Haise was walking down the linoleum hallway, curious of what Akira had to say to him. She sounded somewhat agitated on the phone, as if it was of the utmost importance that he came. Akira hardly ever sounded like this, she was obviously angry (though, that wasn´t too uncommon) but also sounded hurt and...fragile.
He started walking faster towards her office. Ever since she had taken him under Haise had always felt drawn to her sad aura and attracted by her motherly side.
Even though he couldn´t remember what having a mother felt like, her seemingly obvious intentions of protecting the ones she loved was something that he could only catagorize into the feelings of a mother. Akira´s office was right around the corner now. He had left his squad in a hurry and was worrying about their situation. He hoped Saiko and Shirazu wouldn´t get into too much of a fight, or that at least Tooru would talk some sense into them. Since nothing of the sort could be expected from Urie.
Just before he knocked on her door, he froze in a sudden terrified state.
What if she wanted to do something to that ghoul, Hinami?
What if he or his squad was in trouble?
What if something had happened to her family?
To her?
To Arima?
He held his shaking hand and counted backwards from 1000 in sevens. He didn´t know why he did that, only that it had turned into some sort of tick, that had appeared ever since the auction raid and only came when he was really anxious or stressed out. Then he knocked.
“Come in!”, she barked. He opened the door.
And saw her.
He had told Touka that he was a CCG investigator, but that he would appear here in this situation...Touka wished she could vanish, could spare them both from this horrible incounter, but that wasn´t possible anymore.
They had caught her.
His eyes widened, he looked shocked and in some sort of disbelief. Then he turned around and changed his expression to a politely interested one.
“Oh, what are you doing here...Touka, wasn´t it?”
He had to think before remembering her name. It hurt.
“You know her?”, the woman asked, eyeing Kaneki, no, Haise suspiciously.
“Ah, yes you see, she runs a lovely coffee shop, not too far away from where I live.”, he replied, smiling at her. “Thank you”, Touka said, feeling the urge to slap some sense into him. You used to be able to brew the coffee just as well as I could. “Is that so...”, the woman conemplated, still staring at him. Then she turned her face to Touka and her expression changed from irritated to enraged.
Touka recognized this look on her face. It was a look of hatred, of the urge to act out as much revenge as possible, because you had been hurt.
She saw it in the mirror more than enough.
But her hair, the way she folded her hands...something about her seemed strangely familiar, yet Touka couldn´t recall what.
“It seems, that Miss Kirishima Touka is, infact, a ghoul”, she hissed, still glaring at her.
Silence. No one was speaking. She was too afraid to look Haise in the eyes.
Gone, everything was gone. The life she had built up, after Kaneki´s supposed death, Yomo, Yoriko and those pleasantly peaceful days in a place she could finally call home again.
Worst of all though was her chance to begin anew again with Haise, it had been broken with all the other hopes and dreams, that had just been crushed under this woman´s shoe. Well...it was a fruitless hope, anyways.
Had they purposely made him an investigator to torture her feelings of remorse and regret even more? It didn´t matter anymore.
Because everything was gone.
His breathing became faster, everything seemed to make no sense.
No, when had anything made any sense? That´s right, he heard the voice in his head again, everything is messed up. The world is wrong.
No, it wasn´t. Wasn´t he a half ghoul? Wasn´t that female ghoul Hinami friendly, even like a human? Hadn´t he dealt with ghouls in a non-hateful way before he had lost his memories? That´s right. Kaneki. Maybe he had known Touka. Maybe that was why she was avoiding his gaze. He hoped he didn´t look too horrified. Such a beautiful person couldn´t eat humans, right?
“O-oh, I see”, he stuttered, trying his best to sound like his usual, fluffy self. As he continued to speak his hand automatically rushed to his chin. Another habit, Haise couldn´t get under control.
“W-well, Touka, did you know I am a half ghoul? And I work for the CCG, I know it´s crazy. So, um, please don´t disobey anyone and maybe you´ll make it out of here safely...”, his foolish attempts to make her feel better, only made Akira furious, and Touka startled.
