The previous chapter was met with overwhelming support and I was honestly humbled by the encouragements I received. It really means a lot, thank you! :) You have no idea how I was grinning like a fool - even in public. But, the problem with a brilliant chapter? It's that people have HIGHER expectations for the next chapter. The pressure is on.

I don't do well with expectations. You want to know why? It's because I take these expectations and proceed to set the whole thing into a blazing inferno, watch them blacken and wither into ashes as they scream shrilly in the air, their tortured flesh starting to bubble and melt. Eventually, everything falls silent. Ladies and gentlemen, cats and fire-breathing dragons, long dead sabre-tooth tigers and eldritch monstrosities from the next dimension, THIS chapter is the result of your expectations.

Enjoy (or not). :D

Thanks to sirgregsloth for beta-ing this chapter. Any remaining mistakes are mine.

The word fills Touka with dread and melancholy. It speaks of a slithering kagune scampering around the walls, of jagged shards digging deeper in flesh and of a face being devoured of humanity.

When Touka sees the thing crawling from Kaneki, she doesn't say anything. Some small part of her is screaming and railing against the heavens, demanding answers and repentance for a shy bookworm but a larger, more distant part of her, is quiet.

That part knows what it is and recognises the black sheen of chitin and kagune on Kaneki's back.

Kakuja.

At a young age of five, six or seven, (what is with the human's obsession with numbers?) she and Ayato creeped out from their covers.

"Follow him," Ayato mouthed, eyes dancing in mirth.

Touka returned a cheeky grin and they tiptoed their way to the door, where their father has already left.

They were good at this, they had been practising whenever dad wasn't looking and they were so good that they could sneak up on a skittish sparrow perching on a tree and caught it before it could even emit a surprised chirp.

Watching the world through the lens of youth, everything to them was a challenge. Bold, brazen and inherently curious, they didn't think twice when they slipped out to follow their father on his nightly excursions even though he had told them before that they were not to go out when it was dark. For once, his eyes were serious and there were no traces of warmth in them. His face seemed like it was carved from stone and Touka and Ayato won't admit it to anyone but just for that brief moment, they were scared of their father.

But like all young children, they had selective amnesia and threw caution to the wind, ignoring their father's warning and the dark look in his eyes. Some things were better left forgotten, Touka thought, as she clambered over a fallen tree and helped Ayato who was struggling to get a foot over it. Later, there might be consequences for their actions but now, they were infused with boundless energy and the thrill of not being caught, secured in the belief of their skills.

To them, this was just a game.

Quiet, her eyes conveyed and he nodded, pulled his whole body up and landed on the other side with a muffled thump. Both of them winced. Their dad simply kept walking and they both let out a mental sigh of relief.

Ayato, a silent reprimand flashed in her eyes and he gave a sheepish grin.

They had now reached the graveyard. He was digging out something from the ground. The air smelled like rain and soil and they fidgeted in the bushes, excited by how far they have come without their dad being aware of their presence.

"Hck!"

With horrified eyes, they watched as their father collapsed to his knees. A shudder ran through his body and he clutched his abdomen. From his back, black RC sacs burst open to reveal thick armour.

"No, not again," he groaned, before letting out a pain filled noise between clenched teeth.

More and more black bands appeared, hardening and taking over the whole of his body, until it covered him from head to toe, a living and breathing kagune. It was an impenetrable armour and it covered all his skin, sealing his face up into a blank mask of dark metal.

Not a sound escaped their lips. They should do something, call out or run away, but fear has them rooted to the spot, breaths trembling in their throats.

That was the first time they saw their dad lose control of his kakuja. There may be countless other incidents before and after that, but such was the extent of Arata Kirishima's iron will that he only unleashed darker side when his children was not around.

With no knowledge about the state of their father's kakuja, the sight of the black chitin armour crawling over his face and hands and legs, left them mute.

There was a sudden crack and they saw the silhouette of their father dropped to all fours and he thrusted his hands into the dark soil. With immense strength, he dragged out a corpse from the womb of the earth. A sudden snap and the spinal column of the corpse bended over backwards and dangled like a broken doll in the clawed hands of Arata.

In a scramble, Touka covered her brother's eyes and he clung to her, dug his fingers hard enough to hurt. Her hands were wet and she knew without a doubt that both of their faces were streaming with tears. It was not a time for pride so she didn't call her brother out on this, just held him close and stared out of their bush hideout, trying to breathe as slowly and faintly as possible. Whoever that ghoul in the woods was, it was not her father.

The chinks in the armoured scales of his face widened and closed periodically, drawing in the slow, measured breaths of a predator. Along the length of its spine, there were serrated hooks sticking out, the curved edges of the spikes glinting in the night.

Touka could see the steam rising from its muzzle, hear the click click click of teeth and the jabbering, "Churn, churn, crash and burn, I have not one but two children. Must protect them all but it's always creeping, the dead stinks, it's in my clothes, in my eyes, in my head…Churn, churn, crash and burn… all the dead bodies are crawling in me. Must protect, protect what? How well do I know the dead? Churn and churn and blood and foe, must protect two children."

He giggled, a high pitch sound that edged around hysteria.

She hugged Ayato tight, both her hands trying to block her brother from the sight and sound of the taint of madness. She could feel her brother shaking in her arms and knew that she was shaking too.

The kagune was controlling her dad, pulling his limbs like a marionette in jerky and twitching motions. Steam rose gently from its flanks and its sightless head roved side to side, scanning the environment. A clawed hand pawed the ground and she could see how that simple movement gouged out the ground, leaving rents the size of her arm. The kakuja looked like black metal, curved and solid, but it also possessed a fluidity that allowed Touka to see the rise and fall of its flanks as it breathed, as well as the coiled muscles in the creature, powerful and deadly.

