AN: Why not?
Warnings: GORE AND VIOLENCE, eventual slash, bottom but not submissive Harry, AU, basically anything you can imagine taking place in Tokyo Ghoul, misuse of Kagune (if you know what I mean), eventual possessive!Kaneki.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
The first memory Harry had was his mother's shocked face when he proudly showed her the meal he had caught, her green eyes had widened in horror and her skin had paled as if she were seeing something truly frightening.
He could still remember her frightened scream that cut through the night and echoed down their alley way.
"We do not eat humans Harry," She had explained after calming down and throwing their meal in the dumpster. "It's wrong."
He could only cock his head to the side and study her curiously, watching as she flinched and turned her gaze downward submissively. Unlike him she didn't find the smell of humans mouthwatering, she spoke of not wanting to hurt someone instead, saying they'd be fine with the stray dogs and cats they managed to come across. Even then though, her eyes always tightened when she delivered the killing blow, as if physically hurt by harming the animals.
He didn't understand.
Unlike those who prowled the streets his mother was different, she cared about what humans felt and went out of her way to avoid them. He could see that their scent affected her just as it did him yet she forced herself to swallow the vile meat that came off the animals.
She was weak. Instead of following her instincts she rebelled against them which caused a war within her body. It made her eyes dull with hunger and bones fragile, as the years passed he saw her grow frail and breath come in harsh pants. She was in pain, even walking was a chore for her yet she insisted on sticking to her ideals with a fiery determination he couldn't help but respect.
Though her body was suffering, her eyes shone with the will to live.
He was sure if she ate humans like the rest of them she'd be a force to be reckoned with, her fiery red hair would shine and her green eyes would alight with life. If only...
"I refuse to eat them because it is not my place to take a life," She had murmured when he once again asked her why. "we have no right to be selfish and take another's life, they should be able to live happily like they were destined to."
Noble is what humans would call her but his kind saw her as pathetic and weak minded. Her Kagune couldn't even form thanks to her eating habits and that made her easy prey to those who had a unique taste.
At age six he killed for the first time.
One of their kind decided his mother was going to be their next meal and set to attacking her with intentions to consume her flesh.
Though he wasn't particularly fond of her habits he didn't hesitate to step in the way of the other Ghouls path. She was only person he had in the world, and he wouldn't allow some lowlife to so much as touch her.
His felt the familiar burning sensation in his eyes and willed the energy within him to grow. Heat spread through his veins, setting his blood on fire and pure energy crackled across his skin. The Ghoul's eyes had widened in fear and shock as his Kagune spread out pulsing like a live flame and waving dangerously behind his smaller form.
"At such a young age-?!"
Harry felt no remorse as he tore the body apart, teeth bared threateningly and eyes narrowed in a dark glare. Red rain fell onto him and his mothers forms, decorating the stone walls and filthy concrete ground as the lifeless limbs fell to the earth with a sickening splat.
He didn't bother looking at his mother, he already knew what her face would show. Terror and disgust as if she couldn't believe he acted in such a way. Instead he allowed his Kagune to disperse and walked away not wanting to hear the thrumming of her heart and smell the fear rolling off her in waves.
Ghouls. Monsters who disguise themselves as their prey as means to seduce them into security.
He was familiar with the way people saw his kind, he had grown up in the streets watching as the humans started to slowly disappear until none were left. On a daily basis he would spot a Ghoul, clothes ripped and stained with the blood of it's prey as it tore viciously into the corpse.
Greed, hunger, despair.
The streets they lived on were filled with crazed beings, ones that attacked anything that smelled the slightest bit attractive, and gangs full of powerful Ghouls. He had heard of peace, listened to the stories of districts that didn't have to live in fear of being killed while sleeping, but never allowed himself to want it. Yearning for the impossible would only distract him from surviving.
He had long since forgotten happiness, and stopped wondering what peace would feel like.
