He was borne from a pair of star-crossed lovers, blended into this world with nothing but harmony and amity. He was blessed - a human, out of everything that was unholy and sinful in this tormented world. The fact that he was human promised him a destiny of serenity and peace, a single lock that held that fact in place - at least, that is what his parents believed. For this reason, they had named him "Ichijou."

The youngest of three to a pair of businesspeople, he was raised in comfort and luxury. Preached under the word of God and blessed with every talent possible in the human physique, he grew to be a model figure for all to gawk and praise.

And within all of that flawlessness and perfection, he was pricked by the thorns of Sin.

The deviation began to occur in his early teens, when he refused to attend church service every Sunday and broke the sacred rituals of prayer and worship. He rattled up his classes with profane jokes and teasing remarks, causing discomfort and trouble for both teachers and students alike; he attended a Christian academy, so that created an even more undesirable situation.

He was, however, an excellent speaker, a natural leader who knew exactly how to manipulate and use the people around him in various shapes and forms. He was a fallen angel, borne into light but degraded down into the depths of Hell.

And that was where he met her.

They were childhood sweethearts, both dying to break free from their religious clutches and save themselves from the overwhelming pressures of perfection. They sought freedom from the expectations of purity and ideal worship, and for years they had struggled to fight against their peers to keep the dignity they had been graced with. They disagreed with the system, and that is what united them.

She was an avid reader, drawn to books that had illustrated more demonic themes - a sin in all its essence, and she was shunned for that. Still, she defied them and read the books, despite the numerous occasions where she had been sent to the office to be counseled; her parents saw her as a hopeless case, and could only pray that the purity of the school, as well as frequent visits to church service, would purge her from her sin.

He saved her, in his own little way, by approaching her one rather gloomy afternoon. It had just rained, and was still sprinkling a bit as she sat on a concrete bench under an old beech tree, completely immersed in the yellowing pages of her book. He, in all of his confidence and ego, approached her rather easily and introduced himself as the class president in the year just above hers. Her violet eyes shimmered as he did so, eying him intently as if she expected him to insult her. Instead, they ended up talking past the recess bell, and were late to both of their classes; however, it was hardly any bother to them both, and from then on they became practically inseparable.

She was thin, contrasting greatly to his muscular and athletic physique, and had a delicate white, creamy complexion that could be compared to milk. She was curvy, to say the least, and harbored a heavy and robust gleam in her violet eyes, despite her lithe frame; back then, she was short enough to fit right under his chin in her little uniform heels - he could remember that. She was a scary one to deal with at first glance, but was a charming and promising young girl once a man got to know her - and that is exactly what he intended to do.

A year after he had met her, in his first year of high school, a rumor had gone around that two female students had been murdered on campus. Fearing for her life, he reassured her that he would be the one to protect her at any cost, even if he ended up losing his own life. He was persistent and insistent on doing so, his pride getting the best of him and clouding his reason; he believed he was in love, and that was a foolish thing to believe.

Wandering about the campus one day after school, after a student body meeting, he had heard the most earthshattering scream erupt from the library. His blood drained from his face, for he could have recognized that voice from a thousand miles away. Without any hesitation whatsoever, he bolted towards the isolated building, which was cut off from the rest of the campus by a large lawn of emerald-green grass; he ran faster than he had ever ran before, and exploded through the great double doors of the hall with a loud and solid slam of wood. The remaining blood melted away from his cheeks, turning his skin a sickly, icy white.

She was there, much to his horror, splayed on the floor and leaning against the wall, which was splattered in blood. Her own body was drenched in the thick gore, and her eyes already seemed dead, though they were wide and brimming with tears.

The worst part about the sight wasn't her bloodied state, but the fact that she was clutching a freakishly mauled, dismembered body close to her chest, an inauspicious smile stretched across her porcelain face; a shred of skin, which was not hers, dangled from her wet crimson lips.

He, in all of his foolishness and naivety, was shattered and destroyed that day. A ghoul, out of all things, was the one to capture his heart, only to shred it to pieces without a second thought. It was in that moment where he truly realized his own darkness; from then on, he sought to purge his own sin. However, there would be no divine intervention; he will make a name by himself, alone and isolated from everyone else. He was determined to go alone, because he believed that was the most acceptable punishment for such a sin as loving one of those hellish creatures.

