With the odds being twenty-nine deranged ghouls and a massive kakuja against him and his brain damage, even Haise knew within his delirious state that there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that he stood a chance— not without playing dirty, that was. With the floor of the theater shaking underneath his feet, with each time one of the six hands of the kakuja ghoul created a crater each time it made contact with the ground as it approach him, Haise used what hand-coordination he had left to time his moment of opportunity when the leader of the Clowns shot one of her six hands down toward him. Narrowly avoiding getting his foot caught between her fingers, Haise used his tendrils as though they were spider-legs; crawling up the kakuja's wrist and beneath her underarm— firing three shots into the head of one masked jester who had tried to leap up towards him, after having inaccurately fired his entire clip.
Before the white-faced jester with their orange-and-black striped hat fell down several meters to ground with half of their head missing, their gloved hand that they had tried using to pull Haise off of their leader's kakuja ended up smacking the firearm out of the one-eyed ghoul's hand— rendering the last remaining two magazines that were strapped around his thigh to be useless, as the H&K VP9 pistol landed right beside the deceased ghoul. Knowing that his time was limited, Haise accepted his loss as he saw one of the kakuja's massive hands reaching underneath its elongated body.
Within his delirious state, Haise was hallucinating a giant centipede crawling midair toward him instead of the kakuja's fastly approaching hand— the hallucination's antennas waving in their air, as the non-existing insect's jaws opened up with anticipation to snatch him up. Wide-eyed and in a panic, Haise leapt blindly underneath the body of the kakuja— the imaginary centipede's jaws seeming to him as though they had gotten a hold of one of his tendrils, while in reality what happened was that the Clowns' leader was agile enough to grab him.
With adrenaline pumping through his veins, all Haise could think as his body got pumped full of kagune-bullets from the other clowns below were the taunting words of voice that wasn't his talking condescending down to him— a voice of malice, who he had idea who it belonged to, but couldn't put a name to it. 'No one's coming to save you… Every time someone is disadvantaged in the world, it is because of their 'lack of ability', The weak are trampled. They are overrun. They are violated. They are afflicted.'
Vomiting out several wads of blood from his injured lungs, Haise gritted his teeth as he felt his resolve harden, in spite of the agonizing pain he was having to endure. "F…Fuck you…!" Haise uttered out with tears pouring down from the corners of his narrowed eyes, as he used his incredible speed to swing Thinning's blade behind him— amputating his kagune to free himself as quickly as possible, Haise let out a defiant cry as he dived down to the kakuja's forearm that was the most accessible to him, from where he was falling.
Digging his fingertips into surface of the entertained leader's muscular limb, Haise took cover behind its nearly impenetrable hide to shield himself from the twenty-eight remaining clowns beneath him— throwing Thinning down at them to momentarily distract the ghouls who were shooting him with their ukaku kagunes. Knowing that the Clowns' leader would just grab him from behind, Haise anticipated her next move by leaping backwards from the forearm he took cover behind— parkouring by pushing himself downward from the kakuja's ribcage, before catching himself on the wrist of the hand that had blindly reached down to grab him.
Hearing the Clowns' ringleader laughing hysterically at his persistence to struggle against the tide, Haise ignored the cacophony from the other ghouls below as they watched entertainingly as he managed to barley climb up from the kakuja's shoulder and onto its back. "My, my! The Birthday Boy's quite antsy today, isn't he?! I bet he came up here to meet me! What a FUCKING SWEETHEART!" Haise heard the deranged woman scream out manically, before seconds later being subjected to a searing-hot white pain erupting from his abdomen.
Blinded by the pain he was experiencing, it took Haise's duressed brain a few moments to the predicament that he was in. Standing underneath him with an eerie look of sadistic pleasure on her smiling face, the leader of the Clowns gazed up at him with her brown-eyes while lifting him up with her hand plunged inside of his body— her powerful grip painfully tightening around his kakuhou, until finally Haise heard his predatory organ pop like a balloon inside of him.
"Oopsie, daisy; silly me~! How am I gonna make a balloon animal for you now~?!" The deranged ghoul asked tauntingly, before closing her eyelids softly as she listened to the agonizing cries erupting from Haise's lungs— the tormenting pain immediately causing his hallucinating mind to remember flashing moments of when Kaneki had lost to Arima, with the most prominent fragmented-memory being the one where IXA's blade that skewered his abdomen. Had Haise been able to focus, he would have seen the Clowns' leader's eyelids fluttering as she bit down lustfully on her bottom lip— visibly getting aroused by his incoherent screams, as she reached up slowly to begin groping her small left-breast with one hand.
