AN: I would like to note that not every TG character will be a reincarnation, and that not every CG character will be reincarnated. In accordance with the poll, Ohgi and Villeta will *not* make an appearance, which frankly will make things simpler.
Akuma-Heika: I'm calling them Demon's Children using the dub-version of Lelouch's title as a tyrannical emperor, 'Lelouch the Demon' (as by Cornelia), which was Maou in japanese, lit. 'demon king'.
I'm sorry if it wasn't clear, but what the readers see is the uncensored version of that script. The words between the two REDACTED are censored out since V, and therefore CCG, doesn't want peace between humans and ghouls to be even remotely possible.
The title is an allusion to Schneizel, since the way he portrayed himself to the public is, in fact, the sort of person that Nunnally actually is.
Is it unbelievable for Suzaku to live that long before dying? Because that's who Zero was up until then, and since he was already 'dead', he couldn't afford to have his body found, for the sake of the Requiem.
TrunksIzayaBossKadoDRRRotaku: I can see where your conclusions come from, you have 3 correct guesses, incl. Lelouch; Two of your guesses are almost correct, just need to swap who becomes who; otherwise, no, although I hadn't thought of that idea with Charles – that would be funny! Instead, I have something poetic planned for him and Marriane. I'll be the first to admit that Viletta wasn't my favorite character, and Ohgi lost points with me for choosing her over Lelouch.
Without further ado – on to the story!
The demon stirs
Touka Kirishima's seen some pretty sick stuff in her life. Cannibalism, ghoul-kids cut down by CCG, that Gourmet guy; but a human who was supposed to have been eaten by a fellow ghoul, only to come back alive, smelling like said ghoul and acting like one of those weaker guys who couldn't hunt properly – now that's just wrong. After leading him into the shop via the side-door, she gave him a discreet one-over.
This guy – Kaneki Ken, if she recalled correctly – was timid, scrawny and just plain pathetic, at least, that was her impression since the first time he set foot in the shop. For whatever reason, she'd avoided taking his order as much as possible, until his obnoxious friend called her over. She left the university student in the workers' changing room and went upstairs to find the manager, Yoshimura.
She couldn't help but wonder about his circumstance. And how did he know about the manager? She found it hard to believe that he figured it out just now, though something inside of her said it wouldn't be surprised. When she found the manager, she explained to him who was waiting for him in the shop and was asked to lead him to Ken.
As they entered the room, Ken looked up at Touka first before shifting his gaze to the manager.
"Kaneki Ken-kun, I presume." The manager was polite and patient, as always.
"H-hai." Ken on the other hand was visibly nervous, but slightly determined.
"I understand you are in need of Anteiku's assistence."
"W-well, yes... f-food," again, he made a face.
"You used to be human." "Y-yes." "And Rize-san?" What? Sure, she went missing, and this guy's still ali- "D-dead, sir. I'm sorry."
Touka couldn't help but look at him bewildered. Dead? And he's apologizing for it, too? She tried to kill him! To eat him!
"Why do you say that?"
"I, was given her organs." Touka's eyes widened at that, and even Yoshimura allowed his kakugan to be shown. "Woah, wait!" The males turned her way, "What do you mean her organs!?" "More importantly, which organs?" Yoshimura stated. Touka realized what he was getting at. She was fairly good at biology, and was aware that ghouls share all of a human's organs and body structure – except one.
"The, uh, kidneys, supposedly." Heh. So she died saving him? Oh, the irony. Touka looked at the older boy, and saw wariness in his eyes. She'd know.
"You don't sound too sure. Why's that?" she challenged.
Ken looked her in the eye, making her shiver involuntarily. "I think the doctor lied to me."
Yoshimura's eyes were hidden again, his expression grim. "I'll be blunt with you Kaneki-kun. What you received from Rize-san was likely indeed not a kidney – but a kakuhou, an exclusively ghoul organ of similar shape and color."
Aw shit. That means he's got Rize's kagune too. No wonder he smells like that gluttonous bitch.
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"{English} Oh, where, oh where has my Lu-lu gone? Oh where, oh where can he be~? With his hair, cut short and his frame, cut long. Oh where, oh where can he be~? ./~"
"Oi. How long's she been singin' that, Tatara?"
"Longer than I've been a member here, I think, boy."
"So she ain't gonna stop soon?"
"I think not."
"Fuck"
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Touka scrubbed the coffee table with the same vigor one would apply when smashing cockroaches. It showed how she felt about her charge, the new part-timer Ken. She thought back to how the manager proposed the idea to the boy, who hesitantly accepted, and was promptly put under Touka's charge.
Yes, that annoyed her, but that wasn't actually the main reason she was mad at him.
Most of her felt that he was taking this whole 'I'm a man-eating monster who could kill my friends now' too easily.
