Opening Notes: Well then. This is the first thing I've written ever since the world starting spiraling. The idea for this came from a conversation between me and a friend on Discord that came about in exactly random fashion.

Cigarettes were something Nugawa usually partook in extremely sparingly. But after the evening he had just barely survived? Man alive, did that tobacco taste like ambrosia.

Sadly, it did nothing to calm him down. His hands were shaking. His brow was coated with sweat. And his mind kept replaying that horrific twenty seconds over and over again. He felt... all things considered, numb. As if he had just been punched and was over the soreness stage.

Those twenty seconds. One third of a minute had made sure he would need therapy for years to come. But alas, sitting on a chaise lounge in a brightly lit room would have to wait. Right now, two CCG Investigators were looking at him from across the sanitized room. One word to the police he had ran screaming towards got them to take him to where he currently was.

And that word was Ghoul.

The shorter of the duo had not stopped smiling since Nugawa had arrived. And that was probably the least off-putting thing about him. His face was so pasty and sunken, he may as well have been a coprse on puppet strings. And his eyes... his creepy peepers made it impossible to willungly look directly that them for more than a few seconds.

He had introduced himself as Mado, and his compatriot was apparently called Amon. Somewhere in the back of Nugawa's mind, he noticed the anagram between their names. He would have smirked. Would have...

"So you said it was a Czarn?"

Deep inhale. Exhale smoke out of lips. "Yeah. A Czarn. Either that or, or a guy with a real bad case of vitiligo and pink eye." Neither Investigator acknowledged the quip. Nor did they look surprised. After all, Czarns were all over Tokyo. Every single Ward had its own share of the pale ones. "He grabbed me and Daimi right off the street and dragged us off."

Saying it out loud made a particular moment take over his vision. Him and his best friend, freshly shot down by at least a dozen women, being pulled away by their necks and hair, kicking and screaming, shouting out fruitless, empty threats to a being that could shoot his own head off and regrow it not a second later. Nugawa felt his hands shaking again.

"Go on," Mado insisted.

Another drag off the cigarette gave Nugawa a few moments to steady himself. "He hauled us off to this... dead area. Nobody was around except for this old guy."

Amon cut in. "And this man was a Ghoul?"

After a nod, Nugawa continued. "He told the Czarn... something about a job, and tossed him a bottle."

"A bottle of what?" Mado inquired.

"Wine. Fucking wine." The numbness started cracking off, making room for anger. He felt his teeth clinch and his eyes narrow. "That's how much our lives were worth to them. That was all that alien freak needed to stomp on Daimi's neck over and over again. A helping of booze!"

"Calm down, man." Mado's mood never faltered, unlike the traumatized man before him.

"Why should I?! My friend is gone! I'll never see him again! And all because some damn Ghoul was hungry and a Czarn was thirsty!"

Mado gave no placating gesture. He simply stood as he was. This had to have been an all too familiar sight. One can only imagine how many families lose loved ones to hungry red-eyed bipeds. Instead, the veteran Ghoul hunter spoke plainly. "Getting angry will not solve anything. We need descriptions."

Inhaling and exhaling deeply and repeatedly through gritted teeth, Nugawa grabbed chunks of his hair and curled his fingers into fists. Part of him knew the Investigator was right. "The... the Ghoul was old. Real old. Like, ninety. Thin beard and short hair. Couldn't tell you much else. It was dark."

"And the Czarn?"

Nugawa racked his brain. In a broad sense, Czarns looked mostly alike. Pale skin, dark hair, and red eyes. So usually, when one did something bad, wrong, or stupid, it was the little details. Thinking back to earlier, he recalled how the white-faced criminal snarled at him. "He, um... he had markings on his face. By the eyes."

He noticed Mado and Amon glance at one another before the latter spoke again. "How did you get away?"

Another deep breath. "Sirens. Before they could... turn their attention to me, police sirens started going off. The Ghoul ran off and the Czarn turned his attention to the cops."

Mado pieced together what had happened next. "And you weren't about to stick around, were you? Lucky, lucky man."

On and on it went as such. Some poking, some prodding, a request for him to come back, and Nugawa was on his way. He walked towards the train station, intent on going home. And yet, he did realize he was moving at all. It was all so surreal to him. He felt like he was in a movie, having never imagined something like this would happen to him, but to somebody else.

Unfortunately, to everyone, he was the somebody else.

Just as he rounded a corner, someone grabbed him and hoisted him up by the fabric of his shirt, forcing him to look at solid red eyes... with markings on the face they belonged to.

"The geezer paid for both of you. And I always, always, finish the job."

"Before I started working here, I always had the impression that Czarns were peaceful," Amon mused as he double checked the silver briefcase he always had on him, on or off duty.

