When Kaneki Ken woke up for the second time, it was not in a hospital bed, but on the ground sandwiched between two blankets, a achingly-familiar cloth roof over his head. The sound of horse hooves and phantom-like voices calling to one another outside the tent is enough curiosity for the tired teen to stand up, every part of his body aching in protest to the movement. The thin brown cloth that made up his shirt and pants strangely pocketed with holes does little to keep out the cold or stares as he steps outside. The faces that he would know in any dream staring at him with expressions of disbelief, mild amusement, grins wide as the swords they wielded, or in the case of the man with white hair that flowed around him in small curls mounting his white horse, a simple smile that could not quite fully hide the flicker of surprise on his face when Kaneki had exited the tent. Kaneki walks within earshot and stands there, an ache in his heart as he knows these people, has fought alongside them, knows their past strengths and weaknesses and yet there was the voice in his head hissing "Will you lose these friends too?".
"Reporting for battle, Commander Griffith." He rasps, the trail of a hiss fading off his tongue.
"You're awake I see." Griffith states as he trots his horse forward, armor shining on both mount and man. The assessing gaze of the commander of his battalion, The Band of the Hawks, sweeps over him with the familiar cold gaze of death from his dream, Reaper a voice whispers, yet Kaneki stands firm, unwavering before Griffith. Whatever Griffith sees must be good, as he gives a nod towards Kaneki before saying "Go and put on your armor, if it still fits. Report to Commander Guts in the field when you're ready to earn your keep once more."
Kaneki turns back to the tent, the soft whisper of "Welcome home, Kaneki." not quite drowned out by the lowering of the tent flap. He puts on his smooth chain-mail armor, rolls his shoulders a bit under the few plates of metal he has over the chain-mail, and raises the ghostly-familiar no-roof helmet with sharp spiked fangs in the mouth piece, giving him a monster-like appearance with a one-piece-hole slit for his eyes.
"Yeah," he says to himself as he picks up his knife pack and blade, half familiar weights at his waist and side when he puts them on. "Its good to be home again."
The stench of blood, the terrified wails and screams of dying; fighting men, the squelch of a exposed intestine under his foot as he cleaves through yet another body, all of the horrors of battle were so familiar that it was almost as if the 'dream' had never occurred in the first place.
A dream… he thinks to himself as he wipes sweat from his forehead with an arm lightly splattered with blood where the red liquid had soaked between the metal and into the cloth underneath. A dream of a different life, a life where his mother beat him with her hands and not a stick or stone, a dream where monsters were the stuff of fairytales and nightmares or appeared human enough to walk around mankind for a bite or two before hiding back underground, or in his case, in plain sight. A dream in which he lived the life of a aristocrat that he had always wanted as a kid but would never achieve due to his status… a life of tragedy within its own context, a life of uneasy but stable peace by his reality.
For a dream, it certainly felt real, he muses to himself as he gazes across the bloodstained grass before taking off his gore-splattered and newly-chipped helmet with a sigh. The memories of his reality, the time before his mother beat him with her hands were still there in his head, but foggy and easy to slip away into the recesses of his mind. Brawling with Rickert, singing off key with Pippin and Corkus around the roaring campfire, sharing a drink or a dozen of them with Casca and the others, sparing with and more often fighting alongside Guts in numerous battles, and talking tactics and philosophy with Griffith late into the many nights he had spent with the Band of the Hawks.
He tells those who are still awake after the victory party, during the second, much smaller party for him finally waking up after a near one-year sleep about his 'dream', his second life. The things he knows they won't be able to understand he leaves out, like cars, coffee machines, and the strange auto-opening suitcases the ghoul investigator's used. Kaneki weaves a tale set in a peaceful world, a world full of towering castles of glass, a world where everyone is treated equal and anyone can become as rich as a king and own a large amount of land under a company name. A world that was still dark, full of human eating monsters, a world that he had almost died in, as his tale comes to a close. During his tale, Griffith is silent in his thoughts and expressions as he listens, Guts silently tells Kaneki his thoughts with a approving nod, a disappointed shake, or a single question that Kaneki replies with a single sentence answer of his own woven into the story. Casca sits close to Griffith on a crate, her chin cupped in her hands with a half-empty mug next to her, the raising and narrowing of her tired yet attentive eyes the only sign she was listening. Not quit fully asleep yet, Rickert mummer's questions or comments of his own from where he sat on the grass leaning into a softly snoring Pippin, his eyes fully closing when Griffith speaks after a few minutes of just absorbing the tale with the popping of the dying fire and the noises of his sleeping companions.
