Hey, what's up guys! Welcome to the fourteenth ever installment of Tokyo Ghoul: Remnant. So, I really have nothing to talk about. I mean, I could talk about the fact that school is going to be starting up soon, since that is a pretty important and relative topic, but I'm not. Mainly because I really, REALLY don't want to talk about school.
Why? Well, it's because of the fact that me going back to school, really doesn't change anything at all. I am not going to be slowing down production of this story just because of school. Really. I love doing this too much allow it to. So, let's just leave it at that and only that.
Anyways, like I said, I really don't have much to talk about. I mean, I have a bunch of stuff to talk about at the end of this chapter, but it all has to do with the chapter itself and what takes place in it, and what I thought while I was writing it. So, if you want to hear me talk about all of that, then just read the chapter and then tune in to the bottom of the page to read my little spoilercast/director's commentary.
Also, before I get into whatever I use to segue into the mandatory disclaimer, I have a little message for all of you. My beta-reader, you all pretty much know her name by now and if you don't, go and go back and read some of my past author's notes, wants YOUR help! Recently, with the release and subsequent success of her very own Tokyo Ghoul and RWBY crossover, Glass Lilies, she now seeks to strip me of my title as 'god king of the Tokyo Ghoul/RWBY crossover section'. I, being the benevolent god king that I am, decided to allow her to voice her plea for assistance to all of you. So, I implore you my kind subjects, listen to her pleas and help her in her quest to usurp me! I welcome it!
Also, also… Yes, I did just refer to myself as god king of this particular crossover section. What you going to do about it? Hopefully try and prove me wrong by writing a better story than I ever could, because, you know, I would appreciate the air of competition it would bring and improve myself. And, you know, not be a salty bitch about it.
Also, also, also… Blah, blah, blah… *insert segue to disclaimer here* …blah, blah, blah.
-Mandatory Disclaimer-
Blah, blah, blah… *insert mandatory disclaimer here* …blah, blah, blah.
-Chapter 14: Grind Away Golden Branches-
Kaneki sighed wearily, setting his calendar back on his desk after checking it for what felt like the hundredth time that day. Nearly a whole week had passed by since his teammates had asked him to take part in their coffee-tasting contest, and nothing spectacular had managed to happen in the meantime. As a result, the past few days had melted into a single, extremely long one, due to how painstakingly mundane his life had become.
Thankfully, Kaneki was well-experienced with having to spend entire weeks doing nothing but the bare necessities to keep him going-something that he attributed heavily to his introverted lifestyle. Still, despite being well-accustomed to the tedium he was currently going through, he couldn't help but yearn for the company of his teammates. Their presence in his life had been such an uncompromising constant that the sudden lack of it made him feel as though time was slipping by even more slowly than it actually was. At the very least, they made his life more than just sleeping, coffee and books.
Glancing down at the stub where the upper portion of his forearm should've been, he couldn't help but let out a frustrated sigh. It hasn't started regenerating at all… he thought bitterly, raising the stump, before letting it hang at his side. Still nothing…I guess I must've overestimated the capabilities of my regeneration.
A part of him knew that he probably should've felt more when he contemplated the loss of his arm, but after all he'd lost in his life, losing a body part was just a mere setback. Really, it was just like accidentally spilling a pitcher of water-nothing more than a bother. If the upper part of his arm was indeed never coming back, then Kaneki would simply learn to live without it. It was as simple as that, really.
Placing his thumb over his index finger, he smiled tightly, grimaced, really, before cracking his knuckle. Hm, Kaneki thought, shifting his gaze to the door to his room. I wonder if Ozpin's busy right now.
Kaneki fell to a single knee, staring down the man standing across from him through the gaps in his drenched hair. Dammit, he cursed to himself, propping his blade up on the ground and leaning on it as if it were a cane. His legs, after all of the strain he had put on them, felt like they were made up of something akin to gelatin that had been crushed with a fork. I guess this is how you earn the title of headmaster…
To put it bluntly, the half-ghoul was absolutely getting his ass handed to him by his opponent. Then again, could he really have expected any different from the man who sat at the very top of Beacon's food chain? He was the headmaster of a school meant to teach hunters and huntresses, the strongest people in all of Remnant, and that was a distinction Kaneki was sure wasn't handed out to just anyone. Still, knowing that someone was strong and actually seeing that strength be displayed in person were two different things entirely.
From the very start of their spar, Kaneki quickly realized that he'd never be able to beat Ozpin, as the headmaster easily deflected his first string of attacks without even moving from where he stood. Clearly, he was outclassed by his opponent, but that didn't mean he was going to stop sparring.