Rumors started to spread when he was eight, of a young Ghoul with incredible power. They whispered that the Ghoul mastered his Kagune at the mere age of six and had successfully killed fifty Ghouls within three months.
Prodigious some murmured he was destined for great things, dangerous others hissed he was surely going to kill them all.
Troublesome was what he thought, Harry wasn't one for attention. He stuck to the dark alleyways instead of coming out in the open, there were far too many dangers for him to be comfortable with walking around in an open space. He didn't see himself as powerful, not when he compared his meager skills to those of No Face and Raven, a quick learner perhaps but nothing more.
As for the deaths by his hands, well his mother certainly wasn't going to protect herself.
No matter how many years passed she still refused to touch flesh and flinched away from the scent of blood but he kept trying. Hoping she would realize that her body wouldn't survive much longer with her strict diet she forced on it. Her strange morals kept on getting in the way though and he could only watch as her unnaturally skinny arms wrapped around her body in an attempt to keep herself warm.
Ghouls weren't really affected by the weather, perhaps one would be chilled if they ended up in a raging snow storm but otherwise they weren't bothered. The fact that she was cold during summer just proved that her body wasn't going to last much longer.
He wouldn't be able to smell the comforting scent of lilies anymore and would wake up alone in their run-down trash dump of a home.
Harry didn't allow the desperation to show though, he was well practiced with hiding his emotions and simply ignored the painful clenching of his heart at the thought she was going to...disappear.
He had experienced the pain of a Kagune stabbing into his flesh and heard the screams of his victims as he tore them to pieces, but never had he felt loneliness or loss.
Despite being weakened his mother's eyes never dimmed, and though she shied away from him when he came home covered in blood she never hated him. Her hands felt warm as she would tug him close so he could hear the rhythmic beating of her heart, and she'd apologize continuously as if it was her fault they were in this situation.
"I'm so sorry I brought us here Harry, I never even imagined such a place like this existed. I'm so sorry."
Harry never understood why she apologized or what it meant, where else could they have been but here? Surely the knowledge of Ghouls had been around for much longer then he was alive, so how did she not know? She herself was a Ghoul, how was it possible she wasn't aware of them existing?
He never questioned her ramblings and simply slipped out of her hold before going out to patrol their small piece of territory.
One week, three days and five hours later he looked down at a corpse with red hair and dull green eyes. His eyes scanned it for even a hint of life and when there was nothing he found himself straining to hear the familiar drumming of her heart again.
It was the first time someone lay dead at his feet without being killed by his own hand.
Something warm trailed from his eyes and ran down his cheek followed by another and another he couldn't seem to control. His mother had cried many times when she thought he wasn't around, and he had watched emotionlessly as she curled into herself and murmured the name James over and over again. Another sign of weakness that only served to weaken your mind and expose yourself to the world, yet here he was doing the exact thing over a woman who couldn't accept herself.
Truly life was fleeting and merciless.
He left after three hours and didn't turn back, thoughts raced through his mind and he fought to regain control over them. They raged in his mind like a hurricane, screaming in denial and threatening to break his practiced control.
Why? He had protected her endlessly and brought her the disgusting food she wanted. Why did she leave him? She had been fragile and unable to provide for them yet he stayed and watched over her, killed to make sure she'd continue to live. WHY?!
"Hey kid are you okay-?"
His eyes burned and fire raged through his veins, he snapped his head toward the other Ghoul and fell to the ground in a crouch. His Kagune exploded out, shredding his shirt to weave wildly behind him. He wanted the pain to stop-
-makeitstopIdon'twanttofeelthisway!-
-she had left him alone in this hell hole of a world without any idea of who he was or what he should accomplish. He was stuck here, forced to endlessly struggle to survive without rest and she just left.
-pleasedon'tleavemealone-
The other Ghouls Kagune snapped out in an attempt to protect himself but Harry hardly cared, he couldn't find it in himself to focus on anything but his mothers death and the overwhelming loneliness that crashed down on him.
Why did it hurt so much?