"Kaneki, regardless of what you became in your dream, you're still one of us, a warrior underneath our flag. And anyone who says otherwise is undeserving to fight alongside you or myself."
The grey-eyed dreamer sits with his head bowed in silence and gratitude at Griffith's words, then his left eye throbs in pain, and Kaneki's hand goes up to cover it and to wipe the tears willing up in both eyes. Kaneki raises his head, the words of thanks at Griffiths words and by extension the others support logged in his throat as he receives a very different reaction than the one Griffith's word's portrayed. Casca was on her feet, her sword halfway drawn out of its sheath, the mug rolling in the grass from being knocked over in her haste. Guts had gone stiff as a blade, an open look of shocked disbelief mixed with amazement on his pale face. Griffith merely warmly smiles at Kaneki, and asks in an even voice that had not a drop of surprise or amusement "Kaneki… can a kagune cut through the toughest armor or castle door?"
It was agreed within the next fifteen minutes during the ensuing hisses in his head and small mead-filled cries of anger and shock that Kaneki's reacquired identity as a half ghoul would be kept a secret between himself, Griffith, Casca, and Guts from the rest of the Band of the Hawks and the world itself.
It was ironic really, how swiftly that plan had shattered when they had encountered Nosferatu Zodd no less than a few months' latter, Kaneki having activated his ghoul powers to save the lone surviving solider from the monster. That solider still died later that night from a fatal arrow wound to his back, but not before accepting and thanking Kaneki, stating that more monsters like Zodd might show up, and that they needed him to help defend the other members of the Hawks. Thus the man's dying words drew a few more members into the knowing group. The others who heard the rumors but had not seen what had occurred stare at him with a bit of fear and muttering about his name on the battlefield, "Black Reaper"; which had changed to "Soul Reaper" in the few months since waking up because of his ghostly appearance with the change of his hair-color and the pallor of his skin.
That same name would change to "Angelic Reaper" among members of the Hawk as Midland's army surrounds them time and time again, Griffith long lost before the king's mad rage. More time passes Kaneki as he sits there in the dying firelight, tired to the point of exhaustion and desperately wishing for a ripe coffee tree. He hears the ghostly footsteps before the phantom of his dream appears next to him, sitting on the log next to him with a annoyed tch before speaking. "You're doing good, protecting the humans here, shitty-kaneki." Kaneki barley smiles at Nishiki's jab, the faint scent of coffee tickling his nose as the ghost takes a sip from the can in his solid hand. "You really should get some rest, you're going to do a shit worth of good half-asleep, idiot." Kaneki nods his head, his eyes already drooping as he falls back into the pile of blankets someone, possibly Pippin or Rickert had left there for him to sleep on.
"Night, Nishiki." He mummers before fading into the land of sleep, a small vocal huff and the fading coffee scent being the only things that follow him in reply.
The half ghoul brings up the rear of the rescue team that ascends the winding staircase, darkness and shadows ahead and below. He hears it, a soft whisper in a feminine voice calling his name from behind him, and the scramble of insect – centipede – a cold male voice whispers; feet up ahead. Kaneki turns around, the torch light throwing what little light it can for his enhanced eyes to see into the cold seeping shadows that follow him wherever he goes. He hears the sudden stop of the group, and princess Charlotte asking him in a quiet almost-worried voice directly behind him, "Is something wrong, Sir Kaneki?" Slowly he turns to face the group, each wearing a expression of worry, determination, and some fear not quite fully hidden underneath their warry faces.
"No, your majesty," Kaneki mummers politely, his gaze returning to the spot just beyond his torches light, where he could have sworn a woman's face with light-purple hair, almost-hauntingly-familiar unhuman eyes glowing neon-red in the darkness, and the faint reflection of blood-splatters on her pale skin on her cheeks and above the lips had been just a moment before. But there was nothing there, only the soft even breaths of the group and the crackle of the torch light all that remained in the echoing silence. "it was nothing… let's move on." Kaneki states as he takes a step forward, Guts and Casca in the lead doing so as well after a moment more of staring at him with pitiful gazes that pierced his soul and heart.
