Karren escapes from Eto and makes her way back to the Tsukiyamas (which has not been raided by the CCG yet)

Oh goody, more angst for my wicked heart.

Karren stumbles out of Aogiri’s headquarters, her eyes still half-sewn shut, hr lips 100% sealed. Help me, she wants to whimper. I want to die.

She can’t go home to Master Shuu. He’s depressed enough.

But where else can she go? She only has one home, and it’s with Tsukiyama Shuu. 

She half-walks, half-crawls to the mansion like a drunk, like the worthless servant she is, hoping to climb inside her room without anyone noticing she’s been gone.

She needs to kill Sasaki for hurting Shuu. No – to atone for her own selfishness. Because she’s very, very bad, and she needs to be Kanae, not Karren.

Kanae doesn’t even realize that she’s collapsed on the steps to the Tsukiyama mansion until she hears Matsumae scream.

Get up, move. 

Chie Hori sees her and runs upstairs like the brat she is.

Don’t worry, let me alone, Kanae wants to say as Matsumae lifts her off the stairs, but her mouth is still sewn shut.

Mirumo hovers over her, and then Matsumae shoos him out because she knows Kanae’s secret. This is all going so wrong – why can’t she die already – and then Shuu’s being pulled into the room – how did she wind up in her room? – by Chie.

He lets out a wail and rushes forward, yanking out the thread to her mouth and cursing in French.

“Be gentle!” Matsumae says, working on Kanae’s eyes.

“I’m sorry; I’m so sorry,” Kanae says, bordering on delirium. “She knew – Master Shuu, it’s all my fault.” 

“Your fault? No, mon cher, never.” Shuu’s shaking. How could someone do this to Kanae? He wouldn’t even treat dinner like this.

He’s going to find them, and kill them. 

He tries to take off her jacket to check for wounds, and Kanae starts and immediately claps her hands over her … rosy chest.

Shuu turns dead white.

“K – Kanae?” he asks in a small voice, a voice that says why didn’t you trust me?

“Not Kanae.” Matsumae applies a warm cloth dipped in some sort of lotion to Kanae’s bruised forehead. 

“What’s your real name, belle femme?” he asks.

She squeezes her eyes shut, though they still hurt from the thread. There’s no point in hiding what’s already been exposed. “Karren.” 

Tears leak down her cheeks, but Shuu’s placing a blanket overher chest as he helps her out of her jacket, and he’s calling her sweet rose and liebling and he seems more alive than he has in months. And though Karren can’t quite believe it yet, Chie and Matsumae can see it’s because of her.