!IMPORTANT!: Please re-read Chapter Six, (Komm susser Tod). Fanfiction dot net decided to meme me, but showing a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DOCUMENT than the one I used. Chapter Six is from another fanfic of mine, 'Tokyo Ghoul Conquistare', and has nothing to do with this one.
This is a two-part chapter, and will be Kaneki's last chapter for a bit, before we go ahead and move on with our other cast. This story involves him, but doesn't revolve around him.
Like always, if you want to see your OC in here or have a suggestion, let me know.
Thank you, and please enjoy and read the end author's notes if you're interested.
Standing together side-by-side, like always, the Bin Brothers stood inside the abandoned McDonald's restaurant that was located only a block away from where the smoldering ruins of the 20th Ward's Main Office were.
The two brothers had just gotten off the phone with Touka, who was one of the two most trusted subordinates underneath the King himself. The Bin Brothers' instructions were clear: They were to locate Ken Kaneki, and approach him to see whether or not he would be willing to give them the time of day to talk. From there, the Bin Brothers would lure him back to the fast-food restaurant to entice him with food. Once they earned his trust and he became comfortable with them, the Bin Brothers would then convince Kaneki to join Aogiri Tree.
The plan was conjured by the eldest Bin Brother, Yuki Bin, who had brought along his younger step-sister to help him and his younger brother.
Their step-sister, Yumitsu Tomoe, had been the one to give them her story of where she had last seen Kaneki in the first place. However, the aforementioned help was not without its cost.
In exchange for giving up what she knew about Ken Kaneki, back when he had given her the impression that he was the real Grave Robber, Yumitsu wanted to come along to meet him in person. She never gave a reason as to why she wanted to meet the man who tricked her, but the younger Bin Brother already had his suspicions.
Lifting his white mask over his auburn hair, the younger Bin Brother, Sota Bin, arched a playful brow at his younger sister, as she glared daggers back at him without her own mask being able to obstruct her red eyes.
"I honestly don't see why you're still interested in meeting the guy, Yumitsu; he's not even the real Grave Robber! He's just some nerd who has Grave Robber's kakuja somehow…!" Sota said teasingly, which earned him a growl from his younger sister. "What?! You know I'm right!"
"Tch, of course you wouldn't understand, Sota; you smug asshole…!" Yumitsu shot back in her defense, which only served to widen her older step-brother's shit-eating grin.
"Oh?! Is that so~?!" Sota asked playfully with an amused look in his eyes, all the while continuing to ignore the menacing glare his younger sister was giving to him. "Let me guess: when you saw him standing in his set of shining black armor, you felt something burning inside of you~! Awakening, as if you just KNEW that you and him were destined for something greater together~!"
"... You knew that he would accept you as his apprentice~! And then after? Well, he would ask you to be his bride, of course~!" Sota said in a mockingly poetic tone, which made Yumitsu's face a burning shade of red. "Heh, I knew it…! You just wanted to come along because you have little feelings for him~! Oh, how scandalous~...!"
Practically steaming out of her ears, Yumitsu found her brother's teasing to be inexcusable and more importantly, unforgivable. "... You're merely jealous that you won't ever achieve the level of greatness that Arata Kirishima has obtained, you petty-insolent fool." Yumitsu replied back with as much dignity as she was able to maintain, as she felt herself involuntarily reaching under the table for her black-katana quinque.
"Arata has achieved immortality… Let's see if the same can be said about your tiny, little, micro di-"
"-That's enough! Both of you, shut up!" The eldest Bin Brother, Yuki, shouted with an annoyed tone, before approaching the table where his younger siblings sat.
Taking a moment to clear his throat before speaking, Yuki stood at the end of the white and brown table before going over the plan. "Here's what we're doing to do… Sota, you'll come with me to approach this Ken Kaneki guy, and we'll do some smooth talking and whatnot before escorting him back to this particular McDonald's to convince him to become a part of Aogiri Tree."
Nodding his head, Sota took a sip from his McCafe cup filled with iced coffee before giving his older brother a thumbs up. "Sounds like a plan, bro… But um, why are we him to McDonald's? If we're going to try and schmooze him into helping us restore order for Tokyo, shouldn't we be, you know…? Taking him somewhere fancier? Like an actual restaurant?!"
Having done her own extensive research on her own time off, Yumitsu was already prepared to answer the question before Yuki could even open his mouth.
"From what I understood when I called Touka earlier today, Ken isn't a ghoul, he's a 'quinx', which I suppose is what Dr. Kanou intended for Haise and all of them to be called eventually… Anyways, he can still eat human food, and from what I found out from our technicians, the transactions on his debit card made it clear that this is his favorite place to eat." Yumitsu explained in a serious tone, before suddenly feeling self conscious the moment she noticed the odd stares she was getting from her two older brothers. "... What?! You two didn't read the email I sent out?!"
"*COUGH* Stalker…!" Sota jeered with a wide smile on his face, after having faked a cough to slyfully insult his sister.
"Fuck you, Sota!" Yumitsu spat back in a fiery tone of embarrassment, which only made her brother smile even widder to himself. And while Sota found his sister's reaction to be hilarious, Yuki found their bickering to be extremely annoying.
"Shut the Hell already! We're gonna be here all day if you two clowns don't stop dicking around!" Yuki shouted frustratingly, as he felt his dwindling patience beginning to reach its breaking point.
Crossing his arms over his chest, the eldest brother tapped his foot passive-aggressively until his two siblings became silent. "Can I finish?! Good… So here's where you come in, Yumitsu…"
At the mention of her name, the young ghoul immediately perked her ears up. Feeling excitement coursing through her very being, Yumitsu's hopes for what Yuki had planned for her were soon melding in with the fantasies she had locked away. 'Am I going to be tasked with being his bodyguard? His servant?! His maid…!? His… His mistress!?' Yumitsu thought perversely to herself, as she felt something other than her face beginning to warm up, as her mind began to conjure up sexual scenarios between her and the Grave Robber himself.
"Sota and I are going to need you to spruce this place up for us when we get back. Oh, and make sure to have some food ready for him when we bring him here." Yuki ordered with a casual tone in his voice, while unknowingly killing whatever hopes Yumitsu had of living out her deepest and darkest fantasies with the Grave Robber himself.
"Oh, and make sure the ice cream machine is working, mmkay? I heard those things break a lot, and we can't have Ken Kaneki sitting down feeling uncomfortable and sweaty while we discuss business with him; it's hot outside!" Sota added in, as he could immediately tell that Yumitsu was more than a little disappointed in the grand reveal of her role.
Deflated on the inside, a low groan escaped from Yumitsu's throat as she watched her brothers both leaving the table she was at. Glaring at the both of them, Yumitsu sat begrudgingly in her seat as her brothers gave her a half-assed wave on their way out of the door; all the while discussing with one another about what they were going to say to Kaneki.
Left alone in a restaurant in desperate need of sweeping and mopping, Yumitsu sat in her seat for what seemed like an eternity for her. Slowly turning her head over her shoulder to get a glance at the cashier's counter where her brothers had sentenced her to work at, the ghoul let out a quiet sigh as the gravity of her situation finally settled down on her.
"... God damnit," Yumitsu cursed under her breath, before reluctantly getting up from her chair to head to the back of the counter to begin her search for wherever the janitor's closet was located.
After about an hour of traversing through the debris-covered sidewalk they were walking on, Kaneki had found their surroundings to be a lot less morbid than he had imagined it being; especially since they were still in the midst of an ongoing civil war.
While there was of course the occasional sight of splattered organs and fragmented bones scattered across either the pavement or asphalt, Kaneki found there to be practically almost no bodies lying around anywhere.
'Huh… This wasn't exactly that I'd imagine things being.' Kaneki mused to Arata, as he continued to walk slightly ahead of where Arima was trailing from. 'Makes you wonder where the bodies went, doesn't it? Or if there were any bodies to begin with…'
*It's obvious, isn't it?
*Look at the blood streaks on the sidewalk…
*The way they lead toward the center of the street…
*I can tell you from experience that whatever amount of bodies accumulated last night were already taken away.
*The bodies are more than likely going to be butchered and packaged away.
*And then no doubtfully frozen to preserve the meat for later consumption...
*At least that's how we used to do it.
*Where Aogiri Tree is keeping their harvest nowadays though, is a question that I wouldn't know the answer to, partner.