Kaneki knew that people adapted the best when they were pushed to their limits. With his left side currently being lighter than his right side, due to his recent disarming, he needed to learn how to fight without having a natural way to keep himself balanced, especially since his fighting style entailed that he shift his body weight around frequently. If he didn't now, it would definitely bite him in the ass later.
So, after nearly an hour of bashing his head against the steel wall that called itself the headmaster of Beacon, Kaneki felt as though he was nearly at the point where he could enter a fight without having to worry about it. It took a lot of stumbling and getting tripped, but he did eventually figure out what he needed to do.
"How…long…?" Kaneki asked his opponent between ragged, labored breaths.
"Four minutes," Ozpin stated, making his way over to where the younger of the two stood. "Which means that you've improved on your best time by a whole minute now."
"Ah…improving…" Kaneki wheezed out, a satisfied smirk growing on to his face while he shifted his body a bit, so that he could feel more comfortable while leaning against the steel hilt of his makeshift cane. "Good…good," he muttered under his breath, struggling to regain control of his heaving lungs. "Again…let's go again."
Ozpin raised an eyebrow. "As an educator, I hate to play the contrarian when a student tries to challenge themselves, but do you really think that's the best idea?" The silver-haired headmaster asked him. "You can barely even stand up on your own. Do you seriously think that you stand much more of a chance now?"
The half ghoul opened his mouth to counter that claim, but promptly shut it when he found that the only thing coming out from it was just more ragged breathing. Dammit… he thought bitterly, already knowing that probably just killed any chances of him being able to convince the headmaster otherwise.
"Look, Mr. Kaneki, I respect that you want to get yourself back in fighting shape as quickly as possible," Ozpin said, placing one of his hands on to the student's right shoulder. "But you and I both know that forcing yourself like this isn't going to get you anywhere."
"…Fine," Ken replied reluctantly, before granting his body the reprieve it so desperately begged for and allowing himself to fall flat on to his back...Or, at least, that was the plan, before his descent was cut short by the hand holding on to his shoulder.
"You know…you really don't have...to do this," the half ghoul muttered bashfully as Ozpin slowly lowered him down on to the floor.
"I'm well aware of that," the bespectacled man replied, flashing him a slight hint of a smile, "but what kind of educator would I be if I let a student of mine fall on to his backside all the time?"
Kaneki couldn't help but wince when he heard that last part, mainly because it brought back memories of the many times the man did let him fall flat on to his backside in the past hour.
"You…don't have to…remind me," he replied, his chest still heaving in and out rapidly. "I remember…the other times…well enough."
The silver-haired man standing over him let out a quiet chuckle. "So, are you any closer to figuring out what you need to do?"
Not wanting to waste any of breath-which had become quite the commodity with his lungs as of late-giving a verbal response, Kaneki simply nodded his head, before laying himself flat out on to the ground under him. He silently relished the cool feeling of the metal on the few bits of his skin that wasn't covered up by the fabric of his sweat-soaked shirt.
"Well, it certainly showed," Ozpin noted offhandedly, nodding his head slowly. He sat down right next to where the exhausted student lay. "You even almost managed to graze me at the end there."
"…I noticed." A bitter taste beginning to pool in the back of his mouth, Ken thought back to the closing moments of their most recent clash, knowing how close he was to landing a hit on the headmaster. If he hadn't messed up his footing with that last lunge…
Silence blanketed over the conversation as the young man began thinking up ways to prevent any more mistakes of that nature from happening. However, before he could delve too deep into those thoughts, he was dragged away from them by the sound of Ozpin's voice.
"May I ask you a question, Mr. Kaneki?" The headmaster asked suddenly. Almost subconsciously, Kaneki nodded. "Why exactly did you come and ask me to spar?"
Confused, Kaneki glanced over at the man sitting next to him and narrowed his eyes, before asking a question of his own. "What do you mean?"
"You have four teammates who I know would all be happy to help you get back into fighting shape," Ozpin replied. "So, why ask me of all people to do so? I'm sure they would be more than adequate enough to get you to the point you're trying to reach."
Kaneki fell silent, mainly because he knew that his answer wasn't a simple one to explain for various reasons. Still, he tried his best to explain himself to the headmaster. "It's because I can't afford to take my time with this…Not when the lives of my friends could be on the line in the future."
