Chapter One

Black Lace

Please note that this story, as stated in the summary, deals with sexual slavery. I'll try to post warnings for content as they arise each chapter, but that's going to be a central issue throughout. Thank you for reading! :)

Special Investigator Juuzou Suzuya didn't frequent this café, but then no one did, and they weren't here for the food.

The café was in a shit neighborhood, the once fancy, now dilapidated kind most people steered away from after dark. The kind assembled just enough for people to wonder what happened as they hurried past chipped statues, peeling paint, and questionable movements down the dark alleys. And it was already dusk.

All that considered, Juuzou wasn't exactly going to refuse the overcooked croissant handed to him.

In the two weeks since Sasaki's treachery – oh, it hurt to think of him like that, and it wasn't fair – and the Washuu massacre, Suzuya hadn't had much time for fun. So he was going to seize these few moments with his croissant and enjoy them.

Sometimes he imagined Shinohara was with him. In his head, they had entire conversations. Shinohara liked him.

He told himself that day after day, and usually he believed it. But if Haise could betray anyone, why couldn't Shinohara? Was anyone safe?

He ought to shut down his wonders. Business as usual had to happen. This was just how the job went.

Keijin sat to his right, sipping weak coffee, and Hanbee was two tables behind, reading today's newspaper.

But it felt wrong. He missed Haise Sasaki.

"Hey! Your food's really good!" Suzuya waved the half-eaten croissant around. The chewy, overcooked taste appealed more than he'd anticipated.

"Thank you!" The plump old woman grinned.

"Can I have my check?" He tapped his sandals against the tiled counter, swinging his legs back and forth, back and forth.

"Of course, sweetheart," said the woman, pleased to finally have customers. She had the best food in the area, and she deserved more praise.

The bell above the shop door chimed, and a gangly man with a gaunt face and dark eyes wider than the universe entered. His suit was ill-fitting and his posture hunched, but his presence filled the tiny room.

"Hello, Hisen," called the woman, sliding the bill to Suzuya.

As he signed his name, Suzuya peeked at the newcomer, though a subtle nod from Miyuki, positioned behind a book at the corner table, confirmed.

Hisen Inoue. The shop owner must hate him for never eating here.

Rated S+, suspected member of the Clowns, the tenant above this space.

At Inoue's side, however, was a complication. She was a pretty female, dressed snugly in black lace, with hair the color of dried blood and enormous eyes that flitted from Miyuki to Hanbee to Suzuya, and back again.

She must know, thought Suzuya, but for now she played along.

"Don't you think we should head upstairs?" asked the female, wriggling away from the hand wrapped tight around her hips.

"I think we both need coffee," said Hisen, eyeing Suzuya, who shoved his bill at the old woman.

The female's mouth parted, but she made no protest. Maybe she didn't know how.

The café owner picked up the bill and gasped. More surprising than the generous tip or the young man's red fingernails was the note scribbled across the bottom: CCG – Get out now.

Hisen's eyes were already black as the lace on his female's dress, his pupils red as blood.

"Nice to meet you!" chirped a smirking Suzuya.

"Can't say the same." Hisen shoved the female ghoul away from him and dove over the counter.

Suzuya yanked out Jason and swung towards him, only to stop so suddenly he lost his balance.

The old woman screamed as Hisen held her before the tensed Suzuya squad. "What's happening?!"

"You're going to be my dinner," laughed the ghoul, licking her cheek. "Unless these dashing officers decide to let me pass."

"I don't understand!" she wailed. She worked for shit and nothing, because she liked it, and this ghoul would not take away her neighborhood now.

"Then I'll make you. Stop playing stupid," snapped Hisen, nibbling on her ear.

The woman gagged. She wasn't food! She made food! She felt so humiliated she briefly slitting her own throat with her chipped fingernails.

"Let her go," said the short, blonde investigator with enough fury to remind her that her life had value.

Suzuya noted that the female ghoul, at least, would be easily dispatched. Mizurou's Beef was already against her throat. She knelt, her only movement a slight quiver.

