Kazuichi Banjou fancied himself as a man of sound mind and logic. At times, he even prided himself to be a fair planner. Just simple stuff mostly. Like when to eat, when to sleep, when to stand up for himself and when to fade away. Although he didn't expect to overthrow the reigning shogi champion anytime soon, he liked to believe that he had some strategic wisdom about him.
Even when orchestrating a prison break, he liked to keep a tight camp. Hence the reason why he was unhappy when Kaneki brought back something he should have left behind.
Banjou's eyes fell on the bandaged girl meaningfully, his mind contemplating her purpose in their meeting. When he continued to draw blanks, he caved and asked the question that he should have asked five minutes earlier.
"Remind me again why the mummy is here?"
Like the rest of them, Eto was sitting in the circle, listening attentively as they went over their escape plan one last time. He probably would have been less irritated had the girl not followed each and every single one of his plans with an approving chorus of "I see. I see."
But as if sensing his growing impatience, that was all the mummy had been doing for the past few minutes. He didn't need any validations. Least of all from an executive of Aogiri Tree.
Ken gave a nervous smile. "She said she will help us."
Banjou stared at him, his face a portrait of doubt, conveying his unspoken question of the younger boy's sanity and naivety. At last he sighed, willing to put away his discontent for the moment.
"You at least made sure no one followed her here, I hope."
"Of course I did."
"And you" Banjou said, addressing Eto. "You don't have any spies eavesdropping on the conversation do you?"
"Of course I don't."
Banjou knew better to take the mummy's answer at face value, but nodded anyway.
Nonetheless, he continued going over his plan, his voice kept at a minimalist volume to prevent eavesdroppers.
"As I was saying, the executives of the 11th Ward seem to rotate in and out of the hideout to a pattern. Noro and Ayato leaves once every five days, Yamori leaves once every three days, and the Bin Brothers never leave."
"I see. I see."
There it was again, the shrill sounds of approval. It felt like she was mocking him.
"I have to say you have a penchant for observation. To think that you are able to figure out my group's schedule so quickly and so thoroughly." She paused and smiled through her bandaged face. "I'm impressed."
Smiles were supposed to be signs of reassurance—something to bring warmth and comfort. Yet, all Banzou received was chilly emptiness. The alarms in his head went off immediately, sounding even louder than before as they warned him of the dangers of the woman in front of him. He forced them to stay quiet and chalked them off as mere apprehension of the unfamiliar.
Throughout the entirety of his forced servitude for Aogiri, he had never exchanged two words with the girl. The most he had seen of her was when she hung around Tatara.
Soon he started to think of her as Tatara's woman. Someone who only rose in ranks due to sexual favoritism.
That was all the significance he assigned to her. Just a mere gold-digger attached to people with power, only to ditch and abandon them once they fall from grace.
Never once did he think he would be sitting in the same room as her, entrusting her with top-secret information out of his trust for a stranger that he met less than a day ago.
Perhaps others were right when they said he was too soft.
"Ha." He chuckled with all the eloquence of a man staring down a gunbarrel and scratched the back of his head nervously. "Thanks for your kind words."
The girl nodded before turning her attention to Kaneki. "I assume you lot are still going to seek shelter in the 20th ward?"
"Yup." Kaneki chimed in, his eyes placed on Eto carefully. "You have any other suggestions?"
Eto shrugged to signify her indifference. "Either way is fine with me. Just make sure you get there safely."
Banjou blinked dumbly at the exchange. If he wasn't mistaken, there was a slight flicker of tension between the duo. Were they not as friendly and affable as he expected? Either way, he was eager to get her out of the equation, even if he had to use Kaneki as an excuse to support his own skepticism and cynicism.
"I say we just bound and gag her and keep her here. I'm not comfortable letting her run around freely."
