Chapter 1: Cobarde

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

"Attention fourth ward. Convict to be released in five minutes. Hachiro Maeda. Thirty-seven years old. Seven counts of child molestation. Possession of child pornography. Attempted kidnapping. Guilty on all charges. Sentenced to the fourth ward. Thank you for your cooperation." The static filled voice blared through the speakers. A pleasant sounding women. The voice could be heard all across the fourth ward, at each corner stop. Kaneki shuddered. Did these women they hired understand what happened to the convicted dumped here?

Kaneki quickly ducked under the awning of a nearby shop. Ghouls were going to be rushing to his location, to the ward center. Most to participate, some, like him, to watch.

But by staying here, just out of the way yet still in the center, people could be safe. No one tried anything in the center. There were cameras, right next to the speakers, something the rest of the ward lacked. They pointed dutifully and silently at all and everything in the center. For that reason, many people flocked here during the daylight hours. Having a home near the center was ideal. Kaneki wasn't so lucky. But his mother always urged him to stay here, to spend as much as his time here as he could. But his mother would never come with him, instead she would stay behind in their tiny little apartment sewing or stitching- any small work she could get her hands on.

A small part of Kaneki wondered if she insisted he spend his days in the center just to be free of him, they didn't live in the worst part of the ward after all. It hurt him to consider this, but in the end it didn't really matter. This is where he wanted to be anyways.

Kaneki stuffed his hands as deep into his pockets as he could. Bodies were flooding into the center through alleys and backstreets. There were less and less releases lately, and in result the ghouls were more and more excitable when they did happen.

Kaneki was slammed into from behind and fell to his knees. The was no apology that followed. Kaneki couldn't even tell who bumped into him in the rush. Quickly jumping back up to his feet, Kaneki tried to find somewhere better to stand.

The speakers began blearing, a dull siren everyone recognized immediately. Kaneki's eyes locked on the command building on the far side of the ward's center. The entire building was on a raised platform, nearly four feet tall. The platform went out a few yards past the building's entrance, like a stage.

There was a loud clanging noise- the door to the command building opening. No one dared rush the entrance. Nothing good had ever came from that.

Kaneki watched, completely enraptured as the door opened. No officials came out. Just the convict. Sometimes they were scared, shaking even. Some cried and had to be pushed out. One time a women, who had slaughtered her own family, had banged against the door of the command building, begging to be spared. It was never long before a ghoul would jump up on the platform and drag them down.

Today was not one of those days.

Hachiro Maeda strutted out as soon as the door opened wide enough. He had thin, greasy hair, and an equally greasy grin. He came to a stop just at the stage's edge. The ghouls surrounding the stage immediately began behaving in way similar to a shark frenzy, something Kaneki read about in a book. They yelled and cursed, swiping at the convict's ankles.

Laughing, Hachiro Maeda jumped back at each attempt. He even went as far as to stomp on one particularly feisty hand.

"These are ghouls, hm?" Hachiro Maeda leered, as if speaking to an audience that cared. The inhabitants of the fourth ward had heard it all before.

Kaneki had lived in the ward for all his life, as had his mother, but few ghouls in the ward were old enough to remember a day when humans and ghouls lived together.

Likewise, every convict that had ever been dumped here had never seen a ghoul before. Kaneki always paid close attention to how they reacted. Most were scared, but some seemed utterly surprised that ghouls even existed. Today was different.

"My name is Maeda," The convict said, "Who is in charge here?" The crowd erupted into a roar of laughter.

"Answer me!" Hachiro Maeda hollered in irritation. Someone grabbed at his pant leg, ripping the material. "Don't fuck with me!"

"Do you think we're scared of you?" Yamori chuckled. The ghoul was a full head taller than most everybody else and standing at the front of the crowd.

"You should be," Hachiro Maeda warned, barring a mouth full of yellowed teeth.

"And why is that, human?" Yamori taunted, "You just messed with little kids, isn't that right?" Hachiro Maeda paled.

The convicts must not realize their charges were read to them. Kaneki had never seen one of them try this before. He couldn't help himself, Kaneki moved closer. He wanted to see what would happen.

