"Sweetie - sweetie - sweetie, please, please - please, listen to mommy - listen to mommy, okay?" The young child was shivering. That was to be expected, of course - it was cold, and they weren't in any shelter. They had been running for many nights now and only nine shells, but they kept coming. Those things. Those Demons - the Demons of Yore, the Demons of the Outer World. Beyond the Wall - the Great and Holy Wall that had kept their family and their family's family safe for a generation. Why did she have to be so stupid? Why did she think of ignoring her ancestors, and all common sense, and leave the safety of the Walls? The Walls that had kept humanity safe from those Demons.
But it was a lucrative offer, especially for someone like her. She was a school teacher by trade but weapon's smith by passion. She had done some stuff here and there for the Huntsmen, but nothing like what the man offered. The white haired man - Ozpin, his name was? - offered her thirty thousand yen a year for the opportunity of being the Head of the Vale National Weaponry Manufacturing Plant. That was enough - more than enough for her and her boy.
Her sweet and precious boy. But it all went bad. It all went horribly, horribly bad.
Why did this have to happen? She and her son were lucky. So very, very lucky. If you could even call this that.
They were on the surface at the time, visiting the playground. It wasn't healthy for a boy that young to be underground for so long, and she knew she had to foster a strong and healthy boy. He had to be. He wouldn't survive in the world alone. And she knew he'd be alone soon. Parents like her didn't live long. Children had to grow up fast. It was a curse, her father said. A curse that had plagued the Taylor family for generations and generations - the reason was never elaborated on. But it didn't matter. She needed to toughen him up. Tough him before the world did. She was thankful for that.
The monsters got past the walls, somehow. They weren't strong like the Wall of Vale, but they should have lasted longer. The guards must have screwed up or something.
Or foul play.
Foul play was almost always the reason why.
But that didn't matter now. All that mattered now was her and the boy. Running from the Demons.
And they were catching up. The boy looked back up at her, tears streaming down his face. A bowie knife - a memento from his father, who died when he was five - was being gripped in his right hand. It was violently shaking, as he was trying his best to hold back the tears. The boy's voice was trembling.
"I ain't gonna die, okay? I ain't gonna die. I ain't gonna die, okay? I - I love you, okay?""W-W-What if I don't see you -" deep breathe - "you again?" She smiled through the obvious tears building up in her eyes, and dug inside her pocket for the scroll she always carried around. It was her phone, the first and only one she ever had in life. Her family was too poor to ever have it, and instead had phone lines and wired ones that plugged into the walls. Her husband had one before he died, but she pawned it off to pay the bills.
She placed it into his hand, cupping it while trying to put on a brave smile."Just talk into this, okay? Just go - go into contacts, and press mommy. And. And. Just talk to me, okay? I. I'll always listen.""M-M-Mommy?""Yes sweetie?""D-D-Don't die - I-I love you.""I love you too," she said, pulling him into a warm embrace, the tears finally rolling down both their faces."Now run."
"Kaneki?"
Kaneki stopped reading from the history book, looking over at Charlie, who stopped scribbling on a notepad. It contained about a dozen addresses, and Kaneki was going to go to them by the end of the week, on friday. He wanted to go today, but Charlie insisted friday. He wasn't sure, but it was best to indulge him at this point. He was basically intruding on his living room, for God's sake.
"Yes, Charlie?"
"Have you ever killed someone?"
"Hmm."
Kaneki wasn't sure why he responded that way. It wasn't exactly the type of response someone should have to being asked if they had ever killed someone before. But it was how he felt - hmm. Was he just supposed to lie?
Charlie looked away from Kaneki, solumenly laughing while continuing to write in the notepad.
"I'll take that as a yes then, hehe."
A momentary, awkward silence formed between them as Kaneki turned his attention back to his book.
"How did it feel?"
"What feel?"
"You know. The murder?"
"It's not murder if it's in self-defense."
"So, what did the guy do?"
Kaneki sighed, thinking of what to exactly say. How much information should he give out?
"Why are you asking about this?"
"Well," he began, looking away from Kaneki, "I understand that."
He seemed to hesitate - as if a bulwark had been built between him and his vocal cords, and they just wouldn't push those words out, no matter how hard he tried, before rapidly spitting them out, sometimes fumbling over his own words.
"I understand that before we're done with this, I'm. I'm going to get someone killed. Someone. Someone is going to die directly due to my actions. I'm going. I'm going to get someone killed. Indirectly or indirectly, our intervention - my intervention - will kill them. I'm. I'm going to become a murderer."
Had.
Had he become self-aware?
"And. And. I just want to know what it feels like. Before."
"Before you go through with it."
"Y-Yeah, before I go through with it."
A silence formed between them. One that was much thicker and denser than any previous one.
Kaneki understood. Understood very, very clearly what he was attempting to say. It was unintentional, but very clear.
