Juuzou x Reader (Tokyo Ghoul/Death Note Crossover)

Chapter I: It All Started with a Smile

'One... Two... Three... Four...'

You carefully count each number in your head, each count matching the beat of the faint but erratic melody that you compose to assist your tempo as you go along performing your routine for this evening. This particular routine consisted of you balancing the act of juggling a handful of freshly sharpened knives with your hands and feet alike while also maintaining your footing on the tightrope that was raised at least fifty feet from the ground. With that being said, falling wasn't an option. It never was. They always made sure of that and tonight was no different. You see, there was a net beneath you barely moments ago but the audience seemed to be getting bored. They wanted something more... thrilling, more excruciatingly dangerous. And who were they to deny their loyal, paying patriots what they came to see?

The net was set on fire, the intense heat rising up from the flames below, despite them being so far away. The intensity of the heat made you tremble, your hands beginning to sweat making them suddenly slick. You didn't let that stop you though. You'd be punished if you made them angry and that would be very bad. Cheers and shouts of excitement arise from the crowd as you pushed the evident possibility of slipping to an immediate death to the depths of your mind and ever so gracefully brought your legs above your head, now relying only on your precarious grip of the thin metal rope bound above the crowd only by two decaying stone pillars that sat on either side of the arena.

If one who were unfamiliar with the situation were to enter the darkened rotunda, their first thought might be to question the reasoning of how a child so young could be so nimble and light footed and why they were above a blazed set of rickety rope intertwined to create a poor excuse of a net, juggling knives and executing such a complex series of flips, spins, leaps, and tumbles.

Well, it would be needless to explain the rest after examining the audience composed of masked instigators for they were all ghouls, not that it was a difficult circumstance to unfold. And these ghouls were not just any ghouls, no. They were some of the most powerful, foul-mannered, dishonestly sinful ghouls in all of Tokyo. At least, that's what they tell you each and every time you're set to perform.

You've come to know that the ones you called them were to be properly addressed as your parents. Mother and father, mom and dad, mama and papa. Whatever terms they wished for you to use, you obeyed. If not, you were punished. It was a simple system, in fact. Although many people seemed to think differently about your parents, you could only see them for who you knew them as. You just hadn't realized that they were far more twisted and sinister in their intentions then most others, humans and ghouls alike, for this was all you had known.

They haven't let you go outside or mingle with others your age or learn what most others would know by now. At least, not anymore... but you didn't need to. They just needed to cleanse you. You remember that ever since you were only a few years of age, you've been told you were different. Your parents, or perhaps it was only one -it's hard to keep track of things like this- are part ghoul and when you were born you were deemed one eighth ghoul.

According to them you are not supposed to have the characteristics of a ghoul. Your eyes don't change, you have no kagune that you know of, and you especially do not lust for human flesh. To the outside world, you're simply... normal. And yet so far from it. They hate themselves for having created what they deem a curse and a blessing at the same time and feel guilty about making you a part of what they hate most.

Ghouls.

They may sound like great parents for wanting to keep their child safe and they most certainly were until a desire became an obsessive impulse. They started to go mad. They were so obsessed with cleansing you of a sin they had created that they began to see no barriers between right and wrong. This led to experimentation. Painful experimentation.