Settling into the chairs across from each other in the private room was about as awkward an experience as Amon had ever had. First, the girl—Touka—insisted on glaring at him the whole time she cleaned up her study guides and tossed them into her backpack. Then, after they relocated to the smaller room, there was a silent standoff as they both moved towards the seat nearest the door.

They ended up leaving that side of the table empty rather than argue over it.

It was a pretty nice place to study, with white boards on one wall and two glass walls facing into the main atrium of the library. He weighed his options for a moment, but left the blinds open. If she snapped and started attacking, there was a better chance a patron would notice and call for help.

He could have opened on a good note and thanked her for the cookies, but when he spoke he couldn't hold back the wave of resentment that hit him. "First. Let me ask you what I asked your Eyepatch friend while you were busy killing my partner."

The rage in her eyes sparked, though her face remained impassive.

"Do you ever even think about the orphans you leave behind? The suffering you cause?"

She snorted as if she found the question to be ridiculous. "We were all just…born this way. None of us asked for it. And at some point we all have to decide what that means. Would you just stop caring about the value of life, and become cruel and sadistic and…free from the guilt? Or would you suffer with the weight of what you've done because that's the cost of staying alive? It's not fair," she spat, "but I want to live. So, yes, I think often of the suffering I cause. And then I do what I have to do to survive."

This girl, deceptively young and dangerously powerful, tilted her head to the side so the bangs fell out of her eyes. It was a movement he was familiar with, albeit hidden behind a mask until now.

She stared him down with an almost crazed look to her. "That's what I told your partner when he was trying to kill me and an innocent child. Now let me ask you a question. Do you ever think about the orphans you leave behind?"

Amon was stunned speechless. It was like she peeled the curtain back from all the uncomfortable thoughts he shoved to the back of the mind. He felt the sudden fear that talking to her without a mask to act as shield and buffer was a mistake.

"I never did think of the orphans, no. We're all taught that you only mimic human behavior and emotions to take advantage of us. Anything that plays on our emotions is just a ploy to kill us."

She narrowed her eyes in thought. Her shoulders started to shake, and when she couldn't hold it in any longer she threw her head back in nearly-hysterical laughter. "Oh, that's rich," she said as she wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. "Damned if we do and damned if we don't. I can either be the monster you expect, or I can be a monster pretending to be to be a real person. Whatever, if that's what you choose to believe so you can sleep at night."

"But let me tell you about the orphans you people leave behind. Kisho Arima killed my mother. My father just didn't come home one day…but I think we both know what happened to him. My brother and I nearly starved to death waiting for him before we left our home. I've listened to your music and watched your movies, I know what grief looks like, and I know I felt their loss just as deeply as anyone. I know I was just as affected as anyone when my brother, my baby brother who I was supposed to protect, let his rage get the best of him when he ran off to join Aogiri."

She stood up and slammed her hands on the table. The hair on the back of his neck stood up and he tensed to react if she attacked, but she just kept talking.

"If you got into your line of work to avenge orphans and stop monsters, then congratulations. You're a failure, you're leaving behind an army of orphans and turning them all into monsters."

She sat back down and stared at her hands. "I think most of the killing between us isn't for survival, it's for vengeance. At least a lot of us understand that killing a person is wrong, that it's wrong to take away their future and leave their family and friends with that loss, and we only do it because the alternative is starvation. You humans can't say the same, and yet you kill each other all the time."

The first rule of an interrogation was never interrupt your subject when they were talking. Amon found he couldn't hold his anger back, though. "A lot of you are sadistic and violent for no good reason. Subject like the Gourmet and the Binge Eater, from this very ward, can't be allowed to run free."

The girl scoffed. "What if I told you we all find the Gourmet as annoying as you do? I kicked his ass myself a few months ago. I thought I'd left him for dead. I know he's kept to himself more since then, so you're welcome. As for the Binge Eater, she burned bridges everywhere she went and she got what was coming to her a while ago." She smirked, almost seeming amused at the pain those two villains had suffered.

"So…the Binge Eater is dead? Was it the steel beam incident?" Now confirming that would be some incredibly important information.

For the first time in this whole conversation, her façade broke and some genuine fear rippled across her face. Just for an instant. "That thing that was all over the news last fall? No. She just crossed enough of the wrong people and ended up dead."

He knew he had her now. "Are you playing dumb to try and protect the other person injured in that incident?"

She crossed her arms and stared unnervingly at him, almost daring him to keep going.

"Again, I'm good at my job. I know you worked at the same coffee shop as the injured party. One Ken Kaneki."

"Kaneki? That half-ass? He barely showed up after he was hired. Wasn't worth the effort of training him."

"See, it's interesting you say that, because we've heard from a friend of Kaneki's that he was a star employee there for months."

"That loser didn't have friends."

"Then either you or Nagachika are lying and I'm inclined to believe him."

For the second time in rapid succession, she displayed a visible emotion other than surliness. Shock. "Hide's your source?!"

She stood up and shoved her chair back violently. Grabbing her backpack, she stomped to the door.

"Wait, I'm not done—"

"Well, I'm done with you. I've got to go kill Hide. That rat bastard son of a bitch!"

Amon jumped up to go after her. As his stomach sank at the danger he'd placed his subordinate in just from a casual mention of his name, Touka threw open the door—

"Well hello to you too, Touka! I don't know what I did to piss you off this time, but I brought coffee!"