"What are you t-talking about?" Hachiro Maeda bluffed, "I killed someone!"

Yamori laughed again, loud and crude sounding. He jumped up onto the stage in one swift movement. Hachiro Maeda eyes widened and he stumbled away. "I guess we have something in common then."

The crowd ate it up. Yamori frequently took the lead. Possibly because he was rumored to be cannibalistic, a sensitive subject within the ward. Cannibalistic ghouls rarely kept quiet about it but never bothered with the convicts either. Allegedly, they spent their time crawling around the edges of the ward. Yamori ruled over only the more organized center and north edge of the ward. Kaneki personally felt that his looks were enough to keep people at bay.

"W-what are you doing?" Hachiro Maeda stuttered. Yamori smiled in response, and red coated his eyes. The convict stumbled back and in the next second Yamori released his kagune, two thick, spiky limbs. "Stop!"

Yamori didn't listen. His kagune slammed forward, ripping into the convicts shoulder. The spray of blood and accompanying scream was impressive. The surrounding ghouls cheered him on. The next blow completely separated arm from body. Yamori tossed the bloodied limb into the crowd. A few of the weaker ghouls went for the easy meat. The rest watched anxiously, some visibly drooling.

The convict didn't stand a chance, didn't even really fight back. He just screamed and begged, but it all fell on deaf ears.

Yamori stabbed both hands through the man's stomach, throwing the intestines out to the crowd, just as he did the arm. Hachiro Maeda's body feel to the ground limp. Yamori picked it up one handed. Slowly, teasingly, Yamori walked to the edge of the stage.

Smiling smugly, he dropped the meat to the crowd. Instantly, the ghoul descended upon the carcass. Blood sprayed through the air and minor squabble broke out as people fought over choice cuts.

Kaneki watched on silently as he always did. He was nothing, he had no rank or name to these ghouls. He couldn't even join in the weaker ghouls that fought over the first initials chunks tossed into crowd. They would tear him to pieces, just like they did to Maeda.

Nevertheless, Kaneki always stayed and watched when the felons were dumped into the fourth ward. Whenever anyone questioned his interest he blamed boredom. But that wasn't quite true; he felt oddly compelled to watch. That wasn't always so, however. He used to step into the nearest store and look away.

It wasn't until he had been dared to. There was no formal schooling in the fourth ward, nothing like what Kaneki read about there being in the other wards. But children of the close age stuck together and learned what they could from willing adults.

One day, when he was ten, Kaneki was at Shunsen-san's home. Shunsen-san had a niece and a nephew-Ayato and Touka- who were a few years younger than Kaneki. Kaneki and a few other children who lived nearby would spend their afternoons at the home, where Shunsen-san tried to teach them to read and write.

On that particular day, Shunsen-san was feeling ill and left the children to their own devices. Ayato, a snarky and fearless child, called Kaneki a coward when he had covered his ears as the speakers began blaring the arrival of a new convict. Soon all the children, except Touka, joined the chant. Touka just called them all "little shits" and retired to her room.

Feeling helpless, Kaneki didn't fight back as they dragged him to the ward center. He still wasn't particularly tall, but at the time Ayato, four years younger than him, was nearly the same size. So he just let his feet drag in the dry dust, watching with unshed tears as the dust kicked up behind him. By the time they arrived all the ghouls had assembled.

They all stayed in the alley, suddenly too scared to step into the light. Not even Ayato pushed the matter. He stood right at Kaneki's side, a painful grip on his shoulder.

The convict was released. A girl, very young and very pretty. The voice on the speaker said she killed a lot of people. Kaneki had looked at Ayato's face. His eye was twitching. Her name was Rize Kamishiro and her hair looked like the wildflowers that grew next to his apartment.

She wasn't calm or sweet like her appearance. She shrieked and hollered rude things into the crowd. In no time she was pulled off the stage.

Kaneki watched silently as blood coated the ground and the faces of people he knew to be his neighbours. He listened as her screams escalating before cutting off entirely. He thought it was all over when suddenly a fight broke out near the back of the gathering, close to the alley full of children. A few moments later something went flying towards the children. A severed head.

