It was Eto Yoshimura who wanted you in the Aogiri Tree.

She had been watching you for some time; observing from the shadows, studying the way you moved, the way you hunted. Until that moment, you had always been a solitary ghoul. You hunted only to survive, never for pleasure. You kept to your own small territory, avoided conflicts, avoided people… stayed out of trouble.

But in the end, Eto convinced you to join her.

“You have something I like”.

she often told you. You never really understood what she meant —your strength, perhaps? Your calmness? Or maybe that strange detachment you carried, the way you could look at blood and death without flinching.

You had fought for months side by side with her, day by day, smeared with blood, in a war that seemed not to end.

Eto insisted on always having you accompany her on missions. Never alone, never with anyone but her. She said it was to keep you in sight, though sometimes you suspected she simply didn’t want you out of her sight. She would never let you die. Not if she could help it.

⸻

There was only silence after the final blow.

The bodies of the CCG investigators lay scattered on the field of burning ash and seared flesh. The acrid smell of metal and blood filled the air, burning your throat as you breathed. Your kagune slowly retracted, trembling with exhaustion.

You whirled around, your vision obscured by fatigue and the smog of filth. Eto was still standing, barely, her face smeared with blood and ash, her single ghoul eye blinking faintly in the dark.

She took a few steps nearer to you, her boots crunching on the glass and debris on the ground. Then, silently, she grasped your arm and pulled you upright. Her fingers were thin and dripping with blood, but she held you quite gently.

"Still alive?".

Her voice was harsh and deep, but there was something under the rasp. nearly tender.

For one moment, you looked at not the One-Eyed Owl, not the Aogiri Tree head to be dreaded by both humans and ghouls, but a lonely woman: a prisoner of the chaos of her own creation.

Eto leaned in, brushing away a dropped spill of blood with her thumb. You didn’t know if it was yours, or of the dead that lay around you.

"You fought well”.

she whispered, that rapid, distorted smile tugging at her mouth, a smile which held more love than teasing today.

"I thought they'd tear you in two… but you surprised me."

In her golden eyes burned something dear… warmth, pride, maybe even concern.

The battlefield was quiet now, save for the crackle of burning debris. You could hear her heartbeat, slow, steady, calm. And for a moment, you almost forgot the blood on your hands, the countless corpses, the endless war.