“There’s a violence in everyone.”
– Typhoon
Liquid drips from a metal basin, pooling on the tiled floor. The sound comes from some distance away, which helps – at that distance, it is simply an anonymous liquid, not an actual, vital, absent part of Kaneki’s body. Closer at hand, the truths become harder to bear: his scar-crossed wrists, his grinding teeth, the half-formed toes ever growing in, ever being torn away. Ghouls who feed on humans possess great powers of regeneration, but right now, that regeneration is only denying Kaneki the release of death. His body gives and gives, and yet his tormentor keeps coming back, keeps demanding more. Having lived his life by the conviction that suffering pain yourself is preferable to inflicting that pain on others, Kaneki can only wonder how he reached this metal chair, how things ever got so messed up.