In This World So Cruel

Chapter 10

After the quinx finally arrived at the archives they quickly looked around making sure nobody saw them entering. 'This feels like one of those moments where you have to enter a door but can't be seen during a video game' thought Saiko. She didn't see anyone or hear any footsteps so she quickly told them to enter. "C'mon guys" whispered Saiko barely loud enough for them to hear " quick before someone sees us." With this the quinx ran through the open door and silently closed it. When they entered the room they immediately noticed that the I to J file was a bit open. Being the curious teenagers they were they decided to open up the file. As they quickly scanned the file Mutsuki noticed something at the beginning of the J section. "Hey" said Mutsuki noticing that the other quinx had completely overlooked it " This file looks a bit suspicious." They other quinx went back to where Mutsuki and noticed that there was a slightly crinkled file that had been messily shoved into the file cabinet. 'How did we miss this?' Thought the other quinx. Clearing their thoughts they pulled out the file and started to read. " Name: Jason, Status: Deceased, Current location: Juuzou's quinque." Read Shizaru out loud noting that they had figured out their original question. Sadly figuring out their original question left them with two more. ‘How was Jason related to Sasaki and why was this article like that?’

Saiko, seeing that Shizaru was not going to read more, snatched the article from Shizaru’s hands. “Hey what gi-“ yelled Shizaru but was cut off by Urie. “Well you obviously weren’t going to continue reading so she decided to let us see what was on the documents” Shizaru looked like he wanted to argue but decided to let it go realizing that he was right. As Saiko read through Shizaru and all the other quinx noticed how he was just like a normal ghoul who needed t be exterminated….until they got to the third page. Mutsuki’s eyes widened as he scanned the third page. “Guys look” said Mutsuki timidly’ “ At the end of the page there are slight crinkle marks and there are water marks in the second paragraph”. The quinxs’ eyes widened as they realized that he was right. They easily noticed that the watermarks were in the shape of tear marks. ‘Well someone didn’t like the information’ thought Urie. While he was as intrigued as the others he would never show it. “Just read the paragraph” said Urie angrily. While he didn’t care about Sasaki or his past it was too interesting to just leave alone. Saiko seeing that all the others wanted to see what had made someone upset enough to cry started reading again.

“Lets see” said Saiko “Was tortured in cohecla for a while and gained two habits from his time. The first is cracking his knuckles using his thumb.” At this Shizaru’s eyes widened. ‘That’s impossible though’ thought Shizaru ‘You don’t just get habits from your torturer.’ Convincing himself that it was just a freak coincidence he continued to listen. “The second habit is….. forcing those who he tortures to count back from a thousand by sevens or, in other words, asking the question ‘What’s a thousand minus seven’” Shizaru could feel the tears dripping down his face but he didn’t even care. “That’s not possible right? There’s no way that’s possible” muttered Shizaru. “Oi” said Urie in a firm voice “The heck are you crying about” While Urie may not look like it he was concerned and interested. Nobody just breaks down for no reason and Urie wanted to know the reason. Shizaru drew in a shaky breath and slowly pulled out two files. One from the E-F section and one from the M-N section and set them down on the table.

The other quinx were puzzled but Mutsuki went for the file that had the name “Eyepatch” on the front and Saiko went for the file saying “Mukade”. Shizaru silently pushed Saiko’s hand down telling her to read the other one first. When Mutsuki opened the file they all noticed something. “Hey are you f*cking kidding me?” said Urie aloud. Although none of them described what they were thinking quite like Urie, they were all thinking the same thing. They easily saw how similar their mentor and the shy boy on the profile were with the only differences being that the boy in the picture was obviously younger and wearing an eyepatch, but in this picture you could easily see that the boys hair was a complete jet black. Even with these differences it was obvious that they were the same person or at least related. They quinx had never seen anybody else with that exact shade of grey eyes. They weren’t a murky gray like others had but they weren’t a bright silver, they were more of a murky silver color. As they read the paragraphs they noticed more things that this kid, Kaneki Ken, had in common with their mentor. (If you want to read the actual paragraphs go back to chapter 2 and 3) For example, they both were kind and spared lives. They both loved books and would protect what they loved. While the quinx didn’t know for sure if this “Kaneki Ken” was who their mentor was in the past but there was a lot of proof that he was. After reading the parts of the document they could read they were still puzzled. “Shizaru, why were you crying and why did you get out this other document?” asked Saiko. After Shizaru broke down they had not heard a word from him and they were starting to get worried. Silently he pointed to the bottom of the paragraph where the blacking out seemed sloppy and had faded. With some difficulty Urie began to read it.