I almost forgot this was a Tokyo Ghoul fanfiction as well; time to give Kaneki some of the love he got from the manga here as well.

Thankfully for Chara, the mixtape only consisted of three songs, if one would consider them really songs. I personally thought they could be used in perhaps mixing into other songs, while Chara firmly believed that all three pieces had zero redeemable qualities. Juuzou, on the other hand, had been jamming out during the entire mixtape, which only lasted for less than a minute. After, we went down the path that Chara had originally intended on us taking and passed column after column. Despite Juuzou being, well, being him, that didn't mean that I wanted the time spent in silence. "So um, Juuzou, do you have family?"

"I had a mother." He replied. In my peripheral vision, I watched him twirl his knife between his fingers- something that Chara had found interesting about him. I'd have to give him credit too, he was pretty dexterous from the looks of it.

"What was she like?"

"I killed her." That conversation went south pretty fast. Although I knew Chara was trying to be a better person, I could hear them hum in delight after Juuzou admitting to shamelessly murdering his own mother. "I loved her though, don't get me wrong, but she needed to die."

"Oh… I heard the Ruins are a pretty dangerous place, did you encounter any trouble at all?"

"I wouldn't call it trouble." Juuzou replied in an honest voice. "A few of the local residents here wanted to play I, so we did."

"What kind of games did you guys play?"

"We fought." The more and more I dug deeper into Juuzou's character, the more I begun to realize how similar he was to Chara.

"And you used that knife to…"

"Of course I used this knife! Don't worry, it's just a toy, see?" Without warning, he wrapped his hand around my forearm as he brought the knife's edge toward my hand. I honestly was pretty nervous, but I didn't try to resist. Chara, however, was not as willing to throw down their trust blindly as I was. Through me, Chara took control of my other arm before swiftly grabbing hold Juuzou's wrist- stopping the supposedly plastic blade inches away from my arm.

"D O N ' T ." Although I appreciated Chara's protective motives behind their frightening voice, it caught me off guard; I let out a small yelp as I backed away from Juuzou, who in turn didn't seem frightened, but rather concerned.

"Huh, I wasn't expecting that." Juuzou muttered to himself. I didn't want to push him away from me, he seemed like a nice person, despite him murdering his mother and all. But hey, I wasn't one to judge, I had a cruel mother myself after all.

"I'm… I'm sorry about that." I apologized as I made my way back to his side. "This may seem unbelievable, but I'm not the only one in control of my soul, let alone actions."

"Is that why your red eye has black around it now?" Juuzou questioned as they got closer to my face to stare into my left eye, and by the funny faces they were making accompanied with a low growl coming from Chara, they were probably staring at themselves through the reflection of my eye.

"Please get this idiot away from me."

"That's pretty deep." He chuckled before backing away from me. Without another word, both of us continued on our merry way. On the bright side, the area we were passing through didn't have any pillars around- so that was something to be thankful for.

The next area led into a large alley with four rather large frogs standing thoughtlessly next to each other. However, as soon as we stepped in front of the one on the far left, they all turned to face us with their vacant faces staring at me. "What…"

"Oh ho ho! Looks like we're about to have a fun time, Kaneki!" Juuzou cheered as they held their toy knife in anticipation. Before I could question to what they meant, a frog leapt toward me, which caused me to fall back on the ground as it landed on my chest.

"Oh my God, Kaneki, that was embarrassing." Chara groaned. "Hey, brush it off, there's more coming for us." I grabbed the small monster by its sides before throwing if it off me.

"What kind of frogs do that?!" Not once in my life was I ever attacked by a frog, nor was I aware that there existed a species large enough to push a human back.

"They're not frogs, they're froggits." Chara corrected in an informative matter. "Their HP is 30, AT is 4, DEF is 5. Life is difficult for this enemy." That was… interesting of Chara to explain what I was presuming to be their stats or something in those choice words.

"... Like, I'm trying to be nice here Chara, but… HP? AT? DEF? Really?"