Kaneki stands there in a sea of blood and corpses, the manager standing on a section of the rising pile of monstrous flesh and blobs. With a lump in his throat, Kaneki charges after him, Guts, and Griffith, but there is nothing to be found except death and the familiar acidic taste of despair, as he watches his comrades be eaten and slaughtered by the monsters. Where is Casca? His heart thumps out, and Kaneki spots her, holding a dying Judeau as the monsters slowly surround them. Kaneki leaps down, kagune slashing through the beasts as he fights his way to them and then protects Casca and the corpse of his comrade. But it's not enough, it's never enough. There were too many monsters, and then Griffith descends, simply slashing both of Kaneki's hands off at the wrists and then his feet at the ankles. Kaneki watches with blood-stained tearing eyes as Casca is violated by the beasts and Griffith, her cries and Guts angry screams of agonized rage reminding him that he has failed once more. His consciousness fades as something picks him up, and the cries of pain suddenly cease and a warm wind touches his face, carrying what smells to be hamburgers on it. Mom? He thinks before he drifts off to sleep… a bony leg of the unknown rider against the horse he had been slug upon being the last thing he sees…
Kaneki looks behind him before going after Casca, the image of a young girl with a orange sweater and brown hair over imposing Rickert for a split second, the words "Come home, oni-chan." Echoing after Rickert's "Come back with Casca and Guts soon Kaneki, we'll be waiting for you…"
"Yeah," Kaneki whispers softly to himself as he enters the leaf-bare forest, the darkening shadows weaving around him and the trees in the orange glow of the sunset. "I will."
It's no more than a month later that Kaneki hears the eerie trills of laughter from a certain purple-haired ghost that wears a crescent-shaped mask, dancing madly upon the top of the closed-hand-shaped tower. When he reaches the top of the tower with an unharmed Casca wrapped in his kagune, the only ones waiting for him are Guts and the others, no Tsukiyama in sight.
He listens to a familiar laughter and sees the bright flash of yellow that rivals the fire before him out of the corner of his eyes; the smile on the face he briefly sees when he turns to face the speaker making his chest hurt and puts a copying smile on his own face. Hide's voice is still there in his head even though the ghost is gone from his vision, as his friend remarks "Rickert just re-invented the fire hydrant!" with another infectious peal of laughter.
"Just because I believe what I dreamt of was the future does not mean that the fire hydrant has been 'invented' a second time, Hide." Kaneki chuckles with a shake of his head before jumping down from the roof to help his friend and the group of medieval firefighters-turned-pyromaniacs out…
He hears the whistling in the wind of the arrows flying through the air towards the sea-monster that had eaten Guts, but sees red crystals instead of bolts barely pierce the monster's hide. The half-ghoul turns his head back to the ship, his kagune digging deep into the side of the island-sized sea beast like an anchor. The two people he sees standing among the group that had remained on the ship, their neon-red ghoul eyes flashing dimly in comparison to the fiery wings extending from their shoulders in the sunlight, looked as if they belonged there on the ship of misfits. Thanks for the help, Touka, Ayato-kun. Kaneki thinks as the beast heaves upward and beings to sink with him still attached, his kagune detaching from it in a dissipation of dark crimson bubbles. The mermaids help him return to the ship, where he waits with the others for Guts's return, phantoms non-existent.
Kaneki stood there, watching as Puck wails along with the kid tied up in vines by the witches. He smiles, because it feels right, peaceful even, in a world so wrong and full of pain and suffering that it made Jason's torture look like a pin prick of a needle, and his dream like the ache of a tooth for all it affected him. Even though this world was also wrong in its own accord, perhaps he would succeed in making it better this time, as he has friends that have his back while he has their own, that stick together regardless of the storm or foe. Maybe this time with friends by his side, Kaneki can finally make a place to call home… or perhaps I've already found it. the sacrifice thinks to himself as he catches a rare smile on Guts face, the others wearing similar expressions of exasperation or amusement at the comedic duo.
Kaneki travels on with the group on many adventures, as he has finally found, and for the last time; returned home.