They had launched the operation. Decked out in their armour, with their quinques at their sides, the investigators of the CCG had descended upon the 20th ward.

It had only been a matter of hours, and the world was turning into insanity around her. The rain was falling down hard, all of the metal and plastic and concrete and people being coated with a glossy shine.

Akira stood and watched as investigators ran this way and that, as civilians who hadn't been evacuated ran for their lives. She recognised the corner of Hibashi street. Half way along there was a little family-run bakery that sold biscuits cut into the shape of a heart. Now the family was gone, and the dust was settling around a cavern where the road had once been.

It had never felt like an all-out war before, this dance of death they played with the ghouls of Tokyo, but tonight... tonight was different.

'You can't let the Eyepatch through! He could sway the whole battle!'

The disembodied voice came over the walkie talkie.

Guards and investigators around Akira were screaming and shouting and running about. Marude was shouting orders this way and that, as he tried to bring order to the chaos. There was an alarm going off. Whether it was in the street or in her head she wasn't sure.

'Squad leader Amon Koutarou has made contact with the enemy…! His opponent it… they're saying it's 'Centipede'.'

Marude had heard, and he narrowed his eyes. 'The half-kakuja…'

'Amon…' Akira muttered, and then in an even quieter voice she muttered, 'Kaneki.'

Marude wripped the walkie talkie out of the investigtor's hand and held it to his mouth. 'Squad-leader Amon, suppress your foe at all costs. Do not allow it to leave your location.'

It made sense. Kaneki was powerful, and his presence alone could change everything, but what were they going to do? Fight each other? Kill each other?

Akira's eyes are wide. It was all going wrong. All these moments, these people, they were like sand slipping through her fingers.

More Reports were coming in left, right and centre.

'Juuzou was…?!'

'What do you mean 'injured', how bad is it?!'

'Nothing specific yet…'

'Shit, that idiot! Running in stupidly like that…'

She couldn't focus. She had always categorised her life into boxes in her mind, but now they were being smashed to pieces, their contents jumbled together. How would she ever separate them? A horrible tingling feeling, like electricity on fire, was bubbling up in her chest.

Takizawa was calling her name. Akira could only just about hear him through the rain that was pounding down around them, and the loud thumping of blood in her ears.

'Mado… Mado… hey!'

She turned her head slowly to see the exasperated face of Takizawa.

'Stop day-dreaming! We have to guard our position properly!'

'Something is…'

'What?!'

'…wrong,' she whispered, hanging her head in the rain.

The world was going to hell.

Kaneki was so close now, almost at Anteiku. He was leaving behind the bustling and brightly lit streets of busy Tokyo and entering into the darker and quieter 20th ward. The Doves had closed the area off, trying to evacuate the people closest to where the action would take place.

Kaneki ran through the streets, getting closer and closer.

He ran around a corner and stopped. The night was cold, and a light mist had descended into the streets, but the figure still stood out to him like a flame in the dark.

Amon Koutarou was wearing his full battle armour. He had his quinque hoisted readily in his hands, pointing at Kaneki.

Kaneki came to a stand-still, panting. He could have said a thousand things in that moment, but he only asked politely, 'Can you let me pass through?'

Amon snickered, but his voice wobbled slightly as bent his head and said, 'Obviously not.'

There were other investigators and CCG personnel scattered around the edges, but they didn't matter. Even they seemed to realise that this was Amon and Kaneki's moment.

'I will not fight you,' Kaneki yelled. He couldn't hurt Amon, not now. Kaneki looked around at the edges of the street. If he could just bypass Amon and his quinque...

As fast as he could he leapt sideways and up onto the surface of the building. 'I don't want to fight anyone,' he yelled.

'THAT isn't up to you,' Amon yelled back, twirling his quinque over his head and launching it at Kaneki.

