Corie=25
Kaneki=19
Corie sighed as Irimi tied her hair up into a French braid. It reminded her of the time she had stormed Aogiri headquarters looking for Kaneki. She wasn't sure how she had managed to fight so well that night, but she hoped she could repeat her success now.
"Thanks, Irimi," the young woman said to her friend.
"No problem. This look suits you."
"It's supposed to be practical for fighting."
"Doesn't mean you can't look good at the same time."
Corie laughed as Irimi left the room.
Yoshimura slowly walked inside to replace her. "It all comes down to this, I see."
She turned and gave him a sad smile. "Yeah. Who knew that young 13-year-old girl would be here helping you defend this coffee shop?"
"I wanted to show you something." He handed her a small picture of a blonde woman holding a baby. "That's your Aunt Ukina."
Corie smiled fondly as she rubbed her hand over the picture. "She's so beautiful. Was she as nice as she looks?"
"She was even more beautiful and even nicer. A picture could never capture all that she was."
"I wish I could've met her."
"She would've loved you. Both you and Reo."
Corie knew the answer, but she wanted to hear him say it. "What's…what's my cousin's name?"
"Eto. Eto Yoshimura."
"The head of Aogiri Tree. I hope that someday…I can meet her face-to-face. And try to help bring her back into the light."
"I hope so too." He gently put his hand to her cheek. "You mean so much to me, my dear. It has been my ultimate pleasure to raise you and watch you grow into such a strong young woman."
"Please don't talk like that. You have to promise me that you'll try your absolute hardest to come back to me when this is all over."
Yoshimura silently nodded.
Corie was aware of what was going to happen tonight, but somehow, saying the words gave her the slightest glimmer of hope that they would both make it out unscathed.
"Corie, I need you to promise me something. Promise me that if things start to get very bad, you will leave without hesitation."
"Uncle Yoshimura…"
He held up a hand to silence her. "I'm hoping it doesn't come to that, but if it does, I want you to run. Koma, Irimi, and I…we're all ready to give our lives tonight as punishment for all of the terrible things we have done in the past. But you…I'm not ready for you to give up just yet. Promise me, Corie."
"I…I promise."
"Remember to keep a clear head tonight so you can fight your hardest."
"I will." Just before he left the room, she called to him, "Uncle Yoshimura? Thank you…for everything. I love you."
Yoshimura smiled sadly. "I love you too."
Corie turned back to her mirror and took some deep breaths, trying to keep her head as clear as possible. She didn't know how tonight was going to end and she was scared. But now was not the time to lose herself to her fears, so she shoved away all of the anxiety and told herself that there was a slight chance everything would turn out okay.
She slowly walked downstairs to the bottom level of Anteiku to find Koma and Irimi in their jackets and masks.
"You guys look sick," she laughed half-heartedly.
"Corie," Irimi said kindly. "We both have enjoyed every second we've got to spend with you. It is an honor for us to fight by your side."
Corie smiled as she slipped her mask onto the lower half of her face. "Same for me. You guys are my best friends, and I appreciate you looking out for me and my brother when we first got here."
"We're fighting for your uncle tonight," Koma told her. "But we're also fighting for Reo."
The two older ones exited the café.
The battle for Anteiku had begun.
Corie maneuvered throughout the city block, moving her kagune with expert skill. It wasn't as perfect as when she stormed Aogiri Tree, but it was certainly up there. She hopped from building to building, providing backup for the Devil Apes and Black Dogs whenever needed.
She felt guilty for killing so many investigators who just wanted to protect their country and the innocent humans within, but when it came down to it, it was her or them.
When the investigators nearly killed several of the Black Dogs at once, Corie jumped in between them and deflected all the blows with her tentacles.
She stood up and looked directly at the investigator in front. It was the same one from that night at Aogiri Tree and again at Dr. Kanou's mansion.
"We meet again," she said lowly. "I'm sorry it had to come to this. I admire your tenacity."
"You're friends with Eyepatch, aren't you?"
"You could say that."
"I never understood why you both did the things you've done."
