"Daaaaad!"
"Shh, Ken, come on, just wait for dad to come back, I won't be long."
"Dada, where's mum?" The ghoul Kuzen froze.
"Don't worry about mum Ken, just promise your dad to be quite and stay here." The small white haired boy that Kuzen treasured as his miracle son had small tears in his eyes as he nodded. Kuzen grasped the small boy by the shoulders and was about to say something else, before yelling and footsteps echoed down the tunnel. Kuzen looked fearfully down the passage, where lights from the CCG investigators danced off the slick walls. Kuzen hugged his only son tightly, then ran to head off the pursuers.
Kuzen's gaze hardened as he ran further from his son, closer to danger. He sent a mental command and his Kagune burst from his back, creeping up his body and covering his face, upper body and limbs, spikes forming from his shoulders and across his upper back. He was powerful. He was a Ghoul. He was a Kakuja.
The ghoulish father stopped and stood his ground in the backwater sewer, one of his Kakugan glowing brightly through his Kakuja mask. The group of CCG investigators skidded to a halt in front of their target. Kuzen had chosen the battleground, and they would pay for it.
Kuzen roared and thrust his Kagune forward, crystallised shards of RC cells bursting forth from his back and shoulders and showering the ghoul investigators with deadly blades.
One of the investigators rushed forward, his Quinque deploying and creating a shield for the other investigators. As the flower like shield closed up a man with light blond hair rushed up with a spine-type Quinque, whipping it around as he ran towards the Kakuja. Kuzen parried the strike with one of his right shoulder Kagune and thrust with a left one, stabbing the investigator in the thigh. Immediately, two other investigators rushed past their fallen comrade and attacked with sword Quinques, forcing Kuzen back several steps. With precise blows the Owl incapacitated the woman and smacked the man back towards the group of investigators.
Then a blonde haired woman had stepped forward wielding a Rinkaku type Quinque and barked a order. She attacked with the two tendrils and drove Kuzen back several more meters, forcing him onto the defensive. Other investigators moved to help their wounded comrades, but two were restraining the blond he has stabbed first. The woman in front of Kuzen shouted behind her.
"Retreat Mado! As your senior investigator that's an order! I'll hold him off while you all escape!"
How unfortunate that we are both defending someone. Kuzen thought grimly as he attacked with his shoulder Kagune, pushing the woman back several meters. He would give the other CCG investigators enough time to get out of sight before he would kill her, Kuzen decided. The human and ghoul traded blows back and forth, Kuzen evading all damage but dealing next to none in return.
Then the rest of the CCG were gone. Then Kuzen changed his fighting style from precise stabs to brute force. Then, surprised by the sudden change, the woman caught a blow right in the abdomen, tossing her into a wall. Kuzen stalked towards her on his armoured legs, the woman climbing unsteadily to her feet.
She coughed blood onto her white suit, and Kuzen slammed his Kagune into her again, tossing her to the ground. She lost her Quinque and crashed into the dirty shallow water. Kuzen walked towards her again. She rose to all fours, then shakily to her feet, staring death in the face as he stalked towards her. Kuzen showed no mercy as he plunged his Kagune into the woman's torso, rupturing organs in a blow that was fatal for any human.
She looked down at the Kagune as it was drawn from her body. She didn't even scream as she slowly, almost as if in slow motion, sunk to her knees, blood pouring from the gaping wound in her chest. Her blood stained the water, swirling like some exotic beast as it mixed with the dirty substance. The light left her eyes and she slumped sideways into the tunnel wall, dying in a sewer under Tokyo.
Kuzen sighed as his Kagune dissipated, before turning and running off to pick up Ken. What he found was not Ken however. Not even a single trace. Kuzen sniffed the air, and could tell a human had been here not long ago. The smell was faint however, as the sewer water was washing it away.
Washing away the last traces of his son.
Kuzen, wide eyed and fearful, took off after the scent of his beloved treasure. As he ran though, he knew it was futile. There were too many intersections and junctions, and the father had already lost the scent of of his only other living family to the rushing water that seemed to echo all around him. His desperate running became walking as the ghoul was defeated by putrid sewers under the massive Tokyo city. He slumped to his knees and screamed a scream full of anguish and despair.
Kuzen cried as his scream was multiplied and echoed and thrown back at him by the acoustics of the confined tunnels.
"When will I see mama?" The white haired two-year-old asked the middle aged woman who pulled him by the hand from the stinking sewers.
"Soon, not too long now hun."
"Dad told me to wait for him." The boy complained as he started resisting the woman's pull. "I want to wait for dad!" He dug his heels into the hard concrete and pulled with all his toddler might against the firm grasp of the ageing woman.
"Don't you want to see your mum?" She hissed at the boy, who was still struggling in her grasp.
"Dada said not to worry about mum! I want to see dada!" The boy was now screeching his head off, tearing at the woman's vice like grip on his small arm. "Let go of me!" He screamed. Pain shot down Ken's arm as the woman's grip tightened. She jerked him closer to her and whispered in his ear. They were closer to the surface now, and Ken could hear the sounds of modern day Tokyo.
