Kaneki's kagune sputtered and withdrew as shock broke his concentration. "Kuri!" Kaneki started to take a step toward her, but the truth of her appearance hit him and Kaneki felt his body go cold and still. She looked terrible—worse than she had last time. It wasn't so much her pale thinness and the awful wrongness of the smell that clung to her that made her appear so changed. It was her expression. In life, Kuri had been the happiest person he'd ever known. But now, whatever she was—dead, undead, bizarrely resurrected—she was different. Her eyes were cruel and flat. Her face devoid of any emotion except one, and that one emotion was hatred.
"Kuri, what happened to you?"
"I died." Kuri's voice was only a twisted, malformed shadow of what it had once been. She still had her sweet sound, but the soft sweetness that had filled it was totally gone. It sounded like mean sarcasm.
"Are you a Ghoul?"
"A Ghoul?" Kuri's laugh was a sneer. "No, I ain't no damn Ghoul."
Kaneki swallowed and felt a dizzy wash of hope. "But you're alive?"
Kuri curled her lip in a sarcastic sneer that looked so wrong on her face it made Kaneki physically sick. "You'd say I'm alive, but I'd say it's not that simple. Then again I'm not as simple as I used to be."
Well, at least Kuri hadn't hissed at him like that Etsu thing had. Kuri was alive. Kaneki held tightly to that miracle, swallowed his fear and revulsion, and moving so quickly that she didn't have time to jerk away (or bite him or whatever), Kaneki grabbed her and, ignoring the horrid way she smelled, hugged her hard. "I'm so glad you're not dead!" Kaneki whispered to Kuri. "It was like hugging a smelly piece of stone. She didn't jerk away from him. She didn't bite him. She didn't react at all, but the creatures surrounding them did. Kaneki could hear them hissing and muttering. He let go of her and stepped back.
"Don't touch me again," Kuri said.
"Kuri, is there someplace we can go so we can talk? I need to get Hide home, but I can come back and meet you. Or maybe you could come back to Anteiku with me?"
"You don't understand anything, do you?"
"I understand that something bad has happened to you, but you're still my girlfriend, so we can figure this out."
"Ken, you're not going anywhere."
"Fine," Kaneki purposefully pretended to misunderstand her threat. "I guess we could talk here, but, well . . ." He looked around at the grossly hissing creatures. "It's not very private, and it's also disgusting down here." "Jusssst kill them!" Etsu snarled from behind Kuri.
"Shut up, Etsu!" Kuri and Kaneki snapped at him together. Her eyes met his and Kaneki could swear he saw a flash of something in them that was more than anger and cruelty.
"You know they can't live now that they've sssseen us," Etsu said. The other creatures stirred restlessly, making evil little noises of agreement.
Then a girl stepped out of the pack of creatures. She obviously used to be beautiful. Even now there was an eerie, surreal allure about her. She was tall and blond, and she moved more gracefully than the others. But when Kaneki looked into her red eyes he saw only meanness.
"If you can't do it, I will. I'll take the male first. I don't mind that his blood has been tainted. It's still warm and alive," she said, and she seemed to dance toward Hide.
Kaneki stepped in front of him, kagune blocking her path. "Touch him and you die. Again," he said.