"Shut up, this is serious." Chara objected defensively. "HP means how much damage they can take before dying, AT is how strong their attacks are, and DEF is how much resistance they have from incoming attacks; just think of it in a mathematical sense." What a time consuming explanation. Nevermind how Chara was able to even come up with these numbers in the first place; out of all terms to use, Chara just had to use RPG lingo.

"So basically, you want me to pretend I'm some sort of videogame character?" I asked in a somewhat sarcastic tone.

"What's a videogame?" As much as I would have loved to inquire about their ability to check for the stats of others in the first place, I had to focus on the other three frogs that were ready to strike. Besides, as informative as I enjoyed being, I really didn't care what imaginary stats these monsters had. The next froggit tried the same attack as the first one, but I was able to moved out of the way in time. I turned to face where the froggit had landed, and rushed in before kicking the monster from behind. It made splat noise as it hit against the stone wall. "Not too bad." The third froggit, seeing what had become of his comrade, decided not to attack on me, but rather had its sights set for Juuzou.

"About time!" Juuzou jeered as he held his knife in hand with a his eyes focused on the froggit's mid-air borne leaping body. Just as I had expected, Juuzou's skill with a knife was an extremely impressive sight to witness. A mere inches before the froggit could tackle him down, Juuzou jabbed the toy knife against the monster's belly- launching it up in a completely different direction. However, he wasn't quite done yet. Juuzou swung his weapon down upon the unfortunate monster, who flew back with the force and on to the ground, and with that same momentum, Juuzou flipped the toy knife around to hold it by its plastic blade before throwing it against the fourth froggit- knocking it out on impact.

"Wow…" I whispered in awe as I watched Juuzou walk over to where the knife had landed before picking it back up. Standing before him, the froggit that had first attacked me shivered after witnessing what had become of his teammates. Juuzou knelt down with a rather wicked grin on his face as he held the froggit belly-up with one hand.

"Wait… No, is really about to-" Juuzou suddenly drove the tip of the knife into the belly of froggit with a sickening squishing noise. The creature then disintegrated into a pile of white dust. Why wasn't I stopping him, and even worse, why was Chara letting this happen? Not only did Chara seem unfazed by have witnessing the same thing as I saw, but they weren't even trying to tell me to stop him. After watching them stomp the other three monsters into dust, I watched as they happily begun to search through to the piles of ashes for small golden coins to pocket them.

"Don't worry, Kaneki! We'll split the loot down the middle- 50/50! Come on, let's keep going!"

Despite Juuzou's playful and seemingly nice attitude, I could see that he was a lot like how Chara was in the same way that they regarded others lives as play toys. Or at least, that's how Chara used to be. "Hey I'm back!" Juuzou suddenly stopped to shout on their tippy toes. "Hey, Kaneki, mind waiting here while I go get a refund?"

"I guess." I replied unenthusiastically.

"Good! I'll be right back then!" And with that said, they begun their prance toward a cobweb filled alley. I began walking toward the opposite direction, in hope that I could get out of earshot for whatever he had planned for the monsters in there, if there were any.

"I know it's difficult for you to understand, but he's quite powerful, so just keep him around until we get Asriel and Toriel, then we can decide on what to do after that." Chara tried comforting me, but I knew that they themselves probably didn't care about the lives of a few monsters that resemble frogs. I didn't want to admit it, but neither did I, and that's what sickened me the most. Having been distracted with my introverted thoughts, I bumped into something soft. "Oh, it's them."

"oh… i'm sorry..."

"It's my fault, I should been looking where I was going." I apologized back. In front of me, there floated a stereotypical white ghost with black rings for eyes and its mouth slightly a gapped.

"i should have been paying attention to where i was laying down…"

"No, really, please don't be upset about this, you're good."

"oh… i must be making this really awkward for you two…" I was caught off guard by how he had said 'you two'. Did he mean Juuzou, but he was in a different area, so that couldn't have been. Perhaps he could see Chara somehow. "did your friend not want to be noticed…? im sorry…i keep making this more and more awkward…"

"Can they sense me?"

"and hear you…sorry for not telling you sooner…"

"I apologize, I didn't quite catch your name."

"napstablook… oh god…i forgot to tell you that too…" Napstablook whimpered with tears falling down onto the purple tiles below.

