Chapter Text
His head hurt. Ringing in his ears, a splitting migraine already forming from the crashing wave of twenty years of memories drowning out his thoughts. His hands—hand, a singular hand—was slick with blood and a steady rivulet dripped past his left eye. Kanae must have cracked his skull open.
He sighed. He really needed to stop getting near-fatal head injuries.
Were the Quinx okay? He’d had to leave them behind on Ui’s orders…they were stronger now, more capable, but with Aogiri here, who knew who they could’ve run into?
Kaneki—Haise—he didn't know yet—quickened his pace, wiping off the bloody remnants of Eto’s kakuja from his mouth. He didn’t want to unnerve them.
He was so glad he still remembered them, still cared as much as before they embarked on this death sentence of a raid.
Down the stairs, stumbling over debris and into the hall. Corpses littered the room, both human and ghoul. From the far end, he heard sobbing.
Three hunched figures and one limp one. His heart thudded to a halt.
Urie was the first to notice him. As situationally aware as ever, even with the tears running down his face.
No. No, no no no—
“Shirazu—” Urie croaked helplessly and he spotted the blond buzzed head in Mutsuki’s lap and he heard no more.
Urie was still talking, haltingly, then yelling, and Saiko’s small frame was trembling with the force of her sobs, and Mutsuki was saying something, voice soothing and shattered, to the body in his lap and a whisper—
“Where did you guys go?”
Shirazu.
Sound crashed back and his legs finally moved, pulling himself out of Urie’s grip (when had he reached him?) and cries of help him and he was staring down at Shirazu bleeding, gutted form.
His child’s dying body.
Saiko and Mutsuki cried out to him but he couldn’t make out the words, taking Mutsuki’s place and pulling Shirazu’s head into his lap as gently as possible.
“Can you hear me, Ginshi?”
Shirazu’s unseeing eyes seemed to register the change of vigil and he stilled. Or maybe it was the emptiness of his voice that startled him out of his near-death haze.
“You’re going to be okay. I won’t let you die.”
He was calm, too calm, despite the roar in his head. Of faces, of voices, of people he had already failed.
“Maman?”
They had noticed, too. His mannerisms were different, though to him they felt familiar. The emptiness felt like returning to his childhood home after his mother had died, when he came to collect his belongings. To them, it must be foreign.
“R—Really?” Shirazu rasped, hope in his voice.
“I promise you. You trust me, don’t you?”
“Ye...ah. Always.”
The words broke his heart. It was undeserved, really, with the pile of bodies beneath his feet. He didn’t deserve that blind trust. It never ended well for those who put their lives in his hands.
He peeled back the tattered sleeve from the stump of his arm and silenced his thoughts, ignoring the gasp of Sensei!, and held it over Shirazu’s mouth.
“Eat.”
A stunned silence fell over the Qs.
“What (the hell) did you say, Sasaki?”
“It’s the only way. Eat, please.”
Shirazu’s mouth opened then closed soundlessly, even the falling pall of death not enough to dull the shock.
He didn’t blame him. He remembered his first time, the sheer terror and revulsion and confusion he’d felt. But everyone at Anteiku had gotten him through it, and he had to do the same for his kid now.
“I know it’ll be unpleasant, Ginshi. Trust me, I know. But you need to walk out of here to see your sister again, right?” Shirazu stilled. “You need to stay alive to get Noro’s subjugation bounty for her treatment.”
He lightly ran his hand over Shirazu’s head, hoping his cold, bloodied touch was comforting.
“Eat,” he repeated.
And Shirazu did.
-- -- --
Sasaki didn’t even flinch as Shirazu’s teeth dug into his stump of an arm. Urie knew the pain, and on an open wound? Was his brain really fried? (Something was wrong.)
His lips were pursed but his gaze was steady as flesh was ripped from his bones. Mutsuki was pale with horror, flinching and turning away as if it were his arm, and Yonebayashi was watching her Maman with concern through bloodshot eyes. All Urie felt was bone-deep disgust. Of course, he was the only one who would suggest something so barbaric (to save a life.)
Shirazu gave up quickly, after barely two bites, the sickliness on his face exacerbated, but Sasaki just patted him on the head.
“That’s it. Good job.” He smiled and Urie wanted to punch him. (It wasn’t his smile.) “That should be enough to trigger your healing factor.”
Shirazu nodded, the movement already stronger and steadier than he’d been so far. His mouth was smeared with blood, which Sasaki wiped off with a gentleness his voice didn’t carry anymore.
It was only then that Urie took inventory of their injuries. Mutsuki’s sleeve was mangled, but his arm looked partially healed from a nasty break. Yonebayashi looked mostly winded, with cuts and bruises, but otherwise unharmed. He himself had probably fractured a few of his ribs from being tossed around like a ragdoll and his tongue smarted with the metallic tang of blood, but he could move alright. Sasaki looked the worst off, second only to Shirazu. His hair was clumped with blood, dried rivulets over his temple, smears over the corner of his mouth (What the bloody hell happened?), and he was wrapping up his newly reopened amputated right arm with detached calm.
Special Class Ui showed up at some point, as did Matsuri Washuu, but the only part he cared about was the med team rushing in and carrying Shirazu out on a stretcher. There was a lot of discussion between the senior investigators, Washuu’s face distorted in undisguised disgust at Sasaki’s arm, which had already stopped bleeding. With that kind of instantaneous regeneration, you’d never need medical attention at all. Unstoppable. (He wanted it.)