That distracting moment of preemptive victory was all that was needed for the ghoul's guard to be let down, with seconds later a loud-clicking sound of a silenced-barrel going off resulted with Haise collapsing onto the back of the kakuja. Still experiencing a hellish pain, Haise was gasping for air with sweat pouring down his face as he forced himself to focus back on reality long enough to see the same ghoul who had been tormenting him laying down on her side— a large chuck of her forehead missing, as she stared back at him with an amused and lustful expression still plastered over her youthful face. "Haha, hehe… Ain't karma a bitch, kid~?" She uttered out in a hazy voice— her eyelids fluttering to remain open, as the kakuja she was still controlling began to collapse underneath its own weight.
Feeling weakened to the point where all he could do as the ghoul's kakuja stumbled forward was just try to hold onto the unconscious woman's body, Haise did what he could to brace himself for impact before the kakuja came crashing down along the folded-up seats of the theater— accidentally losing his grip from her small body, before being flung forward in the air like a rag-doll. Too weak to catch himself, Haise's body skidded across the large-empty stage before being swallowed up behind the forty-meter tall red-velvet curtains that hid the area backstage.
Plunged into darkness with his only source of light being the barely-visible light from the theater that was bleeding in from underneath the heavy curtains, Haise's eyes were barely opened as he laid belly-flat in a pool of his own blood. 'My stomach, it… It doesn't hurt anymore? Does that mean…? Yes… Yes, it does, doesn't it?' Haise thought to himself with a surprisingly coherent mind, as he stared blankly at the blackness before his eyes— the lack of light prohibiting him from seeing all the blood that was leaking out of his broken body, and onto the floorboards.
'I'm… I'm dying… Again, I suppose…? Huh, how odd… In the past, I recall seeing flowers manifest themselves whenever I get close to death; as of now, there's no sense of impending dread, doom, or even any cathartic emotions to be had here… Have I truly gotten so used to this feeling, that my mind has gotten accustomed to it? Or… Or am I actually dead this time?' Haise wondered to himself with a weary smile across his bloodied lips, as he let out a wheezing exhaled breath while beginning to feel his mind drift deeper-and-deeper into eternity.
'Guess that's it then; nothing more to do than just lie here, and wait for the inevitable… Regrets, regrets…? I suppose my only regret is that I'll never be able to apologize to Mado and Mutsuki; so much for coming back from this suicide mission on top… I knew this wasn't going to end well; had circumstances been different and I could afford to NOT do this, I would have accepted to loss and moved on, but… But I couldn't let go— I still can't…'
'...'
'...'
'...'
'D… Does it…? D-Does it normally take this long to die?! I can't remember… Wait… Wait, what the hell?' Haise's thought to himself, as the perplexing sight of seeing two shiny-black cartoonish boots stepping toward him came into his view— amidst the infinite black-void that swallowed his consciousness open whole. As whoever the unreal-looking feet belonged to backed up from his sight, Haise's surreal mind was thrown into even more bewilderment as he saw what looked to be some sort of chibi-abomination of what was supposed to be a pint-sized cat-girl— looking as though it had come straight out of someone's over-imaginative mind.
"Buryanuu~! Only a kiss from a beautiful gamer-girl will be able to wake you up, nyaaa~!" The blond-haired abomination said in a sassy-scratchy voice that sounded borderline obnoxious, between turning to the side to begin immediately walking out of Haise's field of vision.
Left absolutely speechless from what he had just seen, part of Haise wondered if he was still hallucinating, or if he had somehow winded up in some sort of whimsical afterlife. Fortunately for whatever was left of his resilient sanity, the poor one-eyed ghoul didn't have time to lament for much longer. When Haise came to, he was sitting on what felt like a carpeted ground underneath where his fingers were slowly brushing up against the floor— his back resting up against one of the four walls behind him, as he stared blankly down at his lap while stirring awake.
With heavy-eyelids and lethargic movements, the small and dimly-lit room that Haise found himself felt as though it was spinning around him— the nauseating feeling of vertigo quickly escalating in intensity, which soon led to the one-eyed ghoul vomiting leftover viscus onto his already blood-strained slacks. 'What… What is it? Where… Where am I? Did I…? Did I get captured by them…?' Haise asked internally with dread in his heart, as he gasped violently for breath with an acidic taste on his tongue that was infused with the coppery flavor of his own blood.
Raising his sweat-coated head up to stave out the overwhelming need to vomit out even more of whatever pieces of him that had gotten blended from the hand of the Clowns' leader, it wasn't long after until Haise finally lost the fight and ended up emptying the last of his stomach's contents on the dingy-green carpet beside him. Spitting out a wad of saliva mixed in with the foul taste of his purged remnants, Haise sat against the wall with his eyelids closed shut— his migraine returning from earlier, and as time proceeded on aimlessly it became apart by his chapped lips that he was extremely dehydrated.