Kaneki landed in a crouched position on the tarmac. He had not expected Amon to let him pass. Heck, Amon probably liked this entire situation; the return to the norm of doves on one side and ghouls on the other, fighting each other to the death. Perhaps Amon would even be happier if Kaneki died…

But if Kaneki knew anything at that point then he knew that he couldn't let himself hurt Amon. At least, not again.

Kaneki was surprised that Amon was any condition to fight at all, but then he took into account Amon's mindset, his need to fulfil his duty, and of course, he knew deep in his soul that Amon would never let anyone else face off the Eyepatch ghoul like this. Perhaps it had always been leading to this? It was almost out of their hands, the configuration of fate and destiny. They couldn't disentangle their narratives that easily.

'Eyepatch…' Amon said, and the word seemed to be as alien in his mouth as it felt for Kaneki to hear it. He wasn't just 'Eyepatch' anymore.

'Will you chase me even if I go around or try to avoid you?' Kaneki asked across the grey, rubble-strewn street. It was just like how it had been when they'd been trapped together under all that rubble, what felt like eons ago…

Amon didn't even bother to answer. He just held his quinque at the ready.

'I understand,' Kaneki muttered. He let four limbs of his kagune erupt out of his back. The doves behind Amon began yelling and bracing themselves for the attack. 'I do not wish to kill you,' Kaneki continued.

Amon let out a laugh. It echoed through the street. The rest of the investigators were immediately deathly quiet.

'Don't fuck with me, you ghoul bastard,' Amon spat at him. There was so much that Kaneki expected him to say, but there were so many investigators listening. He could see the bitterness in his eyes, the sadness, the lilt to Amon's posture that told Kaneki he was in pain from the wound that Kaneki had inflicted. They wanted to protect each other, love each other, and yet all of that emotion and conflict seemed to always end up in the destruction of both of them, intentional or otherwise.

'I'm not letting you pass. You'll be going back to Cochlea where you belong. But just hear me when I say this…' Amon ran forward, and in the misty night air he brought his quinque forward to collide violently with Kaneki's red kagune limb.

Their faces were feet from each other when Amon whispered, 'Please don't die.'

Kaneki inhaled lightly and threw Amon's quinque violently away. 'Here I come, Amon!' he muttered, and launched himself at the dove.

The city seemed to be falling down around them. Sirens and shouts, investigators running this way and that. It was for that reason that it was a little strange when Akira heard a soft voice from behind her.

'All the investigators have had to run for their lives,' Takizawa muttered, holding a walkie talkie to his ear. 'The fight between Amon Koutarou and Centipede has been huge,' Takizawa continued, staring at Akira with wide eyes. 'Amon has possibly been injured. They're not sure.'

'T…. Takizawa?'

'I… wish to help Investigator Amon… he's possibly been injured whilst engaging Centipede.'

What was he saying? How did he know this? Kaneki and Amon were…

'Amon Koutarou has… what's going on…?'

Takizawa barely even acknowledged that she'd spoke at all. He span around on his heels and starting sprinting away.

'Come back, Takizawa!' Akira screamed, the voice sounding foreign in her throat.

'I apologise for disobeying orders!' he shouted behind him, and he was gone.

Amon couldn't understand what Kaneki was trying to do. He'd already left Amon to bleed to death in Cochlea. Why wouldn't the ghoul just strike the killing blow and have done with it?

And he'd thought that Kaneki had loved him...

The street was completely destroyed, and through the dust and the gloom, Kaneki came forwards to strike again, coming at Amon from the side.

Kaneki had managed to hit Amon several times, he hadn't done any lasting damage...

Amon blinked as he realised. He wasn't Kaneki's target, his quinque was.

Amon almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. This battle, this relationship... his entire life. It was such a joke.

'Kaneki, I cannot allow you to get to Owl's side. You're… you're too strong.'

'So you admit it,' Kaneki said, as dust and debris fell around them both. They crouched in front of each other, trying to catch their breath. 'You think I'm strong.'