He clenched his fists, and if Corie didn't know any better, she'd think he actually looked regretful.
"But it doesn't matter tonight. Tonight, you are both ghouls, and that means you both must DIE!"
The investigator charged towards her, but Corie quickly dodged all of his blows. "Even though we fight for opposite sides, I respect you," she said in between his attacks. "But I'm sorry, I told you I can't die yet."
Corie used one of her kagune tentacles to swipe him off his feet and toss him several feet across the street where he collided into three other investigators.
Then she turned back around to the group of Black Dogs. "I'll leave you to deal with them."
Some of the Black Dogs nodded and then continued to engage in battle with the incredible number of investigators.
She hoped Koma and Irimi were still holding their own. She hadn't seen them since they had walked out of Anteiku. They were talented fighters, but they were also horribly outnumbered. She hadn't realized so many investigators were going to be here fighting tonight.
More importantly, she hoped her uncle was all right.
The fight raged on for hours, stretching across several blocks.
Corie fought investigator after investigator and she could slowly begin to feel her stamina weakening. She had worked hard to increase her endurance, but keeping a clear head in order to fight took a lot of work in itself and between that and all of the physical fighting, she could only go for so long.
"Urgent message!" her keen hearing picked up over one of the dead investigator's comms. "Squad 4 Investigator Amon is engaging the enemy! The target is the Centipede!"
Corie gasped, losing her clear head for a second. She quickly took a breath to gain it back.
That was Kaneki. Kaneki was fighting with them.
Was he in his Centipede form right now? That would be really bad. He had absolutely no control over that form and he was going to get himself killed if he fought like that.
She started bounding across the rooftops in order to find him and defend him, but she froze when she came across her uncle's own battle.
The One-Eyed Owl was engaged with a large group of investigators, and he looked terrible which was to be expected. This whole mission was to eradicate him and him alone. That meant their most experienced fighters were battling him all at once.
Corie watched in horror as they delivered blow after blow with a mixture of quinques and kakuja armors.
He stopped an attack from a quinque but another small blond investigator jumped on his partner's back and delivered a crippling blow with his enormous quinque to the Owl's chest.
Finally, one of the investigators with the armor evaded the Owl's massive kagune and managed to strike his chest and head.
The protective kakuja mask on the Owl's head cracked and he bent over onto the ground, panting heavily.
Corie jumped down from the building and landed directly in front of the Owl.
"Hold your fire!" one of the investigators ordered.
Corie put her hands to her uncle's face, tears falling from her eyes.
"Corie," Yoshimura said quietly between pants so that the investigators couldn't hear him. "You need to go. I need you to look after everyone from Anteiku. Touka and Hinami…and Kaneki. They're going to need you. But most importantly, I need you to live. Live, Corie, just like Reo wanted you to. Go."
With grim resolve, Corie left her uncle's side for the last time and bounded up to the roof of the building next door, out of sight of the rest of the investigators. She watched as her uncle collapsed onto the ground, the fighting done.
Reluctantly, she wiped the tears from her eyes and continued to search for Kaneki. The middle of a battle was not the appropriate time to mourn. That would have to wait. She just prayed that the boy hadn't gone completely insane yet if he was indeed in his Centipede form.
Going from rooftop to rooftop, Corie tried to block out all of the horrible hypotheticals her mind continued to feed her. What if she didn't make it in time? What if she lost him? What if he was already dead? Her heart ached at the mere thought of it.
Finally, she could just barely make out familiar agonized screaming. Going towards the awful noise, she found herself inside Route V14, an escape route ghouls used to get in and out of the 24th ward.
"Kaneki?!" she called. "Where are you?!" She frantically ran down the route. There was only one way to go so if she just kept running, she would find him. She would find him…
Then she saw him. Kaneki writhed around on the ground in obvious pain, screaming things incoherently.
"Kaneki!" she cried, running over to him. "It's okay! I'm here! I'm here!"
"There's no time!" he muttered. "I have to go help. We have to regroup and…Mr. Yoshimura…I have to help him."
