Chapter 32: aftereffects

School had just ended a little while ago. So now Touka and Yoriko were heading to Anteiku because Touka had a shift this evening. They talked about nothing of real importance as they headed there. But to one of them, this was one of life's greatest joys and she would fight to the death for this chance just to play the normal high school girl. They soon reached the front door and entered to a nice surprise.

Touka and Yoriko came across Shiro and Kuro both working on the mass of worksheets and homework that had piled up for them during their absence from school. Noticing them, Kuro waved at the two girls casually. However Yoriko, in her joy at seeing the twins again, rushed over to them and gave the two of them a great big hug and started to tear up. "Mo, where have you two been? It's been almost two weeks since we last saw each other," she complained. Kuro did her best to assure her.

She patted the human on the back as she replied, "Sorry, sorry. It took us a bit longer to deal with the problem we had back at our old place then we had expected. But hey we got it done so you don't have to worry. Nothing gonna tear our little quartet apart now. Ok?" Yoriko sniffled. "Really?" she asked. Kuro nodded and then swallowed a bit to calm her nerves before offering, "Ne, Yoriko. If you want, to make up for neglecting you, I'll… go with you to that cake shop you were begging us all to go." Suddenly excited, Yoriko locked eyes with the half-ghoul and practically shouted, "Really?!" again with a little too much force to it. Kuro sweated a bit nervously. "Ah. It might be fun. And perhaps it'll help me with improving my baking." Shiro just smirked at her sister putting herself at risk for the other girl's happiness. She whispered in Kuro's ear while Yoriko excitedly told Kuro about all the delicious cakes that they were going to try, "I'll make sure to have some fresh coffee ready for you when you get back home." Kuro could only nod her appreciation to her sister. Already dreading the disgusting rubber and fertilizer flavors she was certain she'd have to suffer through.

As Yoriko enjoyed the company of the other two, Touka walked over to where Irimi was serving another customer and asked her, "Where's Ken?" The older woman smiled. "In the back talking with the manager over what happened in thirteenth ward." But her face turned a grim as she continued. "From what I could gather, sounds like something big occurred. Could mean trouble in the near future so for now I'd advise you to prepare for the worst." Touka affirmed Irimi's warning before looking back at yoriko. She watched as the girl made up for the missed time socializing with the twins while internally she made a promise. That whatever came of all this, she would protect this girl. Her best friend and greatest link to the human world she so envied.

In the café's meeting room, Ken, Yomo, and Yoshimura were all three going over everything that Ken had garnered from his excursion. This included the records and computer files that they had gotten from the cult, some things collected by the ghouls that had helped him in this mission, and a few other bits of valuable information they had acquired from Itori and some of Yomo's own sources. Right now Ken was looking over a short bio of Kotone that Itori had been able to give him.

Kotone Miyako. Twenty three years old. Born human as the only child of a somewhat reputable family. But unlike with Ken's family, her's had had a real monster in it. Her father was a drunkard and would beat her mother and sometimes her. The man was never arrested though. He seemed to have had some pull in the police force and Kotone's mother also refused, for some reason that baffled Ken, to press charges or seek help. Around her ninth year, the poor girl's mother died of stress according to her autopsy report. Now she was left without her only ally at the mercy of her father. Ken could understand now, how she had come to hate humanity that had abandoned her to such a fate. As for how she had come to no longer see ghouls as just monsters simply driven by hunger, it came down to an incident when she was fourteen. She had become a delinquent and spent a large amount of time away from home to avoid her father. One night she came home late to find a CCG unit waiting for her at her house. Her father had been the victim of a ghoul attack earlier that day. To the CCG she was another poor victim who had had her family tragically taken from her by ghouls. But to her, the ghoul was a liberator. A hero who had saved her from the real monster.

Now her fighting capability made sense to Ken. She had been trained by the CCG until she had left their care after a few years; now a ghoul sympathizer. She worked with a few others in small and unpopular campaigns for ghoul rights before finding her way into the cult. And from there meeting Kanou.