It threw back its head and let out a scream so sharp and piercing that she couldn't help but flinched. The animals in the undergrowth bolted from their burrow in a rush and winged creatures above head took to the sky in a flutter. The air filled with panic screeching.

Through it all, the black king of the forest surveyed the enfolding mayhem in glee.

A stray animal catapulted out into the clearing, fear so thick and choking that the animal ran straight into the one that caused so much fear in the first place. A small seam splitted the kakuja and for a moment, Touka's heart leapt. The kagune was breaking; her dad was trying to escape from –

She has to stop the bile from rising to her throat.

The seam had widened and revealed teeth. Bloodied teeth. Teeth that were currently biting down on the neck of the poor animal as it squealed and screamed within its grasp.

There was so much blood and the black king grinned and grinded his teeth, shearing flesh and bone as the animal crackled sickeningly in its jaws.

Fear clamped down strongly on her mind and locked her limbs tight. Her stomach wrenched itself in knots and a whimper built inside in her throat, waiting to be unleashed in the physical world and draw the black king's attention to how scared and vulnerable she was. With how hard her heart was pumping, it felt like her heart was going to burst out from her chest any moment. Soon, she's going to let out the tiniest whimper, the softest breath, the faintest scream and the black king will be in front of her in a flash, grinning with its bloody teeth.

This is it. She does not think she can hold out any longer.

In her head, something slowly slotted into place and that was when her vision goes gray. Everything she saw came from a long way, like there was gauze wrapped around her eyes.

All the screaming and frenzied thoughts in her head stilled, became frozen, stopped. Her tremoring ceased, the fear and worry draining away from her system like water down a drain.

In its place was…nothing.

Touka was calm. Peaceful. Serene.

She took a deep breath –

- and started to count.

It has been one thousand eight hundred and seventy three seconds since they have left home.

Three hundred and eighty one headstones in the cemetery, fifty seven tree branches of a tree she is hiding behind and two strands of hair that clung to her lips as she shielded her brother from the carnage.

She briefly considered confronting her father in the hopes that the shock of seeing his own children could drag him out of this and discards the notion. No point risking their lives.

Her attention focused back to the man who has eight seams in his kakuja for breathing and exhaled at an average of twenty one times per minute. He has seven spikes in his kakuja, five of which were currently pierced through the chest cavity of an animal. It took approximately two seconds for him to tear it into half into a splatter of mist and gore. From her vantage point, she could see thirteen pair of pearly white ribs. Two red lungs dropped to the floor with a squelch and a trail of intestines dangled from its carcass.

Its bones were snapped forty two times and he was sucking up the marrow from the spinal cord with a slurp. She thought that there might be eleven litres of blood soaking the ground now and tightened her hands across her brother's eyes.

He crunched the bones ninety eight times, chewed the organs seventy seven times and took a total of seven minutes and forty five seconds to completely devour everything. Touka thought that that was the longest seven minutes and forty five seconds she has ever experienced.

When he has finished his meal, the kakuja shivered across his skin like electricity.

Like the crackling of plaster, the kakuja fell off slowly. Her dad wrenched himself from the biological weapon, yanking one arm, then the other, desperately freeing himself from the poisonous influence of his kakuja. It came off in scales, the plates dropping to the floor, before melting away in a mist of red and black.

Her dad emerged at last, whole and unharmed, bloodied and breathing hard (one, two, ten) before he finally looked up – and froze.

"Touka," he whispered, a haunted light appearing in his eyes, "Ayato…"

Touka could imagine the terror he must be feeling, how it must felt to have his demons exposed to his children.

He took a step forward and stumbled. He caught himself and he half shuffled, half limped all the way to them and enveloped them in one giant hug and it took a minute (or four or five) before Ayato's heartbeat returned to normal.

Touka's heart has stabilised a long time ago.

Her dad stank like dead bodies and blood, a sour tang of fear and fury that assailed her nostrils and left her strangely hungry.

They took three thousand two hundred and forty seconds to return home, as their dad carried them in his arms. Ayato has recovered, and from the depths of his mind, came to the conclusion that their dad was attacked by a creature and had to fight it, hence the violence. Ayato is already smiling, trusting his dad more than his senses, more than reality itself.

But Touka was different. Touka was there the entirely time and knew it to be a kakuja, the word tasting bitter and hard on her tongue.

She may hugged her father and told him it's okay, but it has been five thousand two hundred and ninety one days since she saw a kakuja spearing through her dad.

Touka never forgot.

She never thought that she would see a kakuja again. How wrong she was. How painfully wrong.

After the Aogiri Raid, Kaneki disappeared for a week. That's seven days of churning worry, one hundred and sixty eight hours of agonizing concern, and ten thousand and eighty seconds of guilt and anger storming her head.

She's a little worn out these past few days.

When she sees a familiar figure stepping through the doors of Anteiku, her heart leaps to her throat. When she sees how he can't stop trembling, she feels the first stab of worry – one of the many still to come. When she notices the cracks in his gaze, in his smile, in the way he holds himself, the flare of hope in her chest extinguishes cruelly.

Kaneki has return – but not all of him.

Kaneki has return – but he has the taint of kakuja seething in his blood.

Kaneki has return – but Touka can barely recognise him.

Touka is unsure of the new Kaneki, who is fragileruthlessvulnerablemadcrazydemonicfriend.

Friend.

