Rising.
Rising.
Rising.
That was the first thing Kaneki felt, surrounded by water. Or, what he presumed to be water, but it felt thicker. Infinitely thicker.
And dark. Oh so, so dark.
Kaneki couldn't move at first. He was in the mid-way point between consciousness and oblivion, his awareness waking up before his body, causing momentary panic that made Kaneki think he was dying.
dying
Was.
Was he dead?
Was this what hell felt like? Not hellfire and damnation, but eternal purgatory, forever alone with your thoughts? Those dark, horrible thoughts swirling inside every man's mind. Anger, love, sadness, hatred, fear, and regret.
Kaneki had a lot of the latter to fill an eternity with. At least he wouldn't be bored.
It felt like an eternity before he could even open his eyes. The darkness wasn't just in his mind either - it surrounded him. There was no definable scenery around him, only empty, endless darkness. Occasionally, he'd feel something close to him breeze by like a train, but aside from that there was nothing here.
Nothing at all.
Despite this, he continued to rise.
And rise.
And rise.
Rising.
Rising.
Why was he rising?
Where was he rising too?
And most importantly-
Why did this place feel so homely?
Why did it feel so
so
so motherly?
(like a womb)
womb yes
birth
was this what birth felt like?
Yes, it must have - this is what birth felt like. He felt himself ever rising to the surface in the dark endless abyss. He looked up, and he saw -
He coiled back. The light, the light was too bright
too fucking bright
why was it so bright?
BRIGHT
Breathe.
Breathe you idiot.
Fucking breathe.
Kaneki breathed newfound air - fresh, fresh air. They filled his lungs. As they entered he felt empty - empty of everything. Empty of air, empty of blood, empty of life. Now, as the air sustained his bodily functions, he began to feel a little lively again.
But only a little.
The first thing that hit him was the cold. Kaneki had experienced the cold before. Tokyo wasn't exactly California or Texas in climate, but he had never felt so cold and abandoned before. Like he had been ejected from the world he knew into some foreign landscape, with no one to depend on, without a single friendly face.
A running theme, he thought.
He felt sludge of some sort on him, but it was quickly evaporating. Like the measly temperature of this place was enough to make it reach its boiling point.
His body was still mostly asleep, but at least he could see.
Although, what he saw wasn't exactly relaxing.
Darkness.
Of course it had to be fucking darkness. Although, not as dark as the the womb he came from.
But there was more - buildings. Well, 'buildings' was a little too nice, as they implied something complete or whole. These were anything but. Their steel (?) skeletons jutted out in the darkness, strewn across the landscape, crushing dozens of tinier living spaces. Many roads had been crushed by the falling buildings, and what few weren't had cracked and broken up long ago. The only thing that resembled a completed structure was what looked like a bullet train, but even it seemed older - like something out of a picture of early 1900s New York City.
Wherever he was, he wasn't in Tokyo anymore.
Not by a fucking long shot.
Oh good, yes, he could feel his legs again, even though they felt like noodles.
Kaneki forced himself to his feet. He felt a sense of unease - similar to how a newborn deer, despite knowing from birth how to walk, was unsure of itself.
He turned around ever so slowly to look back at the closest thing he had to a mother in almost a decade. It was darker than dark. This darkness was the complete inverse of light - like it was no longer just the absence of light, but the absence of the possibility of light. It probably wasn't even a pond of darkness, but a void. A liquid void from which nothing and everything came from.
He turned and looked around. He was near a road.
But a road to where?
Kaneki's eye trailed the winding, broken road to see a small vault door. Despite having two long thick blades pierce his eyes mear moments ago (in Kaneki's view, anyway) he could see with the same vision he had always had.
He had never begged for his eyes to be bad more in his life than at this moment, because he was scarily sure that he saw claw marks covering the vault door.
Large, thick claw marks the size of his body.
Kaneki felt the hairs on his body stand on end.
Wherever he was, he needed to get out. He couldn't stay down in this...underground city? Vault? Something out of a post apocalyptic novel, or a failed utopia? He didn't know - all he knew was, is that something was here, and it would give the ghouls of the 24th ward a run for their money.
But first, he needed to find some clothing. Kaneki really didn't want his nether regions to be the first introduction to any potential survivors down here.
Wandering
Wandering
Wandering
How long had it been since he started wandering?
Minutes?
Hours?
Days?
YEARS?