Ken looked over to where Yoshimura was reading over the files they now had on the man. Which, other than him having worked at the CCG and a couple other countries anti-ghoul agencies, was surprisingly normal. Even with the help of Itori they hadn't gotten too much on the doctor. The manager sighed and put the papers down before looking at the other two present. "So the doctor has disappeared?" he asked. Yomo affirmed, "Yes. From what I could gather he was supposedly attending an out of country conference but it doesn't appear that he has left the country at all. More than likely he's gone into hiding." Ken added, "It appears that he's on the CCG's radar too. So it makes sense for him to go underground. They've already searched his hospital but didn't find anything of real importance there."

The older ghoul nodded his understanding before getting up and walking to the window again. He watched the peaceful scene outside. As both humans and ghouls walked the same streets under the shinning sun. He was now afraid that things were moving that could threaten his dream of eventual true coexistence between the two species. "Yomo, Ken." Once he was certain he had both of their undivided attention he continued. "I don't like this. Things are moving that could shake the ghoul world to its very core. Chances are high that it could lead to some form of open warfare between ghouls and humans. I'm sure I don't have to explain to you how this could destroy everything that I, that we have worked so hard to achieve here. And sadly we don't even have a clear enough picture to know who all is doing this and what their ultimate goal is. We're even clueless as to what is happening here; at our own doorstep. We need to do everything in our power to stop this from coming to pass. Yomo, I want you to keep investigating Kanou. See if you can find out what his goals are, where he's gone, and anything else you can that even has a slight chance of helping us stop his research and the threats it heralds." The quiet ghoul nodded his head in solemn understanding. Yoshimura then turned to Ken and told him, "Ken please keep working with your allies in the thirteenth ward. See if you can get anything more from what Shiro and Kuro got from the raid. Also see if you can find out what the CCG is doing in regards to Kanou and these… experiments of his." "Understood," Ken replied but Yoshimura wasn't finished. "And lastly see if you can get anything more on what's going on in the eleventh ward. I don't like what I've heard so about it so far. I want us to be ready for whatever may come from there." The meeting finished, Ken and Yomo left to attend to their new duties while Yoshimura collect the papers they had provided him and placed them away. Already trying to figure out how he'd explain all of this to the rest of the staff. He looked at a set of fine china cups in one of the cabinets in the room. His mind drifted to memories of another coffee shop and how his life had been changed there by a meeting with one girl. "Ukina."

Meanwhile another meeting was also happening. This time at the CCG headquarters. A meeting of the special class investigators was in progress. Much like those in Anteiku, the investigators were disturbed by what they had come across in the raid. From interrogating the head priest, and going over what the ghouls had left behind in the building they had come across the horrifying revelation that someone was working towards creating artificial ghouls. The raiding force had even found and saved several missing people in the building's basement. Kidnapped to provide more "material" for this perverse research. Maurde threw the documents he was reading down in disgust. "Why would someone willingly make more of these monsters? We already have enough problems as it is with the ones that breed normally. And now we have to deal with the threat of normal people being transformed into these things. What the hell is going on here?"

Kouitsu Chigyou, who had been also included in this meeting to discuss the large monsters that the CCG had encountered and his thoughts on this artificial ghoul research then informed Maude, "I'm afraid that it may be even worse than you realize." Everyone turned to the scientist and pushed him to continue. He took a deep breath and informed them, "From what I've garnered so far from the bodies that we recovered, the research is not into creating true artificial ghouls but more along the lines, of a half-ghoul. Part human, part ghoul. And if I am correct than the end product could be even more dangerous than just another ghoul." "How so?" Shinohara prodded now dreading the answer.