Arata explained within the safety and privacy of the young qunix's head. Although Kaneki couldn't help but to grimace at the thought of people being chopped up and stuffed into a freezer like something out of a horror movie, he was grateful that he didn't have to step over corpses.
Cutting the corner of the block adjacent to the large industrial district that housed the 20th Ward's Main Office, or at least what was left of it, Arima brought up the rear from where the mentally distracted young man was wandering, in order to stop him in his tracks.
"We're here." Arima said calmly, as he turned Kaneki's body to face towards the direction of where the large collective pile of metal rebar and concrete rubble was, over in the distance.
With the breath fleeing from the insides of his lungs, Kaneki's arms fell to his sides as he gazed over at the brazed debris. "... I can't believe we came all this way, just to see this… I was hoping that the tower would have been at least still somewhat intact." Kaneki said out loud with a hesitant look on his face, before turning his head toward Arima. "Do you think we'll find anything useful there?"
Pushing the thin frame of his glasses up the bridge of his nose, Arima squinted through his clear lenses to get a better look at what had become of the Main Office. From what Arima could tell, most of the Main Office had been caved in on itself. There were fallen portions of the building that looked to be somewhat intact laying around ground zero.
Although the intact remains of the Main Office appeared to be arguably safe to traverse to climb on from what Arima could tell, the clouds of faint-white smoke trailing up into the sky made the White Reaper realize that whoever had beaten them to the Main Office first had made sure to go out of their way to burn and destroy whatever the initial demolition didn't succeed in accomplishing last night.
"... No Kaneki, I don't think there's anything useful to be salvaged." Arima said as he gave his final verdict to Kaneki. "I'm assuming that whatever large fire was used over there was a desperate measure taken by an investigator to ensure that Aogiri Tree couldn't extract anything useful from there."
"Damn it…! I guess we walked all this way for nothing, huh...?" Kaneki asked with mild disappointment in his voice. Raising his palm over his brow to shield his eyes from the blazing sun above, Kaneki squinted as he gazed at the destroyed tower once more. "... I wonder what could have driven someone to do that."
"It's actually a more common practice that you would figure it would be, Kaneki." Arima said, as he turned to look over at Kaneki. "What was done to the Main Office was something called 'Scorched Earth Tactics', and has been used plenty of times by various groups, including Aogiri Tree as well..."
"The purpose of 'Scorched Earth Tactics' is to destroy one's own assets, so that way the enemy can't use them for themselves. I'm not surprised; I was expecting the Main Office to be a lost cause in terms of scavenging. You don't have to come with me, but I'm going there regardless of its condition... There's still something I need to take care of."
Somewhat having expected to be chastised for his failure to even consider the possibility that there wouldn't be anything left in the Main Office's ruins, Kaneki felt his eyes widening and his hands relaxing, as he shifted his gaze upward. Knitting his brows together, Kaneki felt his curiosity peak, as he stared confusingly at Arima.
"I… I don't understand." Kaneki whispered quietly out loud in a hoarse voice. "If you already suspected that we weren't going to be able to gain anything from this trip, why are you still wanting to go to the Main Office?"
"It's for a personal reason," Arima answered back calmly, which eased Kaneki's sudden anxiety slightly.
"Oh… Um…! W-What kind of, you know, 'personal reason' is it? I-if you don't mind me asking, that is…!" Kaneki asked nervously with a slight flush illuminating his cheeks in a pink color of shade, as he felt the blood rushing to his face. "S-Sorry if I-I, um… If I'm crossing any lines, or anything like that… I've been told that I do that a lot."
"No, you're okay.." Arima replied back, before letting out a soft breath of air through his nostrils. Seeing how awkward and cautious Kaneki was acting all of sudden, Arima let out a throaty chuckle. "What's with the stutter? Back at the coffee shop, you were acting a lot more confident and full of yourself."
Perking his eyes up and scrunching his lips together as he flinched at the observation made by the Whire Reaper, Kaneki found himself swallowing the lump in his throat before trying to part his lips in order to form some sort of coherent response.
"Well... I mean, I kinda had to act that way, didn't I? I woke up somewhere I didn't know, surrounded by confrontation ghouls, and well… I didn't want to act scared or weak, you know?" Kaneki explained with an uneasy look on his face, before lowering his gaze away from Arima's grey eyes to look down at his own fidgeting fingers.
"But as far as why I'm like that? Well… I suppose since we're being 'personal' here, then it would only be fair of me to be honest with you as well, wouldn't it? Haha, ha…"
Seeing how anxious and uncomfortable the qunix before him was acting, Arima thought back to Koori; back when his underling first was assigned to Arima as a junior ranked investigator. From his personal experience of being a mentor, Arima immediately knew the remedy to help redirect the attention away from someone's rampant and nervous mind: walking and talking.
"... As a squad leader, I can't understate the importance of a team having absolute trust in one another to form synergy amongst one another; so you're more right than you know about that, Kaneki." Arima said with a warm smile on his face, before slowly starting to cross the street in order to travel down the sidewalk alongside the long and winding road that led to the Main Office.
Taken aback by hearing Arima actually complimenting his questionable judgement, Kaneki needed to blink momentarily to himself while still trying to analyze everything the investigator had told him. By the time he came to the conclusion that the other man was being sincere in what he had said, Kaneki was finding himself subconsciously following Arima's footsteps, as the two made their way to the Main Office.
Underneath the afternoon sun, both Bin Brothers were beginning to question their choice of outfits, as they sweat profusely underneath their purple-hooded cloaks. The Bin Brothers had searched all around the vicinity of the Main Office, and even tried to explore through the surrounding Main Street area for any sight of Kaneki.
After closing in toward the center-direction of Main Office, after having gone through the method of 'process of elimination', the brothers chose the path along the back road behind the Main Office that led to the caved-in parking.
Circling around the massive pile of concrete and steel, the brothers arrived at the plaza area that laid out in front of the set of concrete stairs that led up to the garden in front of where the lobby's entrance used to be.
Walking over the picket signs and fallen barricades that had been there since the prior night, the Bin Brothers kicked over bullet casings and dried-up chunks of viscus as they climbed up the stone steps up toward where the garden entrance was.
Reaching their wits' ends, both ghouls were about ready to prepare themselves to make a very upsetting phone call to Touka, in order to give her the news that they weren't able to locate Ken Kaneki. However, before they could press any dial numbers, the Bin Brothers were soon pleasantly surprised when they spotted a tall figure in shining black armor standing guard in the garden entryway.
"Afternoon there, big guy!" Yuki greeted him with a friendly tone, as he and his brother approached the hulking individual. "My, my! Look at the muscles on you…! You looked a lot shorter and scrawnier from the pictures we have on you, Kaneki!"
Turning his head over his shoulder to reveal an armored helmet obscuring his identity from the Bin Brothers, the armored man remained silent as he sized up the two ghouls before finally turning around to face them completely.
Feeling more and more intimidated by the size of man before them, especially after he and his brother noticed the large-cleaver-like quinque that the armored man held tightly in his black gauntlet, Sota decided to intervene to hopefully break the tension. "N-Nice sword you got there! Y-You must have picked up from an investigator, huh?" Sota asked nervously, to which he was met with more silence from the man.
"You might remember our sister, 'Grave Robber'. Y-You know? The one who named herself after Arata Kirishima? S-She wanted to meet you, b-but she had to stay behind to get lunch ready for you… She'd love to see your quinque you got there, that's for sure!" Sota mentioned with a slight stutter to his voice, before Yuki decided to step back into the conversation.
"Y-Yeah! She's a big fan of yours, and is dying to meet you!" Yuki added, as he wanted to try and appeal to the stoic-like man's ego. "So how about we all beat the heat, and you come back with us? You can sit down in the air conditioning and enjoy some McDonald's hamburgers, while… W-While…!?" Yuki trailed off, as he made the grave mistake of accidentally catching sight of the large pile of bodies that were stacked to the side of the lobby doors.
It didn't take long for the Bin Brothers to begin to recognize some of the de-masked faces of the dead who had large gaping wounds in their torsos; one of them being Rize Kamishiro herself, who looked extremely gaunt and in poor condition.