“What kind of lies are you feeding her? As if she was allowed to ever leave this place again. Haise, she is a ghoul, she´ll never change!”
“What about me then?”, he asked staring back at her, trying to muster up as much courage as he felt was necessary against Akira.
“You´re different”, she snapped, standing up and pulling files out of her desk.
“I called you, because I figured you might want the set.”
“What do you mean?”, Haise asked confused. After some more rummaging she pulled out a mask and threw it in his direction.
“She´s the rabbit!”, Akira yelled, suddenly looking close to tears.
“She and that other ghoul are responsible for my father´s death!“
He turned the mask around.
And the flashbacks hit him just as unexpectedly as the news he had just received.
Haise had caught her mask. Touka couldn´t bare to look now, she felt a tight knot in her throat and tears stinging behind her eyes. Instead she focused on the woman called Akira, who was walking around, obviously trying to keep her composure. Touka felt the guilt lying in her stomach. She remembered the old nutcase, who killed Hinami´t Mom, seeing the ring on his finger had never let her go. And now she was facing her punishment. She couldn´t help it, even though she was enraged, she couldn´t help but feel pity for this strong woman. “I´m sorry”, she muttered, “Your father wasn´t-”
“SORRY?!?!”, Akira shouted, suddenly turning around to face Touka. Tears were fillling up her eyes, her cheeks flushed with anger, her eyes looking murderousl “AFTER MY MOM DIED HE WAS THE ONLY FAMILY I HAD LEFT! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW ALONE I FELT??”
“YES, INFACT I DO!”, Touka yelled back fiercly. “DON´T PRETEND TO BE HUMAN, IT MAKES ME SICK!”
Touka was about to retort, when she noticed the lack of commentary from Haise´s side. Why wasn´t he intervening? She dared to glance over at him and noticed something that made her shivver. He was staring at her mask, but otherwise he wasn´t doing anything. His eyes looked glazed as if he was in deep thought, his body unnaturally stiff.
That was odd, no, almost scary.
Akira didn´t notice this minute detail, instead she yelled: “YOU MONSTER! IF I COULD I WOULD DO SO MANY THINGS TO YOU! LOOK AT ME WHEN I´M TALKING TO YOU!”
Touka couldn´t. She started to get worried about him. “Look at him”, she whispered, pointing at Haise. Akira stopped stomping around. Then she froze and stared at him. “Haise?”, she asked quietly, getting closer to him.
Suddenly, without warning, he started screaming.
But not just screaming.
His hair turned white, his kakugan came out, he started sobbing and inbetween each sobb he screeched an incoherent sentence
“MAKE IT STOP!...NO...WHY....WHO...HE WASN´T SUPPOSED TO...WHERE IS HE?...WHY DID I...WHO AM I?”
He stopped sobbing, Akira and Touka tried to get closer to him. His vulnerable state was like a dagger slowly being twisted in their guts.
But it wasn´t nearly as bad as what came to follow.
“Ah, you see it´s not who am I, it´s what am I, right Haise?“, he said smirking into Akira´s horrified face. Touka felt the urge to puke, or to cry, or to do both.
This was Kaneki.
“You see”, he continued under supressed giggles, “I was a monster long before you took over. Hey, Akira? Remember me?“, he asked, slowly standing up.
“Wasn´t eyebrows your partner? Do you want to know who killed him?“, he stopped giggling and started to outright laugh into her face, as she covered her mouth and tears started streaming down. Just as silently as Touka´s were. “But he was in my way, you know? The strong eat, and the weak get eaten. I´ll eat everyone who stands in my way, they were going to destroy Anteiku. They were going to kill my friends.“, he stopped laughing. He sounded melancholic and Touka now started sobbing. “They have no idea what we´ve been through. Hey, you know what? I used to be humaaaaaan! Just like Seidou! I bet he was tortured too, you know Aogiri can get pretty violent.”