He easily evaded the other Kagune effortlessly and tore into the mans flesh, a crazed growl escaping him as he continued to stab the man over and over again. The mans screams and wails were muted to his ears as the image of his mothers corpse burned itself into his mind. He needed to think of something else anything that would make him finally become normal and stop the tears from falling down his face.
What was he supposed to do now? Where could he go?
Only when the corpse no longer looked like a human being did Harry stop his attacks and allow himself to breath. He struggled to inhale and exhale and his fingers shook uncontrollably as he stared unseeingly at the ground.
He closed his eyes and took a deep shuddering breath, he rebuilt his walls enforcing them and locking the chaotic and painful feelings away behind them. He stood up slowly, hair dripping with blood and straightened his shoulders. Exhaling he opened his eyes again and looked down at the bloody mess he caused.
"We have no right to be selfish and take another's life, they should be able to live happily like they were destined to."
Snorting Harry turned and walked away not quite sure where he was heading, he supposed straight was good as he'd get until he came up with a new idea.
A few years of randomly traveling the wards while dealing with any Ghouls who got in his way Harry came upon a rather interesting girl in the 6th ward, one with purple hair and eyes that made the hair on his arms stand up. Though appearing the same age as he was, fourteen, he could sense the danger rolling off of her in waves. Instead of being intimated he simply watched her, analyzing her movements and estimating her power.
She watched him back, eyes intent as she seemed to do the same thing he was doing. They stayed still for a moment, the atmosphere tense and strained as they stared each other down.
His eyes narrowed as her lips slid into what he assumed was supposed to be an attractive smile. Far from interested in woman he simply closed his eyes and turned away, ignoring her giggle as he started to move once again. He wasn't afraid to show her his back, and made sure she knew it by stuffing his hands in his pockets and rolling his shoulders.
"A pleasure to finally meet you Hound."
He allowed his lips to tilt up slightly. The pleasure is mine, Binge Eater.
Relatively new to the scene the so called, 'Sayuri Mori' was already well known as the Binge Eater among the Ghouls. Age really didn't matter when one was a Ghoul so he wasn't too surprised she already made a name for herself, one had to become powerful to survive which only attracted more potential enemies attentions your way. Much like himself Kimiko was ruthless and calculating but that was where the similarities ended.
While he ate out of necessity she ate out of greed and the pleasure she got out of killing her victims. Though he'd never follow his mothers ideals Harry had somehow inherited the idea that needlessly killing wasn't something he should take delight in from her. It irritated him that she still affected his life choices.
Pushing her out of his mind Harry headed toward the place where he settled for the moment. Though the 6th ward wasn't peaceful it was a great deal more survivable then his birth place, though few in number there was actually humans walking around. Their presence constantly tested his control but at the same time allowed him to observe what being normal was like.
They were clumsy, loud and sometimes brash but something about them sparked his interest. The way they could walk around without fearing the Doves would attack them and just live life to the fullest was so different then what he was used to seeing. He couldn't begin to understand how they could smile so freely and let their guard down even with the knowledge that his kind was prowling around the streets.
Perhaps the Doves allowed them to feel secure and protected? Harry didn't know and didn't want to waste his time wondering about a species that had nothing to do with him.
Yet he stayed in the 6th ward to observe them and watch as they ate odd foods he hadn't even seen before. He wondered what cake would taste like, how it felt to sip at tea during a cold morning and snack on chips on his way to work. They were frivolous thoughts that continued to plague his mind constantly even when he tried his hardest to focus on more important things.
He supposed that where his mother's influence once again decided to affect him. Even when she was gone he'd never be able to be rid of the memories he had of her.
Three months later he bumped into the Binge Eater again, and this time he wasn't able to get rid of her.
AN: For those of you who are wondering that is Rize, but as hinted in Manga she changes her name a lot so right then she went as Sayuri. Also this is posted in AO3 under Cloud_Gazer though they aren't any different, both are going to be dark and gory.
Anyways tell me what you think and I apologize for any mistakes.