"Kaneki, look at me!" she ordered, taking off her mask. "Look at me!"
"Meat…human…kill…eat. No, I don't want to. Please don't die, Amon. I'll protect…nip evil in…"
Corie put her arms around him to hold him close to her so that he didn't end up hurting himself. "Kaneki, just focus on me, all right? Focus only on me."
Kaneki put his hands to his head to block out whatever voices he was hearing. "Stay away from me! Can't you see you're killing me?! My body is mine! Get out of my body!"
"Kaneki, come on, breathe, focus on me."
His kagune went flying behind him and knocked Corie into the wall.
"All right, if that's how you want to play it."
She exposed her purple and black tentacles and knocked him into the other side of the tunnel.
"Kaneki, it's me! Corie! Just focus only on me! Forget about everything else!"
Kaneki screamed in pain and sank to the ground. "Please…help…"
Corie tightly and protectively put her arms around him. "I'm here. I'm right here. I'm here, Kaneki. You are not alone. I'm here."
She heard footsteps from one end of the tunnel and looked up, prepared to fight whoever it was.
"Hey, Kaneki. Corie."
She couldn't believe it.
Hide.
"What's with that outfit? Is that what's in right now?"
"…Hide?" Kaneki said softly.
"Whoa, better than some Hollywood special effects makeup. You've been struggling all this time, haven't you? You don't need it anymore. The mask."
Hide walked up to him and knelt down in front of him.
"I knew all along, man!"
Despite everything, Corie couldn't help but smile. Kaneki had always been so afraid that Hide wouldn't accept him as a half-ghoul and yet his best friend had known the truth the entire time.
She wondered when he'd figured it out. Probably all the way back when she'd helped save them from Nishiki. A car accident was a pretty poor cover-up, particularly for someone as observant as him.
And despite working at the CCG, he hadn't told anyone.
No…he'd gotten a job at the CCG strictly to protect him.
Shouts and bangs could be heard from the end of the tunnel Hide had come from.
Corie looked up at the boy. "I'll buy you some time."
"Thanks, Corie. I always knew you were cool."
Corie smiled and put her mask back on before going outside the tunnel to hold off the investigators until Kaneki and Hide could gather themselves. She had a strong feeling that Hide would be able to hold himself up against his best friend, even in his less-than-perfect mental state.
When she exited the tunnel, she came across a very young investigator with brown hair facing off against one of the ghouls from Aogiri Tree.
Wait a minute, what were ghouls from Aogiri Tree doing here? Did that mean her cousin was here too?
Corie looked at the young man's face and saw only terror. Though he was on the side of the Doves and he wouldn't hesitate to kill her if he got the chance, she felt nothing but sympathy for him. He wanted to do his job and protect his country, but facing against ghouls, especially powerful ones like this one, was terrifying for anyone much less someone so inexperienced.
Corie activated her kagune and jumped in between them.
The investigator fell back in surprise, tears of fear streaming down his cheeks.
She looked straight at him.
Takizawa stared back at her in horror. The ghoul's flaming kakugan gleamed angry shades of red and black. He raised his gun to shoot at her, but he couldn't steady his shaking hand enough to get a good shot. To his utter shock, rather than killing him without a second thought, she turned around and faced the other ghoul.
"Well, isn't this something?" the ghoul with the red mask taunted. "A ghoul defending an investigator?"
"I know you," Corie said lowly. "You're Tatara, aren't you? You were responsible for Kaneki's abduction."
"I wouldn't say I was responsible."
"You're one of the heads of Aogiri Tree which means you had a hand in it. I will kill you for what you did to him. Just like I killed Jason."
Takizawa's eyes widened in alarm. This ghoul…was the one who killed the infamous Jason of the 13th ward? What would she do to him when she was done with this Tatara ghoul?
"That's wonderful for you," the ghoul said to her. "But I grow tired of this drivel."
"Good because I'm done talking."
Corie's shoulder flinched and one of her kagune tentacles stabbed Tatara in the face. It wasn't enough to kill him, but he was admittedly surprised that she was able to deal such a blow so quickly.
