Hey, what's up guys. So, by the time this chapter gets released to the public, it'll be somewhere around Halloween. Of course, I wish everyone who's going out and partaking in any entailed festivities a good and most importantly, safe night. Don't get murdered by any roaming, serial-killer clowns using the holiday and internet trend as cover. Watch your candy, make sure that there are no razor blades lodged inside. Deploy protection if any of you manage to get lucky at a party, or something. Whatever. Just don't die.
Anyway, onto information that actually relates to the story. So, you might have all noticed that it took me quite a bit of time to get this thing out. Depending on whenever this chapter goes up, it'll have been about two months to the day since I posted chapter fourteen, which is somewhere around the amount of time it took me to post latter chapter. So, why the sudden decrease in production? Well, it's a culmination of a lot of things really.
Remember, when I said that I wouldn't allow school affect the speed at which I write my content? Well, I lied. Not in the traditional sense, mind you, but nonetheless, it's been affecting how much time I have to write. You see, I'm a part of the video production program at my high school and making content for that has taken a good chunk of my free time. I'm literally coming in three hours before I should be (I have open periods in the morning, don't worry) to edit and shoot videos sometimes. Thankfully, I don't do it every single day, but it was still happening at a frequency of at least once a week. So, yeah, as you can probably tell, that didn't really afford me a lot of time to be focusing on my writing, even if I do primarily write on my phone.
The fact that I've also started a new story that also follows a deadline system probably doesn't help. The fact that I set that's story deadline to a month's time probably doesn't help free up any time for me either. So, yeah, your boy really set himself up for failure, didn't he?
Well, whatever. Anyway, the point is, expect these chapters to be coming out more towards the end of the two month deadline more. Also, you probably shouldn't be expecting anything over ten-thousand words anytime soon. I honestly just don't have enough time to do something like that anymore-something that I became painfully aware of in the past few weeks. I really, really wanted to do more with this chapter-a fact that'll probably become really obvious to you guys by the end of the chapter-but by the time I got to writing all that I wanted to do for the end, it was already five days to the deadline and I still needed time for Chyna to edit everything. So, the end of this chapter is kind of abrupt.
That's pretty much it. I just wanted to tell you all of that, before we got the chapter started. Oh, and by the way, stick around and read the end author's notes. After what you're all about to read, you're going to want to hear an explanation. Trust me.
-Mandatory Disclaimer-
I honestly don't even see the point of having this here anymore. I think it's just a habit at this point.
-Chapter 15: Event Horizon-
Silence.
Kaneki, being the loner he was, never minded the void created when noise ceased to exist. It wasn't that he particularly liked it; he just found its presence comforting at times. Unfortunately for him, however, the last eight minutes of his life definitely wasn't one of those times.
For the past eight-now nine-minutes, a borderline torturous silence had reigned over the five members of Team RWBY. None of them looked particularly eager to break it.
What in the hell happened when they were out on those errands? Kaneki asked himself, shifting in his desk chair-which had been pulled away from the desk itself and set in front of his bed. Turning his gaze to the floor, he ran both of his hands through his freshly salt-and-peppered hair. He glanced up at his teammates through his bangs as they fell back into place; all four of which were staring back at him uncertainly from their place on his bed. Nothing's ever made them act like this before...Not even after what happened at the docks...So what possibly could've—?
"Kaneki…you aren't hiding anything from us, right?" Ruby asked him suddenly, completely derailing the half-ghoul's train of thought. He, of course, didn't fail to notice the hesitation in her voice.
Taken off guard by the sudden accusation, Kaneki raised his head to meet his team leader's gaze and narrowed his eyes at her. "Wait, what?" he asked, incredulous.
'Hiding something'? The young man parroted the phrase to himself, baffled by the accusation. Or at least, he was, until he realized what exactly she may be referring to. Could she be talking about…? What? N-no, of course not! There's no way any of them could've found out about that! Unless…
"What even brought this on?" The half ghoul asked, making sure to keep his voice level, so as to not cause Ruby any distress. The atmosphere in the room was already tense enough as it was. There was no way he was going to attempt to do anything that might exacerbate it. "Was it something that happened when you were out running those 'errands'?"
"Well…" Ruby began, but trailed off as she took a quick sideways glance over at the three sitting besides her. Eventually, she nodded and continued what she was saying. "...Yeah, you could say that."
"Then, what was it?" Kaneki continued to press the girl with questions, cursing to himself silently when he heard the intensity that was present in his voice. The change wasn't a major shift, but it was definitely a noticeable one, and that was already far more than he was comfortable with allowing.
Thankfully, the fifteen year old he was talking to was the same one who could stare down a horde of Grimm and not even flinch. As such, the shift in his voice was barely even noticed by the girl, though he couldn't say the same about her older sister, who immediately moved to take control of the conversation.