Mado shrugged. "Just because they said they are, doesn't mean all of them fall under that net, Amon. Nearly every species has a few exceptions to their nature. Though, I will admit, I'm rather fond of Czarns." He patted his own briefcase, his Quinque. "Especially since they decided to share a few tricks..."

This was humiliating. Not only that, it was unacceptable!

Oomori Yakumo, Yamori to friends (if they could be called that), victims, and employers, stood there, atop a skyscraper, fuming and flexing his painfully empty hand. He had been given orders, and the target had slipped by him right before leaving a final insult.

His pliers, his precious tool, was gone. The damned Binge Eater had snatched them clean out of his hands and gone on her bloody way. If he were any angrier, the water soaking his suit would have started steaming off.

"So. Typical night of failure, Yak?"

That voice. That all too familiar voice. Its owner could either worsen or sooth Yamori's mood. Taking a second to press his thumb into the joint of his index finger, Yamori turned to look into the room he and the Binge Eater had just had their confrontation in. The floor was riddled with partially devoured corpses, fish gasping for breath, and shattered glass from what used to be a large aquarium.

And standing amongst the aftermath of the brief chaos was a Czarn. Easily taller than Yamori and finishing off a bottle of alcohol, the pale man lazily threw the container forward, making it whizz past Yamori's head before beginning its descent towards the streets below. Perhaps it would shatter harmless in a street. Or maybe someone would end up with glass in their skull. Neither of the men knew. And they certainly did not care.

"What are you doing here, Lobo?" Yamori demanded, not in the mood for his acquaintance at the moment. Though he did eye the chain wrapped around the other male's right arm. Stronger than its kin's offspring, Q-Steel. Stronger than most Kagune he had seen and eaten. Not to mention the hook at the end of it. The Garrote...

"Well, when Hothead told me what was goin' down with you, I thought, 'awright, this outta be amusing.' So I followed yer reek. Must say, I didn't think ya'd fail so horribly."

If anyone had dared say that to Yamori, they would have been quickly relieved of their necks and lungs. But Lobo was a rather unique case. One that could keep getting back up, assuming he went down at all.

Lobo continued on with his mockery, walking over to Yamori. "And then I got to thinkin', 'hey. If he frags this up, the top Tree dogs will come knocking at my door again.'" He reached out grabbed Yamori's left sleeve before casually pulling, causing it to rip clean off. The white fabric was drenched from the massive fish tank. And a few lines of dull red was running down and dropping off along with the water. He had managed to cause a strike on the Binge Eater, after all.

With his prize in hand, Lobo brought the cloth to his nose and sucked in a nasal breath. "There we are. Got th' scent." With what he wanted achieved, he dropped the sleeve and turned around. "Lemme know if ya wanna go pain-spreadin' again, Yak."

A thought came to Yamori. Of course, he would need a replacement pair of pliers. "Actually, I'm going to go pay a certain good doctor a visit soon. Feel free to join."

With his back still turned, the Czarn smiled. "Sounds like a fraggin' good time."

"... whose body was discovered, mutilated in an empty lot. The victim has been identified as Daimi Gunjo, a student at-"

With a grimace, Nagachika Hideyoshi turned away from the screen, returning his full attention to his best friend. "Nasty stuff. Can't believe they show that on TV." The two companions had opted for a quick stop in a café that was quickly and strangely becoming Ken's favorite spot.

Kaneki Ken thought about something else. "You know, I've never seen a Ghoul. Are they even real, Hide?"

His friend laughed. "Of course they are! They're as real as that Czarn." He pointed to a chalk-white woman paying for her drink. "They say Ghouls hide amongst us, disguised as humans, just waiting for a moment to pounce!"

Ken was about to respond when the door loudly swung open as another Czarn let himself in. "The usual, fem." He spoke while not looking at anybody, but a dark haired waitress, roughly the same age as the two friends, nodded and hastily made her way to the counter.

Hide and Ken had encountered their fair share of Czarns; there were a few in the same classes as them. But this one? He gave off an air of 'get out while you still can.' His canine teeth were like fangs and his black hair looked as if it had never seen a comb in all its existence. A black jacket covered a vest on his torso, with the right sleeve missing. His shins and knees were covered by a thin and dulled metal, decorated with spikes and what they bother hoped was just a skull pattern and not the genuine article plated with steel.

The massive man helped himself to a table, propped his boots up on it, and promptly pulled a cigar from his jacket. As he dragged it under his nose, sniffing it like a police dog, a man in his fifties seemed to appear out of nowhere next to him. Gently yet firmly grabbing on the Czarn's wrist, he spoke evenly and calmly. "I asked you once before, please refrain from your tobacco usage indoors, my friend. Call it a favor, if you will."

Lobo glanced upwards. Yoshimura always had that calm face on. And it drove the Main Man up the wall just how effective it was. But it was not that veneer that made him put the Cubano away. No, it was the fact that he owed the Owl one or two freebies for saving his bacon. And the Main Man never goes back on his word.

