the same as the night she had watched him slaughtered at the hands of another ghoul.

"Reo," she cried. "I've missed you so much."

She started towards him, wanting to wrap him up in her arms and never let him go. She had longed to hold him again for almost ten years. And now…here he was right in front of her.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Corie knew this wasn't possible. She was in…

Wait, where was she?

And why did it matter? It didn't matter because her family was in front of her as if they'd never left. Everything would be okay.

"You look different," Reo told her.

Corie could feel tears sinking down her cheeks. "I've grown in the last several years."

"You really missed me?"

"Yes. More than anything."

"How could you miss me when you've replaced me?"

She stopped walking. "What do you mean? I could never replace you."

"And yet you have. With that kid. Kaneki, right?"

"No, sweetie, it's not like that, I swear. It's true that I see him like my younger brother, but he could never take your place. You are my true brother and always will be. I could meet a thousand people like him, and they would never fill the hole that you left behind that night."

"I told you to live, Corie. What do you call this?"

Corie silenced, unable to find words to answer him. "Reo, I…"

"It's bad enough you replace me, but you couldn't even heed my final request."

"No!"

She stepped forward to touch him, but he disappeared into the fog.

Corie put her hand to her mouth and sank down to the floor with a quiet sob.

"It's your fault, you know."

She looked up to find her mother and father standing over her. "What is?" she choked out.

"That he's angry with you," her father said coldly. "He certainly has a right to be. You failed to protect him that night. You were his big sister, and you were supposed to be looking out for him. Instead, you let him die."

"You let our only son die because you were weak," her mother told her. "If you had been stronger, Reo would still be alive."

"Mama…"

"Don't call me that. My daughter would've protected my only son. You are the only one to blame for him dying. It should've been you that night."

Corie wept bitterly as her parents disappeared into the fog along with her brother.

On the other side of the mirror, Jiro looked at the screen that allowed him to see Corie through the thickness of the smoke.

"It appears the toxin I developed works wonders," he laughed to Sasaki.

"What does it do?" Sasaki asked, dreading the answer.

"It makes one see their worst fear and the mind will convince that person that whatever they are seeing is completely real. Miss Masataka really has incredible pain tolerance, so maybe something to mess with her psychologically will get her to break and confess."

Sasaki watched Corie sob on the floor, guilt eating away at his heart. It was one thing to see her react to Jiro's physical torture, but this…

He wondered what had manifested right before her. What could this woman's worst fear be when she seemed to fear nothing? And…why did it make her cry instead of scream?

Several hours later, Jiro opened the door to the room and stepped inside.

Corie sat on the bed, hugging one knee to her chest. Without looking at him, she said emotionlessly, "I infiltrated the CCG to gain information on various operations in order to warn the involved ghouls on the outside so they could prepare for the investigators and kill as many as possible. I worked alone because everyone else thought the idea was too dangerous and was doomed to fail. They also didn't want to take the RC suppressant I used because the effects of it were still unknown."

Jiro smiled cruelly. "That wasn't so hard, was it, Miss Masataka?"

He left the room and slammed the door behind him which seemed to echo much louder than usual.

It wasn't much longer before Sasaki entered. "Why did you tell him all that?" he asked quietly. "There's no way that was the reason. Why didn't you tell them the truth?"

Corie looked at him sharply, and he was surprised to see just how weary and lifeless her eyes had become. "I did tell them the truth. And they didn't believe me. They weren't going to stop until I told them what they wanted to hear."

"Corie…"

"I told you that a person can only take so much. I thought I was stronger. But I…I can't do this anymore."

"What did that toxin make you see?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Corie, come on."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything. I was so desperate to be around you and to protect you that I didn't think about how I was affecting your new life."

"No. I'm sorry. I've been selfish. I wanted to hang on to what I have so badly that I didn't even think about the feelings of all the people I was leaving behind. I shouldn't have gotten so mad at you."

"I should've stayed away."

"Corie, I'd probably be dead without Lightning. You did the right thing."

"I'm sorry," she said numbly. "Just…please go."

Sasaki couldn't believe what he was hearing. For the last several weeks, Corie had told him stories from his time as Kaneki, both good and bad, and while he still couldn't remember any of them, he appreciated hearing them.

It was clear to him that Corie had genuinely cared for Kaneki and continued to care about him as Sasaki. Becoming Lightning had all been for his sake to fulfill her promise to always be there to protect him when he needed her.

He hated seeing her reduced to this.

Sadly, he exited the room.

Several hours later, an investigator Corie didn't know opened the door and took one step inside.

"Corie Masataka, your execution date has been set for three days from now."

The door shut again.

Corie looked at the closed door, the reality setting in that after everything she had been through, she was about to die.

She got up from the bed and walked over to the mirror. It was the first time she'd seen herself in weeks. Her eyes had dark circles beneath them, her skin was scarily pale, her usually thick hair was thin and matted, and she appeared to have lost a lot of weight.