"*Ahem*... Excuse us, please." Yuki said, without trying to raise suspicion. Reaching an arm out to usher his brother to follow him, they hastily turned around to make their way back down the flight of stairs toward the plaza below.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit…!" Yuki muttered in a panicked and hoarse whisper, as he quickly reached into his pocket to quickly retrieve his cell phone. Avoiding having to take the long road back towards the toll booth ahead of where the armored man would have been able to spot them from his elevated vantage point, the Bin Brothers decided to head back the way they came from as Yuki quickly called Touka.
"Pick up, pick up, pick up…!" Yuki pleaded quietly into the microphone of his cell phone, as the ringing on the other line did little to improve the panic-inducing anxiety that was eating away at him and his younger brother.
By the time that Touka finally picked up, the Bin Brothers were already briskly walking back towards the sanctity of the McDonalds they claimed in the name of Aogiri Tree.
"Hello?" Touka said, as she greeted Yuki from the other line of the phone call.
"Oh thank God…! K-Kirishima! We found Kaneki, and we had to flee!"
"Flee? What do you mean 'flee'?! The point of you guys going out there was to talk to him, not run away from him!"
"W-We understand that, Kirishima, we really do! B-But when we approached him, h-he was standing in front of a pile of corpses… Corpses belonging to members of Aogiri Tree… I think he ate their kakuhous, because they were all gutted from what we saw!"
"Son of a bitch! I knew I should have gone instead of you two! Ugh… Where are you two now?!"
"We're on our way back to the rendezvous point we had set up for him, we should be there in-" Before Yuki could finish his sentence, he suddenly was interrupted by a bone-breaking grip over his fragmenting shoulder. Letting out a howl of pain, Yuki attempted to turn around to see who had grabbed him from behind, but was unable to the moment when the armored man from behind chopped his quinque's blade down into his clavicle bone.
"Hello?! Hey, what the fuck is going on?!" Touka demanded through the speaker of the phone, while Sota spun around to watch in horror as the Arata-wearing man pulled his quinque out from his brother's shoulder to repeatedly chop again-and-again into his older brother's body.
"YUKI!" Sota screamed out in anguish, as he watched in abstract horror as his brother's once purple cloak became drench in blood. "B-Bastard…! YOU BASTARD, I'LL KILL YOU! I-" Sota screamed crazily, as he felt anger beginning to awaken him from his frightened state.
However, just as Sota roared angrily as he unraveled his tail-like bikaku kagune from underneath his purple cloak, he was suddenly blindsided by a blunt force that hit him like a train.
Letting out a cry of pain as he felt nearly every bone in his body fracture against the large rebar piece of debris that had fallen from the tower, as he was slammed brutally against its hot-metal surface. As Sota tried pointlessly to use whatever functional muscles and tendons he still had in his body to attempt an escape, the young ghoul was powerless to stop himself from hearing the gurgling cries of his brother dying.
Wanting to see who had attacked him, Sota forced himself to ignore the agonizing pain in his neck as he turned his head toward the direction of where he had been struck. Standing there before him was another bulking man in the same series of Arata armor that was being worn by the man killing his brother. Unlike the other man's armored helmet, the man who had a shield-like quinque pressed against his body wore what looked like an armored face shield that revealed his swept back and gelled hair.
"W-Why...?W-What did… We ever do to you…?" Was all Sota could think to ask, before once again being crushed against the debris by the man's shield. With each time his assailant would pull his quinque back only to crush him again-and-again into a gorey paste alongside the wall, Sota would hear less and less of his dying brother's gurgling.
But even so, Sota was not spared from having to watch the grizzly sight of his brother being chopped repeatedly during the brief moments when he wasn't being slammed into the debris.
Just as he watched the armored man finally bisect his brother from an angled-incision, Sota felt his shattered skulls begin to tear away at his eyes and grey matter, before having to see his brother's kakuhou being torn out of him by the armor man's large hand.
Splattered against a wall like a smashed insect, the life fled from Sota's remains during the same time Yuki's life also came to an end. And with their last moments being filled with nothing both physical agony and emotional trauma, the Bin Brothers were dead.
Having been forced to listen to the haunting cries of her executives being slaughtered in an agonizingly-prolonged style of execution, Touka felt shaken to her core. "Y-You… You monster… I-I knew you were just like my dad… I'll kill you…! I'LL FUCKING KILL Y-"
Before Touka could finish her threatening promise of vengeance through the small speaker of the fallen cell phone, the armored man wielding the cleaver-like quinque ended the call by using his heavy boot to smash the device against the blood-stained pavement below.
"... They said they were the Bin Brothers, right?"
"Mmm-hmm."
"Mmph, I guess that Washuu kid was right; Ken Kaneki must have had connections with Aogiri Tree after all…"
"It's usually the ones you wouldn't expect."
"You could say that again… I've seen the kid a few times before; never took him as someone capable of having a hand in something as catastrophic as this…"
"Mmm-hmm… Shame, he was a smart one. Could have been an asset to us."
"Yeah… Yeah, he could have… Oh well. Let's head back; I'm sure either that sister they yapped about will come here soon to look for her brothers."
With the dry breeze brushing against his pale skin and the sun above cascading beams of warmth that made his black hair feel especially hot, Kaneki found himself fixated on Arima, as he followed the White Reaper from behind.
"So, um… What was that personal thing you mentioned earlier? You sort of, um… Haven't mentioned anything about why we're specifically going to the Main Office still..." Kaneki mentioned nervously, as he placed the palms of his hands together to tap his fingers together repeatedly. "If you're still okay with talking to me about it, of course…!"
Smacking his lips quietly after hearing the qunix speak to him, Arima nodded his head before finally revealing the reason for their journey. "Do you remember this morning, when I talked about my squad arriving there last night? About… About what happened to one of my squad members?" Arima asked with a wincing jolt of sorrow cutting at his chest, as he thought back to that night.
Feeling a sudden wave of guilt washing over his body, Kaneki was beginning to regret having asked the question in the first place. Not wanting to be rude or awkward, Kaneki decided then to speak as respectfully as he could. "… Are we going back for Koori Ui?"
"... Yes, and I'm going to need you to lift up whatever is left of the One Eyed Owl's kakuja. Arata was capable of doing that in the past, so it shouldn't be too much of a challenge for you."
Although he was flattered by how highly Arima thought of how strong he was, Kaneki wasn't so sure if he was quite as strong as Grave Robber was in his prime. The idea of lifting something heavy enough to crush a man to death seemed ludacris to Kaneki, but still, it was the thought that counted. "Er, um…! I, uh… I don't think I'm as strong as Arata was."
*That's an understatement.
"... That's unfortunate." Arima said in a stoic voice; secretly disappointed that he wouldn't be able to see someone dead lifting a nearly twenty-three thousand kilogram kakuja in person again. "Even so, you can help me dismember and pull apart the kakuja piece by piece. Once we're done with that, I can pull whatever's left of Koori out from underneath the One Eyed Owl's husk."
While it was a little disturbing for him to hear Arima talk about Koori's mangled remains so casually, Kaneki was suddenly reminded of who else was with the White Reaper's deceased squad member; more specifically, the one who Arima had mentioned earlier that morning as being the one responsible for Koori's death in the first place.
*I know what you're thinking, and it's a terrible idea.
*Don't tell him about you and Rize.
*Trust me; it's for the best.
Swallowing back what he was about to reluctantly admit, Kaneki let out a quiet sigh before coughing into his hand. "*Ahem*, well... I'll be sure to help you in any way that I'm able to, Arima; that's for sure!" Kaneki said with forced ethuansim, which made Arima let out a throaty chuckle.
"... I'd appreciate that, Kaneki." Arima replied back with a grateful tone, before deciding to switch the subject. "So… Now that I've answered your question, how about you answer some of mine?"
Due to the timing of Arima's inquiry, Kaneki couldn't help but feel a sense of dread wash over his body. Despite the guilt and anxiety eating away at him, the qunix kept his poker face, before nodding as non-suspiciously as possible. "... I think that would be fair, wouldn't it? So, please, ask away!"
"... Can you tell me a bit about your childhood?" Arima asked out of the blue, which caught Kaneki off guard.
Having expected to somehow be questioned about last night's events rather than his childhood, Kaneki was somewhat relieved that Arima wasn't interrogating him. Still, that didn't make the question any easier for Kaneki to answer outright. "Haha, ha, um... That's a rather abstract question, wouldn't you say so…?! Could you, um… Maybe be a bit more specific?"
Nodding his head, Arima agreed to Kaneki's request before clarifying himself. "Okay. Tell me what part of your childhood led to you being the way you are."