Prior to that unfortunate incident, she was the closest to perfection he had ever known - he could remember that - who went by the name of Kamishiro Rize.

His hatred for ghouls and their manipulative nature drove him to study until his callouses bled, until his fingers cracked from the dryness of the paper, and to the point where dark bags began to encompass his eyes. He graduated the next year, at the young age of sixteen, and applied to the Ghoul Training Academy that following autumn. He was driven by the blackness of loathing, fueled by that idealistic motive to prevent any more tragedies from happening that may stem from these beasts called ghouls. He followed the strict training regimen, heightening his already refined physical strength, and surpassed a vast majority of his seniors; he graduated in the top five in his class after the three year cycle at the ripe age of nineteen.

He, in all of his power and passionate efforts, was admired for his spirit and speaking ability. He enraptured all who conversed with him, and as a result, was accepted as a Rank Two ghoul investigator immediately after his graduation. All the while, his traumatic experience with that ghoul had remained branded into his mind, ceasing to ever fade and showing no signs of ever disappearing. She was beautiful, no one could deny that, and he was attacked by guilt every single day he went on living. He had loved a monster, and that was one sin he could never be able to purge no matter how hard he tried.

In consequence, he gave up completely on purging himself, and accepted his own being as a character that will forever be adulterated and haunted by the blackness of evil. He set his mind to his work, and immersed himself into a life of obsession and cigarettes.

His first case was a few months later, assigned to a mission that involved tracking down an A ranking ghoul, who had been seen frequently in the Twentieth Ward, Nerima, with another ghoul of unknown ranking. The A rank would be taken to Cochlea, as planned by his superiors, to be experimented on; his docile nature, in comparison to the other ghouls confined in Cochlea, would prove to be the perfect test subject - all in the name of science, and for the greater good of mankind.

With a justification like this, he could hardly refuse the offer; he was, in fact, now a Dove himself.

They wasted no time investigating this ghoul, named by the CCG as the Lizard.

He and his superior chased the beasts down to an abandoned portion of a park, late at night while they were on a walk of some sort. They knew the ghouls were just up ahead in that dead end; everything was going according to plan, and soon, they reached the cornered A rank; the other ghoul, however, was nowhere to be found. He vaguely remembered that he thought it had abandoned its partner, which only disgusted him even more.

The standoff was short, for one A rank ghoul against two investigators proved to be too much for his body. He acted as a decoy while his superior lashed at the creature from the side, opening a gaping wound in his ribs and possibly snapping a few bones as well; they cuffed him and seized his limp body, leaving the scene empty save for a large, thick pool of black blood.

No one said it, but he knew what everyone was thinking once they took the ghoul into custody; they looked exactly alike, down to the soft waves of their unruly hair, darker than coal. They gave him those looks, flickering from him to that ghoul and back, something glimmering within their gazes reflecting that of discord. Everyone saw the uncanny resemblance, and that infuriated him; he, out of everyone in this damned world, was the last person who would've wanted to be compared to a beast like that. And he, in all of his narcissism and ignorance, sought to do whatever it took in order to destroy that ghoul.

The Lizard was transported over to Cochlea shortly after his capture, and the two investigators involved with the ghoul accompanied him in the massively armored quinque-steel truck. The Doves sat patiently in the back, their briefcases in hand and ready to be unsheathed in case the ghoul got out of hand; as the rumors implied though, Lizard was a docile ghoul, and luckily, showed no resistance whatsoever.

As a Rank Two investigator, he was not permitted to visit Cochlea without a First-Class superior; even then, the pair would have to get special permission from the head before going. So, much to his displeasure and antipathy, he remained outside the Twenty-third Ward and away from the detention center, continuing his training and quickly scaling the ranks until he had became a First-Class investigator himself.

A while later, he had heard that there had been some sort of raid at Cochlea, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not get any information on what happened and whether any ghouls had escaped or not; particularly Lizard. It was already odd that a situation like this would not be documented, but what really bothered him was the fact that all information dealing with Lizard had seemed to have disappeared. He went on a rampage, shouting and screaming at subordinates to double and triple check the sources, and even went to the head himself to demand any information regarding Lizard, the lowly A ranking ghoul.