She sucks in a breath, focuses on the thought.

Friend.

Even without Kaneki displaying his kakuja, Touka can feel it scratching against Kaneki's skin, trying to break out. His strained eyes and tired smiles, all speaks volumes about how hard he is trying to control it.

But Touka knows.

She's seen it.

Her dad always looks like this whenever he comes back splattered with blood from head to toe. There is rankness in the air, foul and acrid, biting into her senses and sparking of recognition: kakuja.

Lost in her own memories, she hangs back from the crowd of overly-enthusiastic ghouls who rush out to greet him with barely contained joy.

Irimi hugs him and Enji slings one arm around his shoulder and laughs boisterously. Tsukiyama – like the freak he is – spends too long staring at Kaneki with undisguised greed before it melts away to an overly dramatic welcome entirely in French. Meanwhile, Nishiki and Kimi greets him together and Hinami throws herself at Kaneki with bright joy and exclaims, "Welcome back!"

Hanging back, Touka and the manager watch them reunite.

"Are you not going to approach him?" Yoshimura rumbles, turning his head to look at the strangely reserved girl.

"I will," she says, "Just not now."

He nods and looks away, but not before placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Having a kakuja does not mean the end of him. It took me a long time but I managed to control mine."

"I know," she replies, a sneer curling her lips. "I just wish I was stronger so he wouldn't have to suffer the same fate as my dad."

"Your dad never used his kakuja to kill and it was his decision to eat ghouls rather than humans. He was a good man."

The words slip pass her lips from nowhere, startling even herself. "Then why did he leave me?"

The childishness of that sentence makes her want to take back the words but having spoken them out in the open reawakens the old hurt in her scars. Because it's true. Rabbit can get lonely and she misses her dad sometimes.

Yoshimura levels a sympathetic gaze at Touka. "He died to protect those he loved," he states simply. "You cannot fault him for that."

For a moment, she holds his stare fiercely, grips tight the resentment in her heart before she looks away, her anger draining out like water down the sink.

"Never forget you have us at Anteiku, Touka. We will always be your family if you would have us."

Her head bowed, Touka nods.

"Now," Yoshimura's eyes crinkle, "I think it's time for our top waitress in Anteiku to welcome back a dear old friend, don't you think?"

For a moment, Touka remains still. Then her shoulders loosen and tension seeps out from the lines of her body.

Lifting up her head, Touka strides forward.

"Hey shithead, enough dawdling. Get a change of clothes and dye your fucking hair already. You stick out like a sore thumb!"

Kaneki jerks his head up to meet her (soft) glare, and the barbed wire in his chest loosens its claws.

"Yes, ma'am!" He hastily apologises and ducks his head.

Watching her (dearly missed) co-worker scrambles up the stairs, Touka has to concede that Kaneki is still Kaneki, with his typical awkwardness and sincere smiles - even though his eyes are always sad and his hair is the colour of a thousand dead winters.

They stay in Anteiku for awhile, and they are like cautious animals learning to live with another. Skittish and painfully aware, they circle around and around, trying to regain the balance they once possessed.

Occasionally, when Touka catches Kaneki slipping into darkness, tormented by his kakuja, she cannot help the poisonous burst of fury in her chest. It is not his fault that Kaneki is broken (maybe it is), and she cannot resent him for his forced transformation, but a part of her is inherently angry at him, hates it that he was too weak, that he had broken into a million shards that cut her hands whenever she tries to piece him back together.

Touka tells him that she'll be with him every step of the way, that his nightmares cannot compare to what everyone will feel if they lose him. For he is too important to Anteiku, to the ghouls, to her, and even if he is spider webbed with madness, she will always be by his side.

She does not tell about him that she hates him a little.

There comes a lull in activity, where everything was peaceful and serene. Anteiku resumes their business, and Kaneki – with his hair dyed black – stays at the counter to prepare coffee for the customers.

Touka is always the one who will take the coffee from him and if their fingers brush against each other, then that is for Enji and Irimi to smile secretly among themselves.

These days, Kaneki looks steadier, less prone to shattering at any given time. His smiles are less melancholic and contain more warmth whenever he sees Hinami bouncing along with a new book in hand. The constant companionship of the ghouls at Anteiku serves as a therapy to him, smoothing over all the jagged shards that seem to be part of him nowadays.

It's somehow…nice.

Yet, there is still a distance in their interactions. Touka mourns the easy camaraderie they used to have, where they she can hit him because he's acting like a shithead again but now she can't even do that.

There are too many scars on his body and in his eyes, and as much as she hates treating him like he's a fragile person, the truth is that she's not even sure how to treat him anymore.

Everything is too different, too raw and she feels like she's just shooting in the dark sometimes, trying to make sense of a shy boy with gentle hands and one of the most wretched laughter she has ever heard.

Again, she is reminded of her father's kakuja, how it had tormented him in its bloodlust and this is not what she envisions for Kaneki. Not a future of pain and madness.

But what can she do?

First her father, and now Kaneki.

The people she loves are all rooted by their kakuja, and slowly but surely, they are all leaving her…alone.

Too much is at stake here. Sometimes she can see the regret in his eyes, and sometimes she can see malicious delight. The Kaneki in front of her is too fractured and unstable to be much help to her, least of all, to himself.

She doesn't understand why he has decided to walk the path of a kakuja user. Her heart aches for him in a way that no amount of consolation can seem to heal, how it twists painfully on itself for his future that lies only in ashes.

"Why did you do it?" She asks, staring at him from the doorway.