"Look, we just went out into town to look for some information on that Torchwick guy you and Blake ran into at the docks," Yang explained, her tone adopting the same subtle edge as his had.
Kaneki's narrowed gaze instinctively turned into a glare the moment he heard that edge in the blonde's voice. "And?" He asked, a crack coming from his right side as he did so.
"And, we happened to run into a little someone who claimed to know you," Yang replied, her voice bristling with annoyance. "I would like to think pretty well too, considering the way she talked about you."
Dammit, Neo… Kaneki cursed the name of his counterpart's former love interest,the tips of his fingers began into the fabric of his pants. What the hell did you do?!
"And, what exactly did she talk to you about?" The young man asked, making sure to keep his tone as calm and level as possible-an admittedly hard task given the frustration that was rising up in the cavity of his chest.
The blonde opened her mouth to respond, but an entirely other voice ended up speaking, for the first time since she stepped into the room-a fact that wasn't at all lost to the half-ghoul.
"What exactly she said to us doesn't matter," Blake stated, her voice instantly drawing Kaneki's attention. "All that matters is the fact that you blatantly weren't telling me the truth earlier." The lack of any emotion in her voice caused his fingers to dig even deeper into the fabric of his pants. Sucking in a deep breath through her nostrils, she continued, "Earlier at the docks, you told me—"
"—I told you the truth," Kaneki interrupted his dark-haired teammate, barely keeping himself from snapping at the girl. "Outside of fighting her those couple of times, I have never, repeat, never-" he made sure to put a good amount of emphasis on that last 'never', "-interacted with that woman before in my life."
"Then how—?" Yang tried to interject once again, but Kaneki stopped her before she could finish.
"I don't know," he groaned, massaging the bridge of his nose. What he was saying wasn't completely true, technically speaking, and he knew as much, but there still was truth to it. All of it, the entire situation concerning Haise, Neo, his past, and the half ghoul's sudden involvement in it was just so convoluted, that it was almost as if he didn't know anything at all. Hell, he was just barely able to figure out what exactly he felt about the entire situation, much less what was actually going on. "Honestly, I have no clue what's going on with that woman."
"You don't know anything?" Blake asked. Her tone was as dry and empty as a desert.
At first, when the question first reached his ears, Kaneki thought about nodding in response to it, but he was able to stop himself before he could. The last thing he wanted to do was dig an even bigger hole for himself, and he knew getting caught in a lie would do just that, especially right now. So, he did the only thing he could, and told Blake what he probably should have told her a long time ago.
"No." He told her the truth. "I do."
"Wait, what exactly do you mean?" It was now Blake's turn to pose the question to the young man sitting before her. The fact that she had to even ask it caused the hole sitting at the bottom of her stomach to grow even larger.
Kaneki raised his newly-reformed left hand up to his mouth and cleared his throat into its jet-black scales. He turned his eyes away, staring at the wall-another act that only served to widen the ever-growing hole inside of her-and answered. "I know a few things, but nothing more than the bare bones of it all." A troubled frown suddenly appeared on his lips, finally smashing through the stoic facade that he had been attempting to employ the entirety of the conversation.
"Then, what are you waiting for?" Weiss asked impatiently. "Hurry up and tell us what you know already!"
After once again being met with nothing more than silence, Blake was worried that Kaneki wouldn't answer. However, those worries were dashed when he suddenly opened his mouth and said, "She believes me to be someone from her past-someone named Haise Sasaki."
"What?" Weiss asked. Her voice was as skeptical as her ponytail was white. "Do you two happen to share an extremely uncanny resemblance with one another, or something?"
Her question caused the half ghoul to go into a bout of silence, that Blake could only assume was contemplative in nature. "Yeah, I guess you could say that," he answered, with a noticeably hesitant nod of his head. "I mean, I am using his body, after all."
The moment she heard those words leave his mouth, the Faunus's eyes snapped open as an all too familiar grouping of words played out in her head. The words had been seared into it, so it wasn't that hard to do.
"This body is…mine…MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE!"
"You're 'using his body'? What—?" Blake began to ask, but the half ghoul cut her, off before she could finish.
"This body doesn't belong to me," said Kaneki as he turned his head so that he was facing down at his hands, which were both sitting interlaced idly on his lap. His voice got more solemn as he continued, "I'm not the original me at all… It just happened to look like mine."
"H-how do you know?" The question left Ruby's lips with an expected confusion in it.
"…Memories," the half ghoul answered with a fair deal of hesitation to his voice. "Every once in awhile, I would catch a glimpse of some of Haise's memories." A crack. "I got to see one right before you all got here actually." Another crack, this time from the left. "It told me how I got here to Remnant." Chuckling sardonically, he reached up with both his hands and ran them through his mismatched hair. Halfway through they suddenly stopped, clenching tightly onto his hair. Inhaling sharply through his nostrils, the explanation continued in a much less serious and slightly more hysterical tone.