Kaneki couldn't have kept track. He just wandered. He wandered a long time in this labyrinth of broken buildings, smashed and crumbled against one another. Some looked like residential buildings, others business, others service. He kept looking for a exit, but nothing. Nothing but destroyed ruins, all scarred with the remains of human occupation.
During his travel down here, he saw what looked like a school. For children, no doubt. He looked through the abandoned hallways, coming and going from individual classrooms. Desks and chairs strewn across the place, some piled in front of classrooms and windows to prevent some unknown beast from crashing in, bullet cases and broken, rusted weaponry laying around every corner. Some rooms had signs made from cheap plastic and paper with signs like:
"Love your Neighbor!" "Fanus are people too!" "How many cookies?"
He saw a flag on the wall, fully green and covered in various axes.
Then the smell came.
That god awful smell.
Kaneki knew what it was, but he hoped to whatever God that existed that it wasn't what he thought it was.
The door was locked. That set off alarm bells in Kaneki's mind - it wasn't the monsters, most likely.
Who else could have done it then?
Actually, don't answer that question. The answer makes it worse.
Kaneki forced the door open. His condition had improved over the past couple of days, even if he remain somewhat hungry.
He forced it open.
Splatters. Dark, dried splatters all over the wall. Dozens of small body bags, and an adult with a pistol in their hand.
The adult didn't take their own life - there was simply not enough ammunition.
Sleep was the worst part of it all. Not out of it being difficult, he had learned to sleep in unusual places while on his journey to destroy Aogiri tree. No, what made it hard was the deafening silence and loneliness.
And loneliness leads to contemplation.
Contemplation leads to regret.
Kaneki knew that regret was the thing he needed least at this moment - if he did that, he would be fucking dead. He would breakdown, and he knew it. There was only so much he could take before his entire mind shut down on itself. He would see all his friend's - Touka, Hinami, Koma, Nishiki, Irimi, Yomo, all of them.
hide
He would see their faces gouged out by the CCG, their bodies, limplessly swaying back and forth in the back of some transportation truck to be used and harvested by as weapons. That's all they were, weapons.
But he couldn't think of that. He couldn't do that - he couldn't become what he was before. Doing something stupid wouldn't help anyone, and cause unjustified harm on innocent people.
weakling
(that's all you are)
He pushed those thoughts out.
But they always seemed to slip back in
weakling
stop rejecting us
ME
Kaneki would countdown from 1000 by 7.
Kaneki found the ladder while searching for clothing.
He was tired of feeling air in a place air shouldn't be allowed to freely pass when he found the ladder to the surface. It was small, it could probably barely fit him, but damnit if he wasn't going to try.
It was in that long crawl to the surface that he learned how long he had gone without sunlight. The cover at the top shined small bright spots of light, most likely the sun setting, but even this tiny sliver of light was enough to burn his eyes to make them water. God, he was really wishing he found some clothing right about now, specifically pants and sunglasses - then he might have avoided this fucking bullsh -
Reached.
Stretching.
Touch.
Lift.
Screaming.
Walking.
Walking.
Walking.
More walking.
More destroyed buildings.
More broken roads.
At least this time there were monsters, at least.
It took time for him to get used to the bright light. For the first couple hours, he felt totally blinded by it. He had to keep his hand in front of his face at all time, lest his eyes be fried to bits. He had to look at the ground for the first day, before his eyes could get used to it. He spent, what, the past couple days underground? Maybe a week? Two? Who really knew, what few clocks he found underground were crushed.
So he wandered in one direction for a while, staring at the (somewhat) more intact road.
Kaneki slept in a dilapidated building, praying that it wouldn't crush him under it. His body had already performed one miracle of regeneration, he wasn't willing to test it again. Rinkaku's could perform miracles of that feat maybe once or twice, so it was best not to gamble.
The next morning, his eyes adjusted much better. The buildings up here were more intact, yes, but still destroyed. But this was different. It was almost like they were destroyed by something, and not just by general decay.
Then he saw the demon.
The smell was the first thing he noticed. It smelled
unearthly
like a combination of death and decay
mixed together with
human flesh?
flesh
(so hungry)
yes kaneki eat
aren't you hungry?
Yes I'm hungry, Yes fuck yes I'm starving - famished even.
eat
(eat them alive)
feed
Kaneki picked up the pace, running across multiple corners, feeling the hunger within him rise up. God, he just really wanted it. He could imagine the taste of it - each person he ate before had a distinct taste, something that made it unique in its own little way. Sometimes they'd taste sweeter, sometimes they'd taste more bitter, others more meaty and good god his mouth was watering at the pure thought of pressing his teeth into the tender flesh of some corpse yes yes it was a corpse no doubt, what else could explain the stench of death? He wouldn't be killing another person, he'd just eat the corpse God it had been so long it felt like two fucking months at this point, and for all he knew it was two months come on come on come on so hungry let me feed -
Kaneki turned the corner.
