She never actually enjoys the physical pain of others. In fact, she might go so far to say that the screams from torture and all those other in between reactions are annoyances. But there is something incredibly alluring about the tragic twisting of minds.
There are, of course, exceptions.
Like Kaneki Ken.
She admits fully that she was a part of his first little transformation, a memory crafted fondly in her mind. She fails to remember when Kaneki became something slightly more than a fun chess piece (or when life became something slightly more than a fun chess game). The white hair was quaint little bonus to his mental anguish over every self-sacrificial action he took. The hilarity stemming from his hypocritical actions never failed to make her laugh—he, whose ego inflated enough to think that he could escape through death, leaving behind the world for others to fend for. And so, back then, the little plot she conjured up was still quite simple: push and pull his frail little limbs until he snapped in response to the illusions she conquered. But her illusions still paled in comparison to the forever draining world, dressed in deceit and allure.
In retrospect, she should have expected it.
No matter how special of a being Kaneki is in her eyes, no one escapes Arima in a fight unscathed. She finds it incredibly ironic that the CCG's role in twisting her Kaneki is even more significant than her own role. After all, Arima, the supposed reaper, left Kaneki with life rather than a one way out end.
Well, it wasn't a good ending to Eto's story anyway. She appreciates Arima's gesture.
She does not have ties to the CCG in the way Kaneki does, which is probably why the both of them can never really be viewed in the same light. Has Eto ever been an unwilling participant?
Eto's direction has always been rather clear. Being born as the one eyed ghoul certainly did not help. Could she ever have been on the other side? With Anteiku? Serving tea while smiling at the warmth of family?
No, her disillusionment had been a quick one—an instantaneously devoured light. Kaneki's—she wants to laugh—just stubbornly keeps flickering on and off, an unpredictable thing.
Eto believes that they are similar—the two half ghouls whose families are disgustingly messed up- but she knows better. After all, love is a foreign concept to Eto. The extent of her knowledge of care and warmth for another being was when Tatara bothered to rescue her from the mess she made when encountering the CCG. "It'll come back to bite you," he told her.
What foresight Tatara has, she commends. Luckily, she quite enjoys the CCG's retaliation and its repercussions years later.
Eto has never been a tragic figure—and never will be—not with there being nowhere to fall completely and irrevocably. Thus, Eto can only be the villain who is sunk so deep into despair and then depravity, rendering empathy a distant fantasy.
But Kaneki is the clichéd rotting rose, the white stained with red, the self fulfilling prophecy perpetually imploding on itself. He is tragedy personified and manipulates heart strings with a blink of an eye. She is, admittedly, a bit envious.
Eto loves Kaneki, but it is not the same love that Kaneki is accustomed to—the one that necessitates sacrifice and blissful ignorance. This love is dressed formally in angst, plot twist, and blood. Eto loves from afar, with a furious vengeance and it is only natural that such love would manifest so sadistically. So long as both of them are alive, they can continue to fight each other to the brink of death.
She recalls the addicting holds of warmth that can only come from another being (and no, she is not talking about their entrails). On the other hand, she cannot consider herself fully immune to Eto's passionate fascination of Kaneki Ken. She too wants to know what ending the artificial half ghoul will meet and delights in the prospect of her being an integral part of it.
Arima is a different story. Eto harbors a glaring amount of distaste that manifests in her competitive streak while fighting him. Eto welcomes the game between just the two of them and likes to think that Arima has something of a personal vendetta as well. But that is also the crux behind her incredible aversion to Arima, for she knows that Arima is probably the closest semblance to god—imparting divine judgment with an emotionless mask. And Eto has never gotten the chance to break that demented deus ex machina down into pieces of human.
Eto's life resembles that of a boiling frog. She is sitting in a pool of water as the temperature slowly rises until the naïve little frog dies from overheat. Except she isn't dead. And she is certainly not naïve, so she'd like to think. Her world is a raging conflagration though, one explosive tumult of violence, death, and drama after another.
As a sitting frog waiting to die, she, ever the dutiful author, is in the best suited place to mold her surroundings into carefully crafted novels and fantasies in her mind.
"Do you know what I think?" Eto once asked Tatara in a conspiratory whisper, as though she were divulging the most important secret in the world. "I think this world was made to make us suffer, sprinkling in some happiness here or there because after all, suffering is strongest fresh and unsullied by the numbing effects of time."
Tatara had looked at her with the same, flat expression that graced his expressions seemingly permanently.
"I bet you thought I was some kind of absurdist," Eto giggled, an unnerving sound that morphed into full cackles. "But to think the world is meaningless—without a care for what we do—that's a thought left for hypocrites and suicidal weaklings seeking an excuse to stop trying. But I'm always trying aren't I? Always my very hardest."
Their goals are an unfortunate dichotomy. The true Eto, the one that originally inhabited the world as a half ghoul and fed on her own hatred, does not seek destruction. Rather, that Eto seeks vindication, retribution and salvation defined by her brutal conviction. But she, the imposter of a ghoul, the one who never experienced the origin of Eto's shattered window of a past, does not seek anything so romantic. She fails to be pulled into the allure of Eto's warped dream—the very same that has enchanted ghouls and fueled investigators' noble egos. With a mindset of a jaded human being, she seeks self-preservation above all. There is no underlying meaning—no person she has dedicated her life to save, no cause she is determined to see through—other than her concession to biological survival instinct. The world is an absurd place, she understands all too well.
As a ghoul parading around as a morbid author, she is slightly peeved by Eto's reckless tendencies and life decisions. But now, it is safer to maintain the dangerous façade.