"Fine. Whatevah. I came here to talk to ya, anyway."

"Oh? Well, this is a surprise. Enjoy your drink and feel free to go upstairs afterward.

So there he sat, picking his teeth until his drink arrived. "Thanks, fem." He drowned out the conversations going around him as he pulled a flask out from his vest and promptly unscrewed the cap, pouring the contents into his caffeinated liquid. These drinks felt so good going down. And couple with his cigars, it was something close to paradise.

Glancing around, he noticed more than a few customers dropping what appeared to be brown sugar cubes into their own coffees. Dead giveaways for Ghouls to a trained eye. The Old Owl had a soft spot for his kin. That was something he and Lobo would never have in common. If someone wanted a Czarn dead, and they had the right amount of scratch to pay, the Main Man would gladly throw them into a volcano without a second thought.

It was no secret that Yamori and Lobo were both, to say the absolute least, rather sadistic. But there was a key difference in how they went about feeding their urges.

Yamori liked playing with his food. Physically and psychologically. His toys would often be locked away with only him for social interaction... as he ripped them apart slowly. Calculated and methodical, just like when he himself was locked up in Cochlea. Nails in his eyes. Fingers and toes sliced off. It had certainly left an impact on him. He would bathe in their agony each and every time.

Lobo, on the other hand, enjoyed destruction. Rather than torture somebody, unless they had information, he would gladly blast a hole in them, laugh at the moment, and move on to the next session of target practice. Bombs and big guns were his third favorite toys, right behind The Garrote and his hog.

It was that love of things breaking that had him glance to the side, with the moon shining down on a yet-to-be used set of steel girders. His lips curled upwards as he looked down. Some poor bastich had gone on a date with the Binge Eater, and now he was paying for it. The human ran for his life through an unfinished skyscraper, desperate for anything to come and save him.

Her Kagune burst out of her back, and one of the tendril dug into his side before throwing him like a stone into the wall.

That's it. A little closer... The Main Man enjoyed the show as the purple-haired fem closed in on her dinner like a shark. The boy seemed to have gone limp. Oh well. A couple more meters... and...

Sticking two fingers on one hand between his lips, Lobo blew, letting a shriek of a whistle fill the air, as he shoved the girders with the other arm.

The Binge Eater Ghoul looked up, rather confused. And several thousand kilograms of weight crashed down on her. Lobo had not been exactly careful with his aim. Dozens of humans bit the dust every hour to feed their Ghoul neighbors. So what if one more got crushed under processed metal?

Ken felt weightless, and not in a good way. He felt like such an idiot! She had just happened to bump into him? She had accepted his asking her out? It was all just part of her plan to eat him! For the first time in his life, Kaneki Ken had seen a Ghoul. And for a hot second, it seemed it would also be his last.

Then came the thunder.

Or, he had thought it was thunder. One second, Rize was zeroing in on him. The next, she was flat on her back, being crushed.

"Why... me?" She whined, her eyes glossing over.

Kaneki just could not will himself to move, not even as a deep laugh filled his eardrums, followed by heavy footsteps. Walking into view and over to the big pile of metal was a vaguely familiar Czarn with an overly large hook in his hand.

"Ah, this'll work!" The white extraterrestrial knelt down, and hacked away. Ken could barely hear the sound of flesh ripping and blood dripping. After a few long seconds, the Czarn stood up, with what could only be Rize's newly severed arm in his hand. The Czarn looked at the badly injured young man with a grin, his face speckled with blood. "Only need the smell, but why not be sure?" Bringing up his arm, he shook the arm, making it wave like a macabre puppet. "See ya, keezy Earther. Good luck."

Then...

Blackness.

Finally helping himself to a cigar, Lobo waited for his reward. Aogiri certainly had a lot of money to spare, given how big the base was.

Tatara, goon of the One-Eyed King, whoever that was, sniffed the arm and sampled the blood. "This is indeed the Binge Eater's limb."

"Thanks, Tat. I wasn't aware," Lobo rolled his eyes. "Now, about my-"

"Where's the rest?"

"Eh?"

"The rest of the body. Where is it?"

Lobo's red eyes narrowed. His teeth dug into the cigar. "Ya never said anythin' 'bout-"

All through the chamber, kagune busted out of backs. Dozens of dweebs had their claws and tails out and ready. They all knew an angry Czarn was dangerous.

Undeterred, Tatara continued. "We had plans, Lobo. We still do. Perhaps if you paid more attention, you would be aware of that not so little detail. I'll count this as an error instead of a mistake, since I had a couple underlings follow you to make sure nothing went too wrong."

Snarling, Lobo's teeth snapped the cigar in half.

Closing Notes: Hope you liked it. There will be further explanations on the Czarnians being on Earth.