"Memories…all I am is memories." His body started to shake. "I was never brought here; someone just took my memories and put them in some dying husk." He started shaking in earnest, most likely due to his sudden bout of frighteningly hysterical laughter. "I'm nothing but a goddamn parasite!" He suddenly threw his head back and slumped his body on to the back of his chair. "A pile of maggots that's taken over the carcass its feeding on…tha-that's all I am!" He suddenly sounded much more tired. "I can't believe myself sometimes…"
For a while, Blake and her teammates could only stare at the young man as he spoke. He just kept rambling and rambling, and stopping him seemed impossible. It became apparent to the four of them that the memory he told them about had caused him to be in this state, but knowing what caused it did very little to help them get him out of it.
"Hey, do you all want to know something I've been keeping from you all for a while now?" Kaneki abruptly asked as he slowly shifted his head back down to face them. His eyes looked even more dull than usual. "I stopped caring about getting back home weeks ago."
Hearing that caused Blake's eyes to widen in shock. That was the very last thing she ever expected him to say, and by just taking a quick glance over at her other teammates, she could tell they thought the same.
"It wasn't like this at first, but I seriously can't see myself leaving Remnant," Kaneki spoke in a very wistful way. "I'm just way too happy here…it's almost as if I'm living in a dream, or something." As he continued to speak, he began to sound more and more tired. "To be honest, I wish I was actually just dreaming." The faintest hint of a bitter smile appeared as he added, "That way, I'd feel just a little less guilty about not wanting to wake up yet."
"Kaneki…" Ruby said suddenly, immediately drawing everyone's attention to her. "…Do you really not want to go back home?"
At first, stunned silence was all that came from the half ghoul, but eventually, he let out an affirmatory hum. "Yeah."
"Then, that should be that, shouldn't it?" The young team leader asked, offering him a smile. "I'm sure that your friends would want you to be happy. Right?"
Kaneki's eyes widened when he heard Ruby say that. He just stared at her for a good while before eventually flashing her a grateful smile. "Yeah, you're probably right," he answered. His lips started to quiver suddenly. "But I can't help but feel bad." Water began to pool in the corners of his eyes. "Here I am, talking about how I don't want to go back, while I feel like garbage at the thought of never being able to see them again."
"Hey short-stuff, you really need to stop being so hard on yourself," Yang cut in suddenly. "It isn't like you specifically wished for all this to happen." Before he could say anything back in response, she got up from where she sat, strode over to where he sat and placed a hand on his left shoulder. "You were dealt a crappy hand in one round and a better one the next," she said, flashing him a toothy grin. "No one's gonna blame you for wanting to play it."
"Yeah, you really need to stop thinking that everything lies solely on your shoulders." It was now Weiss's turn to walk up the young half ghoul and place a hand on his opposite shoulder. "I'm the only person on this team that gets to act self-centered, do you understand?"
Blake, not being one to stand by as others took action, also stood up and went over to Kaneki. Once she did, she did something that she hoped would never get mentioned outside this one instance. Face blushing bright red, she cupped his face in her hands and pulled on it lightly, angling it so that he was looking up at her. Her heart started to beat faster as she stared into the fuzzy pools of grey that were his eyes, which were filled with a mixture of confusion and, somehow, understanding. She didn't know how a combination like that was even possible; and honestly, she didn't care at that point.
Moving quickly, Blake leaned down and smashed her lips against his. At the moment contact was made, she felt a surge of electricity run through her body, striking all of her nerves with the need for more. She wanted to keep feeling the strangely pleasurable contrast of his chapped lips against her's. She wanted to keep tasting the faint bitter taste of coffee that stubbornly remained on his lips, despite her dislike of it. She wanted to keep feeling the deep sense of satisfaction that ran rampant within her when she felt him start to return the gesture. Truth be told, Blake just wanted more of him.
Unfortunately, however, she knew that, despite what she might want, she couldn't stay like that with him forever. Eventually, she broke contact with the half ghoul after a full, one-hundred percent not elongated count of six seconds passed by.
When she did so, Blake immediately took note of how Kaneki leaned forward a bit to try and re-establish contact with her, and felt more satisfaction run through her. She quickly squashed that feeling when she remembered that she wanted to tell him something.
"What they're telling you is true." Blake wrapped her arms around his head and pulled it softly into her chest as she spoke. "I can't stand to watch you act like that, so could you just please stop with all of that white knight stuff and start acting like the person you say you are?"