The beast whose skin was darker than dark stared him in the eye.
Bone marrow across its back.
Red eyes.
Half destroyed human corpse in its mouth
fresh blood on the ground and
(that fucker stole your kill)
(TOOK it)
(rip it apart)
(rip it apart like you ripped apart Jason)
Drool still dripped from Kaneki's mouth - it was fine that some monster took part, as long as he didn't mind sharing -
crack
right?
It had been two years since Vajo graduated from the Beacon Huntsman academy, and in those two years he realized that half the shit they taught you in school didn't matter much, even in the academies. The only thing you had to rely on were your instincts and abilities in this world.
And friends. Friends were also good, especially if you didn't have the former.
Him and Smo, a former teammate from Beacon, were on a simple mission to take care of a Grimm infestation somewhere near a farming village out of the ways - they have been paid half the money upfront, and promised the second half on completion. The village lost their hunter on the same mission, so they hired two hunters just to be safe.
"For a farming village, they sure do have a bunch of money," Smo commented, grinning as she counted the money.
"Probably pulled their money together - desperation and all that."
"Heh, maybe. Maybe they're running a goldmine - you know the Council usually does that, running secret mining towns outside the walls and undercharging huntsman 'cause they think it's a small priority."
"If you think that's undercharging, you've been spending too much time hanging around Atlas."
"Well, you know what I mean - by the standards of a farming village it's too damn high. It's like what Tulip used to say about farmers: they're always trying to over or undercharge you, mostly cause they're so stupid - did I ever tell you that Atlas mostly relies on genetically grown meat? I think I did, possibly and -"
While he tuned her out during her ramble sessions, he thought about that name - Tulip. It had been, shit, a year since she died? Year and a half? God, it was so recent, so fresh. He remembered the funeral well. The casket covered in beautiful (what else?) Tulips, people crying over her, her mother having to be pried away from the body.
Well, casket rather. Her body had been ripped apart by a Nevermore, so they had to have a closed casket funeral.
Vaja wondered if maybe he'll have a closed casket funeral.
Vaja took his binoculars and looked through the destroyed ruins of Mountain Glenn - it had been a beautiful city at one point, but nature and the Grimm took it over. He heard the horror stories from the survivors. Not everyone got out in the first wave of attacks, many trapped above and underground. Not all the children got out of the school. He hoped those poor bastards got out fa-
What the hell?
Is.
Is that a kid?
Smo looked at this.
She stopped her ramblings, took the binoculars, and stared through them at the kid.
"Holy shit, is - is he a survivor? And - and why is he naked?"
"I don't know, but we got-"
"Anddddd he's staring a Grimm down."
"What?!"
Vaja swiped them and looked back down, seeing the kid taking an attacking position against the Ursa triple his size. The Ursa had - God good, a corpse in its mouth. It spat it out, probably landing with a giant thud on the ground and God Vaja you never got used to this did you?
The Ursa began to charge, raising its claws into the air and -
It felt so good for Kaneki's kagune to finally have some breathing room. It wasn't healthy to keep it in for so long like this, and he needed practice as well as the food.
A tendril shot out of his back piercing the bone mask of the creature, snapping and cracking into a thousand tiny pieces. The creature reeled, screaming in agony as its major source of defense had been smashed to a thousand pieces.
It was Kaneki's turn.
He charged, jumping into the air, and within a split second he was right behind the screaming, bear like creature. He fused his tendrils together, forcing them into one giant appendage, and stabbed them into the creatures back, which was also covered in bone. And, just like its bone mask, it smashed into a thousand pieces, and it pierced through the whole thing.
He lifted it into the air, completely in its shadow. His tendrils began to fizzle apart, becoming four again, and as this happened the body stretched and morphed until the flesh of the thing began to tear and rip and oh god yes it didn't digest yet yes
A half eaten corpse fell from the body and
still fresh yes yes fresh fresh yes
Kaneki dropped to his knees and began eating.
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Did. Did you just see what I saw?"
"Yes."
"I. I think I'm gonna throw up."
"Fuck the money man, I'm not going up against that. Is it even human Vaja? Is this a new Grimm species or some shit?"
"We gotta tell Ozpin."
"We have to tell Ozpin, Jesus Christ."