Corie let out a long and terrified scream at the face looking back at her that didn't seem like it could be her own.

What she didn't know was that Sasaki was still on the other side, one hand to the glass longing to do something to save her.

Corie spent the next three days going over all the things she wished she had done differently.

She should've saved Kaneki from Arima that night. She should've been able to stop Yamori from taking him. She should've stopped Rize from nearly killing him.

She should have spent more time at :re with Touka and Yomo the last time she had visited. She wasn't even going to get to say good-bye to both of them. They would never know how much they truly meant to her.

The mirror suddenly switched. Corie looked over and saw Sasaki standing on the other side looking at her with a mournful expression. She walked over to the mirror and slowly put her hand to the glass. After a brief pause, Sasaki put his hand right where hers rested.

The two of them met eyes, and Corie thought that for a brief moment, she could just barely see the tiniest bit of Kaneki in him.

Tears burning her eyes yet again, she turned away and crumpled into a heap against the wall. She suddenly realized that after her death, she wouldn't be around to help Kaneki anymore. She didn't know what was going to happen to him without her around. She had no idea if he would be okay.

And that scared her more than anything.

Without looking away from the glass, Sasaki said softly to his superior, "She could be useful. We could keep her as an informant. If she managed to infiltrate the CCG for an entire year, imagine what she could do if we got her to work on our side."

Arima looked at Sasaki with his usual expressionless face. "She appears to have quite the hold on you, Haise. The sooner we get rid of her, the better off you'll be."

Sasaki wasn't so sure that was true. If she was executed just because she had wanted to help him, the guilt was going to eat him alive for the rest of his natural life.

The door opened and two unfamiliar investigators stepped inside the small cell.

"Corie Masataka, you are to be executed today at 19:00 for crimes against the CCG and Japan. Please come with us calmly and quietly."

Though Corie made no indication of fighting back, they roughly took her arms and forced her out of the room.

Her eyes widened when she saw Sasaki standing just outside to assist in delivering her to her execution.

She started to struggle against the investigators' strong hold, but her weakened state didn't allow her to fight as much as she normally could. "Kaneki, please," she begged.

Sasaki winced even though she hadn't called him 'Sasaki' ever since she had been captured. Maybe it was because he felt guilty. Guilty that there was nothing he could do to prevent her death. Guilty that he wasn't Kaneki. Guilty that he couldn't give her that person back before she died.

"Please don't let them take me!" she pleaded. "Please, Kaneki! Don't let them do this! Kaneki, please! Kaneki! Kaneki! KANEKI!"

Something inside Sasaki snapped. He felt as if his blood was boiling inside him and his skull was splitting right in half. Images flashed though his mind so fast that he thought he might be sick. He screamed as he bent over and held his head in his hands.

The two other investigators froze while Corie looked at him with wide eyes.

He sank to the floor with ragged breaths.

"Investigator Sasaki?" one of them said.

"Get away," Sasaki growled lowly.

"Sir?"

Sasaki stood up, his one kakugan eye glowing redder than ever. "Get away from my SISTER!"

To Corie's shock, Sasaki's red and black tentacles appeared behind his back. But unlike every other time a memory returned, he clearly had complete control over his kagune. He roughly knocked the two investigators away from her with two of the extending tentacles. She flinched with each strike and looked at the young man, not daring to believe what was happening right in front of her.

He ran over to her and scooped her up into his arms.

"It's good to have you back," she said softly.

"Hold on."

Corie wrapped her arms around his neck, and he jumped higher and higher until he burst directly through the roof of Cochlea. Then he maneuvered through the surrounding forest until he landed on the roof of one of the buildings in the city.

Corie weakly fell to the ground.

"Corie!"

The woman looked over at the white-haired young man. For the first time in two years, the look in his eyes that she had been yearning to see was there.

He knew who she was.

"…Is it really you?"

Kaneki smiled. "I'm back, Corie."

Corie half-laughed half-cried and threw her arms around him. "I can't believe it. I've missed you so much."

"I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I let them take you and torture you like that."

She didn't answer as she clutched onto him as tightly as she possibly could, feeling that if she let go, she would lose him all over again.

Kaneki tightly hugged her waist. He couldn't believe that he had actually forgotten how safe he always felt in her embrace.

"I'm just happy you're back after all this time," she said in between strangled laughs.

The cell phone in his trench coat pocket began to ring. He hesitantly took it out and answered it. "Hello?"

"Haise, thank goodness we reached you!"

"Akira? What is it?"

"We thought you were dead!"

"What are you talking about?"

"The two investigators who went with you to escort Corie Masataka to her execution were killed! We thought she'd killed you too!"