Silence is what met her in response for a few moments, before he finally answered. "Yeah, I can definitely do that. Just indulge me and my selfishness for a little while, alright?"
"Alright," Blake replied, resting her chin on top of his head.
"Hey! That's no fair!" Ruby suddenly whined, quickly drawing everyone's attention and reminding Blake of all of the other people in the room with her and Kaneki. "You seriously couldn't have waited a couple of seconds for me to join the group hug, before you went and did something like that?"
All four members of the aforementioned 'group hug' glanced over at each other, before they all began to ask, "What—?"
"Don't you dare ask me about what I'm talking about!" Ruby exclaimed, so vehemently that Blake could practically see hellfire spewing from her mouth. "You all know that I've been trying to set up the group hug for months now, but you guys kept saying no!" She pointed an accusing finger at Blake. "Now there is one, and you had to go and do something like that before I got to join in! I demand a do over this instant!"
The rest of the team, Kaneki included, couldn't help but laugh at the outburst.
"Stop laughing! I'm very serious about this!"
Once all of the laughing died down, Blake found herself at the center of everyone's attention. It wasn't like she minded it, though. After what she did to Kaneki, she would've been stupid to not have expected as much.
Speaking of Kaneki, he had taken what she did surprisingly well. Truth be told, leading up to it all, a good part of her believed that he would try and reject her advances, but…he didn't. He didn't reject her at all. Instead, he accepted her wholeheartedly, and knowing that he did made her feel all kinds of warm on the inside.
Blake knew that it was stupid and immature for her to care about such a thing, especially when she still had the White Fang to deal with, but she just couldn't help it. All of her feelings for him were just forced out of her when she saw him acting like that. It hurt to see him act like that-to see him act like he was so incredibly lonely when he had four friends, all of which willing to help him, sitting right in front of him.
Seeing him act that way made her feel a lot of things. Confused, saddened and most of all, it made her angry-insulted her, even. To think that, despite everything they've gone through as teammates and as…whatever they were to each other, he'd have the audacity to act like he was the only person who cared about what he was having to go through… It really made her feel like she was insignificant in his eyes. Her being a former, high-ranking member of the White Fang, it really wasn't a feeling she liked to feel very often, though that could probably be said about pretty much everyone.
"So, Blake…" Ruby started suddenly, quickly pulling the bow-wearing Faunus away from her thoughts and onto the young team leader, "…when did you guys, um…" She pressed the tips of her index fingers together and shifted her gaze, visibly struggling to get whatever words that were stuck inside of her throat out. "…Y'know, decide to get together?"
Blake blinked in response to her team leader's question, not having expected it to come from her. Honestly, that kind of thing seemed more like Yang's style. "When did we decide to get together?" She parroted, glancing sideways at Kaneki. "Do you mean like—?"
"Y-yeah!" Ruby stuttered, cutting Blake off completely. Scratching the back of her head sheepishly, she continued. "I was just wondering since, y'know, you kissed him like…well, like how you did."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Blake asked, brows furrowed in confusion.
"Well, Blake, you have to admit that you were very…upfront with how you chose to perform it," Weiss explained on her partner's behalf, "and you're not someone who's typically so open with their emotions, so I think that my partner was just curious if that was the case or not."
Ah, it makes a lot of sense for them to wonder that actually, Blake thought, pondering her earlier actions. What she just did definitely wasn't typical of her. If her life was a novel, there was no doubt in her mind that the reader would've seen such a blatant breach in character and thought it was just a way to rush along a romance between two characters, so she really couldn't blame them for being curious about what caused it.
"Oh," Blake shook her head as she gave them her answer, "then no, the two of us weren't in a relationship prior to me kissing him."
All three of the other female members of team RWBY blinked at her, their eyes wide with what Blake could only assume was shock. "What?" She asked, being just as confused as the three were.
"Oh, nothing~!" Ruby exclaimed, scratching the back of her head. She let out a sheepish chuckle.
That, of course, didn't fool Blake one bit, but she decided to not push the issue this time. "Okay then," she began tiredly, crossing her arms over her chest. "Do any of you have anything else to you want to ask me, before we get back to what we were talking about earlier?"
Blake noticed Yang slowly raise her hand, only to have it be dragged right back down to her waist by Ruby. That, of course, prompted the blonde to try and raise her other hand, but her efforts once again ended in failure, this time being foiled by Weiss. If their reality was a cartoon, Blake was sure that what she just saw would've been accompanied by the sound of a slide whistle.
"Alright," Blake said, seeing that there were absolutely no objections to her previous proposal, "back to what we were talking about earlier, then." She turned to face Kaneki, who had spent all of the earlier conversation sitting next to her quietly. She opened her mouth, but suddenly found herself hesitant to speak upon seeing his face.