The change in the girl's disposition was instant and abrupt as she let out a shrill and prolonged "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehh?" in protest. She quickly scrabbled behind Kaneki, her hands gripping his shoulders as she held him in front of her, a head poking out timidly from behind her meat shield.
"Ken-kun~" She whimpered pathetically. "I'm scared~~"
Kaneki held a set of appeasing hands forward, sweats forming at his hairline. "Now now. I'm sure she can be helpful. Taka-" The boy froze and corrected himself. The girl had sworn him into secrecy regarding her other identity just moments ago. "Eto-chan knows more about Aogiri than anyone of us."
"Yup! Yup! Yup! What he said." Eto was quick to piggy-back on Kaneki's words, her words spoken with the eagerness of a scolded child, desperate to side with the first person to jump to her defense. Kaneki had become the tree branch she holds onto in the midst of an avalanche. The rock that she hides behind in the face of roaring winds. The low-lying ditch during a lightning storm.
When she saw that Banzou needed a little more convincing, she moved herself out of her Kaneki-Shelter ever so slightly, but made it clear that she would dive right back in at the first sign of a threat. "I can make sure that security will be extra lax during the day of your escape." She swallowed nervously before elaborating. "The Aogiri hideout is always surrounded with scouts regardless of which executive is on site. If you promise not to hurt me, I can go and distract everyone. That way you guys can leave safely and without a hitch."
Banjou frowned and rubbed his goatee thoughtfully. "If you are so willing to help, can't you just arrange for us to be let go?"
At this, Eto lowered her head, as if in shame. "Unfortunately, I don't have the pull to do that. Tatara-san said that even the most useless of ghouls can be good decoys."
Banjou took a moment to look around the room, searching for opinions on the faces of his followers. Throughout the entire meeting, almost no one else had said a word, save for Kaneki, who was prompted by the mummy to talk. Even now, everyone's faces only supported the looks of growing curiosity. There was no judgment, no concern, just people waiting to follow his decision.
His decision was the one that mattered. His decision was the only one that mattered.
Looking back, he supposed it was only natural that a doormat like him would attract other doormats.
"I suppose that's fine." He said finally. When he did, the whole room seemed to have let out a breath that none of them knew they were holding.
Whatever goodwill he had built up for the mummy was quickly wasted however when the ghoul pulled down the eyelid of her left eye and stuck her tongue out mockingly. "It's too bad you can't enact your lewd fantasies anymore."
She wrapped a set of protective arms around herself as she wriggled away, her eyes shut melodramatically, her head shook slowly and disapprovingly, all the while her taunting lips flapped continuously. "Shame on you for preying on the body of a young maiden!"
Violence wasn't in Banjou's nature. But at that moment, all he wanted was to dare the mummy to sit next to him and say those words to his face. Then, he would take her head into a headlock and wring the hell out of her until he wrings out an apology.
But when the room bursted in laughter, he had no choice but to let the comment slide.
As the laughters died down, Eto stood up and headed towards the door, taking with her the attention of all present in the room. "Anyways. I have to be going now. It's nice meeting you all." She waved goodbye to everyone and they all waved back with the exception of one.
No harm no foul. She got what she wanted anyway. Eto took a step forward, outside the room and towards the dilapidated hallways of the dying building.
"Wait."
She stopped and turned to the sight of Banjou, the idiot who didn't wave back at her, staring at her intently.
"Just because I agreed to let you in to our operation, doesn't mean I trust you completely." He added. "For the last time and for my own peace of mind, tell me which side are you on? The good or the bad?"
Eto smiled innocently in response. "If you word it like that you will confuse me, Banjou-san. But rest assured, I'm on Kaneki-kun's side." She winked at Kaneki, causing the boy to flush slightly.
She danced away shortly after, leaving a flabbergasted Kaneki and a puzzled Banjou in her wake.
When night came, Kaneki joined the rest of his fellow captives on the floor, their dirtied Aogiri cloaks serving as their primary source of warmth. As the members of his group drifted away to the realms of sleep one after another, Ken found himself left behind.