Lilac hair still intact, the head stained the dirt red as it rolled to a stop at Kaneki's feet. Most of the children behind Kaneki fled, screaming all the while. Ayato pitched to the side and vomited.

Kaneki was frozen in place. Rize's face wasn't sweet like in his first glance nor was it twisted in the hateful expression she wore as she was dragged into the crowd. It was expressionless. Dirt and grime was already covering her pale skin. But the most alarming sight was the shallow chunk missing from the left cheek. Muscle and skin hung limply from a stark white cheekbone.

Kaneki's tears dried and he wiped at his running nose. Her eyes were closed. Had her eyes been red, like theirs? What exactly made her so different from all the ghouls in the fourth ward? He wanted to know so desperately. There were no books on that, at least not that Shunsen-san would read to them.

Kaneki looked over at Ayato again. Was he also desperate to know, to understand? Ayato was leaning against the wall, barely avoiding his own puddle of vomit. Kaneki frowned and faced forward again. There was someone advancing towards them. He was tall with slicked back blonde hair. His face was flat but his nose was incredibly wide. He came to a stop right before them, and scooped up the head by its head. It jerked and bobbed in the air like a puppet Shunsen-san let Kaneki play with sometimes.

The man smiled, looking just like a shark. Ayato spun on his heels, running away. Kaneki felt like his feet were glued to the dirt.

"Sorry, kiddies." He didn't sound sorry.

The man didn't linger, and Kaneki tried to ignore the hoots and hollers of the ghouls, whose attention had followed the man the whole time.

Eventually Kaneki's feet came unglued and he walked home. He didn't say anything to his mother about what he saw. He tried not to think about it, but he couldn't push Rize from his mind.

He would lay in his bed, paralyzed with some emotion he couldn't describe each time the speakers clicked on. He stayed put for one, two, three convict releases. By the fourth he couldn't stop himself. He jumped out of bed and ran down to the center, standing not in the alley, but in a store front. He stayed there and watched the wild frenzy of ghouls and he hadn't missed a release since then.

The day he first went to see a release by himself was a pinnacle of change. He remembered rushing home afterwards, feeling as if he was suddenly keeping hundreds of secrets. But instead of feeling guilty, it was exhilarating. He needed to talk to anyone, about anything. He was practically jumping up and down in excitement.

He ran home only to bump into Ayato and Shunsen-san outside his apartment door. They were looking for Touka. She'd been missing all day. Ayato wouldn't meet Kaneki's eyes and Shunsen-san was too weepy to notice.

Kaneki didn't think much of it at the time. Touka was nearly his age but seemed to have absolutely no interest in being his friend.

He still didn't think much of it when she never turned up again. People disappeared all the time. Shunsen-san continued teaching the neighbour children but grew more and more depressed and eventually Kaneki learned enough to teach himself. And two years from the day Touka disappeared, Shunsen-san died from grief. Or rather, she committed suicide.

Kaneki's mother preferred "died from grief". In Kaneki's opinion, Ayato was the one that had died. The boy had all but disappeared. He slinked into the shadows and was seen only in the bad parts of the ward. The parts were every moment of everyday were like the convict releases.

One time Kaneki thought for sure he had seen Ayato standing with the ghouls, as they teared apart some murderer.

But Kaneki hadn't thought about Ayato in a long time. Hadn't talked to him in even longer. In fact, he didn't talk much to anyone. He just read and read until the speakers turned on. He had been doing just that for the last eight years, and frankly, he wasn't sure how to do much else.

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The crowd around Maeda Hachiro, if there was anything left of the man, was dying down. Yamori still stood up on the stage, scanning the crowd carefully. Suddenly his head jerked up and he focused past the crowd. Right on Kaneki.

He smiled the same shark like smile from all those years ago. Kaneki swallowed uncomfortably, but he couldn't break the ghoul's gaze. Yamori jumped down from the stage, never breaking eye contact as he maneuvered his way through the crowd. He was nearly to the edge when Kaneki couldn't take it anymore.