He was smiling. It was faint, almost unnoticeable on his lips, but it would have been a crime to say that it wasn't there. The last time he had discussed his other self, Kaneki went into complete hysterics. Did Blake really want to drag that back out of him after having just recovered from it? No, not at all.
That worry must've shown itself on her face, because almost immediately after it began to well up inside of her, Kaneki flashed her that smile of his and said, "It's okay, I'm going to be fine. You just caught me at a bad time earlier."
Blake's first instinct was to be skeptical of that claim. It wouldn't be unlike him to try and mask his real feelings from others just to reassure the people around him, after all.
"…You're going to be alright talking about this?"
"Mhm," Kaneki hummed affirmatively, before doing something that made her cheeks alarmingly warm. Slowly, tentatively, he reached over and took one of her hands in one of his own, applying a surprisingly small amount of pressure upon making contact. "Besides," he said softly, the smile on his lips suddenly growing larger, "I have you to calm me down if I start to go too off the rails again, right?"
"Of course," Blake replied, making sure to show absolutely zero hesitation as she did so. "Didn't I already promise to do as much?"
"Yeah," Kaneki's smile widened even further as he let out a quiet snort through his nostrils. "You did promise that, didn't you?"
"What?" Blake heard Ruby whisper under her breath thanks to her very literally inhuman ability. She was probably talking to Yang, considering the blonde sat directly in between her and Weiss. "When did she promise to do that?"
"I don't think Blake's being literal, sis," Yang explained. "I think they're doing that thing that people who love each other do."
"Ohhhhh," the younger girl replied, still whispering. "Do you mean that thing that mom and dad used to do, where they would understand what the other was saying without having to say a lot?"
"Yeah, something like that," the older blonde whispered back in reply, which made one of Blake's brows twitch in annoyance.
Holding back the need to glare at the two half-sisters, the Faunus kept her eyes directed at the young man sitting in front of her and began to ask him the questions she had meant to ask him earlier, before all of that crazy and lovey-dovey stuff started happening.
Blake felt her brows furrow subconsciously as she listened to Kaneki explain the relationship that existed between Haise Sasaki-the previous owner of the body he was currently inhabiting-and the woman who assumedly served Roman Torchwick as his shadow-Neopolitan, or 'Neo' for short.
When the Faunus initially asked the half ghoul to try and explain what exactly was going on between Haise and Neo, she only expected to get one thing back: an explanation that would leave her asking more questions than she got answers. Unfortunately, that's exactly what she got.
The problem with Kaneki's explanation was that he himself didn't know all of the details, despite being in the body that created those details to begin with. All that he really knew about it came from the few flashbacks that he received after his initial meeting with Neo at the settlement. Those didn't tell him much at all, only the relationship's beginning and its eventual end. The middle portion was completely beyond him.
Apparently, the two-Haise and Neo-first met when they were much younger, living in the same orphanage. While there, they somehow managed to become close friends with one another, despite the distinct dichotomy that existed between both of their personalities. Haise was the kind and timid pushover, while Neo was the demeaning and cocky one who didn't like to be disrespected.
At some point, years in the future, the two left the orphanage and got themselves wrapped up in the criminal underworld-a life that didn't at all agree with Haise, who apparently couldn't bring himself to hurt a fly.
Of course, in the dog-eat-dog world that was the criminal underground, that sort of nature wasn't taken too kindly. His reluctance to hurt another human being garnered him a lot of enemies-one of which ended up Neo herself, who eventually severed all ties with Haise because of it. At least, that was Kaneki's interpretation of what went on in the other flashbacks he received-the ones that showed him the end of Haise and Neo's relationship.
The flashbacks told him that one day, as the two were flying over the Emerald Forest in a BullHead, Neo both figuratively and literally stabbed him in the back, before throwing him out the side of the BullHead while it was still in mid-flight, leaving her once childhood friend to plummet to the ground and certain death below, if not for whatever force that had brought Kaneki to Remnant.
Why would Neo do something like that to a person she'd known and been friends with since they were kids? It was a question all the members of team RWBY asked-fervently-of Kaneki the moment he finished with his explanation, but he was unable to give an answer that was a lot more than just his own opinion on things.
"So, basically, what you're saying is that you believe that Neo betrayed Haise because of how much of a pacifist he was?" Weiss asked, pretty much summarizing what the half ghoul just explained to the four of them.
Kaneki blinked quizzically in response to the heiress's question, eyes shifting towards the ceiling for a moment before they reverted back to their original position, locked firmly onto Weiss's eyes. "Yeah," he stated with a quick nod of his head, "pretty much."
Slender fingers wrapped around the tip of her chin, Weiss let out a light, contemplative hum and mumbled, "Well, this certainly complicates things."
