-96: Aogiri—

From where I sat, I could watch the first rays of light creep down the wall like a slow burning fuse. I had been marched into one of the buildings and up a couple flights of stairs before being shoved into this empty-but-for-a-cot room. The female ghoul had led the way with a little half-skip every few steps, looking all the part of a kid who had nabbed the grand prize at a carnival game. Behind me, the big ghoul might have well been my shadow for all the noise he made. Hell, for all the looks I got, I might as well have been a prize.

One thing was certain, I wasn't going anywhere. All the hits I had taken in the forest had seen to that, and I think the two who did it knew it—I hadn't seen or heard anyone on guard outside the room. Worst part was I didn't have a good excuse be angry about it. I had screwed up, and this was the price.

Not that it stopped me from having something to be angry about. She had either hit me in the side of the mouth far harder than I thought or had aimed her blow, because there were now nine bloody lumps of what had once been teeth sitting next to me on the cot. I didn't know if it was the resurgent lack of sleep, but I counted that as the worst of my injuries. Payback for that was an appealing thought despite how unlikely it seemed at the moment.

And speak of the devil herself.

"Well, look who made it through the night." There was still that energetic little bounce in her step.

Despite my mask still covering my face, I fought to not scowl at the tone.

"Aww, did I knock all the words out of you last night?" Her tone was teasing, like a child on a playground. "Do you need a pen and paper to scribble down your thoughts?"

Some of my attitude must've gotten through my mask.

"That's better. Hiding your feelings is all well and good, but an unexpressive mask like that doesn't make you an interesting character."

She half-skipped closer and brought her face level to mine. Even though she looked to be only a couple inches shorter than me, the low legs of the cot meant the female ghoul had to bend over. Despite the childish tone, the eyes peering through the bandage mask she wore were cold as January wind.

"Nothing to say? Well, you may be mute, but at least you aren't stupid. Lotsa ghouls would've tried to run away in the night." She tittered, the laugh not making it to her eyes as she walked about the room. "They all die, naturally. Not even deaths worth writing about."

My mouth stayed shut. I had nothing to say about that, or anything else already said.

Something seemed to have wafted into the room as she paced about, but nothing I could place. It was…not unpleasant.

"So." She approached again, not bothering to crouch this time. "What brought you out to peek in on our little operation?"

Something about how she stood told me that staying silent this time was not going to be a healthy option.

"I… I was going to see about joining…" My voice trailed off as something flared to life in her eyes. "…up." Had staying silent been the right choice there? Or did she see through the lie?

The uncomfortable silence didn't get much time to settle. A pale hand snapped out to snag the collar of my shirt and pull me forward off the wall.

"My oh my."

I wasn't sure what had just happened; the teasing tone had dropped entirely and now I was being regarded with a completely different air. Then, in one smooth motion, her other hand came up and under the mesh and pulled my mask off.

"Mhmm. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised you found your way out here, even if it took you this long." She dropped the mask and produced one of my teeth before flicking it aside, "After all, someone like you spending time with the CCG would only end poorly…even if you were sanctioned back home."

I wasn't sure if she was being rhetorical or expecting an answer. More important was how she knew what she had just implied. Sure, a foreigner working with the CCG was going to be obvious, but the last part was unsettling. Exactly how did a ghoul in the eleventh ward figure out what I had been doing back home?

"How—" I began, but my question was cut off.

A slender thumb had been stuck in my mouth and forced my head back while stretching my cheek to the side. From the look in her eyes and the tightening of the grip on my shirt, I didn't think that squirming was going to be a particularly safe choice. For a moment, both of us were nearly motionless. The scent that had followed my captor-slash-interrogator in felt as if it was filling the room. Then, an unexpected smile.

"You'll live. Besides," the thumb was pulled from my mouth with a perverse tickle as it rubbed along my cheek, "teeth grow back."

Well, I knew that now.

"Who…" I finally managed to start—I was having a hard time getting my train of thought back after that…incident. "Who are you?"

The thumb that had been in my mouth was already in hers, so my only reply was a slightly distorted grin and giggle. For some reason, her doing that left me feeling more violated than when the finger had been in my mouth. I was starting to suspect that she was here only to mess with me.

"You really do know nothing." She pulled her thumb from her mouth with an audible pop. "At least you're smart enough to have figured out where we are, hmm?"

This time I didn't try to hide the scowl. I had been told that line enough.

"Ah, there's some fight still in you after all! Good. As for who I am," she stepped back and made a mock bow, "you may call me Eto, lieutenant in Aogiri Tree and for the moment, the author of your immediate future."