Touka had heard enough. This wasn´t Kaneki. Or was it?
Had she just never seen this side of him?
“You wanna know what they did to me?“, he asked in a tone as if he was making a normal conversation. He was mocking them. “He pulled out finger after finger, toe after toe. He killed a mother and her child before trying to make me choose which one should live. HE PUT A CENTIPEDE IN MY EAR! AHAHAHAHAHAHA! ISN´T THAT FUNNY?? Yes...1000 minus seven minus seven minus seven minus seven is whaaaaaaat?”, he asked, the manic laugh returning, his face twisted in what seemed to be perverse joy and absolute terror. He was insane. Touka wanted to stop looking, she felt so much pain, that she felt like dying and taking Kaneki with her. Maybe they could find peace together in hell. But she couldn´t stop staring at the man she loved, the person synonymous with purity and kindness to her, in this state. It was almost ridiculous how different he was from the gentle college student she had first encountered, yet still so alike. Because she could basically smell his fear.
The woman, Akira, was unable to move from beside her desk, where she was standing, staring at Kaneki in horror. Her look triggered Touka, she felt able to speak again.
“KANEKI! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?!?”, she yelled, stomping over towards him. He stopped laughing and turned around to stare into her eyes. “Touka?”, he asked, the gentle sadness of his old voice having returned. “You messed up the order again! Bakaneki!”
He laughed. It wasn´t the crazy laugh from before, it was the laugh he had had before being kidnapped. Somewhat shy, yet clear and loud and...pure.
“I´m sorry, Touka“, he replied.
It didn´t sound like he was talking about the order.
I had a dream. In this dream a centipede was crawling into my ear, making me do stuff I didn´t want to. In this dream I hurt Mom and Dad had to come in, to stop me from turning into the centipede. In this dream a person was making it hard for the centipede to leave. It was a truly beautiful person.
Haise woke up to a loud argument between his Mom and Dad.“That´s it! It´s getting worse and worse by the month. He even remembered. For a time he remembered everything!”
“He was shocked! He had just been informed by me about rabbit! Also why hadn´t you told me something so important as that he killed my ex-coworker?!
”Because, anything involving his past is classified Top Secret, Akira!”
”Arima, I don´t care! Do you know what I feel like now? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT IS GOING ON INSIDE MY HEAD?!”
”No, I stopped trying to figure that out long ago! And if you are so dismayed by him, why are you protecting him?”
”I...I don´t know. All I know is, that Haise is innocent for his past crimes!”
”That may be so, but they are still a part of him! You saw how out of control he got today? Look at his hair! It is practically white! It is getting worse, and if we can´t find a way to stop it...”
”ARIMA!”
”THEN I WILL KILL HIM MYSELF AGAIN!”
Haise couldn´t prevent the tears from trickling down his face.
Before getting up he quickly wiped them away. His Mom and-
No, Akira and Amon were staring at him. They looked like they had just been caught doing something very bad.
“It´s alright, Akira”, he smiled, his hand rushing towards his chin, “I hurt you a lot I remember.” Then he turned to Arima and bowed his head. “Arima, I´ve always had the utmost respect for you, and I still love you dearly. Do what you feel is best for everybody”, then he looked up and gave them both his fakest smile yet.
“I am so fortunate to have met you two.”
Akira rushed towards him, crying, holding his head. “Everything´s fine. No one will hurt you” Haise and Arima looked at her with the same startled expression.
“Why-?” “As I said”, Akira interrupted, squeezing him even tighter, “you are not responsible for your past self´s mistakes. I will always love you, Haise, no matter what.”
Arima left before he involutarently joined in on their crying.
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Touka´s cell was dark and somewhat eary. Small enough for her kagune to have no space, but big enough for her to lie in a bed and go on the toilet. She got 3 decent meals a day, and she knew she would never get used to this place, even if she had only spent two days in it. She couldn´t bare the thought of Hinami being in such a cell as well...