"Ah, so you're doing this to keep from being your team's sole liability," Ozpin summarized Kaneki's answer perfectly, before nodding his head to show his understanding. "Do you mind me voicing my opinion on that?"
"Go ahead," the exhausted young man replied with an upward nod of his head, though a part of him was already sure of what he was going to say.
"Personally, I think that you're going about all of this the entirely wrong way," Ozpin stated bluntly.
Hm, looks like I got it right on the money with that guess, the half ghoul noted with a tiny bit of mirth, having firmly expected something like that to come from the man.
"Yeah," Kaneki replied, his earlier amusement carrying over to his physical voice. "I know."
Ozpin raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
A wave of amusement washed over Kaneki when he heard that and immediately showed itself in the form of a smile-the same one that crawled on to his lips in his room earlier. "Of course. It wouldn't be very smart of me to forget about a long-standing problem of mine."
"'Long-standing'?"
"It's been a problem of mine for a while now, though I only really became aware of it a few seconds before I woke up here in Beacon."
"If you've known about it for that long—"
"I don't know." Kaneki was fully aware of the fact that his answer wasn't much of an answer, but unfortunately, it was the only one he had to give. "I guess old habits just die hard."
A crack resonated through the air while the young man thought back to the first time he really thought to address aforementioned habit, but stopped himself when he realized something. Wait, is that the reason why?
"Hey, headmaster Ozpin…" Ken began, which drew the headmaster's attention on to him. "Would you mind if I asked you to do something for me?"
Blake let out an indignant snort in response to the question that had been asked of her. "I fail to see how my relationship with Kaneki is any of your business," she told Sun, who had posed the question to her in the first place.
He didn't say anything in response; all he did was let out a defeated sigh and allow his shoulders to slump dramatically.
Confused by the reaction, Blake narrowed her eyes at the blonde walking besides her. "Is there a problem?" She asked, somewhat tiredly.
"Uh, n-no," Sun stuttered, flashing a sheepish grin. "No problem at all."
Having seen that reaction enough to know that the boy didn't really mean what he said, Blake raised a skeptical eyebrow, but before she could say anything, she was interrupted by another, much louder blonde.
"Hey, lay off the guy," Yang stated playfully, cutting into the conversation suddenly. "You already broke the guy's heart-don't you think stomping on it is just a little bit cruel?"
Blake sighed in exasperation before glaring at her teammate's head. "Didn't we already have this discussion a couple days ago?" She asked, massaging the bridge of her nose.
"We did?" Yang asked back, placing the tip of her index finger to her chin, clearly feigning innocence.
"Sorry. I must've forgot all of the details at some point." Blake groaned. "Would you mind reminding me of how exactly that 'conversation' went down?"
"I remember you asking me to answer a lot of stupid questions that I didn't want to answer."
"Stupid?!" Yang gasped incredulously, while shifting her hand over her mouth. "You dare imply such a thing?!"
Suppressing the need to let out another groan, Blake shook her head. "I really can't believe you sometimes," she muttered under her breath.
"Aw, but I thought you liked unpredictability," Yang whimpered weakly, slumping her entire body over to show her disappointment. She suddenly snapped her head up and winked. "Or, maybe you only like it because it's something Kaneki has in spades?"
Blake's amber eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth to say something back in retort, but immediately stopped herself, knowing that she would be playing right into Yang's hand if she did. Instead, she opted to just glare at her partner.
"Hey, you two!" A certain heiress called, which prompted them to shift both of their attention on to her almost immediately. Weiss was walking a little up ahead of them with Ruby and Sun's newly-transferred, blue-haired teammate, Neptune. Upon seeing that she had both of their attention, she proceeded to ask, "Could the two of you just stop bickering for a moment and listen up? I just got a message from Ozpin that he wanted to be relayed to everyone."
"Uh, s-sorry," Blake replied, her cheeks growing a degree warmer. "Go ahead." Her loudmouth of a partner, on the other hand, didn't say anything at all. All she did was flash a triumphant smirk and motion for Weiss to continue same with a nod of the head.
"He's apparently out in Vale running an errand with Kaneki and won't be back until sometime later," Weiss explained. She shook her head with disbelief. "Seriously, of all the days for Kaneki to take off again…"
What…? Blake's eyes widened in response to the heiress's explanation. What in the world is that idiot planning on doing now? She thought, remembering what happened the last time the half ghoul went out to run an 'errand'.
