Eto's ears were burning now, and she could feel her heart beating rapidly in her chest. Kaneki had just shown up with her own copy of "The Hanged Mans McGuffin" and had asked her to sign it. Even worse, he acted like any other fan would, asking questions about the story, like he was trying to aggravate her. Not that she minded him, but, even though they tried to come in incognito, she could point out Aogiri's watchmen.

If they saw her talking to Kaneki then the entire shop could be endanger.

God she wished she could tell him what was going on, why she had to leave, that she missed kissing him. However, she needed him to get out of sight quickly. Luckily, though, the questions he had asked were short, and simple and when answered, he left. As if he had just finished talking to a stranger in a kind way. That made her nervous however, for some reason reality seemed broken after he left... She hated that.

But, there was more too it than just watchmen holding here tongue... She couldn't let him know, for the risk of his coming after her and trying to fight Aogiri... That was a battle that he couldn't win.

Now, the book signing, thankfully, was concluded, but still she had to wonder, did Aogiri's guards catch onto Kaneki's presence? Did they know? Was that nurse already on her way to CCG headquarters? God she hoped not. Then, almost making her jump as she stood from her chair, becoming painfully aware of her sore legs and bottom, the phone in her pocket vibrated a single time.

Now, she was sweating, the only texts she received now, apart from the week following her disappearance when her phone was bombarded with texts from her loved ones; Kaneki, Touka, Hinami, etc. were the ones from that Tatara guy, who she, in an act of what little defiance she could show, had dubbed "asshole" in her phone contacts. These texts were usually instructions, but sometimes they were warnings... She was just hoping this text wouldn't say that they saw her with Kaneki. So much so that she didn't want to look at it, but she had to, just in case it was instructions.

Taking the phone out of her pocket and turning it over in her hand she read:

Meet at Tokyo Bay.

The captive author let out a sigh of relief and almost dropped on her butt, thankfully there was no mention of Kaneki nor the shop, so they were safe for now. But, she couldn't stay at the bookstore for long, just in case Kaneki came back, she had to leave.

Eto hurried out of the door, which almost swung off it's hinges sue to her strength. She had been breaking lot's of things lately, doors in particular, mostly due to rage, other times something else, some deep rooted hatred for her inability to do anything about her current situation. Mostly, though, it was to make Tatara's day a little harder. For whatever reason the guy was a serious freak about the smallest little dents, and while not verbally expressed, nor physically, she could tell he was infuriated by it.

Turning now, however, she saw exactly what, or who, rather, she didn't want to see. Standing there, with a thin lipped smile at the edge of the building, white hair contrast against the now purple sky, was Kaneki, waiting for her as if she'd told him to.

Eto stopped cold, almost letting a small squeak escape her lips. It's not that his sudden appearance scared her, but more that he was still there. Her legs felt numb and she suddenly felt as if she were tired, her body feeling heavy. It reminded her of the time when she had left Anteiku a while ago. She knew the feeling because it had seemed whenever there was a severe change in her life; Leaving after finding her mothers diary, Coming home, and leaving once more(though for an entirely less selfish reason) she felt this way... And her life wasn't going to change for the better.

"Oh..." she spoke, walking towards him, "You're still here?"

"Yeah... I mean, I have some questions... as you'd imagine."

Eto continued her walking towards him, on her way coming to terms with what she would have to do... But God did she not want to... "Alright," she agreed, making herself sound smug, adding in a tiny bit of an insanity to her voice. "I'll talk..." Then she gripped him by the arm, pulling him into the alleyway between the bookstore and a convenience store, making it seem gentle, but in reality, it was a hard grip.

Then, when the author was sure that they were safe from prying eye's she tossed him against a wall, denting the brick. Clearly, Kaneki hadn't expected that... or maybe he had, he just didn't want to believe she would do it... But, that was at the back of Eto's mind at the present currently she was thinking one thing, aimed at Kaneki... I'm going to make you hate me... I don't want to... but if I don't you'll end up dead.

She then picked Kaneki up by the collar of her shirt and pressed him up against the wall. "I can guess your questions..." she teased, holding back that tearful choke in her voice. "Why did I leave..?" she mocked him, "Because I was growing bored." She then punched him in the stomach, forcing blood up through his mouth and over her shoulder.

"Now then, I assume the second one is 'where did I run off to?'" She spoke, pressing herself closer to Kaneki's ear. "Well, isn't it obvious Kaneki? I wen't to Aogiri..."

