Corie=28
Kaneki=23
Urie grimaced. How could he have been so stupid? Thinking he could face the One-Eyed Owl alone…
He had just been so frustrated and angry and hungry for vengeance that it had completely blinded him to both the reality of the situation.
The ghoul inside the massive kakuja pulled back some of the flesh to reveal her grinning face. "Come on, is that the best you've got? I know there's more to you than that."
This monster had been the one to slaughter his father and even though he knew that his strength paled in comparison to hers and that he was using perhaps the poorest judgment he had ever had in his entire career as an investigator, he wanted her to feel every inch of pain she had made his father feel. He wanted to rip her apart limb from limb until she begged him for mercy.
The rage built up inside him and he could feel his RC cells surging through his bloodstream, hot and fiery. The power behind it threatened to split him in half.
"There it is," the girl said quietly.
Urie opened his eyes with a furious roar and both of them gleamed red and black and brighter than ever.
"What's this? Two kakugan? You've framed out. That's dangerous."
The young Quinx attacked her over and over again, but she effortlessly dodged all of his attempts and threw him across the roof into the opposite wall.
Unfazed, Urie stood back up and continued to fight.
Eto giggled. "Kuki Urie. You try so hard to make yourself into a worthy investigator. But all of your efforts are in the end for naught. Everyone knows you will never be good enough. You will never be like your beloved father."
Her horrid smiling face infuriated him even more. Urie struck her over and over again, but nothing did any lasting damage. Some part of him in the back of his mind told him that he needed to calm down or he was going to kill himself.
"But the truth is that you hate him. You've always hated him ever since you found out he died because he left you all alone with no other family to care for you."
"Shut…shut up!" Urie roared.
He could feel his mind beginning to fade and he was starting to lose sense of where he was or what he was doing.
Everything hurt. Everything hurt so much. Why did it hurt?
Someone landed directly in front of him. She wore a white and red mask that covered her eyes so he couldn't see her face, but he thought for sure he recognized that kagune. Where did he know it?
"I figured you'd show up," Eto said to her. "But I'm afraid you're too late."
"What is that supposed to mean?" the new arrival asked sharply.
"You can either follow me and fight me like you keep trying to do, or you can stay here and save him. You can't have both. Make your choice!"
Corie turned her head to look at the poor boy behind her.
"Someone please help me!" Urie pleaded of absolutely anyone who could hear him as he held his aching head in his hands.
Eto grinned. "I'll be waiting, cuz!"
She shed her massive kakuja form and spryly hopped off the roof.
Corie groaned and ran over to Urie. If anyone from the CCG saw him like this, they would shoot and kill him because he was too much like a ghoul now and they wouldn't be able to get him back to his normal self.
She was not going to let that happen. Not if she could help it. She wasn't going to let Eto hurt anyone else she cared about.
"Urie, look at me!" she ordered. "No, you look at me. You are stronger than this, Urie, I know you are. You can fight it!"
Urie attempted to strike her with his kagune, but she easily evaded his messy maneuvers.
"I need you to remember. Remember the reason why you became an investigator. Remember everyone at the Chateau. Remember Saiko and Shirazu and Sasaki. Remember…remember Mutsuki."
Urie's eyes widened in some form of recognition. But it wasn't enough and she knew it. She would have to dig deep inside of him to pull him back out of his kagune-induced frenzy.
She knew this was a possibly incredibly stupid move, and Uta was going to be furious with her, but she was desperate. She removed her mask so that Urie could see exactly who he was facing.
"Remember me," she told him.
He looked at her in horror, able to recognize her even in his state.
"I want you to listen to me. I see you, Urie. I always have. I know how hard you've worked, how hard you've trained to be where you are, how much effort you've put into becoming a better investigator. I have seen all of it. I looked forward to the moments I got to help train you every week because I was able to watch you grow. And I want you to know that I hold no resentment towards you for what happened. I knew the risks when I started working there and I knew the risks of me training you. If it hadn't been you, it would've been someone. I'm not going to be angry with you for just doing what you had been trained to do.
"Urie…I know you. I know how strong you are. And that's why I know you are strong enough to beat this. You are not going to let this overtake you. So I want you to fight it. Fight it with everything you have! Fight it, Urie! Do you hear me?! Fight it! FIGHT IT!"
Urie bent over at the waist, screaming in agony. He once again held his head in his hands as he fought to regain control of his mind.
As he sank to his knees, his kagune slowly dissolved and his kakugan disappeared. Panting heavily, he looked up at Corie with mixed relief, confusion, and regret.