"Well, isn't that kind of for the best?" Sun cut into the conversation suddenly. "I know that I haven't seen the guy in close to a week now, but he definitely wasn't in the best shape last time I saw him." Shrugging his shoulders, he added, "Would bringing him really be a good idea? The dude was missing a part of his arm, for Pete's sake!"
Seriously? Blake thought. It took all of her willpower to hold back the ever-growing need to let out an irritated groan. We just told you to not say anything about his injuries in front of Neptune…
Glancing over at aforementioned transfer, Blake found that his seemingly ever-present smirk was gone, having been replaced by a look of concern.
"Well…" Ruby began while she sheepishly scratched at the back of her head.
"Wait!" Sun exclaimed disbelievingly. "You guys were actually planning on bringing him?"
"Hey, in our defense, Short-stuff's way tougher than he looks," Yang answered, doing so on the behalf of a very befuddled-looking Ruby. "I'm sure he would've been perfectly fine!"
"Still, that's a lot to ride on an assumption," the monkey Faunus stated with a quick shake of his head.
"Either way, he isn't going to be able to come with us now that he's out in the city doing…whatever he's doing with Ozpin," Blake stated dryly, crossing her arms over her chest. "We should just hurry up and get started."
"Hm, is that a little disappoint—" Yang began to say, but was almost immediately cut off.
"—No," Blake interrupted.
That, of course, only elicited a laugh from the blonde.
Ah, there she is… Kaneki thought as he caught sight of his target, who was busy sifting through the near impossibly large stack of books that sat on her desk. He began walking over to where she stood. Have to be quick, otherwise Ozpin is going to come check on me…
The moment he started walking, Kaneki became acutely aware of how much louder the sound of footsteps became when there was no other sound to obscure it. Though, he really didn't mind it, because it saved him from having to call out to his target to get her attention.
Probably having noticed the foreign footsteps approaching her location, his target looked up from the pile of books in front of her and shifted her gaze over to where the noise was coming from, which prompted a surprised expression to suddenly appear on her face.
"Ah, back already?" The librarian asked Kaneki in greeting, her crimson gaze not so subtly fixated on to the lower-left side of his body. A bit of concern flashed across her face, before she narrowed her eyes and bluntly asked, "What in the hell happened to you?"
Kaneki couldn't help the smile that tugged at his lips when he heard how bluntly his target had spoke, recognizing it and not recognizing it all at the same time. "A lot," he replied, purposefully vague, wanting to see if he could break her down even further before doing what he came to do.
"Yeah, I could tell that much," the librarian shot back, her eyes narrowing even further. "Hell, it would take a blind person to not see that much." She took in a deep breath. "Now, I'm only going to ask you this one more time—"
Before his target could go any further, the half ghoul decided to cut her off by placing his one arm on to her desk and leaning his body weight on to it, taking up the same stance as someone waiting to order a drink at a standup bar. "You haven't changed at all, have you?" He asked her in the quietest whisper he could manage. "You're still terrible at staying in character."
Alright, that's step one, the young man thought to himself. Now I need to get her thinking that I'm still Haise…
"To be fair, I only have trouble with staying in character when I have to deal with you," the farce of a librarian retorted in a way that made her sound strangely motherly. "So, you finally got your memories back, huh?"
"Bits and pieces," Kaneki answered truthfully, seeing no need to lie to the woman before him. "I'm nowhere close to having all of them back, though."
"Well, that explains a lot," she muttered to herself vaguely. That response prompted him to raise a confused brow, but Kaneki decided that it was probably best not to test his luck and pry any further than he needed. "So, what happened?" The woman asked, her crimson eyes once again not so subtly aimed at the lower-left side of his body. "Because the last time we spoke, you didn't look like a pirate who was too poor afford a hook."
Kaneki couldn't help but laugh a bit at the jab. "I was helping a friend investigate the White Fang, and things got out of control," he explained, making a conscious decision to not mention Neo and her involvement in what happened on the docks. A part of him already knew that the woman would blow things way out of proportion if he did.
"Must've been some friend to be worth losing a literal arm and eye over," she replied, her voice making it clear that she was not at all surprised by what his reasoning, just wholly disappointed by what it ended up being.
"Yeah…" Kaneki stated unconsciously while glancing down at his stump of a left arm. "…She's definitely worth it."
"'She'? Oh, please tell me that friend of yours wasn't—"
"No, it wasn't Neo. Truth be told, I don't think she's worth risking a paper cut over anymore."
"Really? Good to know that you finally see that backstabbing snake for what she really was."
"Wait, uh, I get that you don't particularly like her, but when did you start thinking of her as a 'backstabbing snake'? Last time, it was just that she was a bad influence. A bit of a big leap in logic, don't you think?"
