In This World So Cruel

Chapter 7

When Arima actually started to think about the sparring incident he realized something. At first he believed he had heard it wrong but when he went to playback the recording of the fight he could hear it loud and clear in Sasaki’s voice over and over again. The clearly insane sounding ‘what’s a thousand minus seven’. Arima always assumed that some kind of trauma had happened to Sasaki in the past because he had Marie antoinette syndrome but he had assumed that it had turned that color because of stress not because of what he was theorizing. Before he could assume anything though he needed to check the archives.

When he got to the archives he realized that his hands were shaking in fear of being right. Pushing down his feelings and putting on his normal stoic mask. He opened up the J-K file searching for a certain ghoul’s name. It wasn’t that Arima didn’t remember the file he remembered it and remembered it well but he was in denial. He refused to believe that what he thinks happened to him actually happened to him. He quickly found the ghoul that he was looking for. “Jason” mumbled Arima, in all honesty he was not looking forward to reading the file and finding out if his theory was right but at the same time he was extremely curious. Sighing knowing his curiosity would win the internal struggle he opened the file and started reading.

He started reading aloud to make sure he didn't miss anything “Jason a ghoul who was captured and tortured by one of the greatest tortures at the CCG. After he killed his torturer he became a torturer himself asking all of his victims the same question ‘what’s a thousand minus seven’”. Arima let his eyes fall down. He had known that it would be like this. Truth to be told he had suspected it from the very start when he had first taken out Mukade. The way he had said everything he said had showed that he was insane and at first Arima accepted the fact that he had most likely been tortured but as time went on and he saw the sweet innocent boy for who he was..... he just couldn't accept it. Seeing the vast difference between the same boy was heartbreaking. Mukade was completely insane and would smile as he tortured and murdered your whole family but Haise..... He was so kind and gentle and patient. He'd seen people who'd been changed into a heartless killer from this job but they still had morals and weren't insane. Most of these people also had a goal that drove them to be like this but Sasaki Haise or should I say Kaneki Ken just disappeared and came back insane, heartless, and a killer. Sighing to himself he started on a new topic before his train of thought made him too depressed. Now that he knew Sasaki had been tortured the question was why did nobody search for him, why was the CCG not told about this, and how long was he there. Arima assumed that Sasaki had been there for a while to turn him into the broken person he had become but if so why was there not a search party for him? Shaking his head to clear his thoughts he started reading.

"Killed during the Aogiri raid, supposedly by Juuzou" said Arima aloud. It didn't actually say that he was supposedly killed by Juuzou but Sasaki must of at least knocked him out or almost killed him to escape. Arima continued reading to see if they found if Sasaki had killed him. "Is now Juuzou's quinque" Arima clicked his tongue " That makes sense" said Arima aloud. He had been wondering why Sasaki reacted so much to the finger he had lost. Now that he thought about it that was the first and last injury Sasaki had gotten with that scythe. He had to make sure Sasaki was never near Juuzou's quinque. As he read on everything that didn't make sense had started to all fit together like the pieces of a puzzle. " Jason's main weapon were two pliers that he held in each hand". Arima suddenly remembered Sasaki's loudest comment while he was insane. "Digging Digging into my brain the pliers adding to my pain". Well he had found out what the pliers ment but what was digging through his brain?

Arima thought for a while before everything clicked in his head. "The pranking incident" mumbled Arima. He remembered Sasaki's desperate pleas of 'get it out' and 'it hurts' and how he clawed at his ears all which were caused by seeing the centipede. Finally he had completed the main puzzle. When he thought about it he started to feel depressed. Jason had purposefully put a centipede in Sasaki's ear to torture him, to make him feel that pain but knowing that he wouldn't be able to do anything about it. Arima felt like crying. He knew how kind and gentle Sasaki was and he knew that he didn't do anything to deserve the pain but it was in the past and he could do nothing about that. Knowing that he still had questions to be answered before he broke down he put down Jason's file and went to the E-F section. Pulling out the Eyepatch file he quickly skimmed through the words noticing how there were slight crinkles in the paper that seemed to be in the shape of a person's thumb. He ignored it though knowing that what he was searching for was much more important. He finally found the date when the Kamii college student had disappeared and then compared it to the date of the Aogiri raid. "okay so he was tourtured for" Arima froze. That was impossible. Someone doesn't go insane in that short amount of time, much less how insane Mukade was. "Okay calm down" said Arima to himself "i'm sure I just looked at the date wrong or did the math wrong there's not way that's posible". He looked at the date again and subtracted the two dates. Arima had no idea what to think anymore. " Ten days" he said to himself " in just ten f*cking days he was tortured to the point of insanity". Arima let the stray tear fall down his cheek. 'Those ten simple days where everybody else was minding their own business and thought that everything was okay ruined this kids life' thought Arima 'he can no longer continue college, his friends most likely moved on, and he was in more pain than imaginable. He suddenly remembered Haise's words before he passe out 'I will save everyone' thought Arima. What kind of burden did this kid put on himself! Arima now knew that one simple decision was what turned his life around. The decision to go on a date.

As Arima left the depressing area he checked the clock noticing how it was 11pm. As he walked through the halls he received many looks and comments. "Isin't that the reaper?!" said some ladies to his left to his right there was a new investigator who he could hear whispering "please notice me senpai". At these words he was reminded of Sasaki and felt saddened. If the boy had never become a a ghoul maybe he would have finished college gotten a job as a writer or a different high paying job that suited him. The poor boy HAD been turned into a ghoul though. Forced to endure torture that he never deserved. Arima laughed to himself a bit remembering one of the things Sasaki had said to him when he asked what kind of genre of book he would be. "well" responded Sasaki "I'm not a protagonist of a story or a novel or anything. I'm just an investigator who likes to read but for arguments sake if I were to play the lead role it would certainly be a tragedy." 'Well Sasaki' thought Arima 'looks like you are already in a tragedy' Arima chuckled a bit at his dark humor. before exiting the building and trudging to his car. Right now his mind was heavy. He had no idea what to do with the new information. If he told no one he would eventually explode and tell someone and Sasaki might hear. Sasaki didn't deserve to remember the torture he had been put through so he couldn't keep it a secret. If he told someone they might tell Sasaki himself or hold it over his head if they wanted something. No matter what happened he knew that Sasaki would eventually find out but he wanted to wait as long as possible before Sasaki learned the truth. Call him selfish but he wanted to keep Sasaki around as long as possible and the Quinx squad loved him. If Sasaki knew he might leave the Quinx squad and hate him for making him forget who he had to protect. Arima also didn't know if he would be able to fight Sasaki. It was easy to kill Mukade, after all he was a bloodthirsty ghoul but Sasaki...... He stopped thinking. If he continued his thoughts they would take a turn for the worse so he decided that he would forget about the whole ordeal and tell Akira in the morning.