"I'm Kaneki, and this is Chara; it's a pleasure to meet you, Napstablook."

"Yeah, what he said." I had almost forgotten what Chara had looked like, and seeing them now standing beside me was a sight that I welcomed now. "Napstablook, have you've seen Asriel or Toriel around?"

"i saw asriel coming through this way earlier…i believe that he was looking for his mother…"

"So just Asriel then… Well, let's go get Juuzou and leave Kaneki; you've been of help, ghost." Chara thanked before fading back into me. "Come on Kaneki, let's go."

"Wait." I muttered under breath. I didn't want to leave Napstablook in tears, that would be cruel. That's what I told myself anyway, the reality of it was that I just wanted to feel better about myself from what I had done earlier. "Would you like to come with us?"

"im not really feeling up to it right now, sorry…" They sighed. Rather than saying anything back, I stood there patiently smiling at him. "heh…" Napstablook seemed a little better after me having just simply smiled at them. "i am… sorry if that bothers you…"

"Kaneki, what are you doing?" I chuckled as I held my chin.

"Oh no worries, but I really think you coming along with us would be beneficial to you."

"Please tell me you're not trying to be funny."

"oh… why is that…?"

"Because, if you came along-"

"Kaneki, stop."

"- We could maybe find an elevator to lift your spirit!"

"Kaneki, why?" I knew that joke was terrible, and even I felt a little ashamed of it. Nonetheless though, it served its purpose.

"heh… heh…" My efforts in cheering them up seemed to have improved their mood again. "kaneki… would you like to see something…?" I nodded. Napstablook then smiled softly as their tears flew upward toward their head to form a top hat. "i call it "dapper blook", do you like it it...?" I smiled as I gave them a quick appulse in response, which I could tell made them feel good about themselves. "oh gee… thank you for being nice to me, but i really should go home… do you have a phone i could reach you with…?" I knew it might have been rude to use Asriel's cell phone as my own, but I just told myself I would just use it to save Napstablook's number to write it down for later.

I was thankful that Napstablook left before Juuzou returned. The next few rooms consisted of odd puzzles that I would have compared to those found in dungeon-based videogames. Not to say that they weren't fun, but Chara kept spoiling how to complete each puzzle while Juuzou had already completed most of them. I did enjoy falling down into a pile of leafs though, that was really fun. However, after realizing that monsters turned into dust after their deaths, that's when I begun to notice more and more dust scattered around various spots in each of the rooms we passed through. Had Juuzou lied about not killing any of the monsters, or did he just believe that he wasn't doing it? It wasn't until we came upon a room with leafs scattered across did we see the next monster. There cowering in the corner, was a froggit, who stared at me with bulging eyes. "Oh? I must have missed one." Juuzou chuckled, but before he could get close to it, I grabbed him by his shoulder. "What is it Kaneki?"

"I… I don't want you to kill that froggit." He gave me a blank expression. "You do realize you're killing them, right? When they become dust, that means they're dead."

"Of course I know, Kaneki." Juuzou said as he brushed my hand off his shoulder. "But why are you having a problem with this now? You didn't say anything earlier about it."

"I know… But, I've had some time to think about it. I know essentially they're just frogs, but even so, you didn't have to kill them." I argued. "You're having too much fun with this, and earlier you said you didn't kill any of them! What ever happened to that?"

"You're a coward Kaneki." Juuzou pointed out flatley. "I hadn't planned for those froggits being there, mind you, so when they did attack us, I wanted to see how you would react. And let me tell you this: you might not have noticed it, but you enjoy hurting others." He smiled after saying that. "But that's okay, I know Chara does too… But you're getting pretty boring now..." Suddenly, their scaleras became black and their irises glew a cyan color. Their smiled grew and grew into a sadistic grin. "You know what? I think I wanna play with you instead. I wonder… Will you turn into dust too?" Juuzou tossed the plastic knife on the ground near my feet, to which I just stared at. "Go on, pick it up."

