So, I got a pretty good response for this story's first chapter, for which I am glad. My attempts at making a Harry/Eto fic have been a bit of a trial for all parties concerned, and this one seems the most promising. Hopefully, it'll become a full fic before long.

JANUS

CHAPTER 2:

FAMILY, FRIEND, FREAK

It was a home away from home for CCG operatives, for when their work kept them away from their actual homes. A rather snazzy and spacious home with training facilities and living quarters. It was known colloquially as the Chateau, and for the past eight years, it was more or less the de facto home of Kishou Arima and his adopted little brother, Harry.

That evening, Harry was cooking dinner for them both. "Is the old man trying to get me killed? Is he that pissed off by what I've done to him?"

"No. The Washuu clan may not like your antics, but they are also pragmatists. You're still of considerable use to them," Arima said. "No, they know that you are more than capable of taking on Death Eaters. Due to what you went through in the Ghoul Restaurant, you are a creative and vicious combatant…and that's without going into Edward."

"…Let's not. I can hear him laughing," Harry muttered, indeed hearing phantom giggles. "…Eto's not going to be happy either."

"I don't doubt that, though I daresay she is also unhappy with Voldemort poaching some of her minions," Arima observed mildly. "In any case, Harry…I am still worried for you. You may be far more competent than the average wizard of your age, or indeed those older than you, but the Death Eaters are not to be underestimated. And remember what the Goblins said after they removed that taint from your scar. And there is also the fact that you are going into a political mess of a situation, and I know your lack of patience for those. Your usual manner might…no, will cause disruption, to say nothing of what would happen if Edward were to make an appearance."

"And? Wizards in general are hidebound dinosaurs who look down on No-Majs, or Muggles, or whatever they call us. Besides, I'll bet I'll be also sent out to deal with the Ghouls Voldemort's recruiting."

"In all likelihood, yes. But there is something concerning. Before he was confined to Azkaban, there were rumours Augustus Rookwood, an Unspeakable who was also one of Voldemort's agents, was working on a means of hybridising Ghouls with humans. So you'll have to keep an eye out for any clues as to where his research is, whenever you're not required by Baum to assist her."

"…You think I'm going to die, don't you?"

"Not quite. People think I am heartless. You know that is far from the case, or else I would have taken your life when we first met. I have faith in your abilities, but you are not the strongest in the world. Even I do not think I am the strongest Dove in the CCG, though I don't know who would be. But if you died…the consequences could be bad. Leaving aside what I would feel, imagine what Eto would feel. You have helped her claw a little out of the darkness that has consumed her life. You give her a hope she never had before. If my father did arrange for your demise, then not only would Eto work to bring down the CCG, but I would help her."

"…Aren't you doing that already?"

"We wouldn't be as subtle as we are now."

"Ah." After a pause, during which he began serving out their dinner, sitting down at the table, he continued, "…Big brother, Kishou, you know how I feel about this plan. How it will mean you die, at the hands of the true One-Eyed King. You saved me. You gave me a purpose. You told me the truth about my parents. You even let me in on this plan you've got going with Eto. And I don't want you to die."

"I do not wish to die either, but the Washuus' little breeding program prevents me from having any say on how long I will live. I will be lucky to see 40. If I die, it will not be in bed while rotting away on the inside, or as the puppet of the Washuu clan. It will be on my own terms. But I do not intend to leave you alone, Harry. Why do you think I brought you in on my plan with Eto?"

"…I just want to be the one to do it. Ghoul or not…I want to be the one to kill you. You deserve someone who loves you to give you the mercy you want."

"…Perhaps when you're strong enough," Arima said with a faint, sad smile, before he began eating with a murmured 'itadakimasu'. Harry followed suit. "Perhaps the only thing I should be grateful to the Dursleys for," Arima remarked after a while. "If nothing else, they gave you life skills and an excellent work ethic."

Harry chuckled mirthlessly. "That's damning them with faint praise. They'd have never let me cook Japanese food, though. 'Don't you dare cook that Jap food in this house, boy!'," Harry said, giving a passable imitation of Vernon Dursley.

Arima nodded. "And you will be working with the man who put you there. Unlike Eto's father, he thought you'd be loved and taken care of, I would imagine. Dumbledore has admittedly made many bad decisions, but on the whole, I believe him to be a good man, but a flawed one who cannot see the wood for the trees."