He stared up at the ceiling and studied the dangling spiders and the broken-blade ceiling fan, his mind dulled by the miasma of boredom. Kaneki turned his head to the room's only window and caught sight of the crescent moon amidst the wispy patches of darkened clouds. It amazed him how something so reliant on others could be so beautiful.
His idle mind wandered to the cafe next. He hoped that everyone managed to keep themselves safe after he was taken away. He wanted to see all of them again. The manager, Koma, Irimi, Nishio, Hinami and... lastly, Touka.
He couldn't help but wonder how she reacted when she woke up in the vandalized cafe and realized that he was gone. A part of him, the selfish part of him, liked to think that she was worried. But the more realistic side of him knew that she was probably relieved to be rid of a wimp like him.
Would anyone in the coffee shop even care if he just went and died?
Probably not.
He hadn't done enough to earn a place in their hearts.
He needed to do more. He should have done more.
Kaneki flipped uncomfortably against the floor once again and berated himself for having such depressing thoughts just a few days before he would make his escape. The night always gave him time to reflect. It was simply quieter.
"I wonder if she's pretty..."
Ken stared into the darkness dumbly, unaware that someone else was awake at this hour.
"Kouto?" He called out.
"Yeah." The child answered, his chubby face poking out of his blanket of red cloak. His short brown hair hardly distinguishable in the darkness. He was the son of Kei— a hapless mother forced into a hopeless situation.
"Did I wake you?"
"No. Just wondering if the little lady from earlier is pretty. You and her seem pretty close."
"Yes." Ken smiled. "She's incredibly kind and caring as well."
"Really?"
Ken was surprised that Banjou was still awake as well.
"Did I wake you?"
Banjou sighed and propped himself up against the wall, his hands massaging the bridge of his nose. "No. It is just that with everything that happened today, I'm having a bit of trouble sleeping. I'm still not sure that I made the right choice."
Ken sat up as well, his eyes staring straight into Banjou's as he reaffirmed his faith. "I believe in Eto-chan."
The man laughed weakly. "It is great that you do. Just don't get overly-attached. I have seen her act a lot more intimate with Tatara than with you."
Unsure of how to respond, Ken only mumbled out a response. "I see."
Tatara. The thought of the mask wearing man caused Ken to place a hand over his stomach — the area that the ghoul pierced through earlier. There were still a lot of things that Tatara said to him in the meeting hall that he didn't quite understand.
No matter how much he learned, the ghoul world still remained a mystery to him. Trying to figure it out right now would be like trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces.
"Will that little lady do something bad to hurt us?"
Kouto's curious question snapped Ken out of his reverie. He was about to offer some words of reassurance when Banjou beat him to the punch.
"Haha. Don't mind what I said, that was just my silly paranoia talking!" Banjou laughed in the darkness. "I'm going get all of us out of here in one piece!"
The young boy went back to sleep with a relaxed smile on his face and Banjou followed shortly after. With one last look at the darkness in front of him, Kaneki shut his eyes and forced himself to sleep as well.
When Eto spotted Tatara again, he was standing on the edge of a building, overlooking the Ota ward skylines. The evening breeze ruffled gently against the man's white hair and danced it playfully against the silver moonlight. Having noticed her presence, the towering man turned, the forlorn melancholy of his moon-lit eye shining even brighter in the night.
"You seem to like high places," She called out from underneath. The girl was next to him in the next instant, the light whisperings of wind being the only signs that she had moved at all. "Just like Ayato-kun."
When Tatara did not respond, Eto helped herself to a seat on the edge of the rooftop. She reared back her head and breathed in the evening air, sighing contently at its pleasantry.
"You enjoy the night scenery?"
"Not particularly."
Eto grinned knowingly.
"Were the stars bright in China?"
"..." There was silence before Tatara finally responded. "I don't remember."