"Juuzou…" I couldn't tell if there was any point reasoning with him anymore. Was it too late? "You need to calm down, we can't we just-"

"-Don't think badly of me for doing this." Between his fingers appeared a transparent cyan silhouette of a knife, and I watched in shock as he raised his arm to throw it. "What the-" Juuzou, surprised, turned his head to see that the froggit wrapped itself around his arm in a feeble attempt to stop him. "That's so cute!" Juuzou laughed as he reached over to grab a hold of the froggit, which tried to squirm its way of his tight grip. "Kaneki, if you really care about this thing's life, then come, take it away from me."

"Don't do it; it's not worth jeopardizing our existence." Chara warned in a slightly panicked voice. "Kaneki, in case you haven't noticed, we're not exactly in a state you would call "alive". That froggit has a soul and a body, it'll live on if he kills it. If you die, then that's it; it'll just be me in this-"

"-Took too long!" In a flash, Juuzou squashed the monster in his hand and into a cloud of dust. With the remains on his palm, Juuzou playfully blew the dust toward me. "Talk about selfish; to think, all you had to do was just take the thing from my hand, and it would have lived."

"Don't blame yourself, you did the smart thing." Had I? Letting another life, no matter how insignificant it was to me, perish, even when there was a possibility I could have saved it. With the feeling of dread coursing through my being, if I could be considered it as that. I knew that Juuzou had his sights set on me, and there was no talking my way out of this either. "...Kaneki, you should let me-" Suddenly, I felt the cyan blade pierce through me. Looking down to where Juuzou had thrown the knife in, I watched in pain as red particles emitted from where I had been impaled. It wasn't long until the shock wore off and I realized just how much pain I was actually in. I let out a scream, and with me, I could even hear Chara's scream as well. Mixed in with our cries of pain, I could hear Juuzou laughing in delight.

"Wow, I thought you were supposed to be a quick learner, Kaneki!" Trying my best to ignore the pain, I reached for the toy knife in a desperate act to defend myself. I knew it wouldn't do much, but I thought if I had used well enough, I could deteriorate his efforts in attacking me. I rushed forward with the knife in hand and tried slashing their chest with it, but Juuzou had no trouble countering my endeavor by grabbing my arm before impaling my forearm with another cyan knife. Not wanting give him the satisfaction of hearing me scream, I gritted my teeth as I got back up to my feet. "At least make this fun for me, Kaneki!"

"Kaneki, I can take the pain, let me take control!" Chara begged, which even in my pain, I was able to find beauty in their words. For someone who claimed to not to care about lives of others, I was touched that they cared about mine. "You're going to die? Doesn't that bother you?!"

"No." I spat out as I pulled the cyan blade from my arm. In my hand, the cyan weapon evaporated along with the red mist that shot out from where it had hit me. "You're not going to hurt anyone else." Being more than aware of his ability of his knives, I was able to move out of the way of his next attack, and this time I was able to duct in time away before they could grab me. Seeing an opening, I took the opportunity to drive the blade of my own weapon into their chest. I knew the weapon would have shattered, it was plastic after all, but at least no one would be able to say that I didn't try.

"You sure got me really good, haha!" Even when I knew what was sure to come, I continued to focus on resisting Chara's desperate attempts to take control in their attempt to save me. However, I knew that if we were to switch control, then they would be the one perish instead of me, and… and I couldn't do that to them. At least this would give Chara the chance to run. I took Hide's chance to live a happy life, and I refused to repeat that mistake with them. "Allow me to return a favor."

"Kaneki please, let me help you..."

"You already did." Smiling, I could feel tears pouring down profusely down the left side of my face as I stared into the twisted face of Juuzou. Grabbing my shoulder to put me down on my knees, Juuzou plunged the cyan blade deep into my neck. I wondered if my best really was enough. I knew that Chara had to endure the pain with me, but otherwise I would like to think that if they weren't screaming, they would said something along the lines that they'll miss me. Was this enough, Hide; was this good enough to have earn your forgiveness? I hoped so. I felt really tired, and soon found myself growing deaf to Juuzou's laughing and Chara's screams, and it wasn't soon until I found the world going black. It reminded me a lot like when I first met Chara. Amazing how close we could bond from sharing the same soul. Well, I suppose it was their soul now. Goodnight Chara, and thank you for your friendship.