*Straight to the point, isn't he?
Arata mused within Kaneki's head. While the qunix himself felt as though the question was less vague than how Arima had previously just worded it, Kaneki figured that he might as well do the thinking himself to garnish an answer for the man.
"Okay, um, well… I was born in Tokyo, but I was never raised here… I never knew my parents or what became of them. To be honest, I don't even know their names or what they looked like… But it wasn't terrible for me; I had my aunt looking out for me." Kaneki replied back with the image of his long haired brunette of an aunt in his head. "... What about you, Arima? How were you raised?"
Having expected for the young curious man behind him to be an engaging conversationalist, Arima already had an answer ready for Kaneki. "I grew up around a lot of family members, and a lot of us went to the same facility to learn specialized education to help us grow as investigators. Admittedly, none of us who went there actually received a formal education, but it was still an interesting place to say the least."
"Oh… That's okay, I didn't get one either." Kaneki admitted aloud with a slightly bashful tone in his voice, which puzzled Arima.
"How? I thought all ghoul biologists needed a formal education." Arima pondered with an arched brow, to which Kaneki chuckled at quietly to himself.
"In most cases, yes, you'd be correct, Arima! To become a ghoul biologist, you need at least a bachelor's degree for entry positions. However, I never even actually went to any sort of educational facility before in my life, but I was an exception… Not for good reasons, mind you…" Kaneki finished quietly, as he felt the same rising sense of guilt from earlier coming back up from the pit of his stomach. "I um… Might have lied just a titsy-little bit on my resume, and on the essay I sent to Dr. Kanou to be accepted as his apprentice in the first place…!"
"... Still, you had to know something before you were accepted. If your essay was impressive enough to win Kanou over, that wouldn't have been enough alone. Eventually, he would have found out if you didn't know anything about ghoul biology." Arima suggested as a matter of fact, rather than leaving it as a question of whether or not Kaneki could have done possibly anything else other than what he had explained.
Feeling as though he had been called out during a police investigation, Kaneki felt himself freeze up for a moment; feeling vulnerable underneath the White Reaper's completely accurate accusation. Although he hadn't planned on lying to Arima, Kaneki's mind came up with an immediate lie and a false backstory to cover himself up, to avoid being seen as a fraud.
Reaching up to hold his chin, Kaneki felt himself beginning to perspire underneath the plain t-shirt that had belonged to Ayato. Swallowing back the lump in his throat, Kaneki forced himself to choke back his lie before continuing to speak. "I… I'm a bit of an autodidact."
"... I don't know what that means." Arima replied back.
"'Autodidact'? It just means that I was self-taught instead of receiving a formal education." Kaneki explained. "My aunt was a traveling woman who was always on business trips. She and I didn't spend a lot of time together, and I wasn't ever allowed outside the hotel rooms she would rent…"
"... But I didn't mind too much; I usually kept myself preoccupied with the textbooks and notes she made me study while she went on business trips." Kaneki said reminsingly, as he thought back to those lonely days within the various rooms he had been trapped in.
"I've studied ghoul biology, agronomy, botany, chemistry, anatomy, electric engineering, thermodynamics, and even dabbled in quantum field theory for fun… But even then, I wasn't the one who wrote the essay that got me into the apprenticeship in the first place; it was my aunt."
From what Kaneki had just said to him, Arima found it more than a bit perplexing that the qunix didn't write the essay himself; even though it sounded as though he could have easily done so to begin with. Still, rather than asking why Kaneki didn't just write the essay himself, the White Reaper instead found himself becoming more and more suspicious of Kaneki's aunt. "... Your aunt; what did your aunt do for work?"
"My aunt?" Kaneki asked with a surprised look on his, as he suddenly felt the urge to lie in regards to covering her identity. However, making sure to hold his chin extra firmly, Kaneki was able to once again suppress the urge to lie in order to answer the question to the best of his knowledge.
"My aunt was always secretive about what she did for work, and about her education. But even so, I knew even back then that she was a genius… I also knew that she was a very cunning woman, and would always give me very reasonable explanations in regards to why I would have to stay in the room and study… I suppose that's where I get my lying tendencies from."
Although Arima was given the answer he had originally asked not too long ago, the White Reaper still couldn't shake off how suspicious Kaneki's aunt had sounded. Having to climb over the wrecked pile of cars that blocked the toll-booth entrance just outside the road that led to the not-so-distant plaza, Arima waited for Kaneki to catch up before continuing to press on about his aunt.
"... You said your aunt went on business trips. What sort of clothes would she wear before leaving, or when she came back? Arima asked, which unintentionally elicited an uneasy laugh from Kaneki.
"You're uh… You're sort of asking a lot of questions about her, aren't you…!?" Kaneki mused nervously, as he felt his heart beginning to race even faster in his chest. Having to practically dig his fingertips into his chin just to get the nervous tick to go away, Kaneki felt himself grinding his molars against one another before finally pushing through his urge to lie once again.
"So, here's the thing: I think my aunt would wait for me to go to sleep before leaving and coming back to the room… Which is odd, now that I think about it, because it seemed that she somehow always knew when I was asleep in bed." Kaneki explained, as he followed Arima closely behind as they ascended up the flight of blood-stained stairs, up toward where the garden area was just outside where the Main Office's lobby entrance used to be.
"But anyways, since you brought it up… When I was younger, probably back when I was around four or five, there were a few times that I did manage to capture glimpses of her leaving the room. I can't say that I remember anything too remarkable, but I do remember seeing her always leaving in a black suit, and with a black suitcase in hand."
Kaneki said quietly, before finally letting go of his sore chin after revealing the truth that felt more like a dirty secret than the miniscule fact that it should have been. "Honestly Arima, I don't see why you're so interested in what she wore... If I didn't know any better, I would have thought that you were trying to sexuali-!?"
Feeling his heart skipping a beat the moment he reached the top of the plaza's large stairway, Kaneki felt his flight of fight senses kick in the moment he was met with two bulking figures who were stationed at the front of the garden ruins. From the looks of it too, Kaneki could tell that Arima wasn't expecting to see the two armored investigators surrounded by mutilated bodies of ghouls either.
From what Kaneki could tell as he stared past the two hulking men who sported the distinctive variants of Aratas that he didn't seem familiar to him, the piled up bodies had large gaping wounds inside various parts of their torsos, and smelt reptungentaly of gasoline and cadaverine.
Behind the men where the dust-covered garden sat above the bed of soil planted inside the stone fountain in front of where the lobby doors used to be, there were three large sleek-metal containers that had specs of dried blood covering their surfaces.
Their versions of Arata were sleeker than the thorny and Hellish-like appearance that Kaneki's implanted kakuhou would produce for him, and had a gentle blue-glow underneath their armored plates, compared to Kaneki's crimson red bio-illuminance lights.
Although he could only see that the men had thin and sleek-back black hair, their sleek armored masks that concealed their identities didn't stop Arima from recognizing them both.
"Shinohara, Iwao…" Arima spoke calmly, as he addressed the two special class investigators who seemed to be focusing on the nervous quinx. "It's good to see you both here, but I have to ask the reason why you two are here. The Main Office is destroyed; this place holds no strategic value."
"Mm-hmm," was all Iwao Kuroiwa had to say in response to Arima's inquiry, as the hulking beast of a man raised his large rectangular quinque that resembled a shield up in preparation for what he had planned for Kaneki. His quinque, called the 'Kuroiwa Special', appeared to have been made of the same armored material as his Arata quinque was, with the exception that its edges appeared to be blades.
Being the more talkative out of the two, even before the riots had did a number on CCG, Yukinori Shinohara raised his large butcher-knife-like quinque out in front of him, 'Demon Yamada 1', before finally speaking to, and only to, the White Reaper himself.
"Arima… I knew you'd be too stubborn to die at the hands of the One Eyed Owl! It's great to see you too, friend; especially during these troubling times… Most troubling, indeed." Shinohara mused aloud with a solem sigh, before hesitantly bringing himself to ask the question that he and his partner had been both wondering to themselves since they arrived.
"... We found what was left of Ui's body during our clean up operation. I'm… I'm sorry for your loss, Arima."
Grimacing at the mention of Koori's body, gruesome and horrific images popped into Arima's head about what could have happened to his underling's remains. "I see… Where did you take Koori's body, and once again, why are you still here?" Arima asked impatiently, as he was in no mood to beat around the bush when it came to the whereabouts of his underling's body.