Hisen laughed, and on cue, his tangerine koukaku kagune erupted, shattering the glass pastry containers.

"Stop!" cried the female ghoul, but Hisen hurled the woman at Suzuya and dove over the counter. Salvation for himself before all others; how very much like him.

Across the café, Mizurou brought his quinque down, but to his annoyance, the female fought back, and poorly. She ducked, skirting the weapon by a centimeter at best.

Hisen flew past Suzuya, who deftly pushed the café owner towards Hanbee's arms and scrambled after the ghoul. "Hanbee!"

"Got her!" His associate understood by his mere name.

As he blasted up the stairs, Hisen's kagune swept out and knocked Mizurou back from the female.

Thank God! Nami dove towards the door, wondering why, oh why, was she too afraid to use her kagune.

A quinque sliced into her shoulder, causing her to lose her balance with a shriek.

She'd expected more force than that; she was already healing. Nami spun around to see the Dove wobble and fall to the dingy floor. He'd thrown his quinque in desperate effort to stop her flight.

He was lying there, already too weak to pull himself back up. His hands flailed behind him, struggling to grab the stool he'd been sitting on, anything he could use against her. He didn't want to be eaten.

A crimson pool pulsated from his thigh, and his face was dead, dead white – just like Jiro's must have been. And Iyo's. And Tsuneyoshi's.

Nami hesitated. She ought to leave now before they killed her. Death would be the easy option if she fell into their hands.

But there was someone bleeding on the floor.

Someone save her from herself. Nami dove for the Dove.

The café owner screamed again, unable to bear the thought of watching a human devoured.

"Calm down," Hanbee ordered, whipping out Silver Skull. His palms were slick with sweat. He didn't want to.

Nami took advantage of his hesitation, whatever the reason. With her teeth, she tore off a strip of black lace from her skirt and wrapped it tight around the barely-conscious investigator's thigh. "I'm going to help you, okay? I promise."

The shop owner whimpered as Hanbee inched closer.

"Wait! I'm trying to help him," pled the female, noticing Hanbee's approach. The Dove was still bleeding, albeit less. "He needs help."

"Uh – uh – how?" He was bleeding. Hanbee knew that. So why did he ask?

"Hisen's kagune must have caught an artery. He needs a doctor – I can – I mean, I don't have good training, sir. I – uh – please – let me put pressure on it while you guard me, at least." She trembled. "I promise I'm not going to hurt him, I promise."

"You can't run far!" Suzuya called, ducking through Hisen's broken apartment door.

Draperies had fallen, and his kagune had swept his fine clothes from the closet to the shiny wood floor. The fragrance of broken cologne bottles permeated the air.

"But can you?" Hisen whirled around from his position by the window, which he hadn't opened. He merely stared, kagune tensed, as if seeing the possibility of escape through that fragile glass was enough. In his hands he clutched a brass frame. "Can you run from your murders? Do you ever see our faces at night? Ha!"

"Shut up," said Miyuki, noting the flick of Suzuya's fingers.

"I don't want to die," cried Hisen.

"So surrender," Suzuya said.

"You'll kill me anyways, won't you? I'm not valuable to the CCG. I'm only valuable to me, right?" He chortled, pressing the frame against his chest.

"Don't fight us," said Keijin.

"How can I not fight? This is my life!"

"I understand. But you won't win," Suzuya said carefully.

"Fuck, but you can't either!" screamed Hisen. For a moment, the ghoul drew back as if he wanted to launch himself through the window, but instead he gave up, and lunged forward.

Suzuya feinted to the right and swung Jason into Hisen's skull, which shattered with the same satisfying crunch he'd felt from childhood. But today there was no reward for splattered monster brains.

"Well," said Keijin, breathing in the relieving scent of death. "That was simple."

"Yes." Suzuya pounced on the frame that had fallen from the ghoul's hands.

A younger Hisen smiled back at him, barely a teenager, with a taller girl who nevertheless seemed younger. The picture was torn and wrinkled even in its frame.

"Any idea who the woman is?" Keijin squinted at the picture.