Now, she through Kaneki down into the puddle of his own coughed up blood, making a small splash, followed by her pressing hard onto his chest cavity with her foot, making it hard to breath. "And finally, the last question; 'why?'" She paused, throwing on a smile, "Well, Kaneki, if you haven't figured it out now, then I don't know whether I should feel insulted or complimented, but either way I'm a little disappointed... I mean, I guess I gave your intelligence a little too much credit... All that lovey-dovey acting was horrible... I tricked you and my dad in the end though, didn't I?"

"And, yes, of course I'm the leader of Aogiri... So, go ahead and try to kill me if you like... but you'll just die in the end... Just remember, I can kill you anytime I want and I won't think twice about it."

With that, ingrained into Kaneki's mind, she dusted off her clothes and left, not looking back, but holding back a few tears that threatened to run down her cheek, disappearing into the crowd. Sorry...

Kaneki simply laid there after the beating that Eto unleashed upon him. He was surprised that he'd felt it really, he supposed he'd forgotten just how hard Eto could punch. Still though, that was much harder than she'd ever punched him and boy did it hurt like shit. He may have had a few broken bones here and there, but even if he did, now they were most likely healing as the tiny puddle of blood that had just minuets ago soaked into his shirt.

He could feel heavy bruises onto his stomach and chest, he didn't need to look at them to know that they were probably completely black... But those would heal as well. His ears were also ringing, probably from the impact of the brick wall that his head smacked against when Eto had tossed him, but he could swear that he could hear a familiar voice calling out to him.

"Kaneki... Oh shit, are you O.K!?" He could guess who would speak that liberally out in public like that.

It was dark now, very dark, and Touka found herself walking in the ninth ward of Tokyo, making extra sure to wear a thick overcoat, that to be honest a girl her age would need this late at night. After all it wouldn't be the first time someone had tried to feel Touka up because she was wearing, normally she would kill the person then and there but she couldn't do that on the sidewalk, so she took to wearing heavy clothing to hide her figure.

Anyways, to why she was in the ninth ward, if it wasn't already obvious, was to look for Kaneki(and hopefully Eto). The half-ghoul said he would be gone from 18:00-21:00, but now it was 23:05, and he hadn't so much had tried to call anyone. Of course Kaneki had never used his phone much, which was pretty damn surprising because normally anyone his age, or hers for that matter, would be glued to their iPhone, or android, or galaxy, or whatever you may have, and at times she was guilty of that. But still, you'd think that meeting Eto after she'd left would motivate him to tell call someone as to what happened, or what was happening.

Now, the slightly rushed pace she was keeping had become to slow to a slight movement of the feet as Touka came to the bookstore that Eto was having her signing at. Through the windows she could see where the employee's were moving away blinders that they would place Eto behind and the posters of her books and what not... But no sign of the author herself.

Touka frowned, beginning to scan the way window view of the bookstore slowly, looking for Kaneki or Eto. Suddenly, her heart began to beat rapidly, she was begging to get worried, had something happened to Kaneki? Had Eto done something to him? She was begging to sweat, not just because of her fear that Kaneki was hurt but also that her sister-figure was capable of something like that... All her life Eto had been kind, friendly, and warm... but she was also strong as all hell and that scared Touka.

Then, she stopped in her tracks, an action caused by the sudden wafting on a familiar smell into her sensitive nostrils. It smelt of the sweet, almost intoxicating scent of human blood that Touka had been drawn to all her life, but there was something else, the familiar smell of old books, the way Kaneki smelt... Eto then rushed to the source of that smell, not really sure if she wanted to see whatever was there.

When she got there, and there was at the back of the alley, making it dark and hard to see, she saw a familiar white-haired boy, laying in a puddle of blood, with some of said blood trickling from the edge of his mouth and down his cheek in an almost caressing manner, and his eye's gazing at the night sky, like he was trying to find the stars that were hidden by the lights of the city.

"Kaneki... Oh shit, are you O.K!?"

Naturally, after finding Kaneki the way he was, Touka took Kaneki back to Anteiku, practically carrying him bridal style with quite the red face mind you, where she took him upstairs to find Itori waiting with a drink in her hand and her legs folded one over the other.

"Hey there, Kanekichi!" she called, waving her free hand, but still managing to almost spill her drink. Touka still didn't know how she could stomach the beverage, sure it had the same effect, besides taste, on ghouls and humans, but how was she not throwing up? But then, Itori wasn't exactly your average person, ghoul, whatever, so Touka didn't let it bother her too much.

"Oh, you don't look so good. What happe-" she paused, frowning, "Never mind, I can kind of smell what happened..."

"Yeah..." Touka answered, sitting him on the couch carefully, "I'm going to go clean up downstairs and then I'll make some coffee..." The teen said as she turned and exited the room.

