Tokyo ghoul and all it's affiliated characters are property of Sui Ishida.

Someone asked why I always write that at the beginning of my chapters?!

Chapter 29
The Darkness Within

"It's our fault." Renji mumbled as he looked out the window not seeing her leave yet as he knew one of them would have to follow her home.

Uta was a definite no and Itori was extremely gloomy. Speaking of gloomy he turned to her as she glared at the floor trembling.

"I didn't expect her to react like this- to be honest; I didn't even expect a negative reaction. She told me not to touch her…"

"We seemed to have underestimated the effect of the outcome of making this decision." Uta said aloud for them both to hear.

Renji didn't even want to respond to any of them. He was against this plan from the beginning- he was never with this idea at all.

From that night- he was completely against it.

Flashback to last night.

Uta slowly closed the door behind him as he went into the living room where everyone was seated and discussing the upcoming fight. He sat down opposite of them all as Vertigo interrupted to explain his further thesis into what was happening to Kaisa.

"I should admit- although it is believed that a human can never evolve into a ghoul and a ghoul of course not be a human, illegal research and experiments have broken the law of logics."

"You mean Ken Keneki?" Itori asked factually knowing his story fully since Uta, Renji and she have met him.

"Indeed, a ghoul's organs can be successfully transplanted into a human to create an artificial hybrid; he is the first known and perfect example."

Renji understood but he was confused, he didn't see it adding up and neither did Uta. "But, Kaisa did not receive a transplanted organ- to prevent her from dying from exsanguination I manually did a blood transfusion. When we found out she was awake we continued giving her the ghoul blood since it seemed to be the source of her being able to stay alive."

"I believe it's the regeneration- it had an effect on her body," murmured Itori. She had believed that was what had saved her.

"Ghoul blood for regeneration, preventing exsanguination…doesn't something feel odd?" Vertigo asked as he looked at the three that looked amongst themselves.

"For Kaisa…" Uta began leaning forward, "…for her…the blood of a ghoul would act as a foreign substance inside her body, why did her body accept it?" He said realizing what he meant about it being odd. Something was odd- why was she able to be healed with their blood? How was her body able to do that? He had been wondering about it for a while and now in this moment- a lot more.

How was she able to do that?

"If a ghoul's blood is so contagious to make a human transform, what would happen to the humans we bite or the ones we come in contact with? Of course it's very unlikely for our blood or bodily fluid like saliva for instance to make contact with inside a human's body that is still alive but it is as possible as any other disease that involves person-to-person contact with exchange of bodily fluids." Renji said aloud. He had a good point.

"Exactly!" Vertigo said as he beamed with the madness of science. "That's what makes her so interesting! Of course like you say Renji if our blood would this easily affect humans we would be even more threatening to them. They would have quarantines! Call it the C-Virus transmitted by Ghouls who are carnivores feeding off humans and their own kinds. It would be madness just absolute utter madness but even for scientist like us it would be too great of an insanity!" He laughed as he fixed his glasses picking up the papers as he figured it was best to get to the point quickly. "She has basically been pre-exposed."

"WHAT?!" Itori yelled in disbelief as she paused covering her mouth remembering Kaisa was still sleeping. "What- what do you mean pre-exposed?" she whispered in a hushed voice.

"It means clearly what the word says. It's not a foreign substance to her body; in other words, it's not the first time her body has been in contact with blood containing high volumes of RC Cells."

The room fell deadly silent as Itori grinned then suddenly started laughing. She wiped the tears away from the corner of her eyes as she hadn't had such a good laugh since the week started. "What do you mean high volume? Do you think I run a fucking clinic here- selling my blood to anyone who comes to my front door? There is no way she can receive ghoul blood if I'm not the one giving her. And these two aren't mad enough to do something like that to someonelike her."

Vertigo swallowed as he realized he had most likely unsettled her by telling her the truth. Facts were facts and Kaisa was as he said- 'pre-exposed'. "The average healthy human has an Rc factor of about 200 to 500, while a ghoul has an Rc factor of about 1000 to , for whatever reason, a normal human receives an excessive amount of Rc cells, such as through experiments, they will start to develop ghoul-like characteristics and eventually not be able to consume human food. In Kaisa's case, she's still able to maintain human food."

"Wait…have you looked at her Rc cell count?"

"Y-Yes!" He said as he handed them some charts and readings he had on some messy documents. "From the previous samples I had done experiments on her cells and when I looked I realized she had an Rc Built Cell that every ghoul has."

"What's…that?"