He ran. Sprinted, actually. His heart was racing and he needed to get away. He didn't want to face Yamori ever again.

It made no sense. All those years ago he had managed to stand there before the big, looming goul. But now the mere thought of him and he was shaking. Was it because of all his actions Kaneki had witnessed over the years? Had that first kill not been enough to frighten Kaneki?

Only after getting several blocks away did Kaneki slow. His lungs burned, but it was a comfortable pain.

The contrast walking from the center to the east side of the ward was incredible. According to some of the older ghouls, the center and the east, west, north, and south apartment buildings had been build for the original incoming ghouls. Everything else built whenever the need arose by the ghouls themselves. But there was no currency system like other wards supposedly had. Instead people exchanged favors, or sometimes even meat.

People like Kaneki didn't participate in the convict releases, but they don't starve either. On the other side of the command building was another government run shop that portioned out human flesh from people who'd committed suicide. Everybody in the ward was accounted for and received a strict allowance. The shop was run by ghouls, but they were never seen outside the shop nor did they respond well to being questioned. People occasionally claimed that their missing family members would show up behind the counters of government run businesses. If that was true, none of the government paid ghouls were talking, just handing out meat and other random necessities.

Yamaoka-san, an elderly man who lived down the street from Kaneki, said that was how they controlled them. He said when he was younger and living in the eighth ward he could just reach out and eat any human he wanted. Kaneki had laughed at the absurdity but Yamaoka-san had just frowned in response.

Kaneki couldn't imagine a reality any different from his own. Some ghouls believed that there were other wards, full of ghouls. Some believed it was ghouls that were the majority, and the government was also full of ghouls.

Kaneki had no reason to believe in any of that, but he did know that a majority of the books he read did not even acknowledge ghouls. He then found it reasonable to assume that ghouls are living in a human world, rather than that the other way round.

And Kaneki was always desperate to learn more, to better form a picture of what existed on the other side of the walls . He read any text he could his hands on. There was no libraries- something Yamaoka-san mentioned there being in the other wards once when he saw Kaneki toting around a bunch of books-so Kaneki had to be more creative.

He traded things. Sometimes just labor or favors, sometimes the meat he was rationed. He learned a few years ago that he could go without eating for longer than most people. It made him shaky and irritable, but he'd only gone so long that he was having trouble with his kakugan once before.

The slight discomfort was worth it. Not too long ago he had gotten has hands on a copy of The Black Goat's Egg, and Kaneki was in love. He needed to find more written by Sen Takatsuki, but the government run store didn't have anything like it. He had been talking to Takimoto, his neighbour, about it and he had recommended he go to the east side edge, claiming he had seen something similar in a little store.

Kaneki didn't want to believe him. Takimoto was hardly his friend, but he was nice enough and he had no reason to lie. But the east side edge- all the edges really- were dangerous. There was no government buildings to duck into, nor were there any cameras. Kaneki had never actually strayed that far from what people considered the safe parts of the ward, but he had heard plenty of rumors about what kind of people hung around there.

But lately Kaneki felt stuck in a rut. He had read and reread every book he had, and learned everything he could. He begged and borrowed and fasted until he could buy any book in his immediate area. With nothing left to do, Kaneki had no choice. He couldn't sit around and let paranoia and conspiracy fill his head like so many of the older ghouls.

And he had been planning for and putting off this moment for a long time. He surely had enough meat stocked away to get him a book, even if the prices were steeper on the edge.

The panic still thrumming through his system from Yamori, and the slight tug of hunger from saving his meat would hopefully keep his mind off of what could go wrong.

Letting himself into his apartment, Kaneki quietly greeted him mother who waved slightly in response. Completely focused on her work, she paid no mind as Kaneki filled a canvas backpack with several parchment wrapped packages from the refrigerator, all labeled Ken Kaneki, Ghoul Number 895-13-8500, East Side Apartment.

Kaneki took a deep breath before slinging the backpack onto his shoulders. Today, for once, he wouldn't be a coward.