There was absolutely no information, at least information that could have been salvaged from his definite efforts, and he was forced by his superiors to be suppressed from anything regarding Lizard.

Save for one exception.

It had been a while after the raid, and now as a seasoned First-Class ghoul investigator, he was offered an extremely controversial case involving a certain SSS rank. At first, he was simply uninterested, waving off the offer as if it were a fly. However, as soon as they explained that this particular ghoul was seen with the last sighting of Lizard, he hopped onto the investigation team immediately.

The papers and reports he had read certainly led to a truly vicious and bloodthirsty ghoul, who went on killing frenzies mainly in the Eleventh Ward and the areas around it; however, as of recently, all sightings and activities relating to this ghoul had ceased completely, as if it had vanished from the face of the earth. As a result, a specialized team had been forged to investigate this phenomenon, and was given the responsibility to dictate whether this dangerous SSS rank was dead or alive.

This ghoul was unconditionally and notoriously known as the Scorpion.

From all of the reports, he could conclude that this SSS rank was rotting somewhere, either in another SSS rank's belly or cast off somewhere desolate and isolated, since there were absolutely no leads pertaining to this particular ghoul. It had, in essence, disappeared from this world like mist, and due to this reasoning, they declared Scorpion deceased.

Whilst scouring the reports on Scorpion, he did find a small chunk of information relating to his obsessed Lizard, discovering that Scorpion had indeed broken into Cochlea and successfully escaped, taking Lizard with it. It was strongly suspected that the two had some sort of relationship with each other, but nothing could ever be investigated, since the records for both of the ghouls had been abruptly stopped.

The investigation, inevitably, went ice cold.

It had been years since the Cochlea raid, and other massive events such as the emergence of the One-Eyed Owl that came into play masked the incident, potentially wiping the undocumented event from existence; only he remembered, and even then, as time went by, the memory began to deteriorate, slowly, until nothing was left save for the shred of what remained of Lizard in his own bathroom mirror.

It was five years after the raid when he got on the subway to investigate a rather peculiar ghoul, who had a habit of jumping around from ward to ward for its feeding frenzies; they had concluded it was a female ghoul a while back, confirming that a vast majority of her victims were men ranging from the ages sixteen to twenty-seven, with a few stragglers interjected in there as well.

She was the Mad Temptress, the seductress of the ghoul world and scored an alarming S rank. A nut job, to say the least, and an extremely sadistic character that literally shredded her victims to pieces, leaving only a severed head behind to for all to gawk and behold.

It was when he was on that case, in that moment, when he saw her. She was reading a book, by Takatsuki Sen out of all authors; Salt and Opium was sprawled across the cover, and luckily, it was something he was familiar with. She was cute in all of her purity, with hair white as ivory pulled back into a long ponytail, the glasses she had worn draped over her eyes and she had small, pouty lips.

She vaguely reminded him of her back then, only because of their interest in Takatsuki Sen - nothing else. There was absolutely nothing else that reminded him of her back then besides the fact that they both liked the same author; it was chilling, but reassuring all the same. With his ego set back ablaze and his confidence driving him once more, he approached the woman and sat down next to her, proceeding with a polite introduction.

She was timid, knowledgeable, witty, composed, cold, and indifferent all at the same time, emitting this wonderful enticing aura that swirled with mystery and intrigue. It was her eyes, the color of glistening amber held up against the sun, that radiated a sternness that reflected the cruelty of the world around her - she too was trying to escape, and although he was clueless to what she was trying to escape from, he desperately wanted to come to her aid. She reminded him of her, and as a result, he did not want to see such a beautiful woman succumb to such darkness again - just as she did.

She was perfectly human, with all of her flaws and imperfections making up the body that was the epitome of beauty. It was only that one time, but he felt the sparks ignite whenever he looked at her, smiling and emanating this irresistible light as she pulled him along from shop to shop. In all of the rage and chaos in his entire life, it was in that moment where he felt exceptionally happy; he was happy, and the sensation itself was far more addicting than any dose of nicotine.

And he, with all of his foolishness and arrogance and stupidity, loved her with all of the capacity of his aching heart.

~~~✿~~~

I don't know why I like to torment my characters so much, but hey. It was an interesting read, right?

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