"What made you so late?" This time it was the foreign ghoul's turn to ask questions.
Eto shrugged. "Nothing. Got a bit sidetracked is all."
"I can smell the scent of that brat from you."
"Oh?" Eto smirked, facing the foreign ghoul slightly just to flaunt her smugness. "Jealous?"
Much to Eto's disappointment, Tatara didn't take that bait, his eyes instead fixed firmly on the equatorial sky. "How long do you plan on dabbling in that nonsense"
Things were quiet between them again as Eto flippantly dangled her feet. Then almost as if paying him back for ignoring her question earlier, Eto did the same.
"Say, Tatara."
"Yes?"
"Do you remember how it feels like to have someone think you're a good person?"
"..."
"I thought not. It feels pretty good." She took in another relaxing breath. "Having others hold such a trust in you."
Crimson eyes slid over to her curiously. "Are you having regrets?" He asked.
She shook her head. "Nope. Not at all. I just think it won't hurt to drop some extra baggage every once and then."
"Suit yourself." He huffed and began to walk away.
Eto puffed her cheeks in annoyance and stood up. "Tch. So cool as always."
She walked across the edge of the rooftop, her arms spread out to her side as she teetered alongside the edge. Once she reached the end, she hopped off and caught up with Tatara in a mild sprint. She cut in front of him with a playful pirouette before straightening herself, her arms linked behind her. Eto tilted her head to look at the much taller man, green eyes flashing with an expectant hue. "Anyways, you wanna help?"
"Not this time." Came the man's aloof answer. He walked around her and dropped off the building, out of her view.
"Hmph. Meanie!" She shouted after him, but he did not respond.
On the evening of the operation, Kaneki Ken hid in the bushes like everyone else.
He watched from a distance as the Eto approached the duo of masked ghouls on the rooftop. The Bin Brothers, as others had referred to them.
After a brief conversation, the trio departed, leaping across rooftops as they raced away to where ever the bandaged ghoul directed them to.
When the Aogiri ghouls were no longer in sight, his group dashed out of the bushes in a mad sprint. They could practically taste the freedom that awaited them under freer skies.
Their shadows flitted through the forest detritus in a rough semi-circle, a symphony of cracking branches accompanied them as the group stepped and trampled their way to freedom. Their sweats poured and their bodies burned at their exertion.
"There really are no guards, it seems like." Banjou noted in amazement as he took a look around him.
"Yup," Ken agreed, his grin wide and uncontrollable. "I knew Eto-chan would come through for us!" There was a certain boastful pride that he said those words with— a sense of personal accomplishment even. Even though he knew that the credit for the lack of security goes solely to Eto, he couldn't help but feel like he played a part as well.
The feeling he was having was a strange one. It felt like there was something warm and fuzzy ballooning up inside of him, and that if he didn't make a conscious effort to control himself, he would burst and die.
"You know…"
Kaneki turned to his left to catch the smiling face of one of Banjou's followers. "From the moment that I saw you, I had the feeling that 'something will happen.'"
"When we get to the 20th…" Kouto called out from the front, pausing in his sentence to allow his tiny body to catch his breath. "I want to meet all of your friends! I wonder if they will like me?"
Kaneki grinned wider. Everyone was looking to talk to him. This is good, he told himself. I did something good.
"I'm sure they will." He beamed. "Hinami-chan is around your age. I'm sure you two will have lots to talk about."
He glanced around excitedly, his happiness only amplified when he saw that everyone was smiling at him. "The manager makes great coffee as we—"
His words stopped along with his feet. There was something wet on his face.
He recognized the smell.
It was the smell of blood.
His head snapped to the front in search for answers, and his eyes widened in horror at what he saw.
Time stood still as he watched his comrades' headless bodies dropped to the floor.
What came next was Banjou's scream. "Tetsu! Moku!"
The heads of the dead stared emptily at the living. Unblinking, unfaltering.