Smirking in a joyless fashion, Shinohara let out a loud sigh before sarcastically clicking his tongue against his teeth. "Straight to the point, eh? Hmm… I can respect that." The large and armored man commented, before continuing on to give Arima the explanation that he sought for.
"Koori, along with the rest of our fallen brethren, were loaded up in a truck and taken away to an undisclosed location. What CCG is planning to do with said corpses is beyond Iwao and I." Shinohara said with an honest tone in his voice, before needing to take a momentary pause to prepare himself to address the other part of Arima's question that he felt remorseful to answer.
"As for why we're still here? Well… That's classified information, Arima."
Knitting his white eyebrows together, out of all of the possible answers that were flowing through his head, Arima was caught off guard by the lack of one. "Classified? Why are you withholding information from me, especially in regards to CCG? Am I not considered to be an investigator anymore, Shinohara?"
"... Arima, there's nothing more that I would want right now than to consider you my brother in arms. With your strength, our current plan to retake Tokyo from Aogiri Tree should only take less than a week to accomplish." Shirohara mused with a warm tone in his voice that stayed prevalent, even as he finally had no choice but to ask the question that he and his partner had been asking themselves the moment they saw Arima and Kaneki approaching them.
"Arima… Are you aware of who you've been traveling with, and what he's done?" Shirohara asked with an almost sorrowful tone in his voice that had a small glimmer of hope in it; a hope that the answer Shirohara would get would be enough to ease his mind on Arima's loyalty.
Keeping his cold and calculating eyes focused on the two men, Arima felt a sinking feeling of dread coursing through his body, as he was beginning to realize that the men he once considered to be close allies were beginning to turn on him.
"... This is Ken Kaneki, and yes, I'm aware that he's Dr. Kanou's assistant. I'm also aware that he has Grave Robber's kakuhou surgically implanted inside of him... So you can lower your quinques now; he's not going to harm you." Arima said in a protective tone, and soon found himself instinctively stepping slightly ahead of Kaneki to put himself in between the quinx and the two armored investigators.
Tensions were high as Shinohara and Iwao stood before the White Reaper with their quinques still raised up with the intent to use them. After a few minutes of silence, Kaneki was the first to finally speak up.
"... H-How about we use our words to communicate? Look around you, there's been enough death, hasn't there?" Kaneki asked in the best confident voice he could muster, all while pretending that he wasn't worried about being chopped and bashed to death by the investigators. "Can we do that? Can we calm down and just talk, like regular people?"
After having done his best to try and make it seem like what the two men were doing was totally unnecessary in the hopes that it would elicit them to lower their weapons before the situation became escalated, the moment when Shinohara let out a low and throaty laugh was the same exact moment when Kaneki realized that they weren't interested in what he had to say.
"Talk? You want to talk? After everything you've done, do you honestly think that we can all sit down, drink iced coffee, and talk?! Talk, all while we ignore the fact that this is your fault?!" Shinohara asked with an angered and outraged tone, to which Kaneki flinched at.
"Talking isn't going to bring back my wife and kids, you sick son of a bitch…!" Shinohara bellowed out in righteous anger, as he widened his stance before raising his Demon Yamada 1 up above his shoulder to have it ready to split the qunix's skull in half.
"Arima! According to our intel, his ID badge was used to gain access to the Washuu Clan's penthouse! Don't you understand?! He's the one who allowed those two ghouls inside their abode; he's the one responsible for the protests turning into riots!"
Letting out a quiet gasp, Arima's grey and stoic eyes suddenly widened as the shock of the revelation was more than enough to break his poker face. Turning his head over his shoulder to stare back at Kaneki, Arima's intimidating glare was one that demanded answers from the shaken young man.
Wanting nothing more than to give Kaneki the benefit of the doubt, and to stand up immediately for the young man who he had no reason to disbelieve, Arima suddenly remembered what Kaneki had told him.
'...I was an exception… Not for good reasons, mind you…'
'...I wasn't the one who wrote the essay that got me into the apprenticeship in the first place; it was my aunt.'
'I suppose she didn't blatantly teach me to lie, but… It was a shamefully useful skill that I picked from her…'
'My aunt was always secretive about what she did for work, and about her education. But even so, I knew even back then that she was a genius… I also knew that she was a very cunning woman…'
'... I suppose that's where I get my lying tendencies from.'
'I do remember seeing her always leaving in a black suit, and with a black suitcase.'
"Why… Why are you looking at me like that…?" Kaneki asked nervously; with his false confidence broken. All the qunix could do was feel his blood run cold, as he felt himself shrinking underneath the intense and wide-eyed stare he was receiving from the White Reaper. "A-Arima…?"
Although Arima could hear the qunix's voice loud and clear, what Kaneki said might as well have fallen on deaf ears. Staring back at the young man who apparently had been responsible for having a part in Koori's death, Arima was suddenly transported back to the prior night's battle; before Eto had fallen down and crushed his underling. Before that, when a certain ghoul prevented Koori from escaping in the first place.
With murderous intent adding fuel into the burning fire within Arima's heart, the White Reaper himself wasn't sure if it was divine forces or his psychosis getting the best of him, but the more he thought about last night, the less he saw Kaneki's face.
Soon enough, not only was he hearing Rize's voice echoing inside of his head, but there in front of him stood the spitting image of the Binge Eater herself.
'... Isn't it funny how one decisive wave of the hand is all it takes to create so many ripples? It's something that most people tend to ignore during any given moment; which can also be said for actions and their consequences.'
'And even when we realize what we've done, it's too late to undo the ripples. Ripples that bring with consequences inflict wounds to our hearts, and you know what they say about wounds: 'time heals all wounds,' right?'
'Tell me Kishou, because I've been waiting and waiting, and the pain we've given to others and ourselves haven't even begun to scar over yet… So, when will that pain end?'
'All I did was orchestrate the set up of this little shindig that you've come to call a 'city-wide riot'. I didn't force anyone to fight, nor gave them a reason to want to burn your federal establishment to the ground; you and your eugenic-loving group of ghoul-hating nazis already did a fine job with that~!'
'Don't you get it, Kishou?! This is all your kind's fault…'
'All I did here was set the pieces up for this game to begin with… The first of many games to be had has met its decisive outcome, and guess what...!?'
'Check-mate, check-mate!'
'CHECK-FUCKING-MATE!'
'I WON THIS ROUND!'
Thinking to himself what the logical reason was for the White Reaper to be acting the way he suddenly was, it soon dawned on Kaneki that after everything he had said to Arima about him being a liar and why he acted differently than who really was, that the man before him was having second thoughts about being on his side.
"Arima…? You… You don't believe that I would purposefully want all of this to happen, do you?" Kaneki asked with a wide smile that reflected emotions of hurt and fear, as the young man suddenly felt betrayed after putting enough trust in Arima that he went as far as to allow himself to be emotionally vulnerable, all for the sake of being open and honest for the first time in his life. "Arima, please… Say something…"
If looks could kill, Kaneki would have been joining Arata in the afterlife at that very moment when Arima turned around to face quinx in preparation to cast down his judgement upon the young man. "... Did you know that Rize had your ID badge?" Arima asked with a low tone and intimidating tone, before taking a step forward right as Kaneki instinctively took a step back towards the flight of steps.
No longer able to mask his fear with any sort of false demeanor, Kaneki felt himself violently trembling underneath Arima's cold and merciless gaze. Parting his lips that felt drier than they truly were, the qunix used what little voice he had that his overwhelming fear didn't steal from him in order to answer the White Reaper.
Kaneki wanted to give Arima a detailed and transparent explanation. He wanted to tell him about how it wasn't his fault, that he wasn't the one to blame. But the more Kaneki thought about it, the more he realized that he was the one who actually created an environment where Rize was able to slip past security without anyone batting an eye.
He was the one who convinced Dr. Kanou to sway the head of security to not deactivate his ID badge in the first place.
He was the one who told Rize where he left his badge.
He was the one who told her where to use it.
He was the one who influenced security into completely trusting her, all thanks to his connection with Kanou.
Rize didn't force him into doing any of that; Kaneki did it all on his own accord.
Unable to even fall back on lying his way out of facing the consequences of his actions, the words he wanted to say out loud in his own defense eluded him, and all he found himself left with was the bare essential truth of what he did.