On my knees, my vision was blurred through the tears that were flooding down both my cheeks. In front of me stood the bastard as he stared into my eyes. Through my tear soaked eyes, I leapt to tackle him to the ground. Since he found it so hilarious to stab Kaneki in the neck, I found it justified to end his life in the same way. Or at least, that's what I wanted to think. At the moment, I just wanted him dead. Biting into neck, I begun to take chunk after chunk of his HP away from him, and even as a cyan mist flooded from his neck, he still continued to scream. In a primal rage, I grabbed the sides of his head to slam his head repeatedly into the tiled floor. I would have kept going until there was nothing left, but a pair of hands grabbed me from the collar. By the time I had realized that I was being pulled away, I was blindfully clawing toward the direction of Juuzou, who weakly tried to crawl away from me. "Thank you… Mama…" He whispered.

"Kaneki! Stop!" Looking behind me, I could see that it was Toriel holding me back, and beside her stood Asriel, who looked at me like I was some sort of demon. "Asriel, why would you have left him with Frisk?!" Why were they holding me back?!

"He… He wasn't like this before… I mean… he was, but…" What?! Did they not just witness what happened to Kaneki?! "Chara, is that you right now?"

" ." I screeched as I continued to reached out toward the direction of Juuzou. "He… He killed him…" I whispered, after all, it was hard trying to speak through my sobbing. Asriel made his way next to me, and gave me worried expression. "What… What are you doing?!"

"Chara, Juuzou was just trying to find you and Kaneki!" … That wasn't true.

"Didn't you see?! They killed Kaneki! They jabbed a knife into his throat, I saw it, I felt it!"

"They kept screaming for you to stop hurting yourself!" Toriel shouted. "You… You need help, poor child." I didn't understand what was going on. How was I hurting myself? I was defending myself from him, for God's sake! It was then that I caught glimpse on the ground of what I thought had been a toy knife. Seeing it now, I could make it out to be the same kitchen knife from earlier, but I didn't understand how that was possible. Kaneki had forgotten it, so why was it there? And even Juuzou looked different than before. Instead of white hair, he had normal black hair, and there we no red stitches were inside of his skin. I couldn't have imagined everything, there was no way.

"Don't worry Chara, we'll help you and Kaneki get better…" Asriel spoke as he tried to reach in for a hug. I was always in control, wasn't I? I couldn't help but wonder if it had been Kaneki and Frisk that had always been my voice of reason before and without them...

"I'm breaking, yet unbreakable…" I couldn't help but beginning to grin as I held on to my cheeks- singing in between my sobs. "I'm crazy, but I have control…" Hearing me singing, Asriel backed away a little to stare at me with a sadden look. "I'm breaking, yet unbreakable… I'm crazy, but I have control..." Oh God, what was happening to me?! Through my tears, I watched Toriel rush toward Juuzou to provide aid to his wounds. I knew better though, no I didn't. Drip drop, drip drop, I could hear the river running. With my shaking and oh so gentle hands, Kaneki's hands, I unzip my good friend Kaneki's coat pocket to give Asriel's back without acknowledging him. He might been speaking to me, but I couldn't hear him over my singing and sobbing. I really wished I could have heard Kaneki sing, he seemed the kind to be at least decent at it. Asriel said he'd help me, but shouldn't we wait until Kaneki comes back before having dinner? Mom always made the best pies, and she was a really good cook as she was a baker. Oh, I could see it, blink, blink, blink; I had to blink the tears away, but they refused to stop shedding. Drip drop, drip drop, just like the river. RESET. Rivers are nice, I was sure Kaneki would like to come with me to one someday. Drip drop, drip drop. RESET. Maybe Kaneki would read me a story, he did like reading after all. RESET. Standing there watching everything happening before me was getting me pretty exhausted, and I could use a good nap. TRUE RESET.

Goodnight Kaneki, I'll see you in the morning.

RIP in peace, Kaneki. You were a good bang. For those who followed the next series of RE:, I think you'll know who's coming to town next chapter.