Chapter Text
Sayu looked at the small pile of books on her desk, all marked with the name Sen Takatsuki. Every single ink-stained page written by that strange girl who seemed to know far too much. Pages which, Sayu was certain, concealed far more than tragic tales. She reached out for one of them when the door burst open.
“I was just…” She looked up to find Hide standing before her—or rather, his ghost: he was pale and sweaty, breathing heavily, and staring at her in terror.
Hide had the impression of hearing a door and a voice in the distance, but he didn’t know where he was. He knew only that he was running away and that with every step he felt sicker, everything turning darker. He didn’t know if he could still breathe, if he was still alive. He felt his knees hit the ground, his hands clinging to something.
“Kaneki!” he heard himself scream into the void, frantically searching for a sign in the darkness, a movement that would tell him he was still alive. And he saw him emerge from the darkness, limping towards him, covered in blood.
“It’s all right, I want to help you,” he kept repeating, his voice drowned out by the roar of the sewer below. “I know you’re a ghoul, it’s all right.” He managed to take a breath and was choked by the stench of sulphur and mould in that tunnel. Kaneki stood there staring at him, motionless, his expression blank.
“I want to help you,” Hide repeated. “You have to live.”
Suddenly, a burning sensation tingled on his fingers and ran up his left arm, growing ever stronger and more painful. Hide immediately grabbed that part, that side of his body that had betrayed him, that hadn’t been strong enough to save the only person to who he would give everything.
“Eat me. Do it. Save yourself,” Hide repeated frantically, desperately trying to tear off that phantom arm, that painful memory attached to his body.
“Hide!” a voice finally spoke, and a hand gripped his, firm and resolute.
“You’re not in that tunnel,” the voice said again, clear and firm.
“W-what?” Hide stammered.
“You got out of there. You saved Kaneki,” it repeated, and with every word the voice grew clearer. The darkness faded little by little, and even the stench of the sewers seemed to have vanished. Kaneki’s face transformed, and in its place appeared Sayu’s, staring at him with worried but steady eyes.
“You’re at the CCG. You’re in my office.” Hide didn’t reply, letting her repeat those reassuring words, never loosening her grip on his arm. He began to breathe slowly again, inhaling deeply every scent, the faint fragrance of that room.
He leaned his head back, resting it on the soft cushion of one of the armchairs.
“What happened?” whispered Sayu, still holding his arm. He swallowed several times before answering. “Kaneki. I tried talking to him again, but it’s as if he’s vanished. As if I can’t find him anymore.” He looked up at her. “I always find him.”
Sayu didn’t reply, remaining seated on the floor in front of him and, for the first time in a long while, she didn’t know what to say.
A few months later
It wasn’t the first time Marude had had doubts about the CCG. He’d never been a blind follower of the investigators, right from the start, from his very first kill. Or when he’d first witnessed Kureo Mado’s cruel methods, only to then have to deal with his daughter. But the one who made him doubt the most was the man missing from that meeting. Kisho Arima, once his subordinate who in just a few years had become the CCG’s saint, praised by everyone. Everyone, except him.
“At last, our battle against Aogiri is drawing to a close. A thirteen-year battle that began with the clash against the One-Eyed Owl,” declared Matsuri Washuu solemnly from the head of the table, and Marude let out a snort. “And yet the most important figure is not here.” No one noticed, and attention turned to Sasaki, who was explaining in detail the developments in the fight against Aogiri.
They’d trained him well, Marude thought as he watched that perfect little soldier. Precise, clear, unfazed by attacks and provocations, as he laid out each target. A far cry from his ghoul form, from the fury and violence that everyone in the room had witnessed. Suddenly, the image of Hide in Akira’s arms, almost lifeless, a victim of Sasaki, came back to him. He felt a punch to the heart as he thought back to the nights spent in hospital, the hours by his bedside.
I’m here, son. You’ll be fine.
They should have given him a medal, made him a special class, yet here he was, relegated to the darkness of a laboratory, whilst his tormentor became the new Arima. The new saint.
“As for the One-Eyed King, my colleague is already dealing with a suspect. However, we have reason to believe that their main hideout is on Rue Island, where a team will be sent to search…” Haise was continuing, but Marude had already stopped listening, thinking of Furuta: a stranger, a nobody who had miraculously survived against the Rosenwalds and was now part of the CCG’s biggest operation. Why was he there? Why not Hide himself, the most brilliant, or Akira, who had lost her own mother to the Owl?
His shoulders began to ache, as if all those doubts, growing ever stronger, were starting to weigh him down. He felt his back arch and forced himself to pay attention when someone called out to him.
“Marude.” Haisaki, the director of Cochlea, boomed in his deep voice. “Keep an eye on your boy.
“Pardon?”
The other man smirked. “Nagachika. He does nothing but hang around Cochlea with that shrink. I’ll admit she’s a fine sight, but they’re always in the way. They’re constantly going to Fueguchi’s and babbling about books and research on ghouls.”
Marude found it hard not to let a satisfied smile slip. It was definitely his boy, who so far had never made him doubt it. Who rebelled against the saints and dogmas of the CCG, who managed to see beyond the thickening smoke veil.
“I’ll try to talk to him. But Nagachika doesn’t like rules.” He fixed his gaze straight on Haise, and he seemed to get the message.
It was a threat.
To all of them.