"Well, I don't know… The time where she literally stabbed you in the back and pushed you out of a bullhead mid-flight comes to mind."
"...You knew about that?"
"Of course, I do. Who do you think saved you after you hit the ground? An all-powerful demon-woman who can control all the Grimm like they were her puppets?"
Kaneki blinked owlishly at the woman. That…that was oddly specific, he noted. He filed the joke as something serious in the back of his mind, just in case that was an attempt at misdirection on her part.
"That seems highly unlikely," he pointed out, his tone as skeptical as Weiss being told that her name alone didn't make her naturally better than everyone. "How would you even know that I was in danger in the first place?"
"A mother bird always keeps a watchful eye on her chicks as they're learning to fly," the farce of a librarian explained, which caused an all too familiar pain to flare in the center of his stomach. It was almost as if she just had said something so out of character that even Haise couldn't accept it. She then proceeded to say something that caused his eye to shoot open, "Isn't that right, Kaneki?"
"Wait—?" Kaneki began to ask, but was cut off when the familiar yet unfamiliar woman's hand shot out from behind the desk suddenly, grabbing on to his tie and pulling on it so that their heads were right next to each other.
"I know that you probably came here to get answers, but we can't talk here," the woman explained in a harsh whisper. "Here." She suddenly slid a hardcover book over her desk to him. "Take this."
Glancing down at the book being offered him, the young man began to ask, "What—?"
"No time to explain. You'll figure it out. Now, hurry up and take it. I need to go before Ozpin gets here. Can't risk being recognized."
Before Kaneki could even think of questioning what she was telling him, the farce of a librarian released her grip on his tie and moved out from behind her desk, quickly disappearing into the near countless rows of bookshelves.
Mouth agape, Kaneki glanced down at the book that had been forced on to him and picked it up off the desk. Before he could take a moment to study it, an all too familiar voice called out to him.
"Ah, Mr. Kaneki, did they have the book you reserved?" Ozpin asked him, which prompted the Beacon student to turn his gaze to where it came from.
"Oh, yeah," Kaneki replied, holding up said book up for his headmaster to see.
"Well, that's good," the older man stated with a nod. "Shall we head back then?"
"Mhm," Kaneki hummed in affirmation, taking a moment to glance down at the book, before striding over to where the headmaster stood. "Let's get going."
Placing his thumb over his index finger as he walked, the half ghoul indulged in an old habit.
"Hey, Kaneki,
The team had to go out to run some errands. We'll be gone until really late at night. Don't wait up for us.
-Blake.
P.S: Ruby says 'hi', by the way."
Huh, so that's what that feels like, Kaneki thought. He reached up and tore down the note that had been taped to the door of his room, crumpling it up into a little ball before tossing it off to the side without a care. Note to self, always talk to team before going out run errands. That is irritating.
Pulling the key to the door from his pocket, Kaneki quickly went to work unlocking it-a task that was made a thousand times more difficult by the fact that he only had one arm, which was already busy carrying the book that the 'librarian' had given to him. Still, he persevered through the adversity that he was faced with and managed, somehow, to get the door unlocked.
Pushing it open, Kaneki quickly made his way over to his bed and tossed the book on to it, before doing so with the rest of his body. A relaxed sigh escaped from his lips when he felt his exhausted muscles sink into the cushy surface of the mattress. I wonder what they're doing? He asked himself, reaching up a hand to undo his tie. Nothing dangerous, I hope.
Idly, the exhausted young man pondered the ever-tempting option of allowing his weary body the sleep it so desperately needed, but quickly struck the idea down. Unfortunately, there was still something that he needed to do.
Turning his head so that he was facing the book, Kaneki reached his one hand out and attempted to drag it closer to himself with the tips of his fingers. A couple attempts were needed before he finally managed to do so, but when he did, he quickly went to work studying every nook and cranny of it.
Thankfully, the half ghoul didn't have to wait long to have his eyes caught by a discrepancy. There, in the middle of the pages, was a space-the same kind one would see if a page had one of its corner bent so that it could serve as a makeshift bookmark. Narrowing his eye at it, he sat up, placed the book down next to him, and flipped it open to that page with a solid flick of the finger, revealing something to him that he found absolutely confounding.
There, sitting in a hollowed out pocket in the pages of the book, was a dull-crimson leather glove. Upon picking it up and studying it, the half ghoul found that there were some strange markings on the back of it, all etched in black.