A guard came, staring at her with a mixture of disgust and interest.
“A rank one investigator is asking for you”, he grumbled, unlocking her door.
“What?”, Touka asked. Why would an investigator be interested in her? They had already questioned her about Mado and Aogiri, and had come to the conclusion that she was of no more use to them. But, could it be...?
As she crept around the corner her heart beat faster. He was there.
Haise hadn´t noticed her coming closer to the window separating the two of them, he was staring far off into the distance. He looked as if he was in thought, and Touka had the feeling that his sudden outburst the other day had left him the most scarred out of all of them. He jumped back as she tapped against the glass. She had to laugh, he was still so dorky. They both picked up the phone and started their conversation, while he was nervously tapping his fingers against his legs, Touka calmly observed his whole stature. His hair had gotten more black again. Good.
“So...how is your new home?”, he asked nervously eyeing the guard a couple of meters behind her. “Oh, lovely. I´ve always wanted to live in a tiny closed up space were I have just about enough room to piss and sleep, and it is dark enough to forget the fact that there once was sun out there that I was able to enjoy in the first place.”
“Sorry”
“No prob, everyone makes that mistake.” He laughed. Toukas heart began to flutter, she loved it when he laughed. Then he aprubtly stopped, as if he had no right to do so.
“Listen, Touka, we have to discuss this fast. I didn´t regain all of my memories.
I am not Kaneki, nor will Kaneki ever fully return, rather I believe that one day we will merge into one, but until that day comes, I only have vague memories of you and a certain feeling I get in my stomach that I can´t quite describe. When I think of you I remember hidden kindness under harsh words, a rather short attention span but an amazing ability to fight, always getting yelled at and the scent of coffee. That´s it. But...I know that you were once something very special to me, and I also know that you are not a bad person. Or ghoul, rather.
I don´t have much time left, I know Kaneki will emerge again, and I think when that time comes, no one will be able to stop me from regaining all of my memories. And as soon as that happens, Arima is going to kill me.”
I didn´t interrupt him, and just watched silently, as he blinked back tears and swallowed down a lump in his throat. Fuck, if I was going to cry because of that little shithead-
“So, I´ve decided to take you and Hinami with me. I´ll get you guys out of here.”
“What?”, she asked suprised. “Are you serious? What if-”
“Remember that there is a guard behind you.”
“What if your operation fails with your squad? What about those guys anyway?”
“I really will miss them...all of them. But, I can´t let them get in danger, I don´t know what I´ll do when my memories return. Touka, please, I know where Hinami is. First, I´ll tell the scientists from CCG that I´ll get her out, to turn her into a quinque, together we will knock out the guards, get you out, escape and get out of Japan as fast as possible.”
“No, I can´t let that happen. What if you die? What if something goes terribly wrong?”
“I am doomed just as much as the two of you. We´d die either way.”, he replied with a wary smile.
Touka couldn´t argue against that.
They had managed it. Somehow they had managed to escape.
Bruised, battered and out of breath, they hid in Kanekis old apartment where he used to live as a kid. Hide had once shown it to Touka.
Hinami was overjoyed to see Haise and escape with them, but Touka noticed her constantly looking longingly in the direction of Aogiri´s supposed hideout.
In the apartment, Haise collapsed, and after they had carried him away from the door and the windows, they both hid in the bathroom and took turns keeping the nightwatch.
After sunrise, and some rest, they immediatly got going, but they didn´t get very far.
“Look who´s there.”, Touka recognized this voice, and it let a pain go through her heart. Ayato.
“Aneki and-”, he stopped, staring at Hinami. Then he stumbled a few feet closer towards her. “H-Hina?” “Ayato!”, she screamed crying tears of joy, rushing towards him. She took Ayato clearly by suprise and hugged him, but he didn´t seem to mind. Touka couldn´t help but smirk, as she saw her brother blushing.