Something inside of her was surprised he wasn't taking it better. The fuck?!
She had watched him eat his first morsel of human meat. What confused her the most was that he looked just as surprised at how easily he ate something he had just been days ago.
Not only was he taking to being a monster well, he didn't even know why he was?
She looked back at the counter where Ken was washing the dishes. They were finishing up for the day, and she had an outing planned with Yoriko in an hour. Not shopping, god forbid, just hanging out as friends.
"You about done there, newbie?" she asked with an unexplainable glee at being able to talk down to him as a superior. He seemed unexpectedly annoyed with that, but still answered with a meek: "Hai, just a moment. What about you?"
She huffed, setting down the washrag. "Are you blind? I'm long done."
"Ah, is that so?" She rose a brow. Where was this cockiness coming from? Even he seemed taken aback by it. "S-sorry."
"Hrmpf. Don't bother. You need guts to survive if you're gonna be one of us." She gauged his reaction as he answered, noting his complicated face. 'He's not completely okay with it, but more than he should be.'
"S-say, Kirishima-san,"
Hm?
"You wanna, uh, play something, to, you know, pass time?"
She humored him by showing her attention. He signaled her to wait, and went to the dressing-room. When he came back, the item in his hands made her brows shoot up.
"Chess?" It was one of the few Britannian games that became popular after the UFN vs. Britannia War, mostly due to being similar to shogi.
"Yeah. I only just started, but I don't seem to be too bad," he chuckled nervously, rubbing his head.
For reasons she couldn't fathom, the same part of her that seemed so familiar with Ken's unusual behavior was almost begging her to refuse. Not that she'd listen.
Kirishima Touka never backs down from a fight.
After ten minutes, she was flabbergasted. Ten minutes more and she was still irritant and confused. By the half of an hour, she was fuming.
'How the FUCK is that little shit doing that!?' she thought, trying to ignore the part of her that she decided to dub 'fan-girl(ish)', because nothing else fit and it seemed utterly convinced of Kaneki's (near) infallibility.
No matter what she did, or tried, she couldn't beat the guy. Hell, the first game ended in ten moves, where he trapped her king behind her own troops. Even switching colors didn't help.
Touka had to hand it to him, and her fan-girl(ish) part: The guy knew his way around this game, and Touka was no slouch in it. Yet she never made it past twenty moves, not to mention a draw or a win.
"Argh! Enough!" she gave up, "Are you sure you're a beginner? Could've fuckin' fooled me!"
She saw him staring at the board as though he was just as confused at how easily he pwned her.
"Wow, I've never seen someone win chess in so few moves!" They spun around to the speaker, who turned out to be Yoriko.
"Yoriko! What are you doing here?!"
"I got here early, and I saw you with your friend here."
Touka huffed, while Ken scratched his cheek in slight embarrassment. Touka didn't realize her failure to refute the last part.
"But, why do you use the king like that?" The ghoul found that to be an apt question, as the male had the weird tendency to use his king for some unconventional strategies.
"H-honestly, I don't know. It just doesn't, no, maybe not."
"What?" Touka was quite curious now.
"It seems, well, wrong to leave the king someplace safe while his men go out to die," finding himself embarrassing, Ken stopped talking.
In Touka's head, the fan-girl(ish) part translated that as: "If the king doesn't lead, why should his men follow?"
She only noticed that she said it out loud when she found the other two staring at her.
Flushing, she brusquely asked: "What?!"
"No, no, it's just, now that you say it," replied Ken, "I agree with that."
Turning to Yoriko for assistance/confirmation, they saw her nodding enthusiastically.
Sighing, Touka stood up.
"We're done here. Yoriko, I'll be outside soon, what a minute, okay?"
"Alright, Touka-chan!"
"And you," Ken gulped, making her smirk, "go home."
"Eh?"
"Oh, what? You thought I'd hand you extra time? For what, you haven't done anything..."
"Why am I hearing a 'yet' at the end of that?"
She waved that off, "You're imagining things."
"That'd be more convincing if you weren't smirking like that."
"Argh, fuck off already!"
And with a sharp salute, he did.
She blinked. That salute was rather unusual. Why did it remind her of the USJ military? And history class? Ugh, she so didn't need that!
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"So, why am I here again?" Ken asked Hide as they walked down one of Kamii University's hallways the next day.
"I need to get back a CD that Nishio-senpai borrowed from me," replied his friend, "and you're here cause you need more exercise."
Ken bit back a groan. While far from an exercise-nut, lately he's felt like avoiding it like the plague.
'Great, more abnormalities,' he thought.
When they approached a closed door, Ken thought he heard something on the other side, something like...
"Wait, Hide!"
Too late, his friend opened the door without a care in the world. Judging from the scream and the half-naked girl running out, Ken guessed that their senpai had been about to reach 'base 2'.
