Back from Disneyland, I love going there lol