Worlds Away {Ghoul! Suzuya Juuzou x female reader}

Grief

I stopped in my tracks, unable to believe what I'd just heard. That voice was unmistakable, the musical lilt to it unique to one person. Juuzou.

It can't be...there's no way Juuzou would join up with a group like Akui.

I felt unable to move as I watched the ghoul dart around Sasaki, rendering him unable to protect Urie, and dealing him many cuts. Sasaki was bleeding a lot. I knew I had to do something, I couldn't sit here and watch Urie and Sasaki both be damaged, but I couldn't will my feet to move.

Suddenly Saiko was behind me, a hand on my shoulder. 

"I'll take the one hurting Urie, you take the one hurting Sasaki."

I watched as Saiko ran towards the ghoul, a massive caterpillar like structure erupting from her lower back. I knew she would weaken quickly from using her kagune.

She swept the female ghoul off her feet and away from Urie, taking her by surprise. She threw her against the wall, where she stayed, blood slowly pooling around her.

The ghoul who had injured Sasaki let out a shrill scream and her kagune faded out. She ran towards where the other ghoul lay against the wall and threw herself to the ground, sobbing.

For some reason, my eyes filled with tears as I watched her pick up the other ghoul and flee from the building.

It was now just us, and the ghoul...with Juuzou's voice.

Saiko had already withdrawn her kagune, and was holding her hands over a rather nasty cut on Mutsuki's shoulder.

Sasaki and Urie had collapsed against the wall, weakened by blood loss and lack of oxygen.

Please don't pass out Mutsuki...that's an awful lot of blood...

I finally convinced my feet to move. I turned around and saw the ghoul slowly walking towards me.

"So this is why you left me, hmmm Y/N-chan? To join the CCG?" His voice raised angrily and his kagune flared, hardening, becoming more red and purple. Shards flew out of them, raining down towards me. I tried to run to dodge them but some of them lodged in my flesh, others merely passed by my skin, slicing me open.

Juuzou would never hurt me like this...

"All this time I was worrying something had happened to you. But really, you hated what I'd become so much that you went and joined those who would destroy me!"

More shards rained down. I fell to the floor, dropping my knives and clutching my knees to my chest, blocking out the pain of my skin being sliced open again and again. I was crying, but it wasn't from the physical pain.

Juuzou...why...

I heard the grating sound of my knives skittering across the floor. They had been kicked away from me.

There was a presence in front of me.

I opened my eyes to see Juuzou's face right in front of mine. 

His cheeks were hollowed out, as if he hadn't eaten in weeks. He had been thin before, but now he resembled a skeleton. I tried to push him away from me, but his hand gripped my wrist, his fingers digging into my flesh, the nails tearing it. I searched his eyes for any remnant of the Juuzou I had known, but they were empty. The red pupils bore into my face.

There's nothing there...nothing.

"She betrayed me Rei-chan. She left me when she said she never would. What should we do to her?"

He laughed out loud, squeezing my wrist so hard I heard a crack.

"Oops." He laughed. He was smiling, but it was just as vacant as his eyes. I began to sob openly, ripping my wrist out of his grasp. It was already broken, what more could he do to it.

I'll do what I would do to any other ghoul, in this situation, then.

I heard the ripping of my shirt as my purple bikaku tore through my flesh painlessly.

Juuzou began to laugh maniacally.

"You're a monster just like me!!"

The next thing I knew, my kagune were pressing him into the floor. Surprise registered on his face for just a second before he giggled, laughing at nothing.

I backed off of him and he sprang up.

"Y/N! We're retreating. Too many injuries!" I looked to see Urie carrying an unconscious Mutsuki in his arms, Sasaki and Saiko trailing behind, Sasaki limping.

I didn't turn my back on Juuzou as I walked out. Much to my surprise he simply watched me walk away, staring in my direction, eyes unfocused.

**

"What happened back there, Y/N-chan? You are beyond strong enough to have taken down that ghoul!" It was a rare occurrence when Sasaki raised his voice, and it startled me to hear it. I willed myself not to cry.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what happened. I just froze. It's never happened to me before."

The squad was hanging out in Mutsuki's hotel room, having just finished at the emergency room. Mutsuki ended up needing a blood transfusion, as anemic as he is.

The rest of the squad was fine. Sasaki's many injuries had already healed. The cuts all over my body were already closing, but I knew they were going to scar.

Great...I don't need a physical reminder of what Juuzou has become...It's ingrained in my memory. Those empty eyes...that mirthless laugh...

I knew Sasaki was angry with me, and rightfully so. I had endangered the squad, myself included. 

That night, when Saiko and I were alone in the hotel room we shared, being the only two females in the squad, she yawned and asked, "So, who was that ghoul to you?"

"W-what?" I was caught off guard.

"I saw the whole thing, and heard it too. So how do you know that ghoul? He seemed pretty crazy."

"He's not-... I-... At one point, he was the love of my life. He still is. But I have a feeling that the body belonging to the man I love, no longer houses the mind of the man I love. I've waited three years to see him again, and I thought I never would..I thought he was dead..and now..." I choked back a sob.

"He might still be in there...you shouldn't give up on the one you love..." Saiko mumbled.

"I think in this case, giving up is my only option. Goodnight Saiko."

"Nanight, Y/N-chan."

I rolled over, facing the wall, silent tears streaming down my face, grief eating me from the inside out.