"It has to do with heterosis, or as some of you may know it as hybrid vigor. You see when you have a hybrid it gets traits from both its parents, or in this case from its human subject and the ghoul organ transplanted into the subject. While not always true, as shown by the failed subjects that were encountered at the cult raid, there is a chance that the hybrid may gain the positive attributes of its parents. Thus becoming greater than either. The threat here is that, depending on what trait each parent passes down, we could very well see ghouls who could walk through RC gates with no response or who could eat human food with little to no negative effects." "Rendering some of our best ghoul detection techniques useless," inferred Arima. Now this shocked all of those present. If what Chigyou was saying was true, then they now ran the risk of running into stronger ghouls who could more easily blend in with humans. If the research was completed, it would most certainly bring ruin to the fair city of Tokyo and maybe even the entirety of Japan or beyond.

Koori Ui asked, "And what of the bodies? Is there anything else that we can learn from them? Perhaps a new way to detect them or stop them." Chigyou shook his head. "Not much I'm afraid. At least for now. We are still investigating, and we are also sending a few of them to our allies in Germany and America. I'll make certain to keep you appraised of anything we find." This announcement only further sullied the mood of those present. Mougan Tanakamura voiced everyone's concerns with, "Mmmmm boy. Things are not looking good at all for us at all."

Yoshitoki Washuu cleared his throat to get everyone's attention. "This is indeed disturbing. Especially if our data is correct and they have a least one successful prototype. To stop this bad end scenario from happening, we should put our available resources in stopping this research and apprehending those involved. Unfortunately, we have not been able to ascertain the whereabouts of our primary suspect. One, Akihiro Kanou. While we don't have any definite proof of his involvement, there is enough circumstantial evidence from what we have collected from the raid as well as the fact that he has gone off the grid recently to place him as our main suspect. We will place an arrest warrant for him. However, for now, we will keep why only amongst those who need to know. We can't have the public finding out that someone is turning normal people into ghouls, or half-ghouls. Understood?"

Everyone agreed. Not wanting to induce public panic with such a revelation. But Shinohara did ask, "But how are we going to explain to the public about the raid. A large battle like that in Shinjuku. People are going to ask who these people were and what they did to get our attention. Or what those failed experiments were. Not to mention the rescued kidnapped victims. How are we going to explain why they were kidnapped? " But Maude assured him, "Don't worry. We can easily deal with those issues with a little bit of help from our media division."

It was the next day after the Kaneki's return and Ken was currently with his best human friend as a customer at Anteiku. He was working on makeup work for his classes. It seemed that like the twins, he needed to catch up on his studies. Thankfully Hide had made some notes for him and Yoshimura had given him some time off while he got things back in order and finished his business in the old ward.

Ken smiled as he looked up at Hide. To him the boy was as precious as family. Just like Yoriko to Touka, with Hide, Ken could pretend, if just for a little bit, to be normal. Just a normal Japanese college aged boy. And not the SSS class Eyepatch. Hide noticed him looking at him and made a face that caused the half-ghoul to laugh. "What was that for?" he asked between laughs. Hide answered, "Thought you could use a good laugh is all. Since you got back it's like you've had a lot on your mind recently. Is it wrong for me to worry about my best friend?"

Ken was taken a bit aback by this. Once again his friend had seen through him despite trying his best to hide it. Kotone's question had still been weighing heavily on his mind since that fight. 'How do you really feel about humanity?' Ken had been puzzling over this for a while now. He didn't know how he felt honestly. Thinking about the concept only gave him a confusing mix of feelings. Both positive and negative. But looking at Hide again he began to understand his own feelings a bit more. He took another sip of his coffee and mused, 'Perhaps it's a bit of both. Unlike the manger, I can't truly forgive them all for what they did to us. I'm not that good of a person. But it's not like I'm walling in my anger either. If I had to put it in words,' He smiled at Hide again. 'I guess it would have to be that I hate humanity, but like humans.'