Whether or not he wanted the riots to happen or not, or knew that he was being manipulated, Kaneki made Rize's plan possible.
It was then that Arata immediately tried to intervene in what Kaneki was about ready to say; to be his voice of reason.
*Did you already forget what I said earlier?
*If Arima knows that you're the one who let Rize inside, then…
*...
*That doesn't matter to you, does it?
*...
*You're determined to tell the truth not only because you think he deserves it…
*But you're doing it for yourself too.
*...
*You REALLY do have awful timing, don't you, partner?
Arata mused with a dry and sarcastic tone, as he waited for Kaneki to tell the truth.
"... Yes. Yes, I knew she had it. I'm also the reason why security allowed her inside. I did it because I trusted her, not because I wanted any of this to happen." Kaneki finally answered back in a quiet and honest voice, as he clenched his fingers into fists at his sides.
Standing with his back straight and staring at Arima's hateful gaze without a trace of fear or remorse on his face, Kaneki and the White Reaper locked eyes with one another for what seemed like an eternity, as both Shinohara and Iwao merely watched silently in anticipation for what was to come next.
"... I see." Arima said in a low voice, as he acknowledged the two sentences that Kaneki had presented to him. A lot of things were racing through Arima's mind. All of his thoughts were either about Koori standing brave in his final moments, and about of how much he wanted Kaneki to die.
*...
*Close your eyes, and do only as I say.
Arata spoke firmly to Kaneki, who didn't have enough time to even process what the spirit was instructing him to do before feeling himself free falling.
By the time his nervous system had registered that Arima had round-house kicked him off of the first step of the ten-meter long flight of cement stairs, Kaneki had managed to catch a glimpse of Arima glaring back at him as he lowered his foot back down.
With only a third of his kagune available to him after having shed it the night prior, the only thing keeping Kaneki alive and preventing him from having his neck broken was Arata, who was able to rapidly cover the qunix's neck as he tumbled down the cement stairs before landing hard against the pavement below.
Landing hard with a loud 'thawp', Kaneki laid there with his eyes closed while his open wounds around his body bled through whatever hand-me-downs he was wearing. With the raspy and shallow breaths that he was struggling to take as the taste of copper filled his mouth, Kaneki spat out a few broken teeth, and laid there silently; as per Arata's instructions.
Shinohara and Iwao were surprised at how easily Arima was able to defeat the apparently new bane of CCG, but were more relieved to finally judge ARima enough to deem him an ally. "Well… I guess that answers whose side you're on…!" Shinohara chuckled, before turning around to face Arima.
"It would appear so, wouldn't it?" Arima asked with a serious tone in his voice, as he turned his attention away from the still breathing qunix, before looking up at the two investigators before him. "... I'm going to need to be informed about what is going on with CCG."
"Yeah, yeah, of course… Sorry if that was a waste of your time, but I just had to be sure, you know?" Shinohara asked with the hope that the White Reaper himself would understand why he didn't bother telling him their current objective any sooner.
"But, before we talk about that... Our new chairman already gave the Division Commanders intel to share with us in regards to what that kid down there's capable of… Just to make sure that he's really dead, I'm going to cut his head off." Shinohara said with a confident tone, before beginning to tread down the steps leading to Kaneki's injured body.
*... Keep laying there like that.
*You're doing good, partner.
Arata said reassuringly in a rather concentrative tone that made Kaneki feel anxious about what was going to happen next.
Seeing how he himself didn't stand a chance against the bulking man who was approaching him with a cleaver in hand, Kaneki felt his heart beating hastily in his chest that made it almost impossible to stay still and quiet.
When it finally came down for Shinohara to reach the final step, Kaneki felt his body figuratively grow cold as the approaching footsteps of the heavily-armored man came to a halt beside him.
As Shinohara grunted quietly to himself as he raised Demon Yamada 1 above his head, Kaneki slowly and hesitantly opened his right eye to catch a glimpse of a black substance dripping from his eye. What he managed to see just past the liquid void in his eye was Shinohara swinging his blade on his neck.
*Almost.
*Lay there, and relax.
Just as the sharpened edge of Demon Yamada 1 was only but a centimeter away from severing the qunix's head off from his neck, Shinohara let out a surprised grunt as he watched a bright cyan surge of energy erupt from Kaneki's kakuhou.
"Wh-", was all Shinohara was able to utter, before Kaneki's unformed and damaged kagune took form into a black claw-like-appendage dug its nails through his armored wrist that prevented him from landing the killing blow on Kaneki.
*Perfect…
"What…?!" Kaneki whispered quietly in horse voice, as he finally lifted his head up to see what was going on. It was then that Kaneki watched Arata dig his kakuja-formed claw deeper into Shinohara's quinque armor, until the tips of his claws had pierced bone.
*You like learning, don't you?
*How about I teach you something interesting about the Arata Series?
Arata asked in a low and sadistic tone, as though he had been yearning to finally have a reason to allow Kaneki to give him permission to defend the two of them. In reality, Arata was getting sick of Kaneki being pushed around so easily.
*The Arata Series is an auto equipping quinque, which runs on an organic array of electronics and A.I. to activate.
*Which means that the bio-computer installed into the frame can be…
*MANIPULATED.
Arata said in a deep and deprived voice, before suddenly exhibiting to Kaneki what he meant when he said 'manipulated'.
It was then that Shinohara's body tensed up. Unable to move, Shinohara struggled to be capable of even letting out a scream, as his Arata began to dig its small, yet numerous, tendrils into his body for substance. The Grave Robber used his electro kinetic abilities to generate the exact voltage needed to override control of the quinque, and soon the armor surrounding Shinohara's body was beginning to
"Shinohara...!" Iwao screamed out in a gruff voice, as he and Arima watched the investigator below the flight of stairs being eaten alive by the very quinque that had given them the advantage in previous fights. "Son of a bitch…!" The armored man swore underneath his breath, before carefully climbing down the flight of stairs as quickly as he could.
*See that investigator wearing my remains?
*The one who's trying to stop us?
*...
*Observe.
Arata said in a somewhat instrutical tone, while Kaneki stared at what was going on before him with his mouth agape. After being sure that Shinohara had been bled enough to no longer be a threat to him or Kaneki, Arata released his grip from the man's wrist before reaching up with his black claw to pull Demon Yamada 1 from the man's weakened grip; much to Iwao's silent horror.
*I know you can't see it due to that other investigator's armored face shield…
*But see how I'm raising the quinque over his fallen comerade's neck?
*Do you see how quickly his resolve breaks when he knows what's about to happen next?
*Do you see the morale fleeting from him, just from the way he's freezing up?
*...
*You'd be surprised how effectively this works when you're up against multiple opponents.
*...
*ALLOW ME TO SHOW YOU WHAT I MEAN.
After taking a look at the collapsed man underneath him, the same very man who had tried moments ago to decapitate him, Kaneki finally found the courage to speak out against the spirit who had regained control of his kakuhou.
"I… I won't let you kill him!" Kaneki said with a determined yet shaking voice, before reaching up with his cut-up hands to wrestle with the extended appendage that was coming from his upper back.
*What do you think you're doing?
*We still need to focus on the other investigator and Kishou.
*I'm trying to save your life, so release me.
"N-No you're not! You're just trying to kill! You don't care about protecting me!" Kaneki argued in an outraged voice, as he managed to force Arata to drop Demon Yamada 1 down on the pavement below them. "They're just people, Arata! They're scared, and doing what they think is right…! Us killing them isn't going to help our cause in the least!"
*We can discuss philosophical ideology another time, partner.
*Now...
*Let go of MY kagune.
Arata demanded in an emotionless yet stern voice. Having decided he was done being patient with his host, Arata didn't hesitate to redirect the remaining amount of RC-Cell-created electro-discharge back into Kaneki's own body. Despite the ungodly amount of pain he endured, Kaneki refused to stop fighting for the sake of preventing Arata from killing.
Seeing Iwao approaching Kaneki, and realizing that Kaneki would rather die than save himself, Arata realized that his attempt to fight off the investigators was a lost cause.
*...
*Very well.
With those two words being spoken by the defeated ghost, the clawed-appenged that Kaneki had been wrestling with finally disappeared into a black mist of RC-cells. Blinded by the cloud left behind by Arata's kagune, Kaneki was unable to react in time when he finally saw how close Iwao was to him. However, due to the heavily injured state he was in, it wasn't like the quinx could have moved from the spot even if he did somehow manage to see Iwao coming.