It is in the late afternoon, and sunlight lances through the windows to casts the reading room in warm shades of burnished gold. Seated on the couch in a simple black shirt and pants, Kaneki looks up from the book he is reading and watches her with murky eyes the tainted gleam of silver.

"Because I want to protect everyone," he says simply.

Touka cannot fault his sentiment but neither can she agree with it.

In a whisper of fabric, Kaneki pulls her towards him and they sit side by side on the couch, warmth seeping into each other. Lifting a hand, he runs it through her soft hair, enjoying how it feels like satin sliding through his fingers.

Touka shuts she eyes, leans into his touch.

"Because I want to protect our future," he murmurs into her ear.

When he withdraws his hand, she catches sight of his fingernails, black as tar.

Her heart wrenches painfully, reminded again that Kaneki isn't truly here, not fully, not whole, not complete.

Some part of him is skittering away, splashing in the pools of madness and chittering to itself. She knows it. He has cracked his finger a total of one hundred and seventy two times since he returned from his torture time with Aogiri.

At the thought, she has to stop the flare of ugly anger in her chest. There is poison in her veins that seeks absolute destruction for Aogiri. It burns with a vicious coldness that nestles deep in her chest. No matter how much she tries to forget it, it is still there, the dark part of her. That howls for revenge and retribution and wants to paint the whole world a bloody red for daring to lay a hand on Kaneki. Especially Jason.

She will fucking ruin him.

At the root of her fury, she knows the one single fact that leaves her helpless: She doesn't have enough power.

It is the exact same thought that had spurred Kaneki to embrace his kakuja. There is the crux of matter, the reason why Kaneki was forced to undergo the change from a gentle bookworm into a brittle-edged boy whose sanity can slip away any moment, whose hands drip with crimson whenever he finds other ghouls to devour.

Looking at the man sitting next to her, lashes fanning his cheeks while he quietly reads, she knows that power corrupts. She should be happy with what she has now, that he isn't dead and that he has returned to Anteiku.

And yet, there is a distant roar, a dull pounding and a spreading ice.

In her mind's eye, she imagines crushing Aogiri's stronghold, strewing the area with the severed heads of her foes, shoving kagune after kagune in her mouth.

She thinks of bones snapping wetly, sinews torn and organs being ripped out, of broken whispers that fall on her deaf ears as her kagune whips madly in the smoke-filled air. She thinks of walking over the corpses, the squelch of blood and organs between her toes the best thing she has ever felt. She thinks of demons and fire claiming every Aogiri member, stripping them to a mess of boiling flesh and frenzied screams. She will not be satisfied, not until the inferno has blazed in all corners of the world, when wind shall cast their ashes far and wide, and the memory of Aogiri nothing but a distant dream. No, not even a dream.

They shall be reduced to nothing.

"What are you smiling for?" Kaneki asks, with a quirk of his lips as he glances at her from the corner of his eyes.

There are three hundred and forty nine pages in Kaneki's book, seven chairs in the room and two windows

"Nothing."

It has been four hundred and seventy days since she last told a lie.

Weeks pass, and Kaneki's eye bags grows and grows.

He's not the only one. Touka's are even worse.

Amidst the grey fog of exhaustion that buzzes in her mind after another sleepless night with Kaneki screaming at the top of his lungs, Touka slumps against Kaneki's sleeping form on the couch.

Even though the shop is busy and they are in desperate need of their co-workers' help, the manager silently slips out of the room, closing the door gently behind him. The young ones need all the rest they can get.

A kakuja is not an easy burden to bear, worse when the kakuja affects more than one party.

While Touka has been desperately trying to hide it, it doesn't fail to escape the manager's notice that she is more affected by Kaneki's transformation than she lets on.

For all Touka trustingly leans against Kaneki whenever they're tired and how often those two spend their time together, Yoshimura cannot squash the niggling suspicion that Touka's psyche is cracking under the influence of Kaneki's kakuja.

Darkness begets darkness.

He notices that her gaze holds a ruthless malice whenever she catches sight of Aogiri's recent exploits on then news. It reminds him of a poisonous flower blooming in the dark, insidious and deadly.

He feels obligated to step in to help Kaneki, but Kaneki had approached him first. Kaneki had told him, "She shall save me."

There was no question who 'she' was.

"This is not something that love alone can overcome." Yoshimura frowned, ignoring the pang in his chest, of another time, another girl and another love. "I would know. It doesn't work like that."

And Kaneki is a young boy, fuelled with the passion and belief in creating a world where humans and ghouls can exist together in harmony. He held the same amount of conviction in his eyes then, and Yoshimura could do nothing in the face of such fierce determination.

"I know, Sir. But please, let me try."

In the end, he had given in to Kaneki. Not because he was honestly convinced by his argument, but because he is an old man, and he wants to believe in a miracle - just one more - before he leaves this world. And if there is one person he knows who can achieve it, it would be him.

"Alright."

That is why he doesn't interfere even when he can hear Kaneki screaming in the middle of the night, shouting for people who have left and calling out for salvation where there is none at all. He remains silent even as he can hear flesh splitting and the constant scratching and slithering that comes after, a kakuja running amok.

Only when Yoshimura hears the quick footfalls of a girl rushing to Kaneki's room, and her voice, "Kaneki, look at me. I'm here, alright? Hush, there are no more demons now."

It takes hours before the crash of furniture ceases, before Kaneki stops laughing in the sick and demented way that have grown painfully constant nowadays.

It takes a long time before he returns to himself from his rampage, where he knows that broken bones are no match for the look in Touka's eyes when she looks at him.