Itori waited to make sure Touka was safely out of ear shot before standing up and setting her drink down, something she rarely did. Though, in those rare occasions, the reason was never something she did not deem important... and this was very important.

Plopping herself down on the couch next to the white-haired boy she wrapped a thin, but strong arm around over his shoulder and pulled him closer to her in a comforting way, unintentionally, or maybe not so unintentionally, moving him closer to her cleavage. Then she began patting his head in a soothing, but still drunken, manner.

"Poor Kanekichi," she said softly, but still loudly enough for him to hear. "You really got hurt out there didn't you? Physically and emotionally, huh?"

"...eki." The boy murmured, lowly.

"Hmmm, what is it, Kanekichi?"

"My name is Kaneki, Ken Kaneki." He replied, this time louder.

Itori was silent for a few moments, looking at him with wide surprised eye's, but soon she began laughing a loud laugh, apparently something was so funny to her that she almost fell off the couch. "I know that, Kanekichi! I just like calling you Kanekichi more! has a better ring to it." Then she was silent again, smiling into her drink, a red sheen on her face. "But, yeah, I know how that feels..."

"What feels?"

"Getting hit by Eto... for such a small girl she's really strong." Itori smiled, twirling her glass, "But, what do you expect from the-" she looked at the door in mock worry, then whispered in Kaneki's ear, "you know what..."

"You and Eto fough each other before?" Kaneki inquired.

"Well, more like she beat me up until I didn't want to be hit anymore, but yeah, we did."

"Why?"

Itori then sighed, pulling Kaneki even closer, "Naive little, Kanekichi, you have a lot to learn about women... There are many ways that Ghoul women and human women are alike, including the fact that they all hate each other at first."

"I see..." Kaneki scoffed. "So, when did you and Eto meet..."

"Well, for me to tell you that I have a question for you, ladies man." she teased, leaving Kaneki to wonder if she could somehow tell that he and Eto had intercourse, "Do you like stories? Never mind, that was a stupid question, of course you do."

10 years ago

Itori found herself, for the umpteenth time in a while, wandering from her arguing parents home and looking for food elsewhere. Itori never understood why, why exactly her parents couldn't just have fun every now and again, instead of arguing all the time. Actually, she did know, she was why. At least that was what her mother told her, she would tell her that her life was everything a ghoul could hope for. She would go out, eat unsuspecting humans, get laid, fall asleep, go to work, and then repeat it all again. But then Itori had to come along and ruin everything.

The orange haired girl didn't really care about her mothers spiteful words though, she learned to tune her out. Which of course caused her mother to throw a fit, but hey, if she didn't care about her, then Itori didn't care about her dumb whore of a mother, it's not like she does anything to help her father anyways.

In fact, Itori felt that if her mother would just leave then she and her father could live happily. But her fathers one flaw was that he was a bleeding heart, even if she offered, he wouldn't let her go, he felt responsible for her, meaning nothing would change. In the end though, at least she still had Uta and Yomo, right?

Then, Itori began sniffing the air, hoping to catch the scent of an already bleeding human. Maybe if she was lucky she could find a pedophile, that would make it easy to lul him into a false sense of power that she could capitalize on, and she'd be getting rid of a rotten old bastard as well...

However this time she may have been more than lucky, from what she could smell there was a dead human nearby, you don't get that lucky that often, and the orange haired girl wasn't going to pass this by.

It had taken a bit of time, but Itori had found what she was looking for... However, there was only one problem, someone else was already there. She had green hair than ran down her back and similarly colored eye's, one of which was a flaming Kakugan as she bit down and tore at the meat. She look to be about the same size as Itori, but she seemed... dirty, her dress was covered in dirt and her face was no different, she must've been homeless.

Itori frowned, it wasn't fucking fair, a homeless ghoul is pretty much the most dangerous type of ghoul there is, what chance did she have at getting a bite, now?

"I know you're there, you know..." the green haired girl spoke.

shit...

"I'm not giving you my food." she said, rather snobbishly, "I killed him, he's mine."

Itori stepped in to the out of her hiding place, trying to look sad and tired... Homeless, like the girl in front of her. "Please?" she asked, faking starvation, "I haven't eaten in days..."

"Go away." The girl replied bored, "You don't look like you haven't eaten in days..."

Itori frowned, dropping her act, "You know, sharing is caring..."

"Yeah, well I don't really care about you."

"Come on..." Itori now complained, stomping a single foot, "He's soooo big though, can't I get a hand or something?"

"No! Go away!" The girl screamed, clearly getting annoyed now.

