KITSUNE

➖ Tormented Soul

DAY 10. AND THE BOY IN YAMORI'S "HOBBY ROOM" STILL LIVED. Every day, three times a day, Yamori would come to his hobby room to enjoy the anguished screams of Ken as he tears toe by toe, finger by finger with his special pliers. Needle in the eye and the pain begun. Yamori injected Ken in the mucous membrane with Rc suppressants to suppress his ghoul powers and cut off his fingers and toes like nails. Afterwards, he would feed them to him in order for him to regrow the limbs he brutally lost. Every day, three times a day... 1000 minus 7... Centipedes... in my ears...

In Ken's mind, there was Rize. Rize Kamishiro. A human he thought, how foolish of him. She was a ghoul and he was her prey. The day when she toyed with him, he should have died. The steel beam should have crushed him too, but instead, only she was crushed. Professor Akihiro Kanou transplanted kidney into him, or so he was told, when actually it was Rize's kakuhou that was put into him – it changed him – he became a half-ghoul without any ability to consume human food. Everything change for him. Everything that had happened, pattern of circumstances, lead him to the place he's now.

To escape the never-ending pain, Ken drowned himself in his own thoughts. Rize was there. She talked to him. He told her about his father who he had lost when he was four years old. He could barely remember his face and what kind of a person he is. But one thing he knew about his father was that he liked reading and had loads of books. To connect to his father, Ken begun to read books his father once read and that's how his interest in literature grew. Books became his escape from reality – from the fact that his mother struggled every day to bring food on the table for both of them. Until one day, his mother overworked herself – leaving him as an orphan.

He was 10 when his mother died. And the only relatives were the family of his mother's sister – the woman who always asked his mother for money. He was adopted into Asaoka' family. His aunt always compared him to her son, Yuuichi – he believes his names was. To escape the hostile family of his aunt, Ken would go to park with a few books that belonged to his late father, and he would read. And that's when he met Aya – a girl who was a year younger than him. From all the other fun activates, the girl chose to be with him. He felt important.

"She only wanted to devour you."

You're lying.

"She saw you as nothing more but a juicy supply."

No, she didn't.

The hallucination Rize kept twisting his thoughts – changing them and changing his feelings for Aya. And maybe she was right to do so. She left him. She could have saved him. But she left him chained to the blood stained chair for days. She left him to experience any kind of torture, both physical and psychical. Yamori had no mercy – he wants to shatter him into pieces until he completely loses his sanity. But still, Ken was holding onto something that was keeping him alive.

Door opened and closed. Ken wondered why Yamori came so early – maybe he was becoming impatient. His toes and fingers regenerated at a very fast pace – which made Yamori satisfied. Ken didn't hear his heavy footsteps, or the cracking of his fingers. It was too quiet for Yamori. He looked up through the long bangs of his changed hair to see someone he did not expect to see. She stood with cautious eyes. And when he looked at her, her shoulders relaxed as if she was relieved to see him.

Aya.

He was dreaming again. It was a beautiful dream. But why did she look so guilty? He wanted to see her smiling – it always made him feel worthy when he was a child. He felt important to someone. Why was she standing so far away? He wanted to reach out to her, but the chains on his wrists and ankles were preventing him from moving.