"I see." Next time, she should add in 'overly dramatic nut'. "So what happens now?"

"Blunt and direct." I could only hope that was some kind of approval. "You are going to be taken to wait for proper daylight in one of the common areas, and then we'll decide what to do with you. I have more important things to do than sit around, so, goodbye."

Eto plopped the mask on my lap and meandered back to the door, stopping at the frame to look back.

"We will be seeing each other again though, Allen. After all," her smile still looked like a knife from here, "ghoul oddities like us should stick together."

And then I was left alone with more questions than I had before she had entered. Had all that been the interview to join, an interrogation or what? To what end had the deal with her sticking her finger in my mouth been, exactly? Most worryingly was that this Eto had actually learned my name somehow, because the only way that was possible was that Aogiri had been watching me.

The only thing I was certain of was that I did not want to be here, amidst a group that neither humans nor other ghouls liked, that was very likely to be raided by the CCG.

Two Aogiri ghouls without masks on arrived to take me to the common area Eto had referenced. Neither made any attempt to make conversation, which suited me just fine. The common area turned out to be a fairly large lobby on the ground floor, complete with a bone-dry water feature. Through the doors—rather, through where the doors would've been—I could see the forest and concrete steps leading back to the city. All the better to remind me I was stuck here. What a mean joke.

Apparently it was also to let everybody leaving or entering the building stare at me while I sat on the wall of the water feature. I hated that, even with my mask on. Was uncomfortably reminiscent of my days before I was at the BGA.

The activity through the lobby grew as the sun rose higher, not really a stream of ghouls but enough that I lost count after what felt like half an hour and didn't account for the movement outside the building. There had to be at least fifty ghouls in this building, and if that number held true for each of the buildings in the complex, that was a total of at least four hundred Aogiri members in total.

Back home, a group half this size would have been at the extreme end of the size scale. I didn't even know how the BGA would've fought something the size of Aogiri back home. Whatever kind of escalation this was going to be from the CCG, it went without saying that I was not interested in seeing it firsthand.

I watched an adult lead a child on a pointed detour around me. That was a good point, actually; how many ghouls had joined as civilians for the safety in numbers and not as a fighting force? The distinction didn't really matter to the CCG. Kureo had been a clear indicator that there was no distinction between combatant and bystander. Plus mother ghouls had a reputation for being crazy protective of their children.

"That's actually him?"

"Smaller than I expected."

Looking toward the heart of the building, I saw a trio approaching. The tree with the red half mask was there, along with a duo who were pointing me out.

"It's him." The tree confirmed, stopping a short distance back. "Despite Eto's request, I hand him off to you. She sees use where I merely see…potential."

"Potential is good, we can work with that."

"Might be able to train some of it out."

The duo seemed to be dangerously close to be the stereotypical creepy twins.

"He is not to leave the grounds. Should he attempt to do so, kill him." Guess Eto wasn't lying about running away being a bad idea.

"Fair enough, we'll keep an eye on him."

The tree then turned to me. "You have failed to disappoint me once. It will be fortunate should you continue to do so."

That was an odd complement.

And then I was left with the duo.

"High complement from Tatara there." Unlike his name, the man hardly looked like a furnace his name implied. "You'll call us the Bin Brothers."

"Now," the other brother nodded, "what should we be calling you?"

For a moment, I balked. If I lied, it would probably get figured out quickly. "...Allen."

Taken to a neighboring building, I was given one of the maroon-ish colored cloaks that every Aogiri wore—with the exception, I noticed, of my new captors-slash-bosses having found what looked like denim for theirs. After that and a short internal debate between the two, my fate was determined. Guard duty. And here I had thought that the end of my time in the military had been the end of that boring hell.

"You want dusk or dawn?"

I blinked, not expecting to be given a choice.

"C'mon, easy question, and we know you're not a mute."

"Uh," I had the oddest sense of déjà vu from this. "dusk works, I guess."

"Trick question, you get du—oh neat!"

"Nobody wants dusk duty around here." There was no indicator of which one was talking at any given moment. "They all want to prance around Tokyo at night, looking for food."

The shift from hostility to trust was…offputting. Maybe this was because I didn't know much about ghoul society, but it felt like this was moving a bit fast. And then something Frank had said floated back to mind and finally made sense; 'Leadership and enemies make for good glue'. Eto had ordered the Bin brothers to put me under their command, and the CCG was as much an en enemy as imaginable.

Eto. Everything between Aogiri and myself pivoted on Kaneki and now her. She knew too much and it was the how of the knowledge and the way she had looked at me through that strangely pleasant smell that seemed to follow her about.