"You know, I hate stingy little bitches like you." Itori spat, "Ohhh, look at me, I'm soooo Emo, I have my hair over my eye's and I yell and try to be scary I must be-"

Suddenly, Itori felt a fist on her jaw, sending her flying back. All she had time to realize during the time she was airborne was that whoever this girl was, she was strong, stronger than her father, or anyone she's met so far, probably even more than Yomo or Uta, both of whom could kick her ass up and down the city if they wanted to. Of course it wasn't quite fair to compare by just one punch... but god damn was it a punch.

When she landed she found the girl on top of her, with a scowl on her face. "Listen here, you little brat. If I wanted to I could kill you at anytime that I want to, so you better watch your fucking mouth..."

"You know, I thought Eto was going to kill me at that time and I was scared... And I still wonder what stopped her, but something she said stuck with me for some time after that... When she said 'If I wanted to I could kill you' meaning that if she wanted me dead, I would be dead..."

Then there was silence as Itori recalled more fond memories...

"Hey, Kanekichi! Wanna heat about the time that Eto and I 'experimented', before I go home? I bet you'd like that huh, you perv."

Kaneki chuckled, "No, I'm fine..."

Itori almost looked at him surprised at that, there weren't many guys who would pass on even hearing something like that... But then, Kaneki had been through a lot in the past few hours, so she wouldn't give him a hard time.

"Ok then... I'm tired so... I'm gonna go home now..." and with that she left, almost bumping into Touka on her way out and apologizing quickly, taking her coffee in her other free hand and exiting. Leaving Touka and Kaneki as the last two in the coffee shop.

Touka walked over to Kaneki now, holding two cups of hot coffee on a tray, hoping that the smell was somewhat soothing. "I'm back..." she grunted out, leaning over to set down the tray on the coffee table with a tiny clanking sound.

Touka then looked up towards Kaneki and studied his face, there was something different about him now, she couldn't quite name it, but it felt like a good change. Nevertheless though, Touka found it necessary to ask him about it.

"Hey, what's wrong?" She asked, trying to be sympathetic, despite the fact that it seemed to be a happy thing.

Kaneki had formed a thin-lipped smile now, it had seemed, that those words that had bothered him, the questions he had about them had been answered. It was thanks to Itori's story, about when she had met Eto for the first time, that he'd found them.

"Nothing." He replied, keeping that smile on his face. "Actually, I feel a lot better..." he paused, "In fact I think I've figured out what's going on."

"Really?" Touka asked, "How?"

"Well, after Eto had finished tossing me around, she had told me that she was the leader of Aogiri."

"What?" Touka almost yelled, nearly jumping out of her seat. The teenager felt betrayed, angry, and sad at the same time, but most of all she felt like she was dreaming, because this could never happen right? Eto could never be someone like that, right?

"However," Kaneki began gaining her attention, "She told me that she could kill me anytime she wanted to... Get it?"

Touka didn't answer, she simply stared at him confused.

"If she wanted any of us gone or dead she could make it happen, meaning, and this is just what I'm guessing, that Aogiri is forcing her to do this. I think she's trying to protect us from them... or something else..."

Touka was calming down now, though she still felt scared that Eto was in the hands of a group like Aogiri. "So, what do we do?" she asked, looking at him with her mind set on getting Eto back. "Well, I figure tommorow we can tell everyone and then I'll put together a group and go after Aogiri. I'm going to get her back."

Touka couldn't help but smile then. It made her feel a lightness in her chest and she began to smile and then, almost subconsciously, she leaned in, ready to meet Kaneki's lips. However, as she neared the half-ghoul, she felt a soft, but strong hand hold against the lower half of her face, halting her advance.

Touka then opened her eye's to see a slightly surprised Kaneki starring at her and finding her mouth at his hand. She then pulled back, face red with embaressment. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't- I was just so elated that I felt like I-" She stuttered, exiting the room fumbling with the handle, then with a nervous laugh she opened the door and left, saying "I-I'll see you tomorrow."

Eto supposed she was lucky, lucky that Tatara aloud her to take a visit to Anteiku this night, with an escort of course, but still. Now, though she only felt sad, a little relieved but sad, as she stood on the top of a building overlooking the room that Kaneki now sat alone in, that Touka had just left. She didn't know what they were talking about, but she had seen what had happened.

No, she was not angry at all that Touka had tried to lock lips with Kaneki, she was probably trying to comfort him, of course she was relieved that it didn't happen, but she was mostly sad, sad that Kaneki was refusing to give up on her. It was a bittersweet feeling.

With that, the author sighed and turned, walking away from the building. Stupid Kaneki, she smiled, you should just forget about me.

Author's Note: 200 favorites. That is incredible, I'm so happy that so many people are enjoying the content I put out as often as I do. Thank you, All!