Eto, as usual for the last week, found herself in the room designated to her when they'd arrived here... "Here" being a rather large grouping of abandoned apartments in Okinawa.

The author hadn't expected this to be what here life with Aogiri was going to be. She imagined that she'd have to leave at inopportune times in the day, lying to peoples faces, and slipping out when no one would notice. In all honesty it did seem a little like some kind of sit-com that one would come across when channel surfing.

Instead, however, the author had been forced to live in the Okinawa apartment complex, along with the rest of Aogiri, and intentionally confined herself to this room. She supposed she did this because her subconscious had still refused to accept her predicaments. After all, she didn't like the idea of leaving the life she already had, which was pretty much what she'd wanted all along but more so than that she didn't want to leave Kaneki.

She was worried about Kaneki, how he would handle this, after all it had been a week, who knows what he was doing at the moment? Eto hated to think that he was out there trying to find her, mostly because she was afraid he'd get himself killed. After all though, he still somewhat blamed himself for Ryuko's death and she was concerned he'd go to find her, negating her entire purpose for joining Aogiri.

Eto sighed and looked up from staring at her folded legs and towards the sea, half expecting Godzilla or some other kaiju to emerge from the depths. The author had been sitting on the balcony of the room for the past hour or so, staring at the beauty of the tides almost made her forget where she was and how severely fucked up her life had become, but in the end the escape, like many other things was just temporary.

Still, though, she supposed that as temporary escape, it was enough. Besides that she enjoyed how the ocean hair played with her hair, tickling her face, she guessed that was probably how Kaneki felt when she played with his hair.

Then, the door opened, revealing that tall china-man who seemed to be the leader of the organization. Every now and again he'd come about in her room, carrying food mostly, and leaving it there for her. In his hand was said food, wrapped in a beige paper with blood soaking the wrapping paper, turning it dark in color. Then, with a lazy flex of his forearm, he tossed her the package.

Eto gripped the package as it landed squarely between her two palms. There was something different about this package, though. It was something that wafted furiously, and uninvitedly into her nose. She wrinkled said nose and threw one hand up into the air, holding the package up. "What's this?" She asked, already knowing what it was, she just hoped that he hadn't asked himself the question that she did in jest on some days.

"Ghoul." he answered, turning.

"Yeah, I can smell it, what I'm wondering is why?" She retorted, raising an eyebrow.

"Because I want to see how strong a Kakuja can be."

Dammit.

Tatara then began to calmly walk back to the way he came, as if he'd forgotten why he'd even come into the room in the first place. However, then, he abruptly came to a halt, his coat not quite getting the memo as it carried itself forward but then corrected itself, becoming as still as he was.

"By the way," he spoke, turning his head, "This Friday you're going to a book signing... It would create suspicion if a well-known artist suddenly went off radar with out word to anyone... just to let you know."

"I have a book, signing?" Eto asked, smirking, "Do you know how this works at all? I can't just have a book signing. My agent has to book me one in advance."

"I do know how this works." he defended himself, still maintaining a calm voice, "You're agent has been informed about your situation, and he's also been informed about who you really are, and that he'll be killed if he runs to the CCG and tells anyone, in fact we've posted two guards to follow him wherever he goes."

Eto's smirk had been wiped off her face, but she had one more thing to ask.

"Did you send Jason too Anteiku?" She asked, turning her body now, not in an angry way, but in a curious one.

Tatara turned away again and began towards the door. "No, he went on his own... We had no idea where he went until just now, but we aren't aiming to get him back either, if his allegiance had shifted to a simple beating then what use is he?"

"Then, I have another question." Eto spoke, "Why did you choose me over Kaneki?"

Tatara paused, confused by the question, "It was an easy choice, you're the One-eye'd -Owl, he's just some college boy who happens to have superb resistance to pain and incredible regeneration abilities, but he lacks skill... If we wanted we could have taken you both... I guess I was just feeling nice."

"Ok, fair enough, but what do you want me to do here? You can't just have needed e to sign books..."

"We will get to that part when we have all the information we need." Tatara answered, actually emitting some form of emotion with the last bit. "That nurse is proving more resilient than expected."

Then, finally, he left, leaving Eto with herself and her somewhat depressed thoughts. It was amazing to her, just how much a life could change in an instant, but then it wouldn't be the first time that her life had changed, would it? Eto then sighed, resting two hands on her stomach and laid down on the balcony floor. No, she supposed not.