Corie smiled warmly in return.
"Urie!" someone called.
Corie turned her head to find the other members of the Quinx squad coming towards them, Saiko and Mutsuki taking the lead.
She spared one more glance at Urie before retrieving her mask and bounding off the roof.
"Wait, was that…Reina?" Mutsuki asked softly.
All of the Quinx members rushed over to their fallen leader and slowly helped him stand.
"Are you all right?" Saiko asked. "What was Miss Reina doing here? Did she do this to you?"
"No…" Urie answered weakly. "This was all the One-Eyed Owl's work."
"What?!" Mutsuki exclaimed. "You faced that thing by yourself?! What were you thinking?!"
"I wasn't thinking. I just…I just wanted to finally get justice for my father…"
Mutsuki quieted at his reply.
"But I overdid it. I framed out. Reina…talked me down and helped me get my head back. She…saved me."
Everyone looked in the direction Reina had disappeared. Could it really be possible that…a ghoul had willingly saved an investigator?
Urie didn't understand. Reina should hate him. He had turned her in to the CCG and he was the reason she was brutally tortured by their hands at Cochlea. He had tried to purposefully harm her multiple times during her training sessions, and he had made it abundantly clear that he didn't care for her or her training.
So why in the world had she just fought for him? Why had she abandoned the chance to take on the One-Eyed Owl in favor of helping him regain control? Why hadn't she just let him die?
Why did she care?
Urie felt sick, and not just because he had just framed out and nearly killed himself. Reina's words rang repeatedly in his ears.
I see you, Urie. I always have.
I have seen all of it.
I know you. I know how strong you are.
All his life, he had sought approval from his coworkers and superiors. He wanted to be seen. He wanted to be noticed.
And he never had.
Not until Reina.
Despite everything he had put her through, she was the one who saw him, who noticed him, who was there for him, who saved him.
A ghoul he was supposed to hate had given him what he'd always wanted most.
Corie started to return to the café after completing her hunt. Her latest meal should hold her over for at least a good month, hopefully more.
She thought that with it being so late at night, she would be in the clear from any prying humans or investigators, but that thought was quickly put to rest when she heard someone call, "Reina!"
Corie frantically turned her head and saw Urie heading in her direction. Panicking at what he could possibly want and the fact that he recognized her even with her mask on (though she was well aware that her own fault), she skillfully ran off using the shadows and the darkness to hide her.
"Reina, stop!" Urie cried. "I only want to talk!"
Corie paused in her step inside a darkened alley. She turned around and slowly removed the mask from her face. He knew her anyway.
"What?"
"I want answers. Why did you save me? Why didn't you just kill me? Why didn't you go with the Owl and leave me to die? Why…why don't you hate me…after what I did to you?"
Corie crossed her arms, still keeping a safe distance between them. "I have experience talking down half-ghouls who've lost themselves to their kagune."
"You mean Investigator Sasaki, don't you?"
"Kaneki to me, but yes. I helped you because despite what happened between us and how things ended up, you're still my student. And I look out for my students."
"I never considered you to be my teacher."
"But you still learned from me." Keeping her distance, she asked, "So what happens now? Are you going to turn me in again?"
Urie looked away from her, and though his expression had always been impossible to read, she could've sworn he looked regretful. "No," he admitted. "Look, Reina…I didn't know they were going to do all of that to you. I just thought they'd either kill you quickly or keep you in Cochlea as an informant. I didn't think…"
"I know," Corie told him. "No one could've known they were going to do all that." She swallowed, knowing she had to ask but feared the answer. "Urie…I need to ask you something as well. When your squad arrived on the roof to help you…where was Shirazu?"
Urie's usually emotionless face darkened. "It was a few weeks back. There was a mission that went wrong, and…"
Corie sighed and put her hand to her forehead. "I'm sorry. Was…the One-Eyed Owl there?"
"Yeah."
Corie's throat hurt.
"We managed to kill the SS ghoul Noro by the end of the mission, but not before Noro got to Shirazu and the One-Eyed Owl nearly obliterated us all."
"Urie…the One-Eyed Owl…is my cousin. She was abandoned by her father at birth because he had to protect her. But after my parents were killed when I was 13, he took me in and raised me until his death in the Owl Operations three years ago. She's furious that he raised me and not her so she's taking it out on me by hurting and killing the people close to me."