'You always have been,' Amon said. He could see it now. 'And for that reason, you could turn the entire situation on it's head.'

Kaneki rushed forwards. Amon swung his quinque, but he missed and fell to the floor, his weapon wrenched from his fingers to be smashed into the side of a crumbling building.

'Again?' Amon yelled. 'Just like that time in the rain, in Kanou's lab when we met again, in Cochlea...'

So much confrontation. So much loss. He was roaked to the bone with rain, and he couldn't help but shiver. His shoulder was almost unbearably painful, but still Amon got to his feet, and as he did so, a figure came racing through on a motorbike. They threw a new weapon to Amon, and he caught it in one swift motion.

'I can still fight,' he muttered, his eyes not leaving Kaneki, even for a minute.

Amon jabbed at Kaneki. The force flung the ghoul backwards.

But Kaneki was shifting before him, screaming, crying out into the night. His lover transformed in front of him, into the hulking mass of Centipede.

They clashed, and the world turned to blinding white light. There was a ringing in Amon's ears, the yelling and shrieking drowned out into a static nothingness.

His weapon fell to the floor, and his arm fell with it. Kaneki had sliced right through his shoulder, the same one he had bitten.

'I… Amon!?' yelled a disembodied voice.

Amon slumped to the ground, and before him he watched as Kaneki stumbled backwards. Amon had got in that final blow. There was an impossible chunk torn out of Kaneki's middle. Amon could see the backdrop of the grey street behind it.

'Aaaaaghhhhh.' Kaneki clutched a hand to his side, but there's was nothing left to clutch at. He was more than half gone.

'It's… not healing…! Fuck, why? Is the wound too big…? Not like this… not yet…' He was muttering, twisting and turning. 'Amon, no... Rize, she's gone... Manager… Mangager… Mr Yoshimura…. I have to go… I'll rescue… I'll rescue him! IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII must I must I must…I MUST!'

Buildings were collapsing around them, the other investigators running for their lives.

'Kaneki...' Amon cried out, his voice a rasping wreck. 'You're strong,' he muttered. He wasn't sure if the ghoul could hear him. 'I'm sorry that this has happened, Kaneki.' Amon wasn't sure if he was speaking out loud or not.

Kaneki just looked at him, as he in turn collapsed to his knees.

'I wasn't the one eating 'ghouls',' Kaneki murmured. 'The one being eaten was me.'

The dust had finally settled.

People were dead. A lot of people were dead.

Amon was gone, and Takizawa too.

The injuries, the blood.

Some of it had splattered on Akira's shoes. She didn't know whose it was, whether it was even a ghoul's or a human's. All she could think was 'I need to wash it off.'

On the periphery of her vision, her colleague, investigator Misato, was practically seething as he grabbed onto the shirt of another investigator.

'As if Koutarou Amon has died! Did you properly confirm that? He's been a long-time investigator!'

'But this is the official…'

'BULLSHIT!'

How could be so angry? How did he have so much more to give? Akira felt like all her energy had been sucked into the night, that she was nothing but an empty vessel with blood on its shoes.

She stepped forward and put her hand on her colleague's shoulder. 'Misato…' She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. 'Casualties are a natural consequence of war. Don't go crazy here.'

'Akira Mado,' Misato almost hissed, then he clenched his teeth and seethed, 'How can you be so calm?' He threw his hands out, gesturing at her madly, and then he was holding her by the front of her jacket, and shouting in her face. 'Are you not sad? What about Takizawa? Amon? You've lost a classmate and a partner! Weren't you friends with them both? And even more you…'

'Misato!'

He let go of her and opened his eyes that were now awash with tears, and Akira could easily have been looking in a mirror, because as her mouth turned upwards in a smile that had absolutely no joy whatsoever, she felt hot tears pour down her own cheeks.

'Give me a break, won't you?'

She had loved them… both of them.

Their loss was like a chunk that had been gouged out of her chest.