"Every cell has a nucleus. The nucleus is the largest organelle in the cell. It contains the DNA of the cell. As Ghouls our Rc cells contains of DNA which acts as a foundation of our bred. The Rc cell of a human and ghoul is different, even though the quantity is what makes a ghoul a ghoul and a human a human, over time a ghouls' Rc cell will be way more developed than that of a human because these cells are concentrated and stored in a kakuhou. This is where the kagune is formed by Rc cells that have been released from a kakuhou and have pierced through the skin, therefore- these cells would have become different than those in humans because it would become our Kagune." He fixed his glasses and cleared his throat, "N-Now…because of that you can know the difference between the Rc cell of a ghoul and the Rc cell of a human, what I discovered is that she has the Rc cell of a ghoul, in other words, this development cannot just be by the transmission of blood as recent as 5 months ago, this would have to be something grown over time through body growth and anatomical development."

Itori stood up looking at him like he was speaking ass. How can that be when she was a human?

"She is human." Uta stated looking at him, "She tastes human, she smells human and if she passed through an Rc detector she would pass for a human."

"Well….well…" he fixed his glasses on his face again as he went for more papers. "She's not fully human, she's half ghoul. If I am right…she was born like that."

"You're wrong." Renji mumbled under his breath sounding like he just heard the most impossible thing. He rubbed his forehead closing his eyes trying to process it all. "How can you prove that?"

"When I did her physical I was able to get a sample of her brain cell. Unlike most cells in your body, some brain cells are not replaced therefore they can tell your age- Rc factors were traced and this is something she has had- Ghoul Rc cells, not human. She was never fully human to begin with."

Itori groaned in agony as she didn't understand. "You're telling me….Kaisa is a ghoul."

"She is also human…she's half human. Biologically, she is both"

She looked down on her lap. "She….she was born that way…"

"Now, I know this isn't something for public talk, but Kaisa could be, and most likely is- a one-eyed ghoul. It's legendary and most people don't believe it but she could be like Keneki. If she is half of both worlds…she possesses that great power."

Renji stood up as the room went deadly cold. They all looked at him as Vertigo swallowed. He knew Itori wasn't one to upset and he knew Uta was rumored to be the most feared man in the fourth ward who would hang your corpse in his shop as decoration for the customers. However as for Renji he was a very mysterious man and the only thing he knew was this man struck a deadly aura when something didn't please him. A very venomous deadly aura.

"I'm going to check on her." He muttered breaking the silence.

They watched him walk to the direction of the room as Uta and Itori turned to him. "If Kaisa has this power why have we never seen it?"

"I believe she doesn't know she has it herself, I believe her body isn't even aware itself. I took the liberty of researching on her. She is as normal as any human could be and she has records of a clean regular life until recently of course. Something that I realized as well is that she is an orphan."

"Her parents were victims of cold-blooded murder when she was seven. Afterwards they moved her into adoption that was after they had placed her in a Mental-Care Clinic for post-traumatic stress and I think…schizophrenia." Itori mumbled rummaging through her memory. She never knew much as a matter of fact that was almost everything she knew.

"Schizophrenia? She was a witness of her parents' death, something like that shouldn't have kept her in mental care for more than a year and she was there for long. If there are answers to who she really is, I believe that I need to research more into this facility and maybe there can be some truth." Vertigo implied.

"We need to find the name of that clinic, who was her doctor, her reports on her sessions, behavior, interactions and basically everything that took place from the day she was admitted. I don't feel like this murder was any normal murder, between her growing up with her family and them being killed- she lost her most precious memories of what and who she is." Renji said erupting from the hallway as Uta rose up and looked at him opening his mouth to speak.

"There's another thing. This war."

"How does the war have anything to do with her being a ghoul?"

"No, what can she do in this war." He corrected as he turned to Vertigo.

The underground doctor blinked as he looked at them all. "Well, aumm- I mean. The power she has she doesn't know about it, if she did reawaken this ghoul part of her then she would be a force to be reckoned with. One-eyed ghouls…their strength…their power…there has only been one witnessed one-eyed ghoul and its strength is unbeatable and a force to be reckoned with."

"But ken Keneki-"

"-Is struggling. It's obvious. He was once a human himself and now he's a ghoul I'm sure there is a lot of struggle that he is facing to come to terms with his new race. Under the right conditions if she passes this bridge easily without having a mental breakdown or scratch on the walls of conscience; she could be in the same or even worse position than him. To us it's the norm but to them it's more frightening than what you can believe. If she overcomes that and unlocks her memory and gives in, there is a chance that she could easily renounce her ghoul form and become invincible. I can say with scientific theories and from different perspectives and countless calculations that there is a high chance. This is because I have already researched that she can transition perfectly into a one-eyed ghoul."