"That's why I will get creative, if need be," Harry said, scowling at the thought of Dumbledore. He understood Arima's words on an intellectual level…but knowing the man condemned him, even if unknowingly, to those years of hell…well, it wasn't Dumbledore's fault Harry had become a Scrapper, that was all the stupidity and greed of his aunt and uncle. But thanks to Dumbledore, he had to cook for the Dursleys, clean for them…

No. He was going across to do a job as asked, albeit indirectly, by Dumbledore, and it would reflect badly on the CCG if he killed one of the most prominent wizards in the world. Especially without what they would see as just cause, despite what happened to Harry.

"I'm going to see Eto tomorrow," Harry decided. "I need someone to complain to. Other than you, Kishou. Besides, it's been a while since I've seen her, given that tour she recently did."

"It's been a fortnight at most," Arima remarked. "You last saw her shortly after your 16th birthday."

"…And it'll be even longer before I can see her again, if this BS in Britain keeps going on…"

Eto Yoshimura, who wrote under the nom de plume of Sen Takatsuki, had recently purchased a rather nice apartment. When she wasn't working with the Ghoul gang she was assembling, she lived here, and it was here that the teenaged author greeted Harry with an excited squeal and a hug when he turned up the next morning. "Harry! Oh, I'm glad to see you again!"

"Hey, Eto," he said, entering her apartment. He'd sent her an SMS last night, asking to come over. Eto, naturally, accepted. It had taken them a while, since his big brother introduced them a couple of years back, to get to know each other.

Most people only knew her as Sen Takatsuki, the prodigy teenaged author, known for horror and thriller books like Dear Kafka and Monochrome Rainbow. Well, the latter was an anthology. But her real name was Eto Yoshimura, the half-Ghoul daughter of one of V's former cleaners, Kuzen Yoshimura. A foolish old man who left Eto with an acquaintance in the 24th Ward, an underground warren of tunnels where the laws of the jungle applied, Ghoul eat Ghoul as well as Ghoul eat human. It would be hell for a child to grow up there.

Eto survived, and, in a twisted way, thrived. She became one of the strongest, if not the strongest, Ghouls in all of Tokyo. She became infamous as the One-Eyed Owl, named for the plumage-like flesh and beak-like protrusion on her kakuja, a form of fleshy armour Ghouls who ate their own kind could develop. And then, one day, she encountered Kishou Arima.

During their fight, out of sight of the CCG, they somehow came to an accord. An accord that drew Harry into it. Kishou Arima, a victim of the Washuu's breeding program, taking place in the Sunlit Garden. Eto Yoshimura, robbed of her mother, a journalist investigating V and the Washuu, by her father on the orders of V. And Harry Arima, formerly Potter, robbed of his parents by a wizard terrorist, sold to a Scrapper, and rescued by the man he would come to call a big brother. All three of them had a long-term goal: to topple the Washuu clan, the Sunlit Garden, and V.

For someone who had killed, and killed on a regular basis, Eto was a cheerfully refreshing breath of fresh air. While she was perhaps a bit more subdued and wary when Harry first met her, Harry reached out to her, if only because his big brother suggested this.

The road to their current relationship was more than a little rocky, and Harry still felt that Eto's morals needed work. But then again, he had eroded morals himself, especially where Edward was involved. If anything, he liked to think that he helped improve Eto's morals. And she helped give him a perspective on Ghouls he never really considered, even despite being an ex-Scrapper.

She was currently dressed in a dress with an owl on the front, an oddly childish choice for someone who was sixteen, but Eto had a rather childish nature at times. Harry found it endearing.

He looked at the pile of papers on the kitchen table. "What's that? Your plans for world domination?"

Eto snorted, taking them off the table and shuffling them. "Some notes I made last night for my future books, actually. Besides, what self-respecting megalomaniac would actually write down their plans for world domination? I mean, aside from crappy anime or a Bond film?"

"Fair enough." Harry then kissed her, the green-haired One-Eyed Ghoul kissing him back, their tongues warring for dominance. When they broke off, she had a lazy, feline smile, her single kakugan showing in her right eye, glowing red on black sclera, like a negative image of her green on white eye. "Are you still trying to spook me, Eto?"

"I just love pushing people's buttons to see what happens," Eto purred. "Besides, you're one of the few people to look at my kakugan without fear or disgust…well, one of the few humans. Then again, some Ghouls don't think much of hybrids. Three days ago, I had some fucker try to eat me, just to see what a One-Eyed Ghoul tastes like. I think he moves in the same circles as the idiots who run that Ghoul Restaurant do. Noro and I ate him. Of course, he's also one of those morons who's been listening to Voldemort's bullshit."