Charlie had become self-aware of what he could do.
And Charlie was comfortable with that.
Comfortable with the people he was going to hurt.
Comfortable with the lives he's going to take.
Comfortable with the death he was going to inflict.
All for a high. A stupid fucking high.
You piece of shit.
You absolute piece of shit.
Have you no shame?
"So, um," Charlie began, awkwardly trying to get the conversation going his way again, "how did it feel?"
"I felt nothing."
"O-Oh - w-why's that?"
"They were murderers."
"H-How d-did you k-know?"
"They killed people for sport. They threw people into pins and put up bets for who was going to kill who. And afterwards they'd eat. Eat like kings, pretending they're something they weren't. Pretending they were high-class, sophisticated socialites. They were nothing more than weeds. Bad apples. Worms that needed to be removed. A threat. I eliminated a threat. That's all they were to me, Charlie. A threat to me and my friends."
Charlie's face went pale, obviously regretting asking the question. His hands were sweaty and he placed the pencil down, intently focusing on Kaneki's story and description of the murder of the Ghoul Restaurant Goers - but Kaneki never used that term. So he bent the story here and there to make things fit with this reality, but kept the sentiment and generalities the same. He deserved to hear this story, at the very least.
"They were monsters. They killed for fun. Killed for entertainment. They were sick and twisted people."
"H-How d-did you k-k-kill them?"
"I ripped them apart."
The mother pulled back on the pump, a shell flying through the air, steam surrounding it before finally cooling off in the cold night. The beast's skull fractured, and what she presumed was it's "Brain" (if it could even be called that) splattered across the wide open field before flying past her, occasionally tossing and turning before evaporating into nothing. Four.
That's how many shots she had left.
"Come at me you cocksuckers! Come at me! Come out at me - you think that's all I got you fucking bastards?!" She turned out, trying to keep a good sight on her environment, the red eyes of her opponents glowing in the darkness.
They were smart, those bastards. It was a open field, with no chance of stealth. If they wanted to kill her, they'd need to charge her. They weren't that stupid. She knew they, on some level, had a survival instinct. There was something in their behavior, their actions, that made them seem more intelligent than what the authorities claimed they were.
But that wasn't going to happen.
Because she was smarter.
If only she could make it to daylight. At daylight she'd make a run for it. They wouldn't be able to hid as easily.
Ea-
Dark figure. Fast. Large. Two of them, probably - two for one, she thought. Needed to make this count.
She aimed her shotgun at the two black figures running towards her - or were they three? She aimed down the sights, hoping to take all three of them down - like shooting fish in a barrel.
She pressed down on the trigger, feeling the kickback hit her with the force of a punch to the gut.
All three came tumbling down - like the giant in that old story her father used to tell her before she went to bed.
She pulled back down on the shotgun, the shell popping out, steam surrounding it. She pulled the pump upwards before the shell even reached the ground.
"I can do this all night, big boys! Give me your best shot!"
"Y-You sound like you d-did this often."
"I did."
"H-How many t-times?"
"I don't know. Couple dozens. They all got what they deserved."
"D-Do you n-not feel r-regret?"
"No."
"D-Do y-you w-wish y-you did?"
Kaneki opened his mouth to speak, but stopped. It wasn't a question he thought could be asked.
He thought about who he was before. Back when he was a semi-normal teenager. Sure, he had to eat human flesh to survive, and he was a victim of a (seemingly) freak medical accident, but things were stable. He was still Kaneki. He was still himself.
Than Yamoria entered in like a hurricane.
He taught him lessons. Many, many lessons. His most important being learning how to make a decision. Learning how to choose a path instead of choosing an unobtainable middle ground.
He took that one to heart.
The middle ground, if there existed one, was gone. Kaneki died.
No. Not died.
Went dormant.
And sometimes, he'd come out.
But rarely.
Now, the person he was now - he wasn't exactly sure what to call himself - had taken control. Powerful, cunning. Ruthless. Indifferent to the lives of everyone else beside the ones close to him.
And even that was a line that became blurry.
Banjo.
And then Anteiku.
He thought about Anteiku.
Everyone.
Everyone there. He went away on a stupid mission and amounted to nothing, wasted so much time and resources and contacts and everything over something that amounted to basically nothing - basic information from the Doctor, and what did that do? It didn't change the world. It certainly didn't change his ghoul status. The only thing it accomplished was being put on the CCG's hit list, and potentially contributing to Anteiku's downfall.
Would feeling bad have stopped all that? Made him think twice about what he was doing?
Would it have?
"Yeah," Kaneki replied, a tinge of sadness filling his voice, "yeah. I wish I did."
The boy ran. And ran. And ran. And ran.