"You can say that again," Ruby agreed quickly. Letting out an exasperated sigh, the fifteen year old allowed herself to lean back and fall onto the concrete she and the other three had been sitting down on ever since Blake and Kaneki took over the bed. "Ugh…I don't understand any of this at all."
Just like her two teammates before her, Blake also found herself completely confounded by the information that was just presented to her.
It wasn't that there was a clear discrepancy between the Neapolitan that Kaneki described and the one that was shadowing Torchwick. No, in all actuality, the description Kaneki gave was a pretty spot-on summary. The woman the half ghoul described sounded like a condescending, conniving person who'd do absolutely anything to further her own goals-exactly the kind of woman that crossed paths with Blake earlier…except for a single, almost unnoticeable slip in form that happened at the very end of their already brief encounter.
"Just remember this the next time you see him: he was my responsibility a long time before he came crawling over to you, Kitten."
Blake felt her hands ball up into tight fists as the single line of mocking dialogue played itself over in her head. It came out sounding just like everything else Neo had ever said to her-condescending and purposefully mocking-but there was an emotion that had not been there before. It didn't appear in her tone or facial expression, though. Instead, it showed in the words themselves-it had from the very beginning.
"So, you're my replacement, huh? Honestly, I didn't think he was the type of guy to go after women who look like they own more baggage than he does."
Spite.
Really, now that she put some thought into it, Blake realized that, from the very beginning, nearly every word Neo had said carried that very same affect.
Neo just didn't sound like a person who could care less about the person she betrayed.
"What do you mean 'who are you talking about'? Shouldn't the answer be painfully obvious by now? I'm talking about the hopeless idiot that was hanging off your side last time we met. You know, the one with that tacky white hair."
No, she didn't sound like that at all. Someone who really didn't care about another person normally wouldn't waste the time or energy talking about them like that.
Blake was well aware that Neo probably just said what she did to try and drive a wedge in between her and Kaneki. That, or-and Blake was pretty sure this was the reason-she did it just to get a rise out of her and throw her off.
Either way, the point was that Blake already knew the reasoning behind Neo's words, and yet they still didn't seem like the actions of a cold and calculating snake who'd betray a friend at a moment's notice. Really, the woman's words more closely resembled that of a jilted ex-girlfriend, envious of their prior attachment's success, then it did anything else.
If the woman really wanted to drive a wedge between her and Kaneki, or to just make her angry, Blake was more than sure that she'd have been able to do so without blatantly trying to establish herself as the 'original', like how she did.
So, the question that currently plagued Blake's mind was, of course, 'why?' Why would Neo-the woman who callously stabbed Haise in the back and then proceeded to throw him out of a moving BullHead-say the things she said?
Of course, there was always the possibility that there was no deeper meaning to what Neo had said. That she only said what she said to screw with Blake's perception of Kaneki, but that, of course, lead to the paradoxical line of thinking that was assuming the direct opposite was also still possible, and that lead to the current dilemma she and, in subsequence, all the three of her teammates-the ones that were with her during her earlier meeting with Neo-had been hard at work trying to solve for the better part of the last thirty minutes. What was Haise and Neo's relationship with one another, back before Kaneki took over Haise's body?
Were the two just childhood friends whose friendship was broken up by selfishness? Or was there something more? When that was answered, they could move on to the question that every member of team RWBY wanted an answer to.
"Um…" The sound of the person sitting next to her humming contemplatively forced Blake to pry her attention away from her prior musings and focus it on Kaneki-an act in which all of her other teammates imitated upon hearing him speak. "…Am I missing something here?"
Silence vibrated through the air after the half ghoul spoke. Silently, the four female members of team RWBY glanced at each other, shooting each other looks, as if to ask one another who'd explain what they were talking about.
Eventually, Ruby opened her mouth to speak on everyone else's behalf. "Well, basically," she began, a slight, knowing drawl creeping into her voice while she clapped her hands together-an act that made it seem like she was about to start telling him some long, detail-heavy explanation-before her entire body itself slumped forwards. Her next words come out in a soft, pathetic whimper, effectively killing any of the momentum that her previous words had given to her. "This entire 'Neo' situation is really, really confusing."
After a single blink, Kaneki's entire face soon morphed into a confused expression. Eyes narrowed and brows furrowed, he asked the young team leader, "What do you mean? Was it something in my explanation that confused you, or…?"
"Um…" Ruby began, before then trailing off into a complete, contemplative silence which lasted a few good seconds. Eventually, she found the words she wanted to use. "…It's just–well, you do know that the way you just described 'Neo' made her sound really bad, right?" The half ghoul nodded. "Like really, really bad?" He nodded once more. "Well, that's not exactly the impression we got of her, per se."
