When The Wrong Becomes Right (Juuzou × Ghoul)

The meeting

The snow was falling heavily from the night sky. Juuzou was sitting on the ground, holding Jason tightly so as not to loose his balance. Unlike all the other investigators, he wasn't helping the injuried. He was too tired and too weak to even realise what was going on around him.

When Arima had found him, he had almost lost his consiousness from the blood loss. He took him in his arms and left him somewhere away from the One-eyed Owl. As soon as he had felt the ground under him, he had leaned back and fallen asleep.

When he woke up, he found an investigator wrapping some bandages around his cut leg. He had informed him that, after a lot of fight with Arima, the owl had escaped. But that wasn't what Juuzou cared about. He asked where Shinohara was. The investigator looked at him saddly.

"I'm sorry."

That was the only thing that he had been told about an hour ago. No one else had came to him, see how he was. At times, he turned his head and looked around him. Dead investigators laying on the cold snow, others sitting down like him, others helping around. But they all had something in common.

They were crying.

He was the only one who wasn't crying. He couldn't. He was still trying to remember what had happened.

He saved me and now he may be dead because of me.

Suddenly people around him started talking and the fuss took the place of the previous silent. He looked up and saw the ghoul called eye-patch walking towards the investigators. He was holding something, possibly someone, since the shape was the same as a human body.

He would have stayed there to see what would have followed, but a noise from a narrow street got his attention. He slowly stood up and walked with the help of Jason towards the noise. What he saw left him speechless.

A young girl was sitting on the ground. She was covered in blood and look hurt. Her face was covered by her hands, as she was trying to hide her tears. In front of her were laying two people, a man and a woman. They were drenched in blood. They didn't seem to move.

They are dead.

The girl turned and looked at him, taking her hands away from her face, revealing a black mask that covered most of her face, except her ghoul eyes and her lips. Juuzou gasped.

It's the ghost child!

He backed away and lifted Jason over his head in difficulty. The girl didn't seem to react, she just looked back at the dead bodies in front of her.

Won't she defend herself?

He looked at the two ghouls, feeling his heart skip a beat.

What if... are they her parents?

His mind casted back at the sight of Shinohara's lifeless body. He wasn't his father, but that's how Juuzou saw him. He always looked up at him. Even though he hadn't told him anything, Shinohara was his mentor.

And that day, he had lost him.

He lowered Jason and leaned towards the girl, trying to take a closer look. She looked depressed, sad, lost. Just they way he had felt.

They have to be her parents.

Juuzou couldn't move. Normally, he would kill her with no mercy. She was a ghoul, and a really famous one. She was no different from all the others he had encountered. But seeing her like that, he couldn't kill her. She looked so injured and so hurt that she grimanced at the slightest move she made. Even crying made her feel pain.

He slowly walked closer to her and extended his hand. The girl tried to move back in terror, but couldn't. Instead, she just left a weak cry of pain.

"You don't have to be afraid, I-" his words were interrupted by the sound of the investigagors' screams calling him. He turned around and saw three men coming towards him. Two of them rushed to help him, the other stood still in front of him. "Are you ok?"

"I found-" he said while looking back, but stopped when he realised that the girl had disappeared. He looked back at the investigators. "I just heard a sound and came to see what it was, that's all."

There was no way he would ever tell them about the ghost child. Chances were that she hadn't gone far, judging from her injuries. If he told them, they would surely go after her and kill her. He couldn't let that happen, at least not after what had happened that night.

"Come on, Investigator Marude is waiting. He have to go back to the base." One of the men who was helping him said.

"What about the eye-patch?" Juuzou asked.

"They gave him to Arima," the other man said and shrugged. "He will probably have amnesia after he is done with him."

Juuzou froze in surprise.

Will Arima erase his memory?

*****

Yasuko was walking with difficulty, touching the cold wall for help.

They're dead... both of them...

Suddenly, she felt warmth reaching her body. For a while, she thought she was dying from the blood loss, but when she lifted her head, her eyes opened widely from her surprise.

Anteiku... caught fire?

Who could have started the fire? And why? Had the CCG done that? All those thoughts filled her head, making her dizzy.

"Yasuko!" She heard a familiar voice coming from not far from her. She narrowed her eyes, trying to see through the smoke.

Touka rushed and helped her sit down, her face was wet. Had she been crying?

"What happened to you? Why are you bleeding?" She asked Yasuko.

"Th-they are d-dead..." Yasuka muttered.

"Who are dead?" She demanded.

"M-my family..." she could hardly breath and coughed every now and then.

"I'll have to take you away from here, to my house. I'll take care of your wounds there. Can you walk?"

Yasuko nodded and Touka wrapped her hand around her, helping her stand up and they started walking slowly away from the burning building.

"What h-happened?" Yasuko asked Touka, seeing that she was constantly turning and looking at the ruins of Anteiku.

"I don't know for sure..."

"I-I saw him Touka..."

She turned and looked at her in surprise. See knew what she meant. "You saw Kaneki?"

She nodded. "He surrendered to the CCG. They didn't kill him. I don't know where they're taking him b-" she couldn't finish her sentence, as she felt her lungs burning. She cried in pain.

"Don't speak, you'll tell me everything as soon as you are ok," Touka suggested and smiled at her. "But how did you survive?"

Yasuko took a deep breath and tried to remember what had happened. She casted back and remembered the young boy lifting a long quinque above his head, then leaned towards and whispered something at her. She hadn't seen his face, since it was really dark, but she remembered his pure, white hair and the bandages that were wrapped around his cut leg, which was bleeding. She had the chance to look at his vest which she recognised immediately and had filled her with terror.

"An investigator saved me."