Another update! Thank you for all of the follows, favorites and comments, I'm always thrilled to see another one pop up in my inbox. I just wanted to say that if anyone has an idea for this story, especially if it involves a pun, I would love to hear it. I really don't have a firm idea of what will be included here so it is very flexible to the whims of you, dear readers. As always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!


Arima walked down the halls for what would be, if all went according to plan, the last time before he was allowed to release Haise from the hospital. It was in this meeting that the boy's fate would be decided. Depending on how he reacted to his situation, Haise would be initiated under Arima's protection and become his full responsibility. Bracing himself, he entered the key code and walked inside.

Haise was sleeping silently, barely moving as Arima walked over to the chair positioned beside the bed. The bandages covering his eyes had been removed, leaving him free to view his private room with its sparse furnishings in full. While the room, with its absence of natural light was well lit with fluorescence, it couldn't be considered entirely homely. The mechanical influences on the overall ambiance made it too technical in Arima's opinion, but then again practicality and functionality were more suited towards the CCG's professionalism then the simple aesthetics of a hospital room.

Arima made these observations as he waited for Haise to wake up. The nurse had warned him that he would behave as someone who had just woken from a coma and would require an abnormal amount of sleep for a couple of days, even as a ghoul. His body would still be trying to adjust to the absence of heavy dosages of suppressants. This being the case the man waited patiently for any sign of awareness on the part of his charge.

Finally, with only a slight increase in heartbeat as was displayed on the monitor, Haise woke, rolling over with blurry eyes to face Arima. Coming to the realization that someone was in his room, Haise quickly sat up and rubbed his eyes. "S-s-sorry! You should have woken me!" stuttered Haise as he sat up in the bed.

"It's quite all right Haise, you need your rest," assured Arima in an attempt to stop Haise from overreacting.

"Arima?" The half-ghoul asked cautiously, gray eyes focusing on the individual in front of him. It was his first time seeing the man in person instead of simply hearing his disembodied voice during their short conversations. His appearance was not what he expected. Glasses covered his calculating eyes and white hair feel from his crown to frame his thin face. The man before him was rather expressionless as they looked at each other.

With a nod Arima answered his question. Always one to get straight to the point, Arima forestalled further questions by directing the conversation. "Yes Haise, I'm glad to see that you've regained your sight but I'm afraid today's meeting will not be as casual as the previous days. I've come to discuss something that needs your full attention and cooperation. Do you understand?"

Haise nodded, a furrow appearing between his brows as he acknowledged Arima's words for what they were. He had always understood, from day one of his remembered voyage into the land of the conscious that something had been wrong. This came in the form of the staff's lack of conversations with him to the way that he had been partially restrained yesterday while eating an unidentifiable chunk of raw meat. While he could comprehend these small and seemingly unconnected facts he couldn't piece them together by himself. With a sense of dread for what Arima would say next he nodded his head solemnly.

"Yes, I understand."

Taking this as a sign to begin, Arima spun the CCG approved version of Haise's past under his former identity of Kaneki Ken. "A couple years ago you were involved in an accident. You were badly injured and in desperate need of an organ transplant. The other person in the accident was killed in the aftermath. To save your life the doctor took the victim's organs and used them to save you."

Arima paused, waiting for Haise to digest what he was saying. This story was nearly the truth, but with the absence of names or a place of reference. It was another test of Haise's amnesia while duplicating as means to provide him with enough answers that he wouldn't seek them on his own at a later date.

"I'm pretty accident prone aren't I?" stated Haise rhetorically with a grimace.

Arima sighed at Haise's poor attempt at a joke before continuing. Now came the hard part. "Haise, you see, the victim wasn't an ordinary person. They were what we call a ghoul."

"Ghoul?" asked Haise blankly.

"Yes, ghoul. They require human-derived sustenance as a means to survive."

"But they can't exist, not in real life. In stories perhaps but…" Haise trailed off as he noticed the serious expression written on his companion's face. "Really?" asked the young adult in wonder. It was only a few seconds later when horror invaded his awestruck air of innocence. "B-but… What does that mean for me?" Whispered the boy, the final piece of the jigsaw quickly clicking into place.

Arima silently approved the rate at which his charge had pieced two and two together, though this was neither inflected in his face nor his voice as he spoke. "Unfortunately the damage provided by the introduced organs is irreparable. The ghoul specific organ, the kakuhou, which was falsely implanted in you at the time of the surgery cannot be removed. If partially biopsied or tampered with it will repair itself. This is due to the influence of the Rc cells it propagates. This being the case you are, Haise, in a sense, a half-ghoul."

Arima stopped speaking. The worst was over and the results of the discussion had yet to come to fruition as Haise remained shell shocked from the announcement. Arima could almost see the gears in his head spin as he processed the information. Haise's kakugan made its appearance, signifying that he was in a state of distress, as could be expected from the news.