The thought made him blush.
"Sheesh, did no one ever teach you to knock, Nagachika?"
Ken beheld a bespectacled man with messy orange-brown hair that made him think of a snake.
His first impression was that he needed to be careful around this person.
"Well, sorry if I didn't know you were busy with your girl!"
"No, it's something called common courtesy, Hide," refuted the half-ghoul.
Their senpai sized him up: "Who's this, your friend?"
"Yep, this is Kaneki Ken!" declared Hide smiling.
Politely, Ken offered his hand.
"Nice to meet you."
"Nishio Nishiki, same here," replied the other, accepting the hand.
"Wow, Kaneki didn't stutter? It's a miracle!"
Ken failed to retort, because he noticed something about Nishiki's smell. Unlike most people, who smell 'sweet', this man smelled 'sour'.
Much like Touka did.
'A ghoul,' Ken realised.
Nishiki raised a brow at Hide's comment, but said nothing about it.
Instead, he asked: "So, Nagichika, why are you here?"
"The CD, man! Or do you still need it?"
"Hide, you're being rude!"
"Ah, that. Where was that again," somehow, Nishiki's searching didn't seem sincere to Ken.
As they searched the room, their senpai seemed to have a thought: "I must've left it at home."
He turned to Hide. "You wanna come with? Then I can just hand it to you."
Ken felt his instincts yelling for him to go with. And as much as he wanted to try and trust this guy, he figured it couldn't hurt to make sure.
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Touka was on her way home, her head still spinning from Yoriko's many questions that she kept asking about Ken starting yesterday. You'd almost think that the aspiring baker was trying to set them up.
Pheh.
Not only is that guy a bookworm, but, however smart he may be, he's extremely annoying. That's two strikes against him.
Even worse, her 'fangirl(ish)' part was more flustered than annoyed at the thought.
The hell!?
Looking around, Touka found that, indeed, speak of the devil and he shall appear.
Worse, his annoying friend was with him.
Even worse, shitty Nishiki was with them, too.
She would've just gone on, but then she got a call from Kaya Irimi.
"Yes, Irimi-san? Huh? What am I, his babysitter?...Alright, he just walked past me. No, I probably shouldn't, he's with his friend. Yes, yes. See ya."
As his sempai, please look after him. Seriously?
Normally, she'd have left it at that, he wasn't starving or anything.
...*eye twitch*
Alright fine!
She'll go watch him, if only to shut up that annoying inner 'fangirl'!
A crash up ahead caught her attention, and she saw Nishiki's leg streched out before Ken, and Ken's friend missing.
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"GWOOOOOOOOOHHHH!"
The strong eat the weak? The Strong eat the Weak?! THE STRONG EAT THE WEAK?!
hiswordshiswordshiswordshiswordsHiswordsHiswordsHiswordsHiswordsHiswordsHiswordsHiswordsHiswordsHiswordsHiswordsHiswordsHisWordsHisWordsHisWordsHisWordsHisWordsHisWordsHisWordsHisWordsHisWordsHisWordsHISWORDSHISWORDSHISWORDSHISWORDSHISWORDSHISWORDSHISWORDSHISWORDS –
hUrt my fRienD, will you; EAt him, you saiD!?
If you fucking love to eat so much – I'LL FUCKING EAT YOU BACK!
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Touka could only stare at the scene before her, straight out of a horror movie.
Without the cheesy effects.
Was that even Ken?
As expected, he was a rinkaku.
Unexpectedly, it wasn't Rize's kagune.
Sure, there were four long and thin tendrils sprouting from his lower back.
But Rize's had been smooth, and red.
Not black-purple and serrated.
Even her 'fangirl' part kept quiet, though whether out of shared shock at the scene or in somber pity for Nishiki she couldn't tell.
As experienced as the older ghoul was, Ken(?) seemed able to predict his every move, disallowing the evasion of those deadly limbs. And once both of Nishiki's arms and legs were pierced, the multitudes of teeth holding them in place, Ken(?) hefted his prey slightly before slamming him on the ground, face-up.
"What...the fuck...?" the older ghoul groaned. Touka couldn't have put it better.
"That's right,"
The fuck!? Why's he speaking in English?!
"you're a ghoul... aren't you?"
From where she stood, Touka could have sworn she saw his single kakugan glowing.
"So you should know,"
Not only that, but his mannerism... his speech...
"the only ones who should hunt,"
Slowly, Ken-but-definitely-not-Ken made his way to his prey, still pinned to the ground.
"are those prepared to be hunted!"
"Stop!"
R&R, please!
Edit: Changed MC's new quote, Ghouls have to eat people, but they can live off of (relatively fresh) corpses, they souldn't have to kill. Unless neccessary.