When the next day dawns over, Yoshimura steps past the broken wreck of the door and see Touka's head on Kaneki's shoulder, both dozing in the morning light in the middle of a scene straight out of a disaster zone.

The look of peace on both of their faces is one that he will remember for a long time.

Now, they are alright. At ease. Safe.

In spite of this temporary respite, tonight there will be another incident, another breakdown, another fall.

This is the curse of a kakuja.

The days pass like the seasons do, slow enough that it feels like they have all the time in the world, and fast enough such that time slips through their fingers before they can even register its passing.

It comes as a shock one day, when the manager gathers everyone in the common room one day and tells him that a Dove attack is imminent.

"Where did you get the information from?" Kaneki asks.

A quick pain-filled glance at the blue and pink teacups that sit at the central cupboards is all the answer they need.

"Prepare yourselves," Yoshimura murmurs, and the ghouls feel a spear of ice being driven into their chest.

A few days later, as night falls to the earth and drenches everything into shadows, a whole forest of red and black eyes emerge from Anteiku.

They are the ghouls.

They are all armed and dangerous, not wanting to let the Doves ruin their stronghold. The ghouls will not let them destroy their home, not even if it kills them.

Besides, Kaneki is here to provide firepower and Irimi and Enji are exchanging savage grins, twisted delight dancing in their eyes as they anticipate the fight to come. It has been a long time since they have fought, and they are looking forward to it immensely.

The rabbit mask hiding her identity, Touka watches from the rooftops, glaring down at the CCG with burning eyes.

A whole platoon of soldiers are waiting for their commands (all waiting to die).

There is a brief faceoff, where each side regard each other in a silence so charged that not even the animals in the surrounding dared to make a sound. A chilly wind tears pass the regimens and the humans ready their weapons.

Everyone waits, for a heartbeat (one, two, now)

Chaos erupts.

Steel clashes into kagune, blood spurts in both humans and ghouls, and they fight for their own purpose.

Everyone is a hero if they die for a cause. The only question is, which cause is the right choice?

Touka doesn't know nor does she care. She focuses on providing aerial attacks, unleashing a volley of kagune spikes that spear into the humans down below. A thrill of victory shoots through her and a curl of delight wiggles in her chest as she watch twenty, twenty five, twenty eight humans going down.

Kaneki is doing his best to maintain a wide range around Anteiku, as his kagune takes down seven Doves at the same time. He sweeps his kagune around and a dozen investigators are swept off their feet to land on their unlucky companions behind. He doesn't bother to hide the wide grin on his face the entire time.

Meanwhile, the older ghouls are just as adept in combat – if not, even better. Large swathes of wounded and dead Doves lie at the feet of the two feared gangs, as they continue their merciless attack on the Doves. Spare no one, seems to be the motto and the ghouls take vicious satisfaction in that regard.

The battle continues on for an indefinite among of time, in shouts of commands and whispers of delight, in ringing steel and spurting blood, the battlefield is soaked in bloodshed.

Just when the ghouls think that they have the winning hand, the ranks of the soldiers part to reveal the Special Division with quinque armour. Those investigators emerge with grim expressions on their faces and the glint of processed kagune on their bodies sends a wave of hatred and fury in the ghouls.

For a moment, the ghouls pause in their attacks to regale these investigators with a cold glare promising bloody revenge on their enemies. Such is the intensity of their hatred that none of the other investigators dare to attack the now silent ghouls, who give off the most bloodthirsty aura they have ever witnessed.

It is barbaric enough that the Doves rip out the kagune from dead ghouls, they have to use a ghoul's most precious biological weapon to murder other ghouls.

It is unforgivable.

Narrowing her eyes, Touka jumps off the roof and corners one of the quinque armour investigator in a flash of rage. Shocked out of their stupor, the other ghouls resume their attacks with renewed precision and strength, fuelled by fury for their fallen comrades. The rest of the quinque armour investigators steel themselves and join in the fray.

Landing in a perfect crouch, Touka stalks towards the Dove, intent on ripping away the kagune from him and tearing him apart limb from limb. When she gets closer to him, a strange niggling prods her mind.

The quinque gleams under the light of the moon, sleek and deadly and strangely familiar. As they trade off blows, the quinque flexes and digs deeper into human flesh, causing the investigator to cough and spit out blood.

The opening is enough; Touka goes in for the kill when the familiarity in her mind explodes into recognition. She reels back from the shock and her kagune grazes the side of the kagune instead of skewering the man.

There is a moment where she forgets to breath and everything is a dizzying rush of colour and noise. Her heart contracts and it's like a hand has made its way deep into her chest cavity and crushed her heart. Pulverized it.

The world is bathed in flickering fire, but the darkness of the armour seems to swallow light around itself, sucking it into an endless void. All her attention is focused on it, smaller than life but larger than death.

Kakuja, the armour taunts.

And she cannot help but whisper, "Father."

The vermin using the kakuja shouts something and she jumps backwards. A millisecond later, the clang of quinque steel on the floor rings loudly.

There is no mistaking it now. That kakuja is sending off a faint undercurrent, calling out to her in a wordless whisper. She can feel it in her bones, her heart is crying out to answer the thrum of recognition.

They are using her father's kakuja.

"Damn, this Arata armour is rather sluggish today," the vermin comments, puzzledly looking at his quinque. He shrugs, and looks up.

Arata, he called it Arata. He called her father's kakuja Arata. It's him, there are no mistakes.

It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father. It's father.

- and the Dove is using her father's kakuja.

Unforgivable.

A line frays, the edges slowly unravelling. The line -

Snap.