"That thing…is your cousin?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
Urie felt like he should hate Reina. She was related to the monster who had slaughtered his father. But he also knew that would just be ridiculous. Reina was quite obviously nothing like that monster. And she'd admitted that she'd lost her parents around the same age Urie lost his. He honestly couldn't hate her now if he tried.
"I've tried to talk her down but she's been absorbed in her hatred for too long. There's only one way to stop her."
"By killing her."
"Yeah."
"We've been after her for years and have gotten nowhere. What can we do now?"
"I don't know. I'm still working on that." She slipped her mask back over her face. "Maybe the CCG and the rest of us can come to some sort of agreement."
"I doubt that's going to happen any time soon."
"We may not have a choice."
Amon lay in bed staring at the ceiling. He'd tried for hours to fall asleep but it was no use.
Sleep had evaded him every night since he'd been brought here. The plus side was that since he was not allowed to go anywhere besides the rooms underneath the café, the training area, and the café after hours, he could sleep well into the early afternoon to catch up on his rest.
He closed his eyes in an attempt to somehow fall asleep when he heard whimpers and cries of fear reach his ears.
Not the first time he'd heard it, he simply waited for the sound of footsteps, soft words he couldn't make out, and a door closing.
But it didn't happen. There were no footsteps and the whimpers didn't stop.
Amon slowly made his way out of the room and down the hall. The door to Corie's room was closed. He hesitantly knocked on it, but there was no clear response, not that he'd really been expecting one.
He quietly opened the door to find Corie in the midst of another nightmare. When he looked further down the hall, Eyepatch's door was open and the kid was gone. He wasn't sure where he kept disappearing, but all that mattered was that he wasn't here now.
Which meant there wasn't anyone to bring Corie out of the nightmare.
Taking a deep breath, Amon sat down on Corie's bed and gently pulled her into his arms.
He felt awkward and incredibly ridiculous. He was not a comforter in any way. He never had been. He was the one who firmly told people to get it together and fight. He didn't know if what he was doing was even going to help at all.
Corie came to with heavy gasps and coughs.
Amon tensed a little when he felt Corie clutch onto his arm as she tried to pull herself out of her dreams. Something inside of him ached when he heard her gasping for breath. What could she have been dreaming about to make her react this way? And with how often he had heard her crying out from his room before…
When Corie's breathing returned to normal, her brow furrowed as she realized that the arms holding her were much stronger and larger than Kaneki's.
She quickly pulled back when she realized who it had to be.
Amon awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. "Uh…Eyepatch, I-I mean…Kaneki wasn't here, and I've seen him do this before, so I thought…"
Corie continued staring at him in embarrassment, confusion, and relief.
"I'm sorry," he quickly apologized as he got off her bed. "I'll just…"
He started to leave, but Corie quickly grabbed his arm. "Wait," she pleaded. "Please. Don't go."
Amon turned around in surprise. He'd thought she'd be angry at him, but she wanted him to stay?
Corie didn't know if it was because she had just had an incredibly intense nightmare or if it was because she'd been through a lot in the past few months with her cousin or if it was because Amon was simply the only other person in the vicinity, but she couldn't stop the next words that came out of her mouth.
"Hold me."
Amon's breath caught in his throat. Was she still half-asleep? Did she know what she was asking? For him, the person who'd attempted to kill her several times and vice versa, the one who'd slaughtered friends of hers, the one who'd killed a little girl's mother for no other reason than that she was a ghoul, to hold her?
When he was about to respond, he looked at her face. The sheer desperation in her eyes gave him pause.
Somehow, he couldn't bring himself to leave her alone when she looked at him like that. He had never seen her look so…vulnerable.
Well, it was just one night. She could hate him all she wanted tomorrow, but for now…
Corie moved over in the bed to allow him space. For courtesy's sake, he got on top of the blanket and lay down next to her. Corie moved closer to him and rested her head on his chest.
Amon wrapped one arm around her in order to fulfill her request of 'holding' her and make the whole situation a little less awkward.
He could feel her trembling ever so slightly, and it made his heart pang for a brief moment.
Corie was a strong, talented woman, and he admired her for finding the good in life when it constantly seemed like it was doing all it could to crush her. But everyone had a breaking point somewhere down the line, even someone like her. She could only shoulder everyone else's burdens for so long.
Amon absent-mindedly started running his hand through her hair. When he realized what he was doing, he nearly stopped until he noticed that her trembling had ceased. To keep her calmed, he continued doing it.
Corie should feel uncomfortable. She should feel scared. This whole thing should feel wrong.
But even though it didn't make any sense considering all they'd been through, when inside Amon's arms, she had never felt safer.