"I don't believe you," he stated calmly, though his eyes were wide with despair. The boy knew this was logical in a completely convoluted and twisted sense of the word. But it was simply too much, too fantastical an idea for him to fully comprehend his situation. He could feel his left eye twitch for a second in discomfort before the feeling disappeared.

Arima, expecting both his denial and the presence of his kakugan as an after effect of the information, reached over to the bed side night stand where a hand mirror was present. He had asked to be provided one earlier should the situation require authentic proof of his story. The nurse behind the counter had given him a questioning look before finding the required item. Now the opportunity for its use was at hand.

Silently Arima handed over the mirror, reflected side showing only his grim countenance as he proffered the mirror with the backside facing the boy. With a trembling hand, Haise took the mirror, slowly turning it towards him. What he saw surprised him to say the least. One of the first things he had noticed upon having his bandages removed were his nails, inky black and slightly long, refusing to yield to a pair of nail clippers he had requested from one of his nurses. He was able to dismiss this however, as a strange phenomenon. Perhaps I have a genetic disorder, he had mused. But now seeing himself in full he could only laugh at his naivety.

It wasn't the white hair or his gaunt face that caused his instantaneous reaction, it was the eye, his eye. It squirmed and throbbed with a mind of its own. The red veins of blood vessels fed into the pitch black sclera in contrast, making both seem deeper and more foreboding to Haise as he examined his visual organ. Almost as if under a spell he pulled down on his lower eyelid, seeing that the sclera did indeed continue around his entire orbit; that it wasn't a cruel trick played on him by a mentally degraded individual. It wasn't a contact, it was real. Realizing this he, almost against his will, threw the mirror across the room, watching as it shattered into shards of crystalline daggers.

In a second Haise leaped up from his bed, almost too fast for Arima to see, and grabbed a thick sliver of glass in order to remove the vile organ from his socket. It halted mere centimeters from his eye as Arima's strong grip held his wrist firmly to prevent him from taking action. In Arima's other hand was IXA, free of its confines in case Haise couldn't be calmed by logic alone.

"Release the glass," commanded the reaper in a calm voice, more chilling due to its emotionless tone.

Haise's grasp reflexively tightened around the fragment before sense took over and he released his hold. With a twing it fell to the ground, leaving both parties in a halting compromise as they both waited for the other to take action. Haise looked down at the remnants of the mirror while Arima remained tensed. He expected the feral nature of Haise's ghoul side to take control, ending his plan for the boy in one fell swoop. If he couldn't handle this bit of news, how was he going to do under the pressure of working in the field? Even if Arima felt an unusual hint of unease at the prospect of destroying his charge he knew his position in this case even better, allowing him to dismiss his own feelings on the subject. What he didn't expect, however, was Haise's reaction.

What began as a slight slump in his shoulders became a full blown display of agony as Haise began to sob. His body wracked with torment, leaving Arima slightly dumb-founded. This was not something he had dealt with before. While he could dispatch ghouls with ease, he found that he had troubles connecting with others and their more intimate emotions. Pain and anger were sentiments he had long grown accustomed to, but this type of pain was nearly incomprehensible to the reaper. Haise descended to the ground as his wails of sorrow grew more prominent, leaving Arima to awkwardly stand above him, unsure of what to do.

The man slowly knelt down next to the boy, placing down his quinque in an act of faith before placing a hand on the young adult's shoulder. They stayed there until Haise managed to slow his breathing, his tears decreasing until they became known only by the trails they left on his face.

"I'm a monster, aren't I?" whispered Haise.

In that moment Arima felt such a surge of empathy towards the boy that he felt the need to console him, something he had only down on a few occasions in the past. "Haise look at me," demanded Arima softly, nudging Haise's chin up to face him. "You're no more a monster then I am, maybe even less so. It is not your fault that you are the way you are."

Haise looked back at Arima, still with the leftovers of grief written on his face, but as he listened to Arima's words, full of more emotion then he had previously shown, he calmed down. With no knowledge of what was happening, his kakugan faded until it was replaced with a match for his right eye.

"But why Arima, why me?"

"It does one no good to dwell on the past Haise, nor does it help to rely on pity. Things happen to us that we can't control. Sometimes they make us stronger and other times they knock us down. It is learning to overcome these things that make us human."

"But I'm not human," mumbled Arima's young charge.

Arima picked up a large shard of glass. Haise moved to turn his head from his reflection, stopping when Arima gently held his chin in place. "Look," commanded the reaper and so Haise looked.

The half-ghoul's eyes widened as, looking back at him was a human, with no monstrous qualities aside from the downy white hair and blackened nails.

"Haise we all have our own inner demons to face. Some are just bigger than others," explained Arima with a slight tilt of his lips.

The action immediately served to lighten his face, and in that moment he seemed more human than Haise had seen him before. In that moment Haise knew that he could trust this man; that he could believe in his words. "Where do I go from here?" questioned the boy, hard determination glinting in the sea of desperation that were prominent in his eyes.

"Join the CCG Haise, and I'll teach you how to conquer your demons."