Naki found himself, as usual, ever since boss Yamori left, bored out of his god damn mind. Sure he had Gagi and Guge, but they sure as fuck didn't talk, and the sounds they did make were mostly guttural noises that only either of the two could understand. He couldn't read either, not that there were any books laying around in their current occupancy, but that was just one more thing he couldn't do... They had an author now... Yamori may have wanted to hear about that.

When Yamori left, he told Naki to report anything Aogiri did to him in his free time, to keep tabs on them. But, honestly there wasn't much of anything to report at all, he supposed this was something... But why would his boss give a shit about some bookworm? Though, it really didn't matter, he just wanted a reason to get the hell out of this shit-lame place.

With that, Naki pushed himself off of his old mattress in his small living quarters in the complex and began towards the door, opening it only to see a tall man in a white cloak.

"Hey, Tatao," or whatever your name is, "I'm going out to Tokyo. Got some business to take care of." However, as he squeezed through the mans body and the door frame a calm, but firm hand fell on his shoulder.

"What 'business'?" He asked, not bothering to look at him.

Naki began to sweat then, no one had ever cared about what he was doing when he left, so the question had caught him off guard. Yamori had wanted their meeting to be kept secret, he wasn't planning to overthrow Aogiri, just make sure they didn't mess with him or those Antaking guys or whatever the hell their shop name was. But, Tatara was a fucking scary guy when he had to be.

"Personal business." Naki lied, "You know it gets boring around here when you have so little women, and the ones you we do have are mostly ogres." Then, he tried once more to get past Tatara, however a new strength met his shoulder, pushing him back into his quarters.

"No, I don't think you should be going anywhere, at least not anywhere out of Okinawa. Until I say otherwise you'll stay on the island." He paused. "And if you're going to lie to me I suggest you make it more convincing... What gave you away is the fact that Okinawa has no specialty shops."

"Huh?" Naki tilted his head, "I can't fuck a book. I was talking about the women of the night I see wandering around sometimes."

Tatara paused... "Disgusting..."

2 days later

Well, Touka mentally sighed, as she sat down on the couch next to Kaneki, at least he's not trying to run off and find her... though I wouldn't blame him if he tried.

About a week ago it had come to Anteiku's attention that Eto had gone missing. Now, it was absolutely no secret that Eto could damn well take care of herself. But that's why they were worried. It meant Eto had left on her own accord. Touka, honestly, didn't understand why it was such a big deal, however. Eto hadn't been seen for moments at a time before, but for some reason, when Kaneki had told them that Eto hadn't returned from her trip over to the coffee shop, the manager turned pale. Well, paler, considering his age.

So, just as worried for Kaneki as his daughter(although he tried to hide that worry), he told Touka to go stay with Kaneki. So, that's what Touka did, taking Hinami with her because honestly, the girl would never forgive Touka if she neglected her the opportunity to see her big brother, whom she rarely saw anymore.

Touka, for whatever reason, acted quite annoyed about the whole thing, putting on a whole show about having to babysit Kaneki... But, it wasn't that she was annoyed by it, no. It made her relieved to see Kaneki at a place besides work where he had to put on a nice face(even though he rarely came anymore). The truth was, Touka scared of losing him again, that she'd fail to protect him once more and he'd end up even more fucked up... after all it had happened once.

Touka looked over to Kaneki now, who was currently invested in some old Kaiju movie that Eto had left in the player. It was odd, to see him enjoying a leisurely time while Eto was missing. She wasn't angry, though it may have seemed that way, she was confused. He cared for her didn't he? Clearly he did, it didn't take a genius to figure that out, but why was he so calm?

But, Touka really shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, after all it was lucky that he didn't run after her. It wasn't that long ago since he said he'd be taking off after the One-Eye'd Owl, whoever that was.

"What're you watching?" Touka asked, keeping her eye's on him while she relaxed on the sofa.

"Godzilla against Mechagodzilla..." He replied, clearly invested in the media before him.

"I haven't heard of that one..." Touka replied, truly she didn't care for the Kaiju movies as much as Eto had, but she'd seen quite a few. "I mean, I've heard of Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla, but not Against. Even though thats not much of a difference... What's it about?"

"Well, to put it in short, to combat Godzilla the Godzilla defense force used the bones of the original Godzilla as a base for a mechanical equivalent and the supposed soul of the first Godzilla is possessing Mechagodzilla."

"Wow..." Touka commented, "Sound's complex."

Kaneki chuckled "I guess."

Then, came the sound of a fist gently pounding on wood, alerting any occupants on the other side that they had visitors... well... they hoped they were visitors.

Of course, and Kaneki was sure Touka was more familiar to this feeling than he was, there was the tangible fear that "Doves" had discovered their identities. But, nevertheless, The half-ghoul got up anyway's and started towards the door, he was less-likely to get discovered either way should it be "Doves".

