Every fiber of her being hurts. through her half-lidded eyes, she can see the charred skin that used to be so pale, so smooth to the touch that it made her skin glow ethereally under the soft light of this sinful district.

Everything hurts and she remembers every moment of it.

The heat that was scalding, like being dipped in a boiling hot magma and left to die slowly, and painfully under the freezing cold of winter. Ume wants it all to end. She could barely breath and call for help and yet her damned body persisted to stay alive, even if its barely.

Why did she have to suffer like this?

The only thing she did was stab the man through his eyes for being forceful against her, for insulting both her and her brother. all the while promising to break her mind and body after he's done with her.

The bastard didn't even die

Ume would've been glad to take the disgusting freak with her so her death wouldn't be in vain.

Where's her nii-san?

He shouldn't come here.

She heard their plans even through the pain.

They were planning to kill him too when he least expected it, right as he cradled her burnt body to himself. The samurai probably feared her brother's wrath, skilled with that blade of his that her dear brother already gained a reputation.

But it hurts a side of her wailed, who longed for his warm hug and comfort. A big part of her wanted to be in his arms, just so she can feel his hug one last time before she dies, But Ume refuses because that means nii-san will die.

Ume knew it will be more painful to see the only family she has, be killed in front of her. Painful than the burns that spread throughout her body, than the bones that snapped as they mercilessly restrained her.

Ume thought of their short-time together, how they have to survive through thick and thin, Blood and bones breaking for another day. She remembers how her brother never gave up, relentlessly clawing his way to the top and becoming a fearsome man to the people that dared to stand on their way.

Vaguely, he reminded her of the woman in her dream. So fearsome, proud and deadly that she topples any enemy stupid enough to go against her. The raw and aliened emotion that Ume felt when she thought of her, see through another's eyes as she experience the thrill of being beside her as they fight and fight a bloody mess.

Touka

Her mind finally supplied, after years of wondering who this unnamed woman was that always appeared in her dream, always reprimanding her of something she vaguely-not remember.

Ghouls

Demons

Anteiku

CCG

ONE-EYED KING-

Somewhere in her mind, Something finally clicked into places.

Ume sometimes dreams of a life that wasn't quite her own, it wasn't significant at first since the person seems cope up in this odd room of his reading books. She didn't understand the characters since she never receive any education to read in the first place but she would stare hungrily at the food that this person had the privileged to eat, made by the woman with shadowed face and could almost taste the delicious meat covered in 'gravy'

She would always wake up with a grumbling stomach. She was a kid at that time and didn't see the importance of it since her survival along with her brother was more important than seeing someone's life through their eyes reading boring books and complicated letters.

Only a few months passed by before she was unfortunate enough to learn a lot of things in these 'day care' and have education along with him in a passing. Ume once asked her brother if he can see another person's life when he sleeps too, which she received a look of that she easily interpreted as her brother wondering if she already loses her sanity like their mother.

Ume didn't bother to bring to bring the topic again.

She didn't know how she come to accept it as that, She knew that these things that her mind come up with was too far fetch to be real. But Ume practically grew up having those vivid dreams playing at the back of her mind, words that triggered visions that her young mind recalled like a past and play like the theatre she had the chance to see back then and the words that she wasn't supposed to know or heard of.

as she grows old, the more she gets to know the boy named 'kaneki ken' who live in the city of Tokyo with carriages that wasn't carried by horses and colourful blinking lights that brighten the night. At some point she started to get influenced by this ken's reading habits and love for these so-called hamburgers that Ume knew she can never have. Ken experienced a tragedy of his own, having abused by his own mother like how her Nii-san got beaten up by their own mother before dying from her illness. To the point that his mind twisted into thinking about the words which Ume despised with a fault.

'It's better to be hurt than hurt others'

Ha! What a load of bull. Who would let others trample them down to dirt and take advantage of it? Growing up into this godforsaken place, its all about survival of the fittest, the weak catered for the strong, something Ume hoped to achieve once she gets hired by one of the houses and climb her way to the top when she's older. That doesn't mean she didn't use her wits to charm the other people. using the knowledge of Kaneki-ken to her advantage (While also getting influenced and nice)

The memories get frequent now that she reaches her teens. The boy's life even become more tragic.

Ume used to believe that demons doesn't exist , that old people just use it to scare the younger generation away. but now she did, Kaneki became one too, but not quite.

the people around him called them ghouls

She watches through his eyes as he was forced to eat human meat (she woke up gagging and yet salivating at the same time, It was the most delicious thing she ever tasted-what)

She didn't want to sleep, refuses to if it meant not seeing those horrific moment and feel it herself. Every finger snapping, toes getting cut so many times that the bucket was filled in a disgusting gory mess. centipede crawling in her ears, the maniacal laugher of her-his torturer and everything regrows and the cycle repeats over and over again.

And Kaneki just wouldn't die to escape this horror at all.

He's a demon(-no ghoul) afterall and the only thing that can kill them is a severed head.

Her stupid supervisor had to put something in her food to make her sleep, since she refused to rest and it makes the circles under her eyes darken and ruin her beauty and ume had to experience it again and again.

Until kaneki snapped.

Everything became a blur at the point. And yet Ume remembers it with clarity, Experiencing the memory herself and dying over and over again.

He joined Aogiri to protect those he holds dear.

He loses at the hand of the Arima kishiou.

He lost his mind and forget.

He became Haise Sasaki, The leader of the Qunx team.

He remembers.

He fought for a cause.

He became a leader and won.

He became a husband.

A father-

And then- he becomes her.

Kaneki and Ume finally become one.

Her mind couldn't process the memories, blacking out for a certain amount of time and regaining consciousness just in time to see her brother's anguished cries and a man in bizarre clothing talking about becoming a demon.