Blinking once more, Kaneki tilted his head quizzically at Ruby. This prompted Yang to step in and explain what she meant on her behalf. "Don't get us wrong, short-stuff," she said bluntly, her brows furrowing as she closed both of her eyes and placed her hands onto her hips.
"Overall, I, and I'm pretty sure everyone else here thinks that you were pretty spot on with how you described her earlier," she continued. A clear rage splayed itself across her face as she raised both her hands from her hips-one hand balled into a tight fist-and slammed them together angrily. Inhaling a good deal of air in through her nostrils, she held the breath for an entire three seconds, before releasing it and allowing both of her arms fall back down to her sides. "Unfortunately, you were just off with one tiny, little detail."
"Wait, what 'tiny, little detail'?"
"Well, honestly, I don't think she's nearly as bad as you say she is. The things she said…they just weren't the things a stone cold killer would say, if you catch my drift. I could see a bit of what you were talking about back when she took the three of us-" she nudged her head over in the direction of Weiss and Ruby, who had both been sitting next to her, "-hostage, but that wasn't how she acted tonight, like, at all, really. Truthfully, by the way she went on and on about Haise, she sounded like a jealous old ex, or something."
"Hm…" Kaneki hummed to himself, lowering his head, making it so that his gaze was locked down towards the ground. "Thinking back on it, I'm not at all surprised that you all came to that conclusion."
"Why's that?" Weiss asked, speaking up for the first time in the conversation.
"Because a part of me feels the same way," Kaneki answered the question solemnly. "I completely forgot to tell you about this earlier, but back in the flashback of Neo backstabbing Haise, I-or Haise-managed to catch a glimpse of her face before he fell out of the BullHead. From what I saw, she was smiling, but she didn't look pleased to be doing what she was doing." A slight smirk crept onto his face. "In all honesty, I don't think she really wanted to betray Haise at all; or at the very least, she felt bad about it while she did so." A light chuckle vibrated in his throat as he added, "Even then, I'd still trust Beowolves to not claw my throat out over anything she said to me. Neo might not be all bad, but she's still a snake through and through, in my opinion."
Yang chuckled. "Yeah, no one here is going to disagree with you on that, short-stuff," she agreed. "Woman is nearly on Torchwick levels of slimy; like, I'm sure that I'd have to wash my hands if I ever actually touched her."
Kaneki let out another soft chuckle. "As someone who's been in close contact with her before, I have to must admit that you aren't too far off there." His smirk grew larger as he verbally jabbed at the woman-a jab that elicited a quiet giggle from Blake, though his exact wording annoyed her slightly.
"'Close contact', eh?" Yang repeated, both of her brows raised suggestively. "Keep talking like that and I'm going to start thinking what she said about her and Haise is true."
All of the amusement on the half ghoul's face instantly disappeared, replaced with a look of complete shock and befuddlement. "O-oh?" he asked. "She said things like that to you guys?"
"Yeah," Yang answered with the same amount of tact that the gauntlets she used to pound the faces of criminals had. "Woman didn't say much of anything to us; but what few words she did say were aimed at Blake and went along the lines of: 'I knew so and so long before you did and that makes me better than you'-hence why I said that she sounded like a jealous ex-girlfriend earlier."
"Ah," Kaneki hummed in affirmation, shifting his gaze so that it was being directed right down at the floor in front of him, clearly entering a state of contemplation. "I see…"
Seeing a perfect opportunity to segue into the question she had been dying to ask ever since Neo brought the detail to her attention earlier, Blake immediately decided to pounce on it.
"You know, Kaneki," she said-an act that dragged Kaneki's attention away from his thoughts and forced it onto her, "her relationship with Haise wasn't the only thing she talked about."
Kaneki blinked owlishly before replying. "Really? What else did she talk about?"
"You should really talk to him about dying his hair back to its original color, by the way. I'm a much bigger fan of black."
Blake sucked in a deep breath through her nose. "Your hair," she said. "I know that this probably goes without saying now, but white isn't its original color, is it?"
The moment those words left her mouth, Kaneki immediately came to a stand still. His entire body stopped moving, all at the same time. It was almost as if, for a split second in time, his entire body had managed to lock itself into a permanent state of stasis. He didn't move, he didn't blink, he didn't even breathe. For several seconds, Kaneki just sat frozen in place, staring at her.
"K-Kaneki, are you—?" Ruby tried to speak, but before she could finish, she was ultimately cut off by the very person she was trying to reach.
"No," he interrupted, his tone as empty as the abyss itself, "white isn't my original hair color."
"Then how—?" Weiss tried to ask, but she too was cut off before she could finish.
"Natural," Kaneki stated, his gaze now firmly planted into the floor that lay between his feet. "It turned white naturally."
"'Naturally'? How could hair turn from black to white natural-?" It was now Yang's turn to try and ask a question, only to, once again, be cut off by the person it was meant for.