The boy turned the knob, feeling the satisfying clink of the locking mechanism reluctantly releasing the metal that held the door in frame. When he finally did open the door he was greeted by a... somewhat familiar sight.

At first he noticed Uta, standing a bit away from the door, wearing shades to cover his eye's and his typical all black clothing, with the symbols and old language words on it. In front of the tattooed mask-maker, was a woman, with light orange hair that fell just to her chest, wearing a tight black dress that seemed to sparkle when the light reflected off certain little black beads on it and ended at the thick of her thighs.

"So thiiiiiiis is Eto's little boyfriend, huh?" the woman cooed, leaning forward to meet Kaneki at the face. It was at that moment that Kaneki could see the drunken redness on her face and the stinging smell of alcohol wafting from her breath and straight into his nostrils, causing him to step back a bit.

The woman then shifted her head to Uta, not bothering to shift her body, and spoke again. "I didn't think Eto was into younger guys..."

Uta simply extended his bottom lip and shrugged.

"Who are you?" Kaneki spoke, interrupting the single sentence conversation, directing the question to the orange haired woman. The girl looked back at him in surprise, almost some offence, but not really an accusatory look, but certainly a little upset.

"Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatttt?" She almost sung, spilling the drink, that Kaneki just now noticed she held, a little on the grass next to the side walk. "You mean she never told you about me?"

"Ahmmmm..." Kaneki began, trying not to upset the intoxicated woman any further.

"Oh, Itori!" Touka greeted, running up to meet her, a rare smile on her face.

"Oh my, is that Touka?" Itori coed a bit, stepping into the house. "Oh, wow, you've gotten so big! I haven't seen you in six years." She pouted, "But, I suppose that's my fault, after all I've had plenty of time to do so."

"That's fine." Touka laughed.

Now the four sat in the dinning room, at the table, starring at Itori as she spoke with a bit of drunken slur to her voice. "Well, I happened to be visiting Uta when we heard the news that Eto had gone missing..." she then turned her head to Uta with squinted eye's and said, "I don't know why Yomo went to you first rather than me, but whatever, hmph."

"Because my shop is closer, and you're never really at your bar." Uta explained, debunking her accusation of being left out by the two, logically.

"Anyways, then we made our way over to the coffee shop, just because we wanted to drop into see how the old man was doing, and then we came up here to see Touka and you."

"Okay..." Kaneki responded looking at her, "But, how did you know Eto and I were together?"

Itori then placed a finger to her nose and grinned, "Just like some ghouls excel in hearing, others excel in smell, usually those who are gifted when it comes to going after a certain prey rather than just finding whoever, and I can smell her alllllll over you kid... you dirty little perv."

"I-"

"Shhhh..." Itori said throwing a finger up. "I'm sure you're wondering how I know your squeeze huh, kid?"

"Not now Itori." Uta said, interrupting politely.

"But I wanna tell emmmmmmmm"

"You can, later, they wanted us back at the shop remember?"

"Oh, yeah, the muscly guy said he had some news for Kaneki, right?"

Kaneki jumped at that, feeling a sudden rush, "You mean, Yakumo, right?"

"Yeah, Yakumo was his name, something he found or another..."

"Then let's go now..."

"Okay, then, kid." Itori spoke suddenly motivated. Then, her vision shifted, finding Touka. "Hmmm? Is something wrong Touka, you look concerned?"

"Oh, nothing." She said, shifting her body, smiling a bit, "I'm just worried about Eto is all... But I don't think I'll be going to the meeting. Tell me what happens though. Hinami is still asleep up stairs and I don't want to concern her with these things... she's already had enough happen as it is..." With that, she let her eye's linger on the up stairs of the home.

It was dark by the time Kaneki and the other two ghouls had arrived at Anteiku. Apparently, Itori and Uta didn't drive, so they found themselves walking through the streets of the 20th ward looking like a rather odd group. Kaneki, with his white hair, Itori with her cheerful demeanor and drunken way of walking,and Uta, with, well his appearance in general.

In any case, however, when they had arrived at Anteiku, they had been greeted by Yomo, who wore that big, gray, overcoat that he wore every time Kaneki saw him. The half-ghoul did not fail to notice the look of disapproval when he looked at his two old friends. Uta, who simply shrugged and Itori who playfully tapped Yomo's chest and pouted out; "Oh, come on Renji. We got him here, didn't we?" before pushing on through.