What in the world? Kaneki asked himself as he continued to study it. Should I—? No, not yet. Turning his gaze back down towards the hollowed-out book, he noticed that it still held something inside of it-a small, nearly paper-thin object that bore the same color scheme as the glove. It was almost all red, with black focused in the center of it, taking the form of a diamond. It took him a moment, but he soon recognized it to be a scroll.
Curious, Kaneki placed the strange glove back on to the bed and replaced it with the scroll. A few moments of hesitation later, he finally got the courage he needed to place the pad of his thumb on the diamond and activate the scroll. The moment he did so, a message popped up on the screen, simply reading: "Just put the glove on, Kaneki."
Huh? How did—? The young man began to ask, but was quickly interrupted by another message.
"Don't question it. Just hurry up and do it. Trust me."
Kaneki narrowed his eye at the screen in his hand, before turning his aforementioned eye back down to the glove. Letting out a tired sigh, the snowy-haired half ghoul placed the scroll back down on to the bed and allowed one of his kagune to slip out from the small of his back, using it to pick up the glove by its opening.
Why do I feel like I'm going to regret this? Kaneki asked himself as he raised his hand up to the opening, a frown prominent on his face. Upon slipping it all the way on to his hand, he felt his entire body seize up all at once as pain suddenly began to course through his body. A-AH! WHAT THE—?! He thought, alarmed, but that train of thought was cut off when he felt more pain surge through him. F-FUCK!
The pain was awful. It was almost as if every nerve in his body had been doused in oil and set ablaze. If it wasn't for the fact his body was paralyzed by that pain, Kaneki, even with his tolerance for punishment, would have been thrashing about and howling.
Once the conflagratory-like pain subsided, the half ghoul felt his upper body slump forwards. Forearms on his knees and head hung, his eye shot back to the glove, which prompted him to notice that a bright, white light was emanating from the symbols on the back of it. He wanted to just glare at the offending article of clothing for a good while, but was stopped when he felt a sudden and intense queasiness run over him, and his body started moving before he could stop it.
To make a long story short, Kaneki was out of his room and in the male bathroom in less than a second. He ended up dry heaving into a sink, as he wasn't fast enough to reach a toilet.
Once the dry heaving finally concluded, and he was sure nothing was going to be coming out, Kaneki began to raise his head up from the sink, but stopped dead in his tracks when he noticed something sitting right out of the left corner of his eye.
There was a hand gripping on to the porcelain surface of the sink. It was black and scaly, but there was no doubt that it was a hand. Tracing it up to where it originated from, Kaneki found that it now filled a once-empty space.
Not quite sure he was actually seeing what he was seeing, the half ghoul raised his head and focused his attention on to the mirror that sat a little above the sink. What it reflected back at him made him want to break down laughing.
There, staring back at him, was, as expected, Kaneki's reflection. However, instead of looking at a young man with snowy-white hair and one complete arm, he was looking at someone who looked completely different.
The young man staring back at him had his face, to be sure, but that was where the similarities ended. He had mainly white hair, but his roots, up to an inch out, were painted black. He also had an actual pair of arms instead of just one, though that second arm was covered in black, snake-like scales.
What…what in the hell just happened? Kaneki asked himself, widened eye shifting back down towards the very glove that caused it all.
"Hm…" Kaneki hummed unconsciously from his bed, staring at the glove that served as the catalyst for his arm suddenly regenerating like it did. His vision was finally unobstructed, as he had taken off his eyepatch. He was trying to figure out what exactly the glove was.
Specifically, the half ghoul racked through his vast well of literary knowledge. He recognized the glove's sudden appearance in his life and the already great impact it had had on him, as some of the first tell-tale signs of an author using a physical object to try and drive the plot forward. Although he did know that it would be pretty short-sighted of him think as everything like it was taken straight out of a book, he felt like he could do so with the glove due to, well, it being just a simple piece of leather. It didn't contain some morally ambiguous being inside of it-it was just, through and through, a glove with unusual powers; and that afforded him the opportunity to look at it as if it were just a plot point in some book. Though, that really just opened up a new can of worms for him to shift through.
Dammit, Kaneki cursed to himself, throwing his body into the cushiony embrace of his bed, combing through his now salt-and-pepper hair with both of his hands. Eventually, he pulled on it in frustration. This is going to get me nowhere. The biggest problem with going at something like it was a literary device was the fact that it could literally be and do anything-all it had to do was make some sort of sense-which meant that there was no way of actually figuring out what it was just by thinking about it.