He was good at that. He was extremely good at that, at the very least. If he couldn't be good at anything that actually mattered, he could at least be good at running. The gun shots stopped after the ninth blast, even though he knew that mommy had at least ten rounds. He knew that because she taught him to always count your bullets - and to always leave one bullet. Always leave one. She showed him how to put the gun in his mouth. She unloaded it and taught him the best angle to pull the trigger from, to make sure that you died on the first one. She hoped that he would never have to do that. She promised herself that her baby boy would never die like that. Never die killing himself. She'd do it instead. He deserved to die hopeful. She lied about leaving a bullet for herself - she would rather her son take it. It was a mercy, really.
But there was no mercy out here. No more. He kept running through the darkness, hoping and praying to the Gods that he could make it north. If he could only do that, he could be safe. And then he could be with mommy again.
Kaneki walked out onto the porch of the apartment, looking over the afternoon skyline of Vale. He needed some fresh air - the apartment was getting stuffy. Plus, he'd rather not have to lay in that bed for one more second. A bed could only be laid in for so long before it just became unbearable.
The city looked so different from Tokyo.
Tokyo was bright, tall, and loud. Very loud. And compact. It was like a anthill, in a way. Stuffed stacked ontop of stuff stacked on top of even more stuff. Expansion underneath and above and in all directions - the city authorities tried every possible manner to use the space as efficiently as possible (as efficiently as a bureaucracy could be, at any rate). Here, things were spacious, and always felt bigger than they really were. It felt (and looked) like an American city.
Thankfully, he wasn't in America.
He kept thinking over him and Charlie's conversation. Over the answer he gave.
Did he really feel bad?
Did he really wish he regretted the things he did?
Or did he only regret the consequences?
He wish he knew the answer to that.
He really did.
But that was the past. He couldn't think of that now. He just had to get home now.
But how?
Could he even get home?
Probably not.
Maybe this is a sign. From God or Devil or any trickster god or goddess that seeked to punish him for his hubris. What greater punishment than to be removed from the only family you ever loved, one that you spent months protecting, all for them to possibly be dead or worse?
Maybe this doesn't matter anymore.
Maybe he should just let go.
He sighed, leaning over the handrails and looking downward.
An empty alleyway.
He could jump.
It was a pretty big fall.
If he jumped, he probably die. Possibly on impact. Even in his world, ghouls could die from high impact, especially on concrete. As long as he didn't use his kagune, he could just jump.
Just jump off, like a bird.
It wouldn't have been so bad, really.
Maybe it was his true punishment, and this world was just a facilitation of that. Maybe this was what he deserved after all. For all the things he did. For all the people he had killed. For all getting all his friends killed.
Death was just another door. Another door he could step through. Anoth-
"Kaneki?"
Kaneki quickly turned his head around, seeing Charlie.
"What're you doing?"
"Nothing," he said, looking away and stepping back from the handrail. He noticed that his hands were now covered in sweat, and small imprints had begun to develop around his flesh from the indentions in the metal.
He continued walking. It had been two days of continuous walking.
The boy had walked so much the souls of his shoes started to peel, and his socks clung to his skin and it felt so freaking uncomfortable, and he was blistering from the heat and the sun and he hadn't seen a tree in over a day either. He was walking in endless fields now.
Endless green fields.
Was this even north? He didn't know.
He didn't freaking know.
All he knew was is that his mother had told him to go this way.
He just wanted to sleep. He just wanted a warm bed and a good meal and some water or at the very least some shade cause holy crap did it suck to be out here.
He occasionally tried talking to mom, but she never picked up.
It was only him now. Him and the endless field.
He missed mommy.
But he kept walking. And walking. And walking. And walking. Until he found a shack.
It was old, worn down, nearly collapsed. It was made from metal and wood and occasional pieces of plastic, but he didn't care, he was just glad to be out of the sun for a couple minutes.
He slept undisturbed for fifteen hours and thirty two minutes.
Charlie knew he should ask Kaneki what that was about, but for now, he knew it was better to not question it. It was probably nothing anyway. Besides, even if it was, he wouldn't do it. He knew he would. He wouldn't just bail out on someone like that.
Would he?
He shoved that thought out of his mind, turning his mind to the task at hand. He was almost done with the addresses. He even gave some notes on what to do if they encountered this person or group, just to make sure Kaneki wouldn't go guns blazing.
He then heard a ringing at the door.
Charlie stopped writing.
It took him a moment to register the noise. It had been a long time since he actually heard someone use the doorbell of his house. It was either a knock or scream but never a ring.
Charlie felt uneasy.
Then another ring at the door.
Charlie pushed back his chair, cracking his neck and fingers and back and everywhere else that had the capacity to have a crack, and began to walk over to the door.
He unlocked the latch, and opened it up.
He saw two figures, two strangers.
"Hello," one began, his stature imposing but respectful, "we're with the Vale Huntsmen Academy, would you please allow us to step inside?"