“Hina, nice to see you back.”, another guy showed up behind Ayato, and Hinami took a few steps backwards. “Noru”, Haise gasped, pulling out his quinque.
“Ah, Kaneki, nice to see you again.” Haise held his head.
“I´m not Kaneki”
“As you wish”, the man replied, with a mocking tone.
“Kaneki?”, Ayato asked staring at Haise. “He does look awfully a lot like him.”
“Thats because he is him”
Touka observed the whole scene, while moving protectively infront of Haise.
“You bastard! You broke half of my bones!”, Ayato yelled angrily.
“Ah, yes that was very troublesome. Ayato wasn´t useful for a week.”, the guy called Noru sighed. “What?”, Touka asked, turning around to look at him.
“I don´t recall”, Haise replied, avoiding her gaze. Hinami looked uncertain if she was to go to Haise or stay with Ayato.
“You don´t what? How come you are still alive anyway?”
“I don´t know”, Haise muttered. Noru laughed.
Suddenly, it happened just as quickly and unexpectedly as lightning.
Ayato fell to the ground. Akira had hit him with her quinque.
“AYATO!”, she and Hinami screeched at the same time, rushing over to his body. Noru was nowhere to be seen.
“How does that feel like?”, Akira yelled at them, then turned to face Haise.
“I TRUSTED YOU!”
“I know!”
“HOW COULD YOU BETRAY US?”
“Because-”
“HOW?!”
“BECAUSE ADMIT IT ARIMA WAS GOING TO KILL ME! BECAUSE I HAD NO MORE CHANCES TO LIVE WITH YOU GUYS LIKE BEFORE!
BECAUSE GHOULS HAVE FEELINGS TO, THEY ARE NO MONSETERS!”
Akira let out a frustrated scream as she charged for Haise with her Quinque.
The other CCG enforcers went for Hinami and Touka. Ayato seemed to still be alive, but he wasn´t able to fight yet. Touka had to protect those two, but she didn´t know how to do so. Though apparently, she didn´t need to protect Hinami anymore, and Ayato was up on his feet already. They were both such excellent fighters that she suddenly felt old. Gone were the days were she had to protect them. Then everything happened at the same time.
Hinami fell, Ayato rushed towards her and they ended up surrounded by the doves as Haise let out a bloodcurdling scream which distracted her from Arima who was suddenly infront of her.
She felt an incredible pain in her stomach.
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Akira was an excellent fighter, Haise had always known that from training with her. But he hadn´t really known how good she was, because now she was unleashing her full force at him. And it was painful.
“We took”, she yelled swinging after him. He barely managed to dodge.
“care of you”, she continued, scraping his face.
“I thought of you”, she panted, pressing her quinque against his.
“As my little brother.”
This suprised Haise.
“I don´t hate you, Akira”, he replied jumping out of reach of her quinque.
“I still think of you as my mother”
Akira roared and hit him with her quinque. He landed into the next wall.
“Then you shouldn´t have left us behind”
“You are still blind to the other side. How can you kill others with good conscience if you have no idea how they live their daily lives?
You can´t possibly believe that you are really killing heartless monsters who mainly kill for fun?”
Akira wasn´t too pleased by that.
As he was slipping in and out of conscious he saw Hinami and Ayato yelling at Arima...he saw someone lying infront of him...was that...ah yes...it was Touka wasn´t it? Why was she lying on the floor...what was she doing...no...no..he had to do something about it...he had to save her. He moved forward.
Akira walked over to them. Arima was raising his quinque.
...”NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
Haise felt his body burn. His halfkakuja emerged with a painful burst, but he felt powerful. He ran over and blocked Arima´s quinque with his kakuja.
“What are you doing?!”, Akira shouted at him. “I´M DEFENDING AN INNOCENT PERSON!”
“INNOCENT?! SHE´S RESPONSIBLE FOR MY FATHER´S DEATH. SHE´S A MURDERER!”
