Guns, Bullets & Bones [Tokyo Ghoul]

Ch. 25 ~ The End

      "Rio!"

      She whipped around in an instant, knocking Dylan's hand from her shoulder. The look in her eyes was conflicted, somewhere between anger and guilt.

    "I thought we were supposed to be friends," Dylan tried, something deep inside of him aching at the word 'friends'. He really thought he had found a friend in Rio. Someone he really could call one of his own.

     "I wish I'd have just left you be in the brook, that day," Rio hummed quietly, and Dylan felt sick to his stomach.

      "You regret meeting me that much?" He asked, voice dropping sadly, and Rio winced at the tone, like she'd just kicked a puppy. Her anger seemed gone, and she looked tired and weary of fighting off something Dylan didn't know, or understand.

     "No." She replied after a moment. "What I regret is letting myself get comfortable, letting myself change... You changed me, and it haunts me, but... It's not your fault, it's mine..."

     "Being open to change isn't a bad thing, Rio..." Dylan murmured, "It's what being friends is about..."

     "Maybe so, but the change..." She trailed away, "It's eating me up inside. Everything is so complex, everything seems to just torment me..."

     Her hands wound into her hair and clenched fistfuls in frustration, and Dylan took a moment to study the girl in front of him. Because really, that's all she was. A girl, whose life had been simple, eat and hunt her prey to survive. But he had changed it, flipped it upside down, and now she was conflicted about the very thing she had to survive from. Surely, she was questioning her own life.

     "I-"

     "I meant what I said, you know," Rio said, her eyes becoming sharp. "I don't want to see you again. I've got you into this mess, and I know it's my fault, it all is. And I'm sorry. But the best thing is for you to leave me behind, forget what you've seen. And I need to leave you behind, too, Dylan."

        "There are other ways, you know there are!" Dylan said, eyes becoming wide. Was this really happening, did she really want to cut him off completely? "You don't have to be tormented, you don't have to feel-"

     "Dylan," She hissed. "Hunting humans is all I've ever known. You can't expect me to change just like that. You can't teach an old dog new tricks. And I don't need to see you and remember what could've been..."

     "Where are you going to go? What are you going to do?!" Dylan cried out, hands clenching in determined fists.

      "I'm not going anywhere, Dylan. This place is still my home... But as I said, you'll never have to see me again." Rio said gravely, beginning to walk away slowly. "This is farewell, and.. I'm sorry for everything I've done to you,"

     Dylan wouldn't back down so quick, and made his move towards her, but Rio wouldn't back down either.

     Her Kagune sprung from her back once more and her eyes swirled into the trademark ghoul red and black, yet Dylan didn't falter, continuing towards her even when she backed away.

     "You need to leave me behind, and I you, and if this is the only way, then I'll do it..." Rio shook her head in melancholy as the door to anteiku swung open, as the workers who had been watching from the window began to rush out. However, they weren't quick enough, as one of Rio's plum Kagune tentacles took a swipe at Dylan, and he wasn't quick enough to dodge away.

      It slammed him against the wall with such a force that his head thumped painfully, and he slumped to the floor, his whole body shaking with the shooting pains.

     "I'm sorry it had to be this way," Was the last thing that Rio said, as Dylan's vision pulsed in and out of blackness.

      He watched through blurry eyes as Rio walked away into the falling night, and the last thought he conjured before his vision faded to back, weighing heavily in his heart, was that this was the last he would ever see of Rio Cross.

      She had walked out of his life for good.

~

      Rio was gone, but was that truly the end...?

~