"Can we please not talk about this?" Kaneki asked. His voice sounded desperate, despite the fact that it didn't contain any emotion whatsoever. "If you don't already know, then trust me, it's not something you want to know about."
Silence reigned over the members of RWBY. That was, until Blake opened her mouth and asked, "Why?" Reaching over, she tried to envelope both his hands-which had now been balled into what looked like painfully tight fists-with her own in an attempt to get him to keep talking. However, the moment she got close enough to do so, he pulled-no, more like flinched-out of reach. It told the Faunus all that she needed to know.
This wasn't going to be something she could help him with.
"I-I…I…" As he tried to reply, Kaneki suddenly sprang back into motion: his once frozen body started trembling violently, his once placid breathing became erratic. "…I-I…" A cracking noise suddenly split through the air. "…I-it hurts s-so much…and p-pain–it caused me to have to go blank."
"It…it hurts so much… My toes-my fingers-they're completely numb… I can't feel them at all."
Another crack tore the air.
"Stop…please stop…please stop taking them…"
More cracks-no, at this point, they sounded much more like snapping.
"I-I can't take watching them regrow again."
"O-oh," Blake heard Ruby suddenly gasp in what she had to assume was both horror and realization. "Oh no… Kaneki…"
"R-Ruby?" Yang said, her tone filled with worry. "Why are you…?"
"T-t-ten…" Kaneki cut the blonde short as he continued on with his rambling, "…d-d-days, he wouldn't s-stop…"
Ten days…? Blake repeated disbelievingly. He can't be serious.
"N-not safe…even w-when he was gone…" Kaneki's eyes had glassed over; at this point, Blake wasn't even sure he was speaking to them. "Sh-she would come…Keeps telling me…It's my fault…my fault, my fault, my fault, my fault…Too weak… My fault…T-too weak…I-it's all my fault…"
Blake, not knowing how else to stop him from slipping further into his hysteria, leaned over and wrapped her arms around his trembling body, pulling him into a tight embrace. She briefly thought about saying something to him to get him to calm down faster, but she was at a complete loss as to what to tell him. So instead, she settled on holding him close and hoping that it would be enough to calm him down.
"The centipede… I-in my head… It k-keeps crawling and biting…clawing and biting up inside of my head… I can hear it…"
The moment he said that, Blake knew that it was going to be a while before he recovered.
-Chapter End-
So, if you're reading this, I'm sure you asking yourself about why I decided to pick now to start sailing the main ship of the story. Well, if you're like some people, you're questioning why I'm sailing any ships at all, despite the fact that one of this story's main genres is 'romance', but I digress.
I decided to pick now, simply because I felt like it was time. I've been building up the CatBug ship since the second goddamn chapter of this story-the sixth chapter was when it got really obvious for everyone, but still-which I feel like is more than enough time for me to justify these two people liking each other. If not, then I honestly don't know how much time is really appropriate. Like, what could I have done? Keep having them beat around the bush? People, I've already had them sleep in the same bed as one another half-naked! I can't keep justifying them not doing something to state their feelings for one another. Them bumping faces was going to have to happen eventually-'eventually' just so happened to mean this chapter.
*Deep breath*
My tirade done. I sincerely hope you enjoyed the chapter. Again, sorry about that rather abrupt ending, but like I said, time has not been on my side these past couple months. Also, the above 'bumping faces' scene was the first time I've ever attempted to put something like that to keyboard, so I hope it wasn't too bad. I could use the criticism if any of you have experience in such things.
P.S: I had this plan to start this chapter's AN with something that resembled a sort of blog post-type thing. It pretty much detailed my current status as a "high school poverty boy" (I'm not really under the poverty line, don't worry) and how might be a good way for me to make money. It would have detailed all the rewards I would have given to any patrons (it all pretty much consisted of: giving people access to the unedited versions of the story as I finished them-which would mean not having to wait for content two full months at a time, commissions of varying length-depending on how much you donated-written by me, etc). I would've went into all of the pros and cons of the decision, before then realizing how much of a fucking idiot I would be to think that people would actually pay for the shit I write. What would occur after would be pretty much a self-deprecating rant about how, at best, I'm probably only mediocre compared to other, better writers and I still needed a good amount of work before I should even consider being paid for what I love to do.
If you ask why I didn't go through with that plan. Well, would you really want to read all that? I probably would've started going down so many tangents that you'd swear I was writing about trigonometry. Also, the whole thing just sounds sort of narcissistic, doesn't it? I mean, yeah, I'd be hating myself for half the time, but I'd still just be talking about me, myself and I for such a long period of time…
Hm, that's kind of like what I've doing for this entire author's note, isn't it?
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FUCK!