"Your dad is dead. Your mother was killed by the same people your dad works for. He is a traitorous coward who couldn't even tell the woman he loved who he was! A man like that doesn't deserve to have a child! He doesn't deserve you! I have worked my entire life! Much more so than my stupid sister! I deserve you!" Ken was scared by the woman's outburst and stopped screaming, still teary eyed. The woman took a moment to compose herself. "Ok, so you are coming home with me now. I am your new mum, and you will soon meet your new dad."
Ken stood in his room. He wore threadbare clothes several sizes too small for him and his snow white hair was dirty and oily. His room was bare except for a cast iron bed frame and a very old and thin mattress too small for the frame. That was it for his cold, small room. His 'father' stood before the four year old, a crazed look in his eye.
"Do you know why Rika has to work so much?" The man asked the boy. "She isn't home nearly at all these days because she has to work extra hard. Why does she have to work extra hard? Because some little brat is eating all our food!" The man stepped forward and struck Ken across the face. The four year old fell to the ground holding his cheek, tears welling in his eyes. "Do, you, know, why, she, doesn't, love, me?" He punctuated each word with another strike.
The man straddled the young boy and screamed into his face. "BECAUSE ALL HER LOVE IS USED UP ON YOU!" With that the man stood and slung Ken over his shoulder, carrying him to the back room of their strangely large house…
Where they kept the tools.
"Go on you little fucker. Forage in the garden or something if you hate your mum's food so much. Bastard." The door slammed, leaving Ken bare to the elements in his torn white shorts and an old black T-shirt. Sadly, he was already well past used to this kind of treatment, and started walking towards the 24th Ward.
He was a half ghoul.
Of course he couldn't eat his dreadful mother's cooking. If his mother spent more time at home, or his father was even a tiny bit more observant of the abused son, they would have noticed that as Ken grew older he consumed less food and his body grew stronger. Every day, after forcing human food down Ken's throat, his father would send him outside.
The human food, which was poisonous to Ghouls, acted as a RC Cell sedative, which allowed blades and other normal weapons to hurt the half ghoul. His regeneration was slowed, but Ken's 'father' was not a man of great intellect, or even sense, and didn't know that in normal human's extremities and limbs didn't, in fact, grow back.
So every day, when his 'father' threw him out, Ken would hunt. Or at least try to. It was very rare that the boy actually killed anybody, but Ghouls didn't need to eat as often as humans, and if Ken was really starving, he would find some corpse somewhere and feed on it instead.
And so the half ghoul's life went on in this manner.
Abused by his father,
Ignored by his mother,
Tortured every other day.
On the day of his sixth birthday however, everything changed.
Ken was lying on his back, spread eagle on the scratched and dirty floor of his room when he heard the screeching of the brakes of his father's car. Ken stayed where he was, listening to the sounds of hurried footsteps. There was a crash, and Ken could tell that his father had knocked over a stack of dirty plates in the kitchen. The expensive crockery burst into a million pieces on the hard floor.
Ken's father sprinted into his room like a madman, scooping up Ken on the way to the back room. He dumped Ken on the floor and rushed off. The man returned a moment later with a chair and a length of rope. He slammed Ken into the chair and tied him to it.
"Hey Ken." The man whispered as he walked over to the tool shelf and started searching through the drawers. "I found out why mum can't come home very much. She does work very hard, for you and me. But not just for you and me. Shee seees anotheerr maan. ANOTHER MAN!" The roaring man lifted a massive pair of bolt cutters and a soldering iron, walking over to Ken. "That's why we can afford this house! That's why we never married! That's why she goes on so many business trips, but never brings back any evidence! SHEE LOOVEES ANOTHEERR MAAN!"
The man cut off Ken's lips. The man tore out Ken's fingernails. The man slashed off Ken's fingers and painted Ken's face with his own bloodied digits. The man used the bones from Ken's arm to stab him over and over and over and over and OVER!
The soldering iron was JAMMED into Ken's inner ear.
With such force that it BROKE Ken's skull.
With such heat that it BURNED Ken's bones.
After 49 hours, Ken had symmetrical black burn lines covering his body.
After 50 hours, the marks healed.
After 51 hours, the marks were retraced with the soldering iron.
After 52 hours, the marks faded.
After 53 hours, the marks were retraced.
After 54 hours, the marks almost faded
After 55 hours,the marks were retraced.
After 56 hours, the marks kind of faded
After 57 hours,the marks were retraced.
After 58 hours, the marks barely changed.
After 59 hours,the marks were retraced.
After 60 hours, the marks were permanent.
After 61 hours, Ken broke his bonds.
After 62 hours, Ken's pretend father lay dead and tortured on the floor.
After 62 hours, Ken sat down in the house's foyer and waited.
Ken waited for his pretend mother. Ken waited for mam. Ken waited for the woman who took him from the father he doesn't even remember. Ken waited for the woman who brought him to hell with a firm grip and a stern word. Ken waited for the woman he HATED.
So the internet's out at my house, so what is there to do but write fanfiction, right?