Harry sighed, knowing this was going to suck immensely. "Yeah…about that…"

Eto was pinching her nose, as she nursed a cup of coffee. She enjoyed the way Harry brewed hers, so he made a point of making some for her when he stopped by her place. "…Bloody hell. Those fuckers in the Washuu want you dead. Gonna gut them…"

"Eto, as much as I would like to join you in decimating the Washuu clan, burning the Sunlit Garden to the ground and sowing salt where it once stood, there is a time and place. Besides, Amber Baum, by all accounts, is a competent straight-shooter. If anything, you should be scared for the Ghouls in Voldemort's employ."

She scoffed. "…Nah. Bloody Jason and his little cocksucker Naki's gone over to Britain, citing a more interesting offer. And here I was going to make him part of the group I've got going with Noro and Tatara. Psychopathic moron with a gecko's face…I swear, he should have stayed in Cochlea to rot!" With a frustrated snarl, she flung her hands up in the air, before crossing her arms and pouting rather childishly.

"Great, so Jason and Naki are in Britain?" Harry muttered. "Oh well…it's not like I can take you with me." On Eto's sudden feline smirk, he said, "Eto…you know how wizards feel about Muggles, to say nothing about Ghouls. Besides, I'm probably going to be there for the best part of a year."

"And I will go craaazy without you for that long!" On Harry's flat look, she shrugged, and then clarified, "Well, more than I already am."

"I know, but seriously, what'd happen if the One-Eyed Owl starts popping up in Britain at the same time as a famous author does?" Harry asked.

"Oh, silly Harry, I can change the form of my kakuja somewhat," Eto said, with a smirk. "Besides…if need be, I can use a Portkey, make a brief appearance as the One-Eyed Owl just to make some of the Doves piss themselves, and then head back. Besides…I have some former subordinates to punish. Now, let's not talk about that. I believe that you were going to take me out today…"

Eto loved these little back-alley expeditions. She was looking for trouble. While she enjoyed going on a picnic or to the movies or a restaurant for a date as much as the next girl, due to her twisted upbringing, she also enjoyed going on excursions that would end in physical violence.

Which was why they were currently walking down an alleyway, shortly after going and seeing a movie after a good day out. She knew even Harry found these cathartic. It was why he indulged her.

A trio of thugs soon accosted them, their eyes showing kakugans. "Well, well, well…lookie here, boys." He slammed Harry against the wall of the alley. "…I think we've just found our next meal."

"No, please, don't!" Eto yelped, playing the part of a distressed damsel to the hilt, because she knew what was coming next, and she wanted to savour the sheer horror these shitstains were going to feel once Edward happened. "I'll do anything…"

"Listen, missy, we don't like eating what we just fucked. I mean, who wants to eat something you just came in, right?" the thug holding Harry jeered, slamming him into the wall, and letting him slide down, seemingly unconscious. But he was interrupted when a jet of light severed his arm, sending it hurtling into the air, and caught by Harry.

Or rather, Edward.

The teenager standing there looked superficially like Harry, same unruly black hair, same lanky physique…but the posture was different. Parts of his face were subtly different, enough to be subtly unsettling, his hair wilder, his eyes more sunken…and now black, merciless pits, the darkness of the irises seemingly leaking into the sclera.

As the three thugs stared at him, one of them now clutching a stump of a severed arm, Edward grinned, touching the bloody stump with his finger, and licking it. "First blood o' the night, always hits the spot," he said, his voice now, oddly enough, having an Irish lilt to it. "Y'know what I call this, gentlemen, though I use the term loosely? A great cap to the evening. The moon is shining, there's a beautiful girl, and somebody's gonna die. That's you three guys, by the way."

The three Ghouls unleashed their kagunes. Two with wing-like ukakus, and one with tentacle-like rinkaku. "You think you're funny, human?" snarled the armless wonder.

"Bitch, I'm adorable." He gestured, and knives slid out of his sleeves, about a dozen. The Scorpion Quinque, a set of knives made from a recently-slain Ghoul. "Tell me, have any of you fine fellows read JoJo's Bizarre Adventure? I don't have any steamrollers on-hand, unfortunately, but I can do the next best thiiing!"

Eto grinned as he flung the knives at the Ghouls, screaming "MUDA! MUDA! MUDA!", well, aside from one of them, who was currently using her as a human shield. The knives froze in mid-air in front of the one-armed one and Mr Rinkaku. "As I can't stop time, I have to do the next best thing. Activating shitstorm in three, two, one…"

And suddenly, the knives were embedded in the Ghouls' faces…well, save for her hostage taker. "…Stay back!" he screamed. "I'll kill her!"