Ken could feel himself deflate. Whatever happiness, hope and dreams that he had been feeling the past few minutes had vanished. What replaced it was gut-wrenching despair.
The world around him seemed to spin and he felt himself get light-headed. The urge to throw up gnawed at him, strangling him.
He should have known that sooner or later, tragedy would rear its ugly head. He should have known better than to get carried away in the moment.
The world always seemed to be heading towards an equilibrium. Behind every happy moment is a tragedy waiting to happen. Anywhere light goes, shadow will await it. It was an unbreakable cycle.
But...even though he was aware of all these, he just wished that..
...he just wished that the happy moments would last a bit longer...
"Well, well, well. Look what we have here? Little rats trying to sneak out."
From the darkness of the forest, two figures walked out. One of them was a stocky blonde man dressed in a white business suit. The other was an effeminate man dressed in a simple flowery blouse. He met both men before in the coffee shop, on the day that he was abducted.
The speaker, the blonde man dressed in white, stood in front all of them, his gold-clad finger cracking under the pressure of his thumb. It was clear that they would not be allowed to pass.
Banjou was the first one to wake from the shattered dream of freedom, his confusion and sadness transformed into anger as he stomped towards Yamori, his fists clenched by his sides. He was restrained from walking to his death by one of his followers who quickly reminded him of the harsh reality of his weakness— that he would die as well if he picked a fight with 13th Ward's Jason.
As Kaneki watched everything unfold in front of him, he noted took note of how everything had changed. The charismatic and sensible leader that he had gotten to know during these past few days was nowhere to be seen. In its place was a broken man tormented by the loss of his friends and the faults of his weakness. A man with snots dripping out of his nose and tears welling up in his eyes.
No one was smiling anymore except Yamori — the man who had stolen everyone's smiles.
"Mommy? What's going on?" Kouto asked from behind the blindfolds of his mother's hands.
"Shhhh." The mother shushed. "Just keep quiet and everything will be alright."
"Why are you here?!"
Ken's eyes found his way back to Banjou again. Even while being restrained by his own men, Banjou was still bellowing out questions. He wished that he had strength like that.
Yamori grinned, his eyes turning into slits. "Nico overheard your conversation and told me you and your happy gang of friends are planning on rebelling against Aogiri Tree."
Nico smiled shyly in the background. "My ears are rather curious."
Overheard their conversation? He recalled Banjou asking him to make sure there were no eavesdroppers around their meeting room—a task that he swore he did thoroughly. Suddenly, Kaneki felt very vulnerable, very exposed. He backed away under the gaze of his teammates, nearly stumbling and falling over himself. "I didn't know. I swear, I looked around!" He sounded pathetic, but he didn't care. He needed to let others know that it wasn't his fault.
When everyone in his group maintained their expression of shock and horror, Ken hung his head down in shame.
It seemed that everything was his fault again…
...or was it?
Surely, he couldn't be faulted for things beyond his control? Surely, he couldn't be faulted for putting his trust onto others? Surely, he couldn't be faulted for believing in Takatsuki's words?
He just wanted to be liked.
Kaneki's mind wandered back to the subject of the author and pondered where she could be at this moment? Perhaps she saw how bad everything was and just went into hiding? Or perhaps this was all a ruse from the beginning and everything was just a demented play written to mess with him?
Oh well. A bed of veins crept across the area beneath his left eye. There is no point in thinking anymore...I feel like shit anyway...
"Banjou-san...everyone...step aside…" He snarled animalistically as he bent forward, the familiar burning sensation of his back once again greeting him—it felt like someone was poking him from inside with a knife.
His friends were staring at him again, in the same shocked silence that they treated him with before.
"Kaneki...what are you…" Banjou started but the rest of his words were forgotten and leaked soundlessly from his agape mouth.
Yamori looked at him bemusingly and raised both of his arms in guard, his weight largely shifted to
back leg while he kept his front leg light. "Interesting. Entertain me." He demanded.