"You sound like you've spent days working on this." Renji said as he walked towards him and Uta began his deadly glare. As much shit that stuttered out that mouth of his, he still remained behind his skills- a mad science-obsessed doctor. Renji could only imagine how he could sit in his wrench-filled gut crawling lab testing Kaisa's samples and creating what could be hundred hypothesizes about her. The charts, the papers, the readings all the way down to the mad look in his eyes, this man was more than deep in this case, he was obsessed. Nevertheless he was getting the job done and as long as Renji knew he was around he wasn't even 10 miles close to Kaisa.

"What do you want?" Uta said walking towards him as he cracked his knuckles. He was getting the vibes too. As much as he felt like she really could pass this and become a ghoul, he had his doubts.

"What if…" The voice sounded so soft and weak as the too turned to Itori, "What if she can do this completely….what would we have to do?" Her voice was soft and on her face you could see the pained expression. She was sad, she was thinking, she looked like she herself was struck deeply by every word the doctor had said.

"Itori are you mad? What about Kaisa? Do you think she wants to give up the peace and tranquility she has of being a human." Renji said as he looked at her staring into her eyes as he was upset she would even want to do this.

"Why not?! She has no one! Can't you see we are all she has? She doesn't have a family she doesn't have an Anteki like you and a shop with loyally devoted customers and followers like Uta. All she has is me- and you….and Uta even you too. She locks herself day in and out in this apartment like a house rat and paints and cleans and cooks and sleeps and basically creates and lives in her own little dandy world. She said it- she said she wished she were a ghoul. This is something she would want….this is something we would want."

"This is something I don't want. We were born like this to suffer and hide, be feared and hunted, to fight for grounds and power. She doesn't understand and she doesn't know the truth. She doesn't realize what a golden opportunity she has to live as a human away from a world of chaos, madness and murder. She has what we all which we had- a choice. A choice to be normal and to live freely- yet you want to take that from her because personally you would have the company of her being like you."

"Renji you don't understand. She- she is already in this world. We have already pulled her into this world. You think this is the first time she is being hunted. Before you met her she was almost raped by one of us! We had to kill him and torture him only to find out he was just a small piece of a big puzzle. She is being targeted, followed and scared left, right and center to living death! She doesn't have a choice- she is already in this. She's the peacemaker's woman, the Helter Skelter's Information Broker's best friend and she has the most mysterious man in the fourth and twentieth ward whose force and power is on mark with the peacemaker as her protector. She has the strongest cards to play in any situation yet you're going to tell me she is not in our world. 'The belle of the monsters',' the cherry of the blood bath', 'the rose of fear and madness', that's what they call her in my shop. If you think no one knows anything about and of her you are dead wrong. I'm not the only information broker in Tokyo and the others are doing a damn well job to scoop everything they can to keep her in the highlights all because they know something big is coming. People fear her alone because we are around her, people want to kill her because they envy her, people want to kidnap her because they want to reckon us and people want to start a war to entertain themselves by using her. Your stupid and fucking oblivious if you think this is a choice. She becoming a ghoul makes her stronger; it makes her much greater and less valuable. Because she won't just be a measly human, she'll be the one-eyed ghoul that can protect herself and defeat anything that comes in her way. I'm not making this decision because I want her to be like us, I'm making this decision because I want her to survive."

He was struck with silence.

Itori, his Itori, his friend he had had for many years stood before him crying because she wanted this to happen. She wanted this badly because for her.

"I still can't…agree to this."

"You don't have to!" She snarled at him. Why was he being so emotional to this he needed to not think so much as a significant other but more as a friend. This was for a greater good. "If we do this, you won't intervene. You won't stop it and you will not- certainly not- try to destroy it or else, when she does turn, I will ensure with my last breath that you never see her again because you are failing to realize the bigger picture."

He looked at her. She wouldn't dare to stop him.

This was not the right step.

Uta had mixed feelings he understood Renji's point of view but he was more lenient to Itori. "What would she need to recover, or activate?"

Vertigo nodded as he looked at Renji as he was scared to speak. "T-To feed of course. That's all she needs to do. But that could be a risk. She hasn't eaten for years, I mean if she feeds and she reactivates she would be at a near-death state as a ghoul who has been severely starved. She wouldn't just eat- she would devour."

"When you say that she hasn't eaten for years, how would she have been able to stay alive?" Renji questioned curiously as he wondered how this was even possible.

"That's what I am explaining. She isn't just a ghoul, she isn't just going to be like Ken Keneki as a one- eyed ghoul. She is literally half human and half ghoul. She can eat human food and she can survive off it. However she was not meant to be like that she needs to eat as a ghoul as well. With that aspect dormant and dormant for so long, the level of consumption for human flesh should be very high. The minute she begins feeding she will want to consume consecutively for days to regain her average level. Only feeding can reactivate her."

"So we just need to initiate that. And she will be reactivated."