"No," Suzuya said quietly. "Keep this. We should investigate her."

Their childlike smiles struck him as eerie. Children, murderers, monsters. Not unlike he had been. But he could change, and they couldn't.

Sometimes, the word unfair niggled at the corners of his mind.

"We might have a problem," said Nishiki, breezing into :Re.

"Oh?" Irimi kept polishing the counter, but Touka stopped in the middle of pouring Ayato's coffee, drawing a scowl form her brother.

"Looks like Hisen Inoue is done for."

Kaneki emerged from the back room as Touka burst out, "Was Nami there?"

Nishiki sighed. "Looks like she's been captured."

Hinami and Ayato exchanged glances.

"What does that mean for her?" Touka directed her question towards Hinami, but her eyes remained on Kaneki, pleading for him to open up. Just a smidge.

"It means if she cooperates she can buy more months alive," Hinami said slowly.

"But she could tell on all of us." Ayato slammed his fist into the counter. "We never should have trusted her!"

"She was suffering," exclaimed Hinami.

"We'll never regret helping her," Touka said fiercely. "But we have to hope she doesn't mention GOAT to them."

"You know," Enji said quietly, from his spot by the coffee pot. "When she showed up that night, she looked worse than any of you."

"Yeah, so, what's your point?" snapped Ayato.

"I'd trust her." Enji shrugged. "What do you think, Irimi?"

"I think we don't have a choice," Irimi said with a sigh.

"The manager wouldn't regret it," argued Touka.

"He wouldn't," agreed Kaneki.

Touka still found his voice a relief, and from Ayato's expression, her feelings definitely showed on her face.

"We can help her. Somehow, Goat will find a way," said Kaneki, swallowing hard. "I believe in all of us."

Like Irimi said, they didn't have a choice.

Now that Hisen was dispatched, the image of Mizurou tumbling to the ground released into his mind. Hanbee was all alone with a human and a ghoul of unknown ratings. "We have to go back."

Suzuya Squad scrambled down the stairs to find the shop owner crying on a chair, watching Hanbee hold Silver Skull over the female ghoul as she bent over Mizorou.

"What is happening?" Suzuya aimed Jason at the female ghoul. "I think you'd better get away from him."

Nami felt another blade against her pale throat, and hated herself for the tears that sprang to her eyes. She swallowed, too afraid to move and end her life a second sooner. "But he needed help."

Suzuya scowled.

The black lace was sound around Mizurou's thigh. "I – uh – uh – Mr. investigator – he wasn't going to last until you returned. I wanted to help him."

"What kind of ghoul saves an investigator?" Keijin crossed his arms.

She doubled over, squeezing her eyes shut, pushing away from the memories. "No one else would help in time."

For as long as she lived, she couldn't look away. She'd spent so long wanting everyone to look away from her that now she didn't want to look away from anyone.

"Why?" asked Suzuya.

"I just wanted to help him!" She wrapped her arms around herself as if she could shrink away.

A tear rolled down her cheek. She was scared. Jiro hadn't saved her so she could throw their lives away. "I just wanted to help him. I'm not a threat, I promise."

"Are you begging?" scoffed Miyuki.

Her eyes flashed. "Yes! Why is that shameful? I don't understand you. Do all ghouls disgust you so much?"

Then she flinched, as if their disgust hurt her.

I don't hate you, thought Suzuya. This is just my job now.

But the shaking girl before him hardly resembled Big Madam. And he knew what disgust felt like.

It made him uncomfortable, sharing feelings with a ghoul.

Haise's face floated before him. The only person who looked at me without disgust…was a ghoul all along …

"Who are you?"
She lifted her enormous eyes to meet his, a darker red to his scarlet. "I'm called Nami."

"Do you have a family name?" Hanbee prodded.

She shook her head and reached out her hand to Suzuya. "Mr. Investigator…"

Miyuki answered her movements by raising his kagune, and she froze with a gasp.

"Wait." Suzuya blinked back the memory of Shinohara's smiling face. I'm your new partner, Suzuya. Her hands were much smaller and paler, and unmarked, as if she'd never done work in her life.