The Dove screams and holds his broken arm to his chest.

Something in her is unspooling, awakening from the darkest regions of her mind, stepping out into the world with a grin.

Snap.

She breaks both of his knee caps and he collapses to the ground.

He is trying to escape, dragging himself away with his arms. She cannot have that.

Snap.

She breaks open the kakuja easily, it seems to yield in her hands but she doesn't pay it much attention. Not now.

She breaks one rib, snapping it off with a sharp crack.

And one more.

And another.

And so on.

A hundred trillion cells, two hundred and six bones and seven hundred muscles in the human body. How she will enjoy taking it all apart.

Very.

Slowly.

Time passes, she's not sure how long. The moment she comes back to herself she looks down to see a large splatter of organs and blood around her. Only the quinque armour remains, as black as ink and as constant as night.

Realising what she had done, she is suddenly, awfully frightened. She is just a young girl who got lost in the woods and she is alone and scared in a dark place. Fear hammers at her heart as the battle continues on while she watches, mute with shock at her own actions.

"Father?" She calls out in a small voice.

An answering thrum in the kakuja, so faint as to be almost imperceptible.

"I'm… scared. I did something really bad."

The kakuja pulses out warmth, whether it generated the warmth or it was just the residual heat from the human body, no one knows.

"What do I do now?"

The kakuja rocks side to side, so slowly that it would be so easy to miss it.

Touka is painfully reminded that she is alone. Her father had left her and now Kaneki is slowly losing control and he would be gone before dawn, lost in the sea of madness.

She has no one left.

She is alone from womb to tomb, and she is just another lonely scream into the void.

Kakuja is the only thing she recognises, the last fraying string that tethers her to them.

She looks at the kakuja, feel the hardness of the armour and the ever-present chill of it biting into her fingers.

The curse of a kakuja, first her dad and now Kaneki.

All of them are leaving her…alone.

It's time for her to wake up now. She has been weak all her life and that's why she is always alone. Now is her time for redemption.

She is tired of being lonely all the time.

"I miss you," she whispers brokenly and deals with sorrow only a ghoul would: devour.

Somewhere, someone with white hair is shouting at her to leave the armour alone. But how can she do that? This is her father.

She brings the kakuja to her lips.

Somewhere, a trail of tears silently drips down a girl's cheeks while her hands are stained with red.

Somewhere, somewhere far far away, someone is asking her in her own voice, "How many numbers are there from one to thousand?"

The kakuja tastes of blood and tears.

She does not remember much after that (nor does she want to).

There are flashes:

A boy with snow white hair shakes his head and mutters, shaking his head from side to side, "No, no, no, this can't be happening. Stay with me, Touka. You have to …."

She slips away into a cool blackness for a while and when she comes back, warm blood is gushing into her mouth and a voice is talking to her, low with urgency

"…listen to me, don't let it control you. Stop eating so much, it's going to make it worse…"

She drifts away in a haze of blood and fire, catching occasional glimpses of silhouettes that make no sense to her. All she knows are shadowy figures dropping around her like flies, and she feels like a queen, no one can stand up to her; they shall kneel to her reign.

There is one pesky vermin who constantly evades her grasp. Her kagune seems stronger and more powerful, and it feels like she has more than one on her back. She thinks there are four of them now, all jagged blades and wickedly sharp edges sprouting out like poisoned flowers.

It might be her kakuja or it might be her kagune.

She honestly doesn't care.

The boy with white hair constantly dodges her attacks and he keeps shouting at her in a tone laced with desperation, "This isn't you, Touka. It's just the kakuja and you have to control it. I know you're feeling sad about your father, and you're angry with the Doves. Heck, I know some part of you regrets what I have become and hates me for it and it's fine. But just trust me on this Touka, you do not want it to control you. Please, Touka. For me, for Hinami, for Yoriko, for everyone at Anteiku that believes in you. Wake up."

His face is shiny with tears. She doesn't know why he is so sad; she is the happiest in what has been a long time. It's okay; she shall show this ghoul how to be happy. She will teach him.

She smiles.

This is a city of fourteen million three hundred and eighty four thousand and seven hundred delicious prey.

All waiting to be slaughtered.

Carrying the slim girl on his back, Kaneki trudges to the safe house. The faint breathing from Touka is the only sign that she is still alive, considering the amount of blood on her clothes. Unsurprisingly, none of the blood came from her.

The back of her coat is torn and ragged, her kakuja having ripped apart the seams when it was unleashed. Always the chivalrous gentleman, Kaneki had wrapped his jacket around her and unconsciously, she had pressed her nose closer to the jacket, breathing in the comforting scent.

As his feet crunches on the snow, Touka sniffles and draws herself closer to him.

When the ukaku ghoul had gone berserk, Kaneki had tried his best to take her down without hurting her. It was only when Irimi chided that he was being too easy on her that he decided that he could not do it. Enji was responsible for diverting her attention while Irimi waited for the perfect moment where Touka was distracted and she could swiftly land a heavy blow to the side of Touka's head. Touka had blinked, looked a little dazed, before collapsing into Kaneki's arms.

He is still in shock over the affair, how he was so busy in the fight that he forgot to mention to Touka that the CCG possessed her father's kakuja. All it took was for him to lose himself in the bloodlust and when he looked up, Touka had tipped over the edge of despair and was shoving the pieces of kakuja in her mouth.

Too late, he is always too late to save anyone. He can't even save himself, how can he even save her?

Touka wakes up slowly and reluctantly from the pleasant stillness of sleep, her head warm and fuzzy with exhaustion. There is a moment where she thinks she is in her room, and she should go make a cup of coffee before the stark reality comes crashing down on her.