It wasn't any real surprise to see that the entirety of the staff, save for Touka and Hinami, were at the second floor, but what was a surprise was seeing Banjou and his gang there, Banjou keeping a certain distance from Yakumo, who stood at the end of the room with his arms crossed. Banjou had been looking for a place to stay in the 20th ward since he came to it, and Kaneki hadn't heard from him since. However, he was glad to see that he wasn't dead. or worse. it lifted his spirits up a little.

Truth be told, despite his calm, cool composure for the week since Eto had disappeared, Kaneki was feeling torn apart inside. What the others had said was true, there weren't many people that could bend Eto to their will, which made for what was actually an even scarier thought... that Eto left on her own accord...

Then, Yoshimura spoke up, coughing into his fist a bit first, "Now that we have all arrived," he started, looking towards Yakumo, "What was it that you wanted to show us?"

Yakumo nodded, then began walking towards the group. "It's not really so much something to show as something to tell." his vision shifting to Kaneki, who was looking at him contently. "Earlier today, as I was walking through the ninth ward, making sure that Aogiri hadn't spread too close too the 20th ward, I happened by some bookstore in the area, the one closest too here, I forgot it's name-"

"I think I know what you're talking about..." Kaneki spoke, meaning the shop name.

"Yes, well, It had a sign out by the door saying: Friday from 18:00-21:00 (600-9:00), Sen Takatsuki book signing." Yakumo paused, "Sen Takatsuki... That's her pen name isn't it?"

Then there was silence, and while Kaneki was mainly focused on the fact that that girlfriend of his had a book signing this friday and he was no doubt going to confront her there, Banjou was more interested in the fact that Jason had actually seemed to care about the coffee shop. Kaneki really must have done something to him back all that time ago...

"I tried getting to my contact in Aogiri, about the signing, but he hasn't responded back, meaning that he's probably been captured. I'll have to do something about that..."

Irimi then spoke up, "Contact?" she asked stepping forward, "Who?"

"His name is Naki, he, and the rest of the white suits, as few in number as we are, are acting as my informants in Aogiri, and keeping me updated on any major changes." He then returned his eye's to Kaneki, who had since lowered his head slightly and frowned a bit. "What do you want to do?"

"Well," he began, now raising his head, "In my opinion, and I understand if any of you have any differing ones, I think I should go alone... I know Eto means alot too us all, but I think it'll feel less like an attack if only one of us goes... Unless... you want to..." He offered, looking over to Yoshimura.

Yoshimura smiled, standing now, "No, after all, I have a shop to run, I can't just abandon my workers for this, even if she is my daughter, especially when I can have someone just as capable tend to the matter for us..." he paused, "You'll do fine."

That last part rung in Kaneki's ears. He knew that Yoshimura didn't mean anything but the obvious with that, but he couldn't help but feel like there was a double meaning behind that.

Friday

Eto found herself at this small little bookstore in the ninth ward, forcing a smile to each fan that came up to her, even though she bared nothing against them. Still, though, the part of her that didn't feel irritated that she was being forced to do this against her will, which was a very small part, had to marvel at the turnabout that had show up, lining up outside the door, and seemingly to the end of the street.

But, now it was nearing 8:30, an time was almost up, so she was happy. happy that Kaneki or anyone she knew had not shown up. But, at the same time, she was sad. Of course she wanted to protect them, and was happy that they weren't coming, but she'd love to see Kaneki's smiling baby face again. She smiled to herself at that thought, but it also made her mad. Mad at herself for, more than likely being the cause of what he may be going through...

But she had hope, after all Kaneki was strong, he could handle alot. But, God, did she hate herself so much, even though Aogiri was to blame, for not leaving any kind of message for Kaneki, but still, she couldn't even if they let her, because he'd come for her and she couldn't let that happen. So she'd have to avoid all contact with him, when at all possible. Even though that thought almost made her physically sick to her stomach, and made her want to vomit. But, she'd been having to do that a lot recently.

Of course, though, through her adoring fans, rumor had spread of a lover. Kaneki, of course, and she'd been asked every now and again about him. And when she was she would casually change the subject to the book the reader had brought. Luckily, though, being as late as it was, the line was coming to an end, and then she could get back to Okinawa and keep away from endangering Anteiku.

Finally, she was down to the last ten, number ten, coming soon, and she was starting to become sleepy- eye'd. That made her laugh, The sleepy- eye'd Owl. Hah. When a rather familiar copy of "The Hanged Man's McGuffin" laid itself gently on the table.

Without looking up, she picked up the pen that laid next to her. "Ahhh, a personal favorite of mine... Who should I make it out too?"

"Kaneki Ken."