Still, Kaneki felt as though he didn't have any other choice in the matter. He could try to put the glove back on and see what would happen, but that was absolutely the last thing he wanted to do. For all he knew, the thing could start siphoning out his life force bit by bit, and no benefit it could give him, not even the use of his arm, was worth risking that much. Thankfully, he did still have his arm, despite having taken the glove off-a detail that told him that the regeneration of his arm wasn't one-hundred percent due to it.
There was always the option of asking that farce of a librarian if she knew what it was, although that entailed its own set of problems. The biggest of which was the ability to get into secure contact with her, emphasis on secure.
A crack resonated through the air, this time on his left side, as the half ghoul tiredly sighed to himself. Dammit...looks like I don't have any other choice, he thought idly, using his exhausted muscles to sit himself up on his bed. He then went over to where he had set the glove and scroll down, picked the two up, and returned them to where he first found them-the hollow space in the book. Flipping said book shut, he went to hide it at the very bottom of a large stack that had been steadily building up in the far corner of his room. I'm just going to have to cross that bridge when I get there, he added mentally, before throwing himself back on to his bed.
"What a day…" Kaneki muttered to himself, his voice harboring the exhaustion he had been fighting. A yawn escaped from him as he wearily added, "…I wonder…if I…I should wait for the…for the…"
Unfortunately, Kaneki wasn't able to finish that train of thought, because he soon fell victim to the exhaustion that plagued him. The adorable mental image of an agitated black cat, wearing a bow, pressing one of its front paws down on a piece of paper, dominated his mind for whatever reason.
Suddenly, Kaneki felt a strangely familiar pain begin to burn through his abdomen, effectively destroying the proverbial chains that kept him tethered to sleep.
The moment sleep slipped away from him, the young man immediately took note of the non-existent cement that encased his body. Having already experienced the sensation two times before, it didn't take him long to realize what exactly was going on.
Another flashback? Ken asked himself irritatedly, which was a direct result of his mind's subconscious shift of focus away from the proverbial cement that kept him immobile and on to the very real, wildfire that burned in his midsection. What's causing that? Wait, haven't I felt something-
Before the half ghoul could finish the thought, he was interrupted by the all too familiar voice of that farce of a librarian muttering something under her breath. "Dammit Haise…" She must have been doing so from a good distance away too, because he could just barely hear what she had said, despite the silence that lingered over them.
That librarian ag—? Kaneki began to think, but was cut off when he felt an unknown force begin pressing down on his already-pained abdomen.
"Mh!" The half ghoul, or rather, his otherworldly counterpart, grunted in a combination of both shock and pain. Kaneki felt all of Haise's facial muscles come together to form a wince.
"Oh, just bear through it!" The faux librarian growled out harshly, right as he felt the weight pressing down on his abdomen suddenly spike up in intensity, which elicited another grunt of anguish from him. He immediately noted how much closer the voice sounded. "It's either this, or—"
An animalistic-sounding growl suddenly cut in the middle of the librarian's strangely comforting tones, which prompted the woman to click her tongue out of irritation.
A second later, the weight pushing against his midsection lessened substantially as he heard the sound of footsteps leading away from him, granting the young man a moment of needed reprieve from the fire burning in his stomach.
For a good while, the air was filled with roars of a mixed origin-some being born from pain and some of anger-with the occasional sound of an explosion mixed in every once in awhile. Then suddenly, as if it was waiting for someone's cue, all of the noise ceased.
Probably curious as to what caused the silence, Kaneki felt Haise try to force open his eyes-an act that he succeeded in doing, despite the fact that it felt like his eyes were being kept closed by anchors attached to chains. The moment he did so, Kaneki quickly took note of how blurry his counterpart's vision was. It was actually so bad that the orange-tinted blue sky above him looked like nothing more than a massive blur.
"M…mom?" Ken internally flinched when he heard the word he detested so much slip out from between his lips.
Why is he calling out for his mother? The half ghoul asked himself curiously. Hallucinations, maybe? If my assumption is right, then he did just get stabbed not too long ago.
"Calling out for your mother?" An unfamiliar voice spoke out from somewhere to his direct left, drawing his and Haise's attention over to it immediately. "Considering the current state you're in, I can't say that I'm surprised."
The moment his other-worldly counterpart did so, Kaneki's eyes were met with the sight of a blurry, jet-black mass floating up to him slowly. "What…?" The words wanted to come out, but the blood that pooled in his mouth strangled them before they could be said.