She sits up immediately and has to hold down the wave of nausea that presses against her throat. Like hammers to her skull, her memories slam into her and she presses her back against the wall, knees drawn up to her chest and one hand over her mouth as her eyes gaze unseeingly into the distance. Her whole body is wracked with tremors and her breathing has gone fast and shallow. She curls up on herself and flings the whole blanket over her head, afraid to show her face to the world.

This is the scene in which Kaneki walks in on her and he averts his gaze, regret etched on his face.

History is repeating itself. He looks at his nails, notices how pitch black they are and his face twists into a bitter smile.

With fingernails that dig deep into her skin as she hugs herself and shake, Touka's nails are still pink.

Not yet, Kaneki thinks.

But soon, very soon.

Whatever he has become, it is not enough. Kaneki has failed to protect Touka and failed to prevent her from walking the same path as him. Most importantly, he has failed himself. Under Yamori's torture, he had broken.

There is no excuse, he was weak and he broke and now he has a kakuja for the rest of his life, a painful reminder about what he had sacrificed (what he will sacrifice).

There is nothing he can do now, no way to rip out the infestation once it has taken root in the bones. Deeper than that, a kakuja is a permanent mark on their souls, staining it a pitch black madness that bleeds out from their eyes. It is a nightmare every day, where even waking up is worse than sleeping, where reality and dreams can blur and go indistinct, until he's not sure who he killed. His friends or himself.

A kakuja is a tortuous journey, eating away at his soul and mind until one day, he knows that he would be reduced to nothing.

Looking at the girl, he is so very sorry for Touka and wishes he can help, but he knows that a kakuja is a personal hell.

Each kakuja manifests the user's deepest fears and insecurities, drawing them out and playing on them like a symphony. He would know; he experienced it before and he cannot help the sneer that twists his lips.

He wonders who would be left to pull them out of their own hell now.

Due to their kakuja, they no longer visit the other ghouls.

It's not safe.

They have found an apartment in a small little corner so deserted that barely anyone goes there at all. It suits them well. Kaneki writes letters to the manager some times, updating him on their condition but the letters are getting fewer and his handwriting is getting more jagged.

Similarly, Touka writes to Yoriko and Hinami and there came a day where both her handwriting and Kaneki's handwriting was equally jagged, equally scrawled.

They stop writing after that.

They wake each other up with nightmares.

There are screams in Touka's throat and blood coated underneath her nails. Kaneki cracks his fingers and jabbers to himself a string of numbers.

Their kakuja slams into the walls and crawls through every shadowed crevices, slides one way and then jerks away to another direction. They creep and skitter across the ceiling before twisting on itself into a spiral and thrashes around with a mind of its own.

In the midst of the chaos, their hands find each other and they grip; hard.

A kakuja is madness and pain, dredging up memories that are sticky with blood and makes her want to throw up and laugh at the same time.

"One thousand minus seven is nine hundred and ninety three. Nine hundred and ninety three minus seven is nine hundred and eighty six. Nine hundred and eighty six minus seven is nine hundred and seventy nine…"

"From one to nine there are nine numbers and ten to twenty there are twenty numbers and nine plus twenty is twenty nine. There are twenty nine numbers from one to twenty. From twenty one to thirty there are twenty numbers. From one to thirty there are forty nine numbers…"

A whisper of a memory coalesces, and it seems like her dad is by her side now, whispering to her gently, "Churn, churn, crash and burn, I have not one but two children. Must protect them all but it's always creeping, the dead stinks, it's in my clothes, in my eyes, in my head…Churn, churn, crash and burn…"

In the midst of the pitch black darkness, she thinks that this is the closest she has ever been to both her father and Kaneki. She can understand the burden they carry now, and some part of her is inherently pleased about that. If she closes her eyes and concentrates on the warmth of Kaneki's hand in her own, she thinks that there is another softer touch on her head, a hand gently caressing her hair.

I missed you both, you know, she whispers.

Her father and Kaneki both laugh, We know.

Welcome to the club, our precious Touka.

Sometimes they forget, each getting lost in their own heads even though they basically share the same apartment

Occasionally, Touka walks in on Kaneki one day and doesn't recognise him until she has him by the throat, lifting him off the ground with a vicious snarl and slamming into the wall.

It's not just her only.

Kaneki returns home one day and finds a girl he doesn't know sitting on the couch. He didn't think; he speared her with his kagune thoroughly.

It takes them days and weeks and months to relearn themselves and each other, but they realise that there is one thing that always tie them together: the love for coffee.

They meet once, when they have chosen the same prey, and their mind is a blank cacophony of chaos.

Watching each other with burning red eyes, they circle around their prey. A whisper of air and both of their kakuja slithers out.

He is watching her with blank eyes and his head tilts to the side, a subtle warning to 'back off'.

Her kakuja flares out. 'You fuck off.'

He snarls at that and his centipede kakuja raise their heads, poised to strike.

In a flash of movement, her shadow-wings kakuja slash the air.

The centipede kakuja twitches, before erupting into a geyser of blood and gore.

Stunned, he lets out a hiss, more angry than pained, and with remarkable speed, his kakuja regenerates back. It coils into itself and shoots forward, slamming into the girl's abdomen and tearing out a ragged chunk of flesh.

Before he can blink, his kakuja separates into five pieces and drops to the floor with a squelch.

The winged ghoul grins, wild and savage, even as red blooms through her clothes.