Unable to defend himself, Kaneki felt his right shoulder and the right side of his chest fracture, as a well-placed shield-bash sent him airborne. Due to the concentrated power of having an Arata quinque to enhance his physical abilities, Iwao's critical blow was enough to send Kaneki flying at a remarkable velocity.
With his body skipping across the paved commencement floor of the plaza tiles, it wasn't long until Kaneki's body came to a skidding halt against the black asphalt. Laid down against the middle of the road, Kaneki could only gaze up into the clear skies above, as he felt his body beginning to succumb to the numerous amounts of injuries he had sustained.
From up on the staircase, Arima watched silently with mixed emotions stirring up inside of him from having seen the bizarre string of events take place at the plaza beneath him. Staring down at Kaneki's beaten, bloodied, and burning body that was emitting faint traces of black smoke from his open mouth and nostrils, Arima turned his attention over to Iwao, who was knelt down beside Shinohara.
"Oi… Are you alive?" Iwao asked in a gruff and to-the-point voice, which was answered with a low groan from the investigator laying on the floor underneath him.
"Yeah… Yeah, at least I think I am, that is." Shinohara replied back with a weak smirk on his face, as he picked himself up from the ground to sit himself down beside his fellow investigator. "Damn, that hurt a lot… I could use an ice cold beer right about now."
"If you can complain, you're fine." Iwao replied back humorously. "For a moment, I thought the kid was going to give you a taste of your own medicine."
"Yeah, no kidding… I don't think I've ever seen a kagune move that fast before in my life. That kid really does have Grave Robber's kakuhou, doesn't he?" Shinohara asked with a somewhat fascinated tone in his warm voice, before reaching down with his hand on his knee to push himself back to his feet. "Well, I don't think I'll be making the same mistake twice. 'Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me'…"
"Mm-hmm." Iwao grunted in agreement, before reaching down to pick up Demon Yamada 1 to hand it back to Shinohara. "It's best to just let nature take its course. The boy looks like he's about ready to die anyways." The hulking man mused, as he gestured with his covered head over toward the poor state that Kaneki was in.
Although the idea was tempting, thinking about the scenario of leaving the quinx behind only to later see him down the road made Shinohara worried of having to face the Grave Robber's power once again. "Well hold on now, I think I have an idea…" The shaved-head man said aloud, as he exchanged unseen glances with this fellow partner.
"Mm-hmm? Are you going to try something foolish, Yukinori?" Iwao asked with a cautious tone of voice, which made the other man chuckle heartily at.
"Foolish? Perhaps… No, what I'm suggesting is that we ask the White Reaper himself to finish the boy off once and for all; that way we kill two birds with one stone…" Shinohara suggested, as he hinted at the fact that he still had lingering doubts on whether or not Arima could be trusted.
Knowing that the White Reaper was now standing behind both of them and had heard everything they said, Shinohara turned his head over his armored shoulder to address Arima.
"You wouldn't mind doing that, right? You would be fulfilling your duty as an investigator to protect and serve Tokyo's people, and you'd be showing us that you're really serious about you still being loyal to CCG…" Shinohara said in an inquisitive tone, before extending his arm out to present Demon Yamada 1 for Arima to take from his hand.
"Go ahead… You killed him once, didn't you? This time should be a piece of cake!" Shinohara said jokingly, in another attempt to lighten the mood; an commendable effort that was lost on the White Reaper.
"... We shall see," was all Arima spoke under his breath, as he wrapped his fingers around the long and robust pole-like handle of the quinque, before taking it from Shinohara's armored hand.
Taking a few practice swings, Arima felt anxiety beginning to rise from within the deep recesses of his mind. Even if Arata was only able to live through Kaneki, Arima still couldn't help but feel afraid of what the Grave Robber might still be capable of; especially after seeing how fast the Grave Robber was able to out maneuver the last investigator who tried to attack his host.
Letting out a quiet breath of air, Arima broke apart from the other two investigators to march over toward the qunix in the middle of the road, who looked vulnerable and weak.
Despite how close to death Kaneki already was, Arima felt small in size compared to the thought of who was residing inside the young man. With each step the White Reaper took, the more he found himself reminiscing about the last time he and Arata clashed with one another. Even the smell of burnt flesh entering the man's nostrils was a grime reminder of the past.
Soon enough, the dreaded memories of that battle soon evolved into an entity in and of itself. With the overwhelming memories of his recent past shaping the world around him, soon Arima found himself no longer walking towards Kaneki, but towards Arata himself.
Deep within the confines of the 11th Ward's newest underground headquarters for Aogiri Tree, Arima traversed through the inner workings of the makeshift scrap roads. With the air heavy and wet, Arima continued to cut paths through Tokyo's flood system, until he climbed up the set of makeshift stairs that led to the chamber of where King Yoshimura recently ruled.
It was also then that he spotted the mangled silhouette of his close friend, lumped down with her back pressed against a cement wall, as smoke emanated from her charred flesh.
Rushing over to kneel down beside Eto's electrocuted body, Arima opened his mouth to speak, but instead found himself closely listening to what the half-ghoul had to say to him, due to her vocal cords being fried to a crisp.
"Why… Why are you here, Kishou...? Arata… Arata has things already… Under control…" Eto spoke weakly through her harsh fits wheezing, while she rested against the cool-cement wall behind her.
Her entire body was covered in blackened flesh, and only a few strands of her once green flowing hair remained in charcoaled crisps on top of what was left of her scalp. Most of her more prominent bones, like her shins, knees, and even parts of her fingers were exposed, and appeared to have been fractured from the punishment Eto had endured.
The sickly smell of burnt flesh was a clear indication that whatever was done to her was done repeatedly enough, to where not even her healing factor was able to keep up with the bodily damage she had suffered.
"Eto… What happened to you? Did… Did Arata do this to you?" Arima asked with a concern look in his steel eyes, which elicited a silent pause from the half-ghoul. Opening her charred lips to speak, there was nothing but a dry and low sounding croak that escaped from her destroyed throat.
Unable to give the answer that the investigator had suspected already, Eto lowered her face to look down what remained of her lap before speaking solemnly.
"I… I deserved it…" Eto whispered in a sadden and exhausted tone, as she closed her eyelids to avoid having to risk catching a glimpse at the look on Arima's face. "I… I should have… I should have just gone home… I… I shouldn't have tried… To stop him…"
Feeling nothing but sympathy and heartache for his beloved friend, Arima raised his hand up to place it on top of her burnt shoulder, but decided against it. After all, he didn't want to cause her more pain than what she already was experiencing.
"I'm… I'm sorry this happened to you… I'll make sure to get you out of here once…" Arima said reassuringly, before finding himself trailing off as he approached the subject at hand that neither him or the One Eyed Owl wanted to discuss.
"Kishou… I… I know why you're here…" Eto said in a quiet voice, before daring to look up into the anxious eyes of the investigator hovering above her. "Please… Please promise me… Promise me that whatever… W-Whatever happens in there… That you and Arata… You'll both come out of that room alive…"
"Please… Promise me that much…" Eto begged fearfully, as she fought through the pain of her third-degree burns to reach out her trembling hand for Arima to take hold of.
Without any hesitation this time, the blue-haired man reached out to gently take hold of the half-ghoul's hand. Looking into the sorrow that was extraordinarily transparent in her red and green eyes, Arima dared not break eye contact with her.
Swallowing back the pain he felt inside of his heart, Arima pursed his lips together before slowly nodding. "... I promise," was all Arima was able to say to Eto, before watching as her head suddenly dropped down the moment she closed her eyes.
Grimacing, Arima felt his heart sinking deeper into his chest, as he hesitantly reached up to place his fingers above her carotid artery. Holding his breath and doing his best to ignore the tears that were welling up in his eyes, Arima waited as he felt the life slowly fading away from Eto.
After hearing her fading pulse finally reach its end, the blue-haired investigator let out a quiet choking breath, before forcing himself to stand up.
Staring down at her mangled body, Arima felt another twinge of pain enter his heart as he realized that she stopped breathing as well. With his hands balled into fists, Arima let out another shallow and shaking breath before speaking to his dear friend one last time.
"I promise… I promise that we'll come out of that room together… Goodnight, Eto." Arima uttered in a horse whisper, before reaching up to wipe away the tears from his eyes.
With nothing but the weak fluorescent lamps from the flood system to illuminate the concrete under his armored boots, Arima stared reluctantly at the golden door in the near distance that separated him from the 'Fallen Child of Man' himself.
Despite the friendship and kinship he and the Grave Robber shared with one another, Arima knew that their battle was unavoidable, and that not even the 'Undefeated Dove' himself could fight destiny.
As he stood before the golden door that led into the large underground warehouse that served as the makeshift castle that Tarata had stolen from Kuzen Yoshimura, Arima took a moment to mentally prepare himself as well as he could, before reaching down into his own armor to retrieve his two Yukimura ⅓ blades.
The armor he wore had cost the Washuu Clan a fortune in resources and labor to craft, but it was built specifically to fit Arima, for the sole purpose of giving the investigator a fighting chance against the Grave Robber himself.
Not one to keep destiny waiting, Arima let out one last quiet sigh as he reached up to turn the handle of the King's door, before opening it to let himself into a large chamber that housed the large throne against the wall parallel from where he stood.
As Arima had expected, Tatara's kakuja was left as nothing but a burning husk, and had been thrown against the side of the room where his headless body laid in a blackened and charred mess. That same smell of burning flesh that emanated from Eto filled the room; its repugnant aroma was a mockery to the sweet-smelling and delicate white roses in the throne room that now laid trampled on the ground.
There, standing before the throne itself was none other than the enigma that traversed into the 24th Ward as a frightened child; a child that grew to crave power after losing his childhood for a second time.
'Fallen Child of Man', 'Grave Robber', 'Psychopath', 'Monster', 'Evil'; all of those names were what the Artificial One-Eyed ghoul had been given in light of his actions against mankind and ghoulkind alike.
There he stood, in his protruding kakuja that had been the sight of many before their gruesome deaths at the clawed hands, was Arata Kirishima.
Yet, despite standing underneath the fluorescent lights above the royal chamber that illuminate his kakuja's Hellish features, such as its burning-red light that gleamed menacingly underneath its black armored plating, Arima found himself admiring the stark of beauty that Grave Robber exemplified.
He and him were both the personifications of death itself, and struck fear into the hearts of those who dared cross their paths. Yet there the two of them stood, completely trusting one another enough to allow the other to be given the respect they rightfully earned.
"... So, it's finally come down to this, hasn't it?" Arata asked knowingly, as he kept his focus locked onto the throne that sat before him; the one that had been defiled by the ghouls who laid lifeless along the path he carved.
"You, the wayward saviour and praised hero, whose traveled down the rabbit hole of the 11th Ward. The hero who will have songs sung in his appraisal for his achievement of killing Grave Robber himself…"
"... Or that's what they're thinking at least, isn't it? Those cowards who sent you in place of themselves, right?" Arata asked with a slightly amused tone in his voice, as he chuckled to himself at the thought of CCG sending investigators in an attempt to end his life. "Mmm-hmm, mm-mhm… I don't blame them..."
"After all, depending on how this battle ends, I'll be heading to the surface to kill everyone in CCG the same way I single-handedly wiped Aogiri Tree's slate clean…"
"They won't be able to stop me…" Arata said as a matter of fact, which made Arima question whether or not he could either.
"And what of me? Do I have a chance of defeating you?" Arima asked genuinely, due wanting to hear what Arata had to say about his chances of achieving victory.
After taking a moment to think, Arata finally broke his trace-like fixation on the throne to turn around, so that he was facing his fully-armed opponent. "... You might. As you probably were able to tell from how I left Eto outside, she and I… Had quite the sibling-quarrel before you came here… She put up a far more tremendous fight than Tatara did; that's for sure."
"... I saw what you did to Eto… I got to hold her hand before she passed on." Arima announced in a solemn tone, which did little to phase the ghoul standing before him. "She made me promise her that… That no matter what happens between you and I, that we'll both come out alive after this."
"I see… And you said yes to her request, I'm assuming?" Arata asked more so as a statement, rather than a genuine inquiry. He knew the answer already, just from knowing the kind of person who Arima was.
"Yeah… I did." Arima replied back in a saddened voice, as he felt his fingers around the grips of his quinques' handles tighten. "... There's no changing your mind, is there? You won't stop, will you?"
"... No. No, Kishou, I can't stop now… That opportunity was wasted long ago… If I stopped now, I'd have nowhere to hide." Arata replied back in a somewhat solemn tone of his own, but not without letting out a quiet and amused chuckle once more. "You can't fight fate, Kishou; you know that as well as I do."
"I… I wish that weren't the case, Arata; I really wish… I wish things were different. I wish you and I were fighting side-by-side… You and I could change this world for the better."
"... I know," was all Arata had to say about Arima's dream, before taking in a long deep breath to mentally prepare himself for the fight that would decide the fate of Tokyo's future. "... Are you ready, Kishou? Because… I'm not."
"That's okay... Neither am I." Arima said quietly with a sadden smile on his face, as he activated Arata Joker's enhanced protocol: 'Destroy Mode', a feature that all quinques from the Arata Series had. The enhanced protocol that would give him the speed and strength to keep up with even the strongest ghouls.
As Arima felt thousands of tendrils burrowing themselves into his skin to begin absorbing whatever RC-cells he had to offer to them, the blue-haired investigator kept a straight and stoic expression on his face, as he stared intently into the burning red kakugan that gleamed underneath the armored plating around Arata's helmet.
Had it not been for the exact moment when Arima activated his quinque's enhanced feature, he wouldn't have had the reflexes to react to the sudden burst of lightning that suddenly came to life where Arata had once been standing.
Immediately side stepping to narrowly avoid being caught in the concentrated blast of energy, Arima was once again forced to leap into the air for safety, as another high voltage blast tore its way from a completely different direction.
Immediately hearing the low hum of RC-Cell energy condensing underneath his airborne body, Arima was forced to use the ceiling of the throne room to propel himself into the center of the room to avoid another blast of lightning.
Eyes and ears open in a heightened sense of alertness, Arima felt his blood freeze over as he darted his grey eyes around the ceiling corners of the chamber to realize that Arata had been fast enough to prepare four simultaneous blasts of energy.
Seeing the concentrated orbs of RC-cells intensifying by the passing millisecond, Arima was practically forced to hug the wall adjacent to the throne, as all four beams of high voltage energy illuminated the room in a blinding light.
When the light of the RC-cells finally died out, and there were only the lights from above to illuminate the room, Arima turned around so that he was facing the center of the room.
Standing in the dead center of where his four plasmic beams had crossed paths, Arata stood over the scorched ground, and faced himself toward where Arima stood.
"... I always wondered why people never used their strongest attacks first." Arata mused with a somewhat sarcastic tone in his voice, while Arima simply stood with his legs spread apart and his swords raised in position; as he stood at the ready for whatever the unpredictable ghoul hand in store for him next.
"... I'm going to come at you with two blades, Kishou. I want you to be ready." Arata warned as a precursor for his next attack, as two long blackened blades protruded themselves from the top of his kakuja's forearms.
There Arata stood, his kakuja producing tesla-like arcs of heavily concentrated RC-cells that left scorch marks in their wake through the chamber's walls they burned away at, as he kept Arima waiting for his next move.
Smirking behind the kakuja helmet that covered his helmet, Arata let out a throaty chuckle at how tense the investigator before him was. "If it makes you feel better, Kishou… I REALLY don't want to do this. I mean… You're like a brother to me…"
"In case you can't tell… I'm trying to prolong what has to be done."
Although he was more stressed than he ever had been before in his life, Arima was able to lick his dried lips enough to allow himself to smile uneasily, as he nodded his head in agreement. "Yeah… Yeah, I… I'm not looking forward to this either."
"..."
"..."
"... Let's just get to the point then, shall we?"
Kaneki's confident and self-rightous self is going to have a reality check in the next chapter, and we'll see Arima vs Iwao and Arata vs Shinohara in the 2nd part, along with Yumitsu, Touka, and maybe even more of Rize.
In this fic, Arima's white hair and rapid aging was a result of his fight with Arata, not because of his genes.
Arata, Arima, and Eto were extremely close friends, and Rize was once on good terms with them.
Tartara is dead, but will have someone much like him taking his place later.
Rize might come back, just because that one guy spoiled it in the reviews.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!