Kaneki looked at Corie with wide eyes. "The two other investigators are dead," he said quietly. "They think you killed them before escaping." He put the phone back to his ear. "No, I'm all right. I managed to get out before she could hurt me. I'm sorry I let her escape."

"It's fine, I'm just glad to hear you're okay. Come on back to headquarters. We'll need a report about everything and work out what to do next."

"All right, I'll be there as soon as I can."

Kaneki hung up the phone.

"I don't understand," Corie said. "How did they die? Your strikes weren't nearly enough to kill them."

"I don't know. I know you definitely didn't do it and neither did I, but someone did. Maybe someone got out of their cell. It's highly unlikely but possible."

Corie pursed her lips. "We can use this to our advantage."

"What do you mean?"

"They don't know you got your memories back. They still think you're Haise Sasaki. You can remain working inside the CCG and find out the information we need."

"That's risky."

"Hey, I did it for a year and did a pretty good job up until the end there. Just for a little while longer, it might be really beneficial for you to be on the CCG's good side. You'll find out things a heck of a lot faster than if you were on your own, that's for sure." Seeing his doubtful look, she quickly added, "But…if you don't ever want to set foot in that place again, that's okay too. You don't have to do that and don't feel like you do. I don't want to make you do anything…okay?"

"I hate it, but you might be right. What kind of things do we need to find out?"

"Um…finding Dr. Kanou should be our main priority for right now. I don't know where he is or what he's been doing, but I have a feeling he never stopped attempting to make half-ghouls like you and those two girls we saw at his hideout. And…I want to find my cousin."

"I want to find her too. I'll see what I can do."

"You should get back before they start to think something's wrong."

"What about you?"

"…Take me to :re."

Kaneki paused.

:re.

Touka was there.

Touka.

"You don't have to go in right now," Corie told him, noticing his look again. "Just drop me off and get back. You can reunite with everyone later if you want. I'll tell them what happened."

Kaneki gently hefted the weakened Corie up into his arms and took off through the city to the familiar coffee shop he had spent so much time at as Sasaki.

He set her down just outside the door. "Will you be okay?"

"I'll be fine. Will you?"

"I can take care of myself."

"Famous last words."

Corie tightly hugged him again and didn't release him for quite a long time. She didn't want to let go. She wasn't sure sending him back to the CCG under false pretenses was the best idea, but currently, it was their only option. But if something happened to him when she couldn't get to him, she would never forgive herself.

Finally, she pulled away from him. "Promise me you'll be careful."

"I promise."

"Go."

Kaneki took off to return to CCG headquarters to continue his life as Haise Sasaki with all the memories of Ken Kaneki.

Corie weakly stepped inside the coffee shop, using the tables to support her.

"Touka," she called quietly.

"Corie?"

Corie collapsed onto the floor of the café.

Touka rushed over to her side, Yomo behind her. "What are you doing here? How did you get out of Cochlea? What did they do to you?"

"Touka." Corie looked up at her with the most hope Touka had seen in her eyes in months. "He remembers."

Touka's eyes widened. "…What?"

"Kaneki. He remembers."

"He does?"

"Yeah."

"But…how?" She looked over the woman and took in her severely weakened state. "You know what? We'll talk about it later. Come on."

Yomo and Touka each put one of her arms around their necks and helped her up to the second floor of the coffee shop into one of the spare rooms.

"Yomo and I made sure to have a room for you all ready for whenever you needed it," Touka told her.

Corie smiled weakly as she took a seat on the bed. "Thank you."

Touka sat in a chair across from her. "We heard about you getting caught. It was all over the news that a ghoul had managed to infiltrate the CCG. We decided that we would try to break in and get you out, but we had no idea where they were keeping you. Irimi and Koma went in tonight to try to at least find you. The plan was that they would report back and we would break in with more support later."

"They didn't have to do that."

"Stop. We look after our own and you know that."

"Wait a minute, Irimi and Koma went to Cochlea tonight?"

"Yeah. I guess we don't have to actually break in now."

Corie wondered if they were the ghouls who killed the two investigators who had attempted to take her to her execution. With them dead, no one in the CCG knew about Kaneki getting his memories back.

"Get some sleep, and we'll figure out what to do tomorrow."

Touka started to leave the room.

"Touka," Corie said tearfully.

Touka turned back to face her. "What is it?"

"I…I don't think I can access my kagune anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"I was having a hard time getting it out even before I was captured, and while I was in Cochlea, they pumped me full of even more RC suppressants. I…I think it was too much and it suppressed everything permanently."

Touka went over to her and took her hand. "Corie, you're exhausted and you've been through a lot in the last few months. Try to get some rest, and then we'll see what we can do, all right?"

The woman nodded and ran a hand through her hair.

"I'm really glad you're alive. I was really worried about you." Just before Touka left the room, she added, "And just so you know…if anything had happened to you, we planned on continuing Lightning's job."

Corie gave her a tired but relieved smile. "Thanks."