He finds himself returning the grin, the thrill of a challenge thrumming through him. If he wins, this ghoul's kakuja will feed him for weeks. It will be perfect. He will devour her.

They explode into action again, this time he is faster and he dislocates her right shoulder with a sickening pop and rips out the flesh from her shoulder with his teeth. She snarls and holds the wound close to herself, an injured animal briefly overcome with pain.

Chewing, he marvels at the soft texture of her flesh and how it oozes silky blood that slides down his throat.

He swallows and licks his lips, eyeing her hungrily.

That's when he realises that his back feels lighter than before and with a twist of his head, he finds himself meeting two empty stumps where his kakuja used to be.

Turning back, he catches sight of the winged ghoul who is holding his kakuja in her hands. And she's eating them in front of him, crunching on them with an insolent raise of an eyebrow.

She almost laughs at how easy it has been, drawing him nearer to her until he was too distracted to realise that she has already gotten what she wanted: food.

Ripping another hunk of kakuja, she licks her lips and gives him a bloody grin.

Before they resume their attacks, a nearby window opens and the scent of coffee blooms in the air. They can hear the clinks of coffee cups being used and the gurgle of water as it boils.

A continuous dribble of liquid indicates the coffee being poured into the cup and a faint sigh of satisfaction. The smell of coffee perfumes the air even more strongly.

There is something niggling in the back of her head, insisting that fighting is pointless between both of them. But why? Why is it pointless?

Buried under an avalanche of madness, a word presses itself against her mind, Anteiku.

She doesn't know what it is, what it means, but the word is soothing, somehow. Like coming home after a long day. Nothing clear emerges in her head but the feeling of warmth and safety and comfort blossoms in her chest.

Opposite her, the other ghoul is lifting up his head to sniff at the air like a bloodhound. Confusion scrunches up his face. His stunted kakuja retreats back into itself, lost.

Meanwhile, her four-winged kakuja flexes and droops, the upward tilt of her wings slowly descending until they are folded up behind her back.

They stay there for a long time, breathing in the strange and alien (familiar and warm) scent of coffee. Bit by bit, their kakuja recedes into flesh, leaving a patch of pale skin.

Two pairs of tired eyes meet and they stumble into one another, holding each other in their arms, an embrace for two monsters.

Other incidents like this happen more frequently. They get hurt, they heal from their wounds and they move on, step by aching step. Even though it feels like they're crumbling from inside out, they entwine their hands together and face the world with brave hearts (and damaged minds).

It's not much, but it's what they have.

A year passes and they are still alive.

Another, and they can smile with genuine joy.

Three years pass and they have found their own place in the world, carved it out from sweat, blood and tears.

Touka has a kakuja and it is fully formed and equally deadly as Kaneki's. He is skittering along the walls while his kakuja flares out from his back like a scorpion's tail.

And she's feeling fine, feeling happier than she has felt for a long time, free from her burdens of her normal pathetic life.

After many encounters with humans and ghouls alike, Touka still does not understand why they are so attached to numbers but she always makes it a point to ask them.

Rusty chains jangle and frightened eyes meet hers. The scent of fear is so strong her mouth waters in anticipation. Bloodstains paint the entire cell a vivid crimson; it drips down from the walls, stains the metal chains red and oozes from numerous gaping wounds.

She picks up a syringe, and checks whether it has enough liquid inside.

It does.

Grinning, she grabs hold of a tuft of black hair. The person shrieks in pain and begins to blubber, "Please stop, let me go, I don't want this anymore, just kill me already, please please please..." He trails off in a whimper.

With practised ease, she jabs the tip of the needle into his eye and pushes down the plunger. He screams and writhes in her grasp.

When all the liquid has been injected, she yanks out the needle and it comes out with a squelch.

He sobs pitifully and holds his head in his hands. His fingernails are all black.

Two cells down, Touka can hear Kaneki enjoying himself, the tell-tale signs of bone cracking and screaming has started. His kakuja is already unleashed, she can hear it scratching at the bloody walls, can almost see how it writhes and twists and squirms in living flesh while the screaming goes on and on.

And then she hears it: laughter.

A demonic laughter that weaves in undertones of hysteria and madness in it.

She smiles, always nice to know Kaneki is having fun.

"What's one thousand minus seven?" The familiar voice wounds throughout the cells, reaching her ears. There's an audible crack and a whimper of fear.

It's time for her to get to business now that Kaneki has already started.

"Hey," she says, and looks down, "how many numbers are there from 1 to 1000?"

Snap.

Now, the screaming starts.

Just a reminder that this an AU where Kaneki returned to Anteiku after the Raid. This oneshot is an exploration on Kaneki regretting his actions and truly understanding the dark nature of his kakuja. Watching Touka struggle with her own kakuja, Kaneki pesonally witness the effects of how a kakuja affects others. Now he knows exactly what Touka felt when she knew he had a kakuja. And this bit of self awareness of his own actions is enough to spiral him further into his own depression and despair as he was the one who had hurt her with his actions. As for Touka herself, she gave in to her anger and hatred. Additionally, the people in her life are always leaving her alone and she's helpless to prevent them from leaving. Giving in to despair, she chose the one things that will grant her power to be with those she loves, but also promise her a lifetime of suffering: kakuja.

(And also, did anyone catch the part where Kaneki bit Touka's shoulder? That's payback for what Touka did to him when they fought with Tsukiyama. Karma, guys!)

There are definitely more hidden meanings and interpretations, and I would love it if you can share with me some of your thoughts and ideas. :)

To all the people who thought this chapter is going to be a golden ray of light warming your face, please allow me a moment of hysterical laughter.