"Suzuya?" Miyuki hesitated.

"I just wanted to help him," the ghoul called Nami whispered again, her voice childlike.

When she looked up, she saw the dainty investigator leaning over her, and her muscles twitched on instinct.

But though his eyes were voracious, they held curiosity, not lust.

He grinned. "I want ownership rights."

Her face blanched. Ownership? Had she really gained freedom to lose it so fast?

"It means you won't die immediately," Suzuya said brightly, his face inches from hers. Sirens wailed in the distance, drowning out the shopkeeper's tears.

"Is that…reassuring?" Nami queried with a nervous laugh.

"For now." Suzuya smiled, pulling back. "You'll just be our prisoner for now, Nami."

"Back to … the CCG?" Her breath caught as the sirens blasted through her ears. More investigators poured in, more kagunes and guns, more help for the bloody man on the floor.

"It's really your best option," said Keijin.

Her shoulders slumped. "I understand."

"Miyuki and Keijin, get Mizurou." Suzuya pointed at them, and instantly their comrade was on their shoulders, being carried to a stretcher waiting in the twilit street.

"He'll be all right. He's strong," Suzuya said, nodding at Hanbee. He forced a smile in return, and Suzuya turned his focus back to his new ghoul.

"It's kind of remarkable. You're not resisting at all. This means we have no idea how strong you are." Suzuya stuck his face close again, and Nami stumbled back on instinct.

"You know I'm weak enough to surrender without a fight, don't you?" Nami cringed as the long-haired investigator cuffed her.

"Could be an act."

Hanbee put his hands on her shoulders, and his hair swung before her eyes, and for a moment Nami was in another time, alone with another long-haired man.

You know it's your turn. You have a fine body.

Nami blanched and tried to keep from gagging. "Ah!"

"What are you doing?" Suzuya whirled around to face her again.

Nami lurched away from Hanbee, her fact marked with terror. "Nothing! I just felt ill."

"Was it whom you ate last?" Suzuya asked, tugging her outside. Maybe eating homeless men made ghouls sick on occasion. He'd often wondered. Now that he had ownership rights, he could find out!

"Um…" Nami blinked. She couldn't tell about Touka's generosity, Kaneki's encouragement and Hinami's hugs.

The shopkeeper watched her with narrowed eyes, the eyes of all humanity. She felt as if all the CCG agents saw her, too, and her skin crawled.

"I eat myself."

"Are you serious?" Suzuya couldn't help it. He laughed.

"Yes! Watch!" Maybe she'd give them a show! Nami held up her wrists and ripped off a strip of flesh. Agents murmured as her ghoul blood sprayed out, but within seconds her wound was healing. "It sustains me more than weakens me, and I – I don't want to kill."

"Have you ever?" Now Suzuya was just plain interested.

"I don't know." Why had she demonstrated? Why hadn't she just been quiet, normal?

"How can you not know?"

"I don't know. I just – I don't know." Her shoulders hunched over again, and she wouldn't look at him.

"You don't want to answer?"

Nami shivered as they hauled her into the CCG van. "Please. No."

Now her tears were sliding free, and she hated that.

"You're not going to die yet; why are you afraid?" Suzuya hopped next to her, Jason still in his hands.

Hell isn't always reached through death."

He didn't know what to say. He didn't believe in hell himself, because he'd lived it. So had she, apparently. How funny.

Normally he knew ghouls faked feelings. But this one had backed her feelings by helping Mizorou. And sometimes, when he was overtired late at night, he lay awake wondering if Haise had felt as well.

He settled for an introduction. "I'm Juuzou Suzuya."

Nami glanced briefly at the sweet-voiced investigator. His hair was a mess and threads danced along his skin. He certainly didn't seem like a menacing human.

"Pleasure to meet you, Suzuya." Nami grasped his fingers with her cuffed hands and shook them. Fear had given way to hysteria, and she giggled uncontrollably.

"Ha." Suzuya couldn't help but smile back. He wasn't quite sure how else to respond to this strange, strange ghoul.