“OH AND HOW MANY GHOULS HAVE YOU KILLED BEFORE?! GHOULS THAT WERE ACTUALLY INNOCENT?” He had another sudden flasback.
“GHOULS LIKE HER MOTHER?”, he yelled, pointing at Hinami.
”THEY DIDN´T ASK TO LIVE THIS WAY!”
”YOU ARE LYING TO YOURSELF!”
”NO, AKIRA, YOU ARE LYING TO YOURSELF!”
”I FORGAVE YOU AND NOW YOU BETRAY ME?!”
”IF THAT´S WHAT I HAVE TO DO FOR JUSTICE THAN I WILL!”
”JUSTICE?!”
The other CCG inspectors were following their conversation, they were distracted. Ayato and Hinami could escape easily now. Good. The only one left was Touka.Arima stared at him for a long while. Then he sighed, turned around to the enforcers (who were bewilderdly looking around for Ayato and Hinami) and ordered them to “Kill both ghouls!”
There was a moment of silence following that. Haise and Arima were staring at each other, a single tear escaping Haise´s eye. He knew, this would be their last fight against each other. This scene felt...familiar. Haise supressed the urge to yell again, but he remembered a feeling of regret and sadness added by the overwhelming power that had come from this person.
He couldn´t distinguish Arima´s expression, perhaps he was purposely looking on the ground. Then he looked at Akira. She stared at them open mouthed. He could feel the pained look she was giving him, from the distance they were apart from each other. He knew that she was also thinking of all the happy times, the three of them had shared together. She looked like she was about to say something, but she stopped herself from doing so. And stepped out of the way. This eternity, that had only taken seconds, was suddenly interrupted, by Touka groaning. She had regained consciousness and was blinking up at Haise, who felt a sudden wave of relief wash over him.
”Hey”, he said pulling her up. “Rough day?”
”You know, the usual”, she replied, looking into his eyes, “You´re kind of used to tiring days when working in a cafè.”
“Tell me about it”, he replied with a wry smile.
“Shall we meet up after this for a coffee to talk about my past? I´m really interested in a lot of stuff that happened between us, also...Would you consider that a date?”, he asked nervously tapping his chin. Their conversation was ridiculous, but she smiled brightly and said: “I thought you`d never ask.”
Then they stormed together into the battlefield. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He was sitting in the cafè, the sun glistening through the autumn leaves of a chest nut tree, just infront of his window. What a lovely view.
A bigger man, with a grumpy look on his face, brought him his coffee. This was the only thing that bothered him about this place. If the food and atmosphere wasn´t so lovely, he wouldn´t be visiting it anymore.
They had interrogated the man, after the infamous fight amongst Arima, the first notable where he had been injured, but he, or Hide, didn´t seem to be a ghoul like Touka. Although he did look somewhat familiar...
Sometimes he imagined Touka and Haise sitting in this cafè laughing, and talking happily together. Suzuya remembered the horrific scene that had awaited him when he had arrived.
“Damages?” Suzuya Juuzo had asked his subordonate.
“9 killed, 48 injured. Arima with two broken arms and ribcage.
Akira in coma. The two ghouls have succesfully been eliminated, though.”
”Too bad”, he had sighed “I really liked Kaneki.”
”Who?”, his subordinate asked confusedly.
“Sorry, I mean Haise. I just mixed up the names. What about the other escaped ghouls, any news from them?”
”Not yet, Sir, but we are doing everything in our power to find them.”
They passed the bodies of dozens of wounded CCG investigators.
”They were very skilled ghouls, if I do say so myelf”, he had commented, then he´d stopped apprubtly.
”Oh, isn´t that sweet”, he grinned kneeling down, gazing at the rabbit and Haise. They had been lying face to face on the ground together, holding hands and covering each other with their kagune. Suzuya had bent down to wipe a single tear that was still on her cheek and closed their eyes. Then he had clapped his hands together and prayed for them.
“Ah what a depressing work day it is”, he sighed sadly turning to leave.
The tragic couple had it´s peace at last.