'Water,,, I need water,' Haise's thirsty mind thought to itself, as he let out a groggy groan while struggling to keep his eyelids opened long enough to make out more of his surroundings— a herculean act in of itself, as once again Haise found himself without any reliable source of light. With only the distant light of what he could only assume were street-lamps from down below the floor he was on seeping through the dusty window across from where he was to help him see, Haise was able to make out a single bed in the corner of what looked very much like a hotel room straight out of the nineteen-seventies— the dingy and scratched abundance of vinyl wood that made up the retro-styled furniture was a dead give-away to him that whoever had brought him there hadn't spent much to rent the dingy room.
Nevertheless, the red-digital alarm clock that was barely out of his view with the way its interface was turned away from him made Haise realize that there was still electricity to be utilized, which was a hopeful sign to him that the plumbing was still active. Craving water more than he was craving comfort, Haise let out a painful whimper as he began to waddle his body back-and-forth— the pin-prickly sensation he felt all throughout his lower half was foretelling of just how long he had been stuck in that position.
Falling down on the carpet where he had just vomited out a pint of blood, Haise was heaving with his entire body trembling violently as he began to drag himself toward the one of the three doors that were available to him within the confines of the small bedroom. Using his elbows and knees to crawl while enduring the searing-hot pain in his head that felt reminiscent of IXA's blade being driven into his brain, Haise nearly passed out from his body almost going into shock, after having lifted himself up by the rusted-bronze door handle of the nearest door that he had chosen to try out.
Fate seemed to have taken mercy on the poor soul, as after finally being able to turn the bulbus door handle and twisting it open, Haise collapsed down onto a cool tile-floor— the faulty motion-sensors of the renovated ceiling light flicking the fluorescent bulb to life above him. 'My throat… It burns… It's so scratchy, and dry… Like sandpaper… Goddamnit, I… I can't wait! I need water, NOW!'
Not even bothering to put in the effort necessary to lift his unfathomably sore body up to the questionably sturdy ceramic wash basin, that was in the corner of the stark-white bathroom, Haise dry-swallowed whatever pride he had left in that moment. Staring dreadfully with disgust bubbling up in his empty stomach, Haise couldn't help but to let out a humorless chuckle as his strained eyes looked over to the white toilet that was looking back at him with its outdated design.
'I… I can't believe that I'm actually going to fucking do this… Oh, how I wish this wasn't so urgent,' Haise thought frustratingly to himself, before letting out a shaky-breath as he began dragging himself across the cold-bathroom tile. Lifting the brown-fuzzy lid-cover and the seat as well, Haise nearly gagged at the thought of what he was about to do. Pulling himself up to the ceramic rim of the toilet, Haise was in the midst of preparing himself to see an ungodly sight when he was instead met with a far more devastating realization.
Instead of seeing stagnant water that he figured would be colored for some awful reason, Haise was horrified to see that his entire endeavor had been for naught, for inside the rustic bowl, there was absolutely nothing of the sort inside. 'There's… There's no water. There's no… There's no… T-There's no fucking water…' Haise thought repeatedly to himself; chuckling at how comically tragic his luck had been as of lately, the one-eyed ghoul's borderline madden laughter soon spiraled into heart wrenching wails of frustration, and of misery.
Angry at the state that he was in, angry at Nishiki for having sold him off to be killed by a bunch of lunatics that he wasn't even if he was safe from, and even angry at the universe for having awoken in a crappy hotel room that couldn't even afford to have something as simple as running water, Haise's tearful sobs transpired into a furious and raspy scream as the spout of energy he got from his rage alone caused him to shatter the toilet with one tightened fist.
'Pathetic… God, I feel pathetic right now,' Haise thought cynically to himself, as he collapsed onto his side while tucking his knees into his chest to assume the fetal position. Having bottled up most of his negative emotions for so long, all Haise could do in that moment of self-grieving despair was to cry for himself— something that he vaguely remembered being insulted for, back when he still had black hair.
Laying there in woe, Haise's overwhelmed mind soon fell into a lull of numbness; his face covered in the residue of his sadness and misfortune, while he stared blankly ahead at the wall with an emotionless expression. Time had lost meaning to him in that bathroom, and he couldn't tell if he had been laying there for minutes, or for hours. What Haise did know, however, was that he could hear footsteps approaching from the otherside of the bathroom wall perpendicular from where he was at.
Soon enough, he could hear what sounded like a woman's calmly upbeat voice humming to herself, as all he could assume by the jangling noises he heard from outside the bathroom was that she was fumbling with her keys. Not having the energy or motivation to look over his shoulder, Haise let out a heavy sigh as he kept his back facing toward the opened door frame of the bathroom— preparing to accept a possibly painful yet certain demise, at whoever had just stepped through the entrance of the now opened front door of the hotel room.