While they horsed around a little, the news began to talk about the raid in Shinjuku. "Earlier this week, the brave men and women of the CCG and local law enforcement, took down a despicable cult that had been aiding and abetting ghouls by kidnapping the citizens of Tokyo for the ghouls to feast upon. Sadly many lost their lives but they succeeded in defeating the cult and eliminating many of the ghouls they had been working with; including the S class ghoul known as Robin. For now at least, the citizens of Tokyo may breathe a sigh of relief thanks to the CCG for stopping the plans of these monsters. Sadly, as per regulation, the CCG has confiscated any video evidence of their brave actions during the raid but some eyewitness reports spoke of huge berserker like beasts. However the CCG assures the public that these were just simply more ghouls and that CCG did not let a single one of these ghouls escape." Ken had to commend the CCG for how well they swept the fact that someone was experimenting in making artificial one-eyes under the rug. With no evidence to the contrary, people would be forced to accept the agency's statement on what those things were. After all, they were the experts on ghouls and for what reason would they have to lie. But he was curious how they'd deal with the fake Eyepatch. Perhaps just call her a normal ghoul as well and be done with it. But what they did do, nearly made him spit out his coffee in anger and shock.

"They have also affirmed early rumors of Eyepatch's involvement," the reporter continued. "The CCG believes that this fiend was the Ringleader of the whole operation and once again assure the public that they are fast at work tracking the SSS ghoul down and will soon bring swift and powerful justice upon him." The news caster continued to talk but Ken no longer was listening. He was barely holding onto his temper and doing his best not to shout at the television or smash his cup in fury. The CCG was going to pin the whole thing on him?! How was that fair?! If anything, they should be thanking him for what he did to take down that cult and defeat the fake Eyepatch. But he was soon pulled out of his anger by of all things, Hide.

Hide was looking at the news with a rather discerning gaze. "Hmmmm, so that's the story they are going with?" Confused, Ken asked, "What do you mean by that?" Hide turned back to his friend and explained, "That Eyepatch was involved. I'm sorry but I don't buy it. Doesn't fit his mo. You see, Eyepatch is a more pragmatic ghoul. Only seeming to hunt when he has to and he does it fast and neat. If he fits the profile I've built, then more likely he goes after the bodies of suicide victims or buys the flesh he needs from others who he can trust. Less risk that way. Less work too. This is probably a cheap attempt to further demonize him." Ken froze. How? How could Hide figure out so much? Ken almost found himself asking just who or what was Hide. Instead he asked, "And how did you figure this out?" Hide nervously laughed. "Sorry, if I surprised you. It's a bit embarrassing but lately I've been playing ghoul detective at home. Actually I've been really wrapped up in the Eyepatch case. After all he's the only ghoul to reach SSS in my lifetime." "I suppose." Ken was a bit upset that his friend still hadn't gotten bored of ghouls.

Ken shook his head. "I swear Hide, you get into the strangest stuff." Hide punched Ken in the arm. "Hey it's my belief that in life, one should do what they find interesting. And for me that's ghouls." He stared at his friend with a both silly and serious face as if challenging him to object. But Ken just indicated for him to continue. "But seriously, Eyepatch is fascinating. I mean despite probably being around the same age as me, He's racked up a huge body count that's higher than some ghouls achieve in their entire lives and achieved the highest ranking possible for a ghoul. And most of that was in his early years. Before he calmed down. And recently the CCG came out with the identity of his father. Apparently he's the son of the SS rank Yamata no Orochi. But no one knows who his mother is. Though there are a lot of theories on who. Personally I'm not a fan of the Binge Eater theory. I'm more of a fan of the Wasp honestly." Ken could barely keep up with his friend's rambling; already feeling uncomfortable with this topic. But still, Hide continued. "I guess I just want to understand him really. I mean his first confirmed kill was when he was only twelve or thirteen. I mean that's the same age as when I was just starting middle school. I can't imagine being in that situation. I wonder how he felt back then."

Ken, wanting to change the subject, said, "What's there to understand? He's a ghoul. It's what they do. Anyways can you help me with this problem here? I just can't seem to figure it out." Hide looked back at him with a face that Ken couldn't really figure out. Though it did make Ken feel a bit uncomfortable. But after a few seconds, Hide just grinned and said, "Yeah, I guess you're right." And they spent the rest of the night working on Ken's make up work. And just goofing around.