"…Eto, darling, be a dear and stop playing a hostage," Edward said.

Eto grinned, before she threw herself back, landing on top of the other Ghoul, letting her lone kakugan show as she twisted around and straddled him. "…A One-Eyed Ghoul?!" he hissed in horror.

Eto smirked. "Yep. Now…the thing is, kiddo, this guy has a nice side. But you just missed him. Edward, dear, can I have one of those Quinque knives?"

"But of course, my dear lass," Edward said, plucking a knife from one of his victims, and handing it to Eto. As she began stabbing him in a frenzy, a scary grin on her face, she heard Edward pluck out a mobile, and ring a number. "…Top o' the mornin', Kishou! Okay, well, it's evening, but still…yes, it's Edward. Hmm? Oh, we have had three unexpected gooseberries. Yes, I think Old Man Mado will be pleased. Hmm? Oh, she's having a great time. Gonna have to wash the knives, though."

It was interesting, really, how broken souls called to each other, Eto thought as she continued stabbing, making it seem like she did so in a blind panic, when in reality, she wanted to turn this fucker into mince (he had already expired five…six…no, seven stabs ago). Harry's time as a Scrapper had given rise to something very interesting. Harry had survived because something developed to take the pain of killing and being tortured away from Harry, something stronger and crazier. Another personality whom Harry and Arima had dubbed Edward…after Edward Hyde.

Eto grinned to herself as she stood up from the mutilated body. As annoying as it was to have to deal with the CCG after this, it was always the perfect cap to a date night. A dinner, a movie, and killing some stupid fuckers who deserved it. Though she had to wonder, if she was dating one guy with a split personality, and she loved them both, was it bigamy?

Questions to ponder for another time. For now, she had to calm down, get ready to play the part of a distressed damsel, having killed a Ghoul thug with a Quinque knife in a panic, and not try to grin at the fact that she had a damned good ending to this date…

CHAPTER 2 ANNOTATIONS:

Because let's face it, date night with a somewhat megalomaniacal teenaged One-Eyed Ghoul and a traumatised wizard and ex-Scrapper with a split personality would be interesting, in the cursed sense of the term (to most people, anyway).

Now, Harry having a split personality wasn't the only route I wanted to take for this story. I considered three possible variations of the basic story, Arima adopting Harry. In both, he was a One-Eyed Ghoul, the main difference being that in one, he was an artificial OEG, and in the other, he was going to be a natural OEG (and using the backstory I developed for Lily for a few of my previous stabs at a Harry/Eto story).

For this story version, while I wanted Harry to be an ex-Scrapper, I needed something to show how different he is to canon Harry, given the shit he's gone through. A split personality, while admittedly an overused cliché and not really based on what is admittedly a very misunderstood area of psychology, actually works here.

My major inspiration for Harry's alternate personality, Edward, was the version of Edward Hyde as portrayed in the BBC TV series Jekyll, written by Steven Moffat before he began showrunning Doctor Who. There's even some nods to Hyde's first full appearance in a few lines of dialogue at the end of the chapter, which were modified from that scene. And Edward will be based heavily on that version of Hyde, who is easily one of the more camp versions of the character…but no less dangerous for it.

Harry's still just as capable a Dove without Edward. He's been trained by Arima, after all. But Harry, when he kills, kills cleanly. Edward…gets creative. Playful. Rather like how Miho from Sin City gets when someone makes the mistake of calling her by some racial slur.

It's also worth pointing out that, while he has a split personality, Harry has two faces in addition to that. In public, or at least in the CCG, he acts cocky, clowning around. As you'll see in later chapters, it's not just Edward who has a taste for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. In private, he's more introspective, brooding, snarky and cynical, particularly around Arima. He'll be like a pre-Aogiri Ken, only less wimpy and more badass, but he's got the angst and self-doubt.

Eto likes Harry and Edward equally, and the three of them have come to an arrangement of sorts, though they're not lovers (yet, though they're not far from it). I think Eto is fond of broken things, being broken herself, which is part of the reason Harry appeals to her. And Harry, despite herself, has actually been acting as a moral anchor to her, albeit a loose one. She's still developing Aogiri Tree, but it may not be as much of the terrorist group as it is in canon.

Let me reiterate: Magical Britain is NOT ready for what's coming.

No numbered annotations this time.