Then, having spotted something approach him from the corner of his eyes, Yamori shifted his body， crossed his hefty arms like a "X", and successfully intercepted the more immediate threat as his assailant smashed her knee against him. The bigger man staggered back, and when he regained his balance, he looked more annoyed than hurt.
"Seems like all the traitors are gathered." Yamori noted.
When the figure landed, Kaneki Ken found himself staring into the black phoenix emblem of the aogiri cloak.
"What are you moping around here for, Kaneki-kun? I thought you were going to make a run for the 20th ward? " He recognized the voice.
"Taka-" He corrected himself quickly. "Eto-chan!"
She didn't abandon him after all. A sense of relief washed over him.
The bandaged ghoul shifted her body slightly, just enough to peer at him with her reddened iris. "I will handle things from this point forward. Take your friends and leave." She looked away quickly to give Yamori her full attention.
"But—" He began to protest but she cut him off.
"Hurry!" She shouted. "I can handle Yamori by myself."
The corners of Yamori's lips quivered uncontrollably as he laughed. "I have no idea what is happening here, but you of all people should know that the only consequence of betraying Aogiri is 'death'." Two voluminous tentacles exploded out of his back as he adopted a fighting pose once more. "I assure you that this time, things will turn out quite differently."
Eto placed a hand over her face and extended an arm outwards, her lone kakugan shining in the darkness. "i wonder about that." A sharpened blade made of hardened muscle erupted from the girl's shoulder. Kaneki felt something cold cut him in the cheeks.
The boy stood there in an almost trance-like admiration as he stared at the bandaged ghoul's kagune. Just like Touka's, it came from the shoulders—like a wing. But at the same time, they were quite different.
Touka's kagune often reminded him of a burning fire. At times, it even shone with the beauty of constellations. Like the feathers of a majestic, fiery peacock.
Eto's kagune was solid, like a block of ice. Its texture dominated by an incomprehensible mess of wrinkles and bumps—a pareidolia-invoking design that tricked people into seeing things that weren't there.
"What are you waiting for?" Banjou's words snapped him out of his reverie as the man grabbed him by his arm. "We are going!"
He let himself be pulled along.
They continued to run for another minute or so. Their legs long since tired and tingling with a strange numbness. Kaneki had a feeling that their stamina wasn't going to last much longer at this rate.
"I can see the exit!"
The booming voice of a leader.
"We're going to make it out alive right?"
The innocent question of a child.
"Yes! We are!"
The elated voice of a relieved mother.
Kaneki's stopped in his spot. "I'm heading back."
Banjou's footstep stopped as well and looked at Kaneki as if he was insane. "What?"
Without answering, the boy whipped his body around and dashed towards the opposite direction, leaving a flustered Banjou to reach futilely after him. "Kaneki. Wait!"
The boy did not turn around.
He really hated himself for being such a wimp that he couldn't even see his own decisions to the end. Though, he hated himself even more for constantly making bad decisions.
He wondered what he was thinking when he decided to run away from his problems again and shove the responsibility onto others. He asked himself for the whereabouts of the strong resolve he felt when Hinami's mother died.
If he had been more vigilant and not let himself get carried away, perhaps none of this would have happened.
It was all his fault. The fault of his inactivity. The fault of his weakness.
He ran faster, his body moving at a pace way faster than what he thought possible. The scent of Takatsuki was getting stronger by the second.
As he made his way through the forest, he caught a glimpse of a figure on one of the rooftops of Aogiri's hideout. A ghoul with a perpetual smile.
The sight of another enemy made him slow slightly, albeit temporarily, as he forced himself to press forward. The presence of another enemy was just another reason that he had to go and help.
With a powerful leap, he slid into the air above his enemies, his dual tentacles swinging violently.
What happened after that, he couldn't remember.
A/N: ...Hi...