"You say it like she's a thing." Renji cursed lashing out softly at her as he didn't like this. Vertigo said it could be risky. She would be at near-point starvation. He has seen that state. He knew what that was like and they were okay with putting her there?

"We can avoid the starvation if we feed her constantly." Uta said thinking it through as he devised a plan. "I can supply her with that. The problem would only be feeding her, will she accept being fed."

"She will be hesitant. She wouldn't want to. Not when her meal will be what she believes to be her own kind." Renji said pointing the truth out. She wouldn't want to do it at all. That means gratefully this plan won't work.

"Then we initiate it with her. If we walk her through this it won't be as mean as to have her suffer through it alone." Itori said answering him with what she knew was a fact. She has been her best friend for years and when she was there with her everything was done much easier and she was braver to do it than on her own. She just needed the guidance and support.

"So we just offer her a dead body and feed on it hoping she catches on?" Renji asked in disbelief.

Uta answered him solemnly. "It can't be dead." He walked back to his seat as he sat looking at his hands as he made a fist then released it. "Alive…the meal has to be alive. She needs the raw truth of what she is, baby steps will coat her and what we want is not to fabricate her with the stories that will let her sleep better at nights- but instead the truth. The fact that to eat- we murder, to feed- we kidnap, to live- we discard any thread of sympathy towards humans. She must understand that we can neither live with them nor without them."

(A/N: pun intended*)

End of Flashback

He was against this plan from the beginning, from that night he was completely against it.

Renji looked at them sighing as he looked away staring at the wall aimlessly.

"What are we going to do? She doesn't want anything to do with-"

Thud

Renji looked to the door as they all got in motion as he ran and opened it heading downstairs. "That's Kaisa; her heart rate just went up." He said aloud going down the stairs as clearly he could hear her heart beat speeding up quickly as he knew he heard a collapsing sound.

He entered the shop finding her on the ground as he rushed to her aid holding her down as her body shook violently. "A panic attack?"

Itori rushed in gasping as she ran over to her staring at her. This was her fault. This was all her fault. "T-Then why is she shaking?!"

"It could be a seizure due to shock."

"S-Shock?"

Renji held her down trying not to exercise too much strength as she could snap easily if he forcefully pushed her onto the ground. She slowly came to a stop as her body laid still.

"I can hear her heartbeat, she's okay right?"

Later that Night

Vertigo flashed the lights in her eyes as he looked at her watching her stare at the wall. Her face was expressionless however her pupils were dilated and endlessly staring. "She's not okay."

Itori stared back at her face emotionless as she turned back to Vertigo.

"When she woke up after the seizure I thought that it was over. Her face was so calm until she sat up and I realized something was wrong. She's breathing, her eyes are open…but she won't say anything or move."

"It's a Locked-in Syndrome. Technically speaking…she's in a coma."

Renji looked at her and then to the two. "What have both of you done?" The guilt was so strong that even Uta felt bad and responsible as he knew this was caused by them.

"It changes in each person. For most it can last for a lifetime, for some it can last for years, for very little there have been occasions where they it lasted weeks….but there are some that break-through within days. If it's by shock she might be stuck in a rotation of memories and flashbacks or even dreams. This might actually be good. If she is right where we want her…she could wake up activated."

Renji got up as he had had enough of it. That was the good part, the rarely to happen good part. "And if it's not flashback, her recovering her memories, this not being an extension of a simple panic attack?"

Vertigo stood up looking at her and then the three, "Then she could be brain dead…stuck there, forever."

"This can't happen. I mean, she died before right and we saved her, she can't do this again this- this isn't some drama story or a stupid suspense-driven plot of events!"

Uta stepped forward as out of what Itori said she did have a point. "We saved her before so we should be able to save her again when she's dead."

Renji literally wanted to hit him right through the wall- when she's dead? So her dying is normal now? So the fact that she can die and it takes place is not a problem? They weren't humans so he couldn't question his humanity but they were still beings under the law of logics and conscience.

Vertigo shook his head as he took off his glasses, "You don't get it- she's not dead or alive…she's just- there."

I'm sorry for the late update I haven't been able to perfect the next chapter as I would want (sighs). I'm trying to get it done by the end of the week so you can have it by Saturday. This should be a real eye-opener for what's going on for those who are curious about kaisa, those wondering why would they force her to eat and even those who just wanted the deep intriguing plot. I mean- I'll be honest, having her being human was too boring and her being a ghoul was two predictable- soooo i had pre-planned before I began writing to give it that little twist that makes her special. We all want our characters to be special but not too special or it will just be unrealistic, but without the intrigue and the history it would be boring. I literally invented my own breed well...bi-invented since its my idea plus a mix of Tokyo Re:

I hope you guys enjoyed leave your reviews both negative and positive- I always read. Still searching for beta- ha. Night night everyone~