Many had been injured to varying degree in the cult raid. Most of them were now resting and recuperating at the hospital in the first ward that the CCG had a close relationship with. Among these people, was the commander of the raid, Setsuko Takahashi. Overall her injuries weren't too bad. She estimated to herself that she'd be combat ready in a few weeks to a month tops. Despite the doctors telling her she would need at least four months to recover from her wounds enough to even leave the hospital. The worst damage, at least to her, was the loss of her false arm. But that was more of a hit to her wallet than her body. In fact, she was already planning for her revenge on the beast that had taken her down.

'"I won't ever let you monsters take another precious person from me!"' Those words still danced around in her mind. They made it sound as if she was the bad guy here. But she wasn't! She was fighting to protect the weak from the tyranny of the ghouls. She was a guardian. But yet those words still struck at her heart in an irritating way. In anger, she almost threw the glass of water she was drinking across the room till a large, strong hand gripped her wrist. So lost in thought was the wounded investigator, that the woman didn't notice when Shinohara had entered the room to visit his wounded friend. He put on a disarming smile but didn't let go or break eye contact when she stared angrily back.

"Woah there, Sets-chan. What's wrong?!" he asked worried about his friend. Sestuko was normally not a very emotional person. At least on the surface. He didn't relax his hold till Setsuko let him take the cup from her grip and appeared to at least have calmed down some. The woman took a deep breath and laid back in her hospital bed. "Sorry for showing you such a distasteful scene," she apologized. But Shinohara only shook his head and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It's alright. You've been through a lot after all. But perhaps you could use a friend to talk to about it. Get some stuff off your chest if you will." He sat down in a chair next to the bed and waited for Setsuko to talk.

Setsuko didn't know what to start with. But what simply came out of her mouth was, "I failed." The words hung in the air for a bit while her visitor tried to figure out what she meant by that vague statement. "I'm sorry but I don't understand. Are you talking about the raid? That was an astounding success," he prodded her. "Don't tell me you're calling that a failure because you didn't stop every last ghoul there without losing a single man. Hahaha, I knew you were a perfectionist, but this is just taking it too far." But Setsuko just shook her head. "I mean Yin. I let her escape. I had her right in front of me. But despite giving my all." She heard Yin's last words again. "Despite all the damage I took. She got away."

Shinohara looked at his friend again. It hurt him to see her like this. So he said something he felt he should have all those years ago. "Setsuko. I'm not here just for a social visit." She looked to him a bit perplexed by what he meant. "I'm here to inform you, that you've been put on long term leave for the near future." "What do you mean?" He saw the look of betrayal on her face. "Look. You're not superhuman. You got hurt pretty bad this time," he shot back at her. But Setsuko fought against what he was saying. "But I can't take time off. Not when they're still out there. It's my fault after all. I let them escape. I let all those people they killed die. I…" "Setsuko!" Shinohara shouted to get her attention. "Everything they've done isn't your fault. This is why you need to take some time off. I mean you haven't taken any serious vacation in years. Not since the Orochi case. Letting them escape back then isn't anything you should be ashamed of. You need to just let go. Perhaps use this time patch things up with your daughter. Or give your son some lessons in using his quinque. He did make rank two a couple months ago didn't he?"

Setsuko smiled. "Yeah. He's been bugging me to let him have ownership of Kusanagi ever since." Shinohara laughed at this. "Sounds like him. See, it won't be that bad. And who knowns. You might enjoy it so much, you'll just go ahead and take the plunge and retire." Setsuko punched him in the arm with her one good and currently only fist. "Sorry Yukinori, but I can't retire yet. Not until I take down Eyepatch." After a bit, Shinohara left. Alone again, Setsuko's thoughts returned to Yin's line once again. But she also thought back to some older words. She remembered the words her old instructor gave her when he visited her after she first lost her arm. Words that she had lived by as an investigator after all these years.

"Sometimes, in order to fight monsters, you have to become a monster yourself."