Takizawa looked on in equal horror and amazement. He had never seen a ghoul so fast before.
Tatara's thick red kagune tentacles aimed for her, but she expertly dodged out of the way and delivered two more strikes of her own. She then wrapped one of her tentacles around his body and tossed him up in the air before using another one to send him crashing through the building next to them.
Panting heavily, she turned back to Takizawa. He stared at her flaming kakugan and began whimpering in fear once again.
The female ghoul did nothing. She just stood there looking at him until he had somewhat calmed down.
Slowly, she allowed her kagune to dissolve and the black sclera faded to white until he was looking into cool blue eyes.
Takizawa realized that he had never seen a ghoul's true eyes before nor had he seen one without their kagune. Granted, whenever he saw them, he was fighting them which meant both parties were on the defensive.
When he got a better look at her eyes, he was stunned to see that they looked so…sad. Was she sad for him? Or for herself? Or for the whole fight happening around her?
"You're not going to kill me?" he choked out between the whimpers.
Without laying a single finger or tentacle on him, she jumped into the air and bounded off.
Did that ghoul really just…save him? Had she really looked him right in the eye and not killed him?
Unfortunately, neither he nor the female saw the ghoul known as Noro approaching him.
Corie raced back to V14, but Kaneki and Hide were nowhere to be found.
She soon reached the end of the passage and immediately felt as if she was going to be sick at the sight that greeted her.
Hundreds of ghouls lay dead at her feet. All of them wore the uniform of either a Devil Ape or a Black Dog.
How…how had this happened?
Slowly taking off her mask, she walked through the sea of bodies in horror. This shouldn't have been possible. This many ghouls shouldn't have been taken out like this. Not here.
And then she came across one body that looked different than all the rest.
Corie gasped and felt her heart stop beating for several moments.
There lying on the ground motionless with large holes where his eyes should've been…was Kaneki.
Corie sank to the ground near his head. "…Kaneki?" she said softly, hoping with everything she had that he wasn't really dead.
She touched him, and he felt cold.
Corie turned and vomited onto the ground. She thought she had become used to the taste of vomit considering how many times she'd had to force herself to throw up in the past, but something about this was more acidic and bitter than ever.
She put Kaneki's head in her lap and gently stroked the sides of his face and his white blood-drenched hair with her thumbs.
Then she screamed. She screamed as loud and long as she could until her screams quieted into gut-wrenching sobs.
"No," she wept over him, tears falling onto his face. "No, you can't leave me, Kaneki. You can't leave me. You're supposed to be here with me. You can't leave me yet."
He remained motionless in her arms. She could only stare inside his empty eye sockets that would never see her or anything else ever again.
"I'm sorry…I'm so sorry I wasn't here to protect you."
Corie knew that she should out fighting in the battle happening just feet above her. The middle of a battle was no time to mourn.
But this was different. Knowing that Kaneki was dead, she would never be able to keep a clear head which meant she would be of no help to anyone.
She stayed with him for another several minutes cradling his broken body until she heard footsteps. She looked up, hoping it was Hide, but it was just the opposite.
"You," she growled.
Arima looked down at the scene with no emotion as if it didn't matter that he had just completely destroyed her entire world.
"I will KILL YOU FOR THIS!"
Corie leapt up and activated her kagune. She charged towards Arima, but he dodged every single one of her attacks with almost no effort.
Corie knew Arima was an extremely talented investigator and fighter and with her head the furthest thing from clear at the moment, she didn't have a prayer.
But she couldn't stop. She wanted him to die.
She continued to attack him over and over and over again. Each time, he defended himself and inflicted a large wound on her.
Finally, Corie stopped a distance away from him, breathing heavily as she tried to gain her bearings.
She couldn't go on or she would be the one to end up dead.
As much as that seemed like the favorable option at the moment, she had to honor her uncle's final wish for her to live.
"Please forgive me, Kaneki," she sobbed quietly. "For everything."
Though every muscle in her body screamed for her to stay, she forced herself to leave Kaneki's body in the midst of all the carnage.