Before he could continue his struggling, the black mass suddenly drew closer to Haise's prone body, allowing Kaneki to see whatever it was a bit more clearly. However, that really just meant that he could make out the general shape of the mass, instead of a blurry blob. From what the half ghoul could tell, it was most definitely a human-a human woman, or at the very least, it took the form of one. Who—? He began to ask, but the unknown woman interrupted him before he could finish.
"Now, now, let's not waste time getting into the details of what I am, shall we?" She spoke in a hurried fashion, making it clear to him that that she didn't want to waste any time. "Let's just get into what I can do for you, or rather, what I'm going to do for you."
The moment he heard those words come from the woman, warning-alarms started to blare in Kaneki's head and told him to get far, far away.
"You see, I'm in need of someone to protect a very important friend of mine and I happen to think that you'd be a perfect candidate for the job," the suspicious woman explained. "Truth be told, I've had my eyes fixed on you for an extremely long time. You were just missing a few, much-needed requirements for the job."
"Now, considering your current predicament, I've come to the realization that expecting you to eventually meet those requirements on your own was a pipe dream at best. So, I've decided to step in and help you along. Think of it like a deus ex machina, of sorts." Suddenly, Kaneki felt a cold-almost frozen-hand press itself against his cheek, immediately making him realize how close the woman had gotten when she was speaking. "Now, this won't hurt a bit."
A wave of panic would've hit the young man if the memories-his memories-hadn't hit him first.
All at once… All together… E-everything…!
Every single, little detail…All of the pain and emotion that Kaneki had ever dealt with in his life poured into his mind, or rather, Haise's mind. Unfortunately, his counterpart wasn't taking it well at all. His body thrashed violently under the unknown woman's grasp, and, if it weren't for the blood in his mouth, he no doubt would have been screaming. As it was, the choked gurgles coming from his throat were a decent indicator of his distress. Whatever happened after that, Kaneki wasn't sure; Haise completely blacked out after all of the memories finished playing out. Though, Kaneki really couldn't say that he minded.
The moment his eyes shot open, Kaneki found himself staring at his feet instead of the ceiling like how he normally did. Chest heaving in and out sporadically, he reached both his hands up and grabbed his face.
D-dammit, Kaneki cursed weakly, unconsciously digging his nails into the skin of his face. Who—No, what in the hell was that woman? How did she—?
That train of thought was abruptly cut off by the sound of someone knocking, or rather pounding, on his door. Turning his head towards the digital clock on his desk to confirm his thought, the tired half ghoul internally asked, Who in the world could that be at this hour of night?
Letting out a tired sigh, Kaneki forced himself and his aching up body from his bed, and then made his way over to already mentioned door. Cracking his left index finger, he unlocked the door and pulled it open to reveal who knocked on it.
Standing there were all four of his teammates, all of which with uncharacteristically troubled expressions splayed across their faces. Taking note of said expressions, the half ghoul asked, scratching at the back of his head with his left hand as he did so, "Um…is there something wrong?" Desperately wanting to see their downcast expressions go away, he forced a smile on to his lips, raised his new left hand and half-heartedly joked, "Hey, look, my arm grew back! I really didn't expect it to be up to this sort of scale, though."
Unfortunately, none of them laughed…
-Chapter End-
So, how was that? I did a lot of things in the past seven thousand words. I'm sure that some of you think that I did a little too much given the pace I was taking things the past few chapters, but I just sort of felt like I needed to start kicking things into gear.
Now, I'm sure that there are some of you that think I came up with all of this on the fly and that's why the previous chapter was essentially a filler chapter, but that's really not the case. I'm not someone who really likes to do filler. When I write, I like to keep moving the plot along as much as I deem fit at the time being, so when the need for filler comes along, I start to struggle and I don't typically like to struggle. It's actually one of the reasons why the chapter came out much later than it should have.
So, what does that mean? Well, it means that I don't like doing filler and I wouldn't have done it unless it was one-hundred percent necessary, and I did feel that it was one-hundred percent necessary. I felt like that after everything that happened in the chapters previous, I decided to add a shot of levity to the story.
Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that everything I did in this chapter was one-hundred percent planned to be in the story. The only thing that I improvised was the speed that I implemented them. Originally, when I first started writing the chapter, I wanted to stretch all of those things out, but I decided that I needed to quicken the pacing of the story up a good bit.
Was it a good idea? Probably not, but I did it anyways. So…um, deal with it. Also, if you found any of the information I threw at you, deal with that too. That was also very intentional.