The blinking dot is his new obsession.
Nishiki and Ikuma had taken Hide home safely, but they refused to leave his side until they were sure he was stable and convinced him not to do anything else without them.
His friends would have stayed, if not for other obligations.
All that Hide has now is the comfort of knowing he has the bastard ghoul under his watch. It takes everything inside of him not to disobey his friends and venture to where Yamori is. Where Kaneki is.
He lies sideways on his mattress, unable to sleep because he's afraid the blinking dot will disappear. He doesn't know what else to do if this fails.
If I could get a few hours of sleep, I should have enough energy to get to him…
After battling with his spiraling thoughts, soon enough, his eyelids grow heavy and the GPS by his side blurs in his view.
When his eyes are closed, he doesn't see blank darkness like he hoped. Yamori's crazed grin worms its way in his head.
His wounds ache again.
This is nothing. This is nothing compared to what you've been through…
It's getting harder to keep Kaneki's face in his mind these days because the nightmares overpower everything else.
He prays to any higher being out there that he's still alive.
He thinks his lover will no longer be the same. Will Kaneki return to him? Can they still be together like the way they used to? Can he still love him?
He can't sleep.
The night shrouds the neighborhood in black and Hide suffers continuous spells of dozing in and out of consciousness. The blinking dot is the only piece of salvation he has.
Until, he suddenly hears a sharp knocking at his door, along with a few rings of the doorbell. Hide's heart speeds up in an instant and his eyes snap wide open.
Whoever is at the door seems aggressive as there is hardly a pause before the person is knocking once more.
On instinct, Hide thinks it is Yamori at the door and he stops in his tracks once he gets to his feet. He reminds his boggled mind that it is not him as his GPS proves otherwise. Hide keeps his device close as he makes his way towards the front door. Peering through the peep hole first, he notices it's a tall man in a professional suit.
With a puzzled look, Hide slowly turns the door knob and opens the door without undoing the chain lock at the top.
"Who are you?" Hide asks without greeting the man.
The man gives a polite smile and pulls out something from his pocket. Hide's suspicions are proven correct when the man holds up his identification card in his wallet.
He's one of the doves…
"My name is Koutarou Amon. My sincerest apologies for disturbing you at this late hour. But I was ordered to come here because of an emergency," the man explains.
Hide's brows knot in confusion. He can hardly think straight anymore.
"Who sent you here?" Hide asks directly once again. He realizes he could be friendlier, but he also finds he no longer has the patience.
"A ghoul named Yoshimura. According to him, you are Hideyoshi Nagachika," Amon continues. He stows away his wallet.
"Yoshimura? He's back?" Hide blurts out in shock.
The man nods and with that confirmation, Hide unlocks the chain and opens the door, letting the stranger into his abode.
"Please, make yourself comfortable. Sorry for the mess…" Hide says. He watches the investigator remove his shoes and neatly place them at the doorstep before stepping further into the apartment.
Amon looks around and notices the apartment is far from a mess. In fact, it's quite empty and he can tell right away that Yoshimura is correct.
"So, Amon, is it?" Hide asks as he rubs his eye.
"Yes, that's right."
"You can sit on that couch over there. Did you want something to drink? All I have is water or coffee," Hide offers. He turns to head towards the kitchen.
"No, thank you. I'd actually just like to speak with you, if I may," Amon states. He follows Hide's direction and finds a spot on the couch.
Hide turns back around and, with slight apprehension, he settles down next to the investigator.
"So, Yoshimura sent you here? Where is he? Is he safe? I haven't heard from him in over a month!" Hide's onslaught of questions spill from his mouth.
"We just released Yoshimura back to Anteiku a few hours ago. We had kept him under close investigation for a while due to the alarming rash of ghoul attacks since the beginning of this year. It was a precaution, as we know his staff is mostly composed of ghouls and we needed to make sure everyone at Anteiku is innocent."
Amon is calm with his explanation and he meets Hide's worried eyes.
"Despite him being under our custody, he was still able to keep in contact with the staff and he had just learned today that one of them had been taken recently."
Hide's eyes widen, and Amon takes notice of this change. "Ken Kaneki is his name, am I correct?"
"Yeah, he lives with me. Or did…before he was captured." Hide lowers his head, sighing heavily.
"Yoshimura wanted me to send you his deepest apologies for the delay. He didn't want to waste any more time and therefore, he sent me to help you find him on short notice," Amon tells him.
Hide forces a smile and Amon pulls out a notepad. "Have you got any leads or details on who the kidnapper may be?"
Hide uncovers his GPS at his side and shows it to the investigator without pause. Amon stares at the device and his eyes widen in surprise.
Hide gives a guilty smile. "Sorry. I thought Yoshimura wouldn't be back for a while, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. I know where the kidnapper is."
Amon holds his hand out. "May I?"
Hide passes the device over and Amon studies the map on the GPS. "What did you do exactly, Nagachika?"
"I have some friends who helped me. And I did some investigating on my own. From what I gather, the kidnapper is a dangerous ghoul named Yamori or Jason. With the help of my friends, I was able to find the ghoul today and placed a tracker on him, so I could monitor his movements. I am hoping he can lead me to where Kaneki is," Hide says.
There is no point in hiding anything now.
Amon turns his attention to the boy, his face showing complete disbelief. "You actually confronted the ghoul on your own?"
Hide nods and Amon shakes his head. "How did you do that without getting yourself killed? You shouldn't ever face a dangerous ghoul by yourself. You are human, right?"
"Yeah, I know…"
Amon focuses on the GPS again. "Unbelievable. I don't know whether I should be impressed or reprimand you. You must have ghoul friends that helped you."
"Yeah, and they saved my butt too. Many times," Hide says. His right hand unconsciously touches his left shoulder near the cut inflicted by Yamori.
There is a short moment of silence before Amon speaks up.
"This is the ghoul, the one you placed the tracker on?" Amon asks to clarify. He points to the blinking dot shifting slightly on the screen.
"That's him. He hasn't moved too far from where I met him. He's located in the ward that's full of ghouls," Hide informs him.
"You sure this is him? This isn't some technical mistake?" Amon questions further.
"No, I swear this is real. Listen, I spent the last seven days looking for him. I need to find Ken. He…"
Amon watches as Hide breaks eye contact when he stops.
"He means everything to me. I can't…lose him."
Amon doesn't see Hide's face, but his voice is weaker compared to before. One could easily miss the way his shoulders shake. The investigator studies Hide's form and notices the stained bandages over the left side of his neck.
Amon lets out a sigh. "This ghoul named Yamori. He's one of the most wanted ghouls on our list right now. Finding him is one of our top priorities as well. I think…I can believe you."
When Hide looks up again, Amon can see his brown eyes are bloodshot and underlined with dark shadows. Amon tries to keep his stoic expression when he sees the emotionally drained state the boy is in. The pain in those dark eyes is too much.
Amon stands to his feet and Hide doesn't keep his gaze off him.
"All right, I'll go ahead and make some calls. Thanks to your work, we may be able to get your friend back in the next few hours."
Hide gets off the couch as well, nearly falling to his knees as he does. "Really? Let me go with you!"
Amon turns to him. "I'm not the one who will go after him. I'm here to help and protect you on Yoshimura's request. With the information I have now with this device, I'll be able to get in contact with a small, but capable group of investigators to chase Yamori and save Ken Kaneki."
Amon takes in Hide's physical state again and sympathy crosses his face. "Besides, you've done enough. There's no need to risk your life again."
Hide's mouth hangs open as if he wants to say something else, but he decides against it. As Amon steps away from him to use his phone, Hide glances at the digital clock in the kitchen.
12:40 AM. Day eight.
The centipede has now lost its life for good. Not only does the pest no longer move, but whenever Kaneki tilts his head, more of its withered legs fall out of his ear.
Empty.
Alone.
Silence.
Usually, the quiet would comfort him, because it meant he had time away from Yamori's games.
But now, it's another form of torture. It tells him he has nothing. No one.
He's truly lost.
His mother doesn't return.
The night is colder than it had been the past days he's been here. His toes and fingers sting from the frosty air and his breath comes out cloudy in the frigid chamber. His breathing is ragged when combined with his shivering.
He just has to hold on for a few more hours. Just a little more.
Then he can perish like the centipede. His limbs could fall away. His heart could shrivel up.
He could see him again.
By the time the monster returns to torment him, he is completely numb.
"I think it's prime time now. You're all ready for me."
The deep, booming voice is still dull to his ears, not that it matters.
"I've waited long enough. I've held back my urges, and now, it's time! Let me kill you! Let me devour you! Kaneki!"
Once Yamori's foot comes into his view, he lifts his head, his kakugan activated in a second. Before the beast can even touch him again, Kaneki feels every nerve in his body awaken and he grits his teeth. In the next second, his kagune bursts forth, viciously tearing through his skin. The scaly tentacles break the chair he's bound to and the chains that restrict his wrists and feet. Due to the force of his kagune, his hands are ripped off from their tied form.
Rivers of blood flow from the stubs of his arms until his body regenerates his hands, the red fibers quickly forming his palms and fingers. Puddles of his blood reside on either side of him and although he is numb to everything else, the one emotion driving him forward is alive and burning. Like once before, his entire body feels on fire, the cold does not affect him in his current state.
The ghoul's roars are muted, but he can tell Yamori is already in a rage, his voice shaking the cracked ground below his bare feet.
"You're mine! You're mine! You're mine!"
From there, Kaneki lets the only goal sustaining him take charge.
Yamori loses it, his rinkaku exploding from his body and taking over him. It is different from what Kaneki has seen before. His kagune envelops parts of his body like armor and then it clicks in his mind. Yamori is unleashing his kakuja but it would seem he has poor control.
Yamori's kagune covers his eyes and his right arm, truly making him inhuman. A blind beast as his teeth are bared and saliva drips from his mouth like he's infected with rabies.
Detached and mindless, Kaneki's kagune control his actions like the limbs have their own brains that function for him. Yamori charges at him and Kaneki finds himself sky high in the air once his rinkaku launches his frail body above the monstrous ghoul. From there, it is all a crimson blur.
Blood splashes onto his face and body with his first blow, but it's cold instead of warm. His body is impaled a few times by the other's massive kagune, but it doesn't hurt anymore. The pain doesn't come to him.
His head spins with the multiple times he dodges the brute attacks. Once he finally manages to pin his adversary and run his scaly tentacles through him, his kakugan grows wider and the veins stretch further down his face. A grin cracks his impassive expression.
Yamori chokes from the stab but then laughs abruptly, his body rumbling with his boisterous cackling.
"You look just like me, Kaneki! I have created another me in you! That's right! Embrace it! Once I devour you, I will conquer all!"
Those words ignite the boiling anger incinerating his body and Kaneki can't stand it.
"I'm not like you!"
Kaneki can hardly recognize his own voice. But it doesn't matter. Once more, his kagune moves for him and his mind can't keep up with the frenzy that ensues.
All the rage that accumulated over his days trapped in this chamber. All the sadness and pain from the day he was brought into this wretched world. The unworthiness his mother made him feel with each breath he took. How much hatred he kept building towards himself.
The intense and gaping hole he now has where his heart should be.
It is all a lingering poison that he now injects into his enemy. With each haggard move of his kagune, he rips away at flesh and bone, but really, he is shredding through the venom that continues to eat him alive.
He thinks he is screaming but he can't differentiate sounds anymore. Yamori's large teeth are the only thing he can see through the blur of fresh blood and flying limbs.
Is he losing? Is he winning?
No.
Is he dying?
Somehow, he manages to hear Yamori counting backwards from 1000 and the beast's movements lag. Kaneki's bare feet are wet with blood and his kagune replace his legs on the slippery, crimson floor.
Through his hazy vision, he notices that Yamori no longer has limbs. His legs and arms are scattered in distant parts of the chamber and now he is left like a maggot in front of him.
Yamori's unhinged shouting no longer makes any sense. He is unrecognizable now that he's a lump of chopped flesh squirming on the ground. Kaneki can see his regeneration abilities at work, but it is much slower than his own.
Now Kaneki hears Yamori's shrill screaming. It's deafening. It's worse than a pig getting slaughtered. It causes millions of ripples in the pools of blood surrounding them.
It stops when one of Kaneki's tentacles swoops down from high above and breaks through his cervical vertebrae. All that remains are echoes that resonate throughout the chamber and without pause, another of Kaneki's tentacles joins in and coils around what's left of Yamori's head.
He imagines the way Yamori had ripped his fingers and toes off so easily as he decapitates Yamori, his head sailing in the air before landing on the checkered ground, spilling more red fluid akin to a cracked egg.
Like a light switch, the blaring screams that often plagued this chamber are now silenced.
The body in the center no longer fidgets or twitches. Kaneki's feet touches the blood-soaked floor and his kakugan does not disappear. His sole grey eye is blank and as dark as the black squares he can hardly see underneath the red pools.
He stands in the middle of the aftermath. Blood is everywhere, on his face, on his skin, staining his white hair.
All this time, he had been a pawn on the chessboard that the king enjoyed tormenting again and again.
One could say the king of the chessboard has lost.
Another could say he is the new king.
But he is no king. He never will be. That is not his true desire.
When his legs give out and his knees collide against the ground, a splash emits from the bloody puddles. The cuffs from the chains are still around his ankles, piercing into his skin with every movement.
His mismatched eyes stare down at his pathetic hands. He then reaches up, slapping the right side of his head and with his other hand, he pulls out the dead centipede, fully intact aside from missing legs. The worm lies in front of him, floating in red.
His ears ring loudly, and he lifts his head, gazing up at the white light of the chamber that seems dim in his view.
His kagune surrounds him, slowly seeping back into his body and only then does he realize the pain he feels in his chest. Not only from the stabbing wounds Yamori caused, but the nagging hole of his heart reminds him of the truth.
It doesn't matter what he does. He killed him. But it doesn't make him feel anything more.
As the white light blinds him, he begins to see glimpses of the one he so wishes he could see.
"Ken…"
Hide's voice. He can hear him.
"Hide!"
Kaneki's voice shatters the tormenting silence. He struggles back to his feet, finding his legs are quickly losing all its energy. No longer does his body or powers want to cooperate with him.
"Where are you?" he shouts.
No response.
His kakugan disappears and his grey eyes remain black. He looks all around him, reaching out towards nothing.
"Please don't leave me! Where are you!"
He stumbles and trips over one of Yamori's body parts on the ground. Kaneki falls face-first into the bloody ground and his head throbs erratically. His arms shake when he pull himself off the floor, his face streaked with red. When he slowly turns to see what he walked into, it turns out to be Yamori's decapitated head. But instead of Yamori, Kaneki sees Hide's head rolling next to him.
Right away, Kaneki's eyes flood with tears and his face burns. He grips his head and screams.
At that moment, the door to the chamber is knocked down and out of nowhere, a group of armor-clad investigators come swarming. In the middle of the small group, a tall man dressed in a long, white coat calmly enters the scene. His expression doesn't change, unlike the other men who gawk at the carnage left behind by the sobbing half-ghoul.
The men mutter amongst themselves, but they don't make any other moves until their leader says so. The leader's glasses gleam with the bright, flickering light above and he makes his way through the blood bath and towards the half-ghoul, who is on his knees. Kaneki's fingers scrape at his face, leaving gashes as he continues.
The leader stops, blood already staining his coat as he towers above the boy.
"Hide…Hide…! Where are you…where…"
He listens to the distressed muttering of the boy. Kaneki flinches once he finally senses the man's presence.
Looking up, he makes eye contact with the tall man, whose grey eyes framed behind glasses stare coldly down at him.
The man takes notice of the self-inflicted gashes on the boy's face and the pinpoint pupils that pierce through him. In the next moment, the half-ghoul throws his arms onto the leader's legs, his bloody hands clawing at the man's coat.
"Have you seen him? Do you know where he is?" Kaneki asks. He is no longer looking at the man, his terrorized gaze focused on something behind him.
The leader senses some of the men coming closer but he holds his hand up, signaling them not to move.
The man feels the boy's arms begin to loosen on his legs and when he steps back, Kaneki collapses to the floor once more. This time, he doesn't wake up.
The leader blinks once and then he looks up to see that their main target has already been eliminated. His comrades explore the area, poking at the strewn body parts and studying the massive kagune left behind.
"Collect the body. We are leaving this place at once," the leader speaks up.
The men follow his command immediately and gather Yamori's remains.
He gazes down at the half-ghoul lying unconscious at his feet. He kneels and picks up Kaneki's body, hauling him over his shoulder. As swiftly as they had arrived, the investigators leave. Outside the chamber, the leader and his comrades walk through a hallway filled with many of Yamori's executed underlings.
4:16 AM. December 20th.
Kaneki's torture under the hands of Yamori ends after eight days.
Kaneki feels fingers caressing his cheek and he whimpers before his eyes slowly open.
"Come on, sleepy head. The sun rose without you!"
When he sees those eyes, he can hardly breathe.
"Hide!"
He throws his body into the other's arms immediately. He should feel happy. He expects to feel warm, like he always does with him.
But he feels neither. He is colder than death.
"Hide?"
When he looks up, there is no one.
…
His eyes sting like he's been injected by a needle over ten times. His entire body is stiff.
The first sight that greets him are plain, grey walls. He's lying on a mattress that has old stains and across the room is a door with a horizontal rectangular box serving as the only window.
All his wounds have healed but his body still aches terribly. The blood on his skin is now crusty and his ankles no longer have the cuffs. The clothes Yamori gave him days ago are ragged.
Once he's finished examining his minimal surroundings, panic engulfs him.
What happened? Where am I? Where's Hide!
He hears footsteps approaching and through the small window at the door, a pair of eyes stare at him like he is a caged animal.
It's the man from before. The one with the cold eyes.
Kaneki tries to stand but every part of him is sapped of energy. He feels exactly the way he did when Yamori injected him with his large needles.
He resorts to crawling towards the door like when his legs were broken.
"Please…please can you help me? Please help me!" Kaneki shouts. He claws on the door, his large eyes revealing no ounce of sanity.
The man continues watching this pitiful display. He slides open the vision panel to better listen.
This boy is far gone. No human would want him back.
"Where am I? Do you know where Hide is? Please help me! Help me find him!" Kaneki's hoarse voice rises as he desperately scrapes his fingernails against the metal door.
"I'm afraid I can't help you," the man states with indifference.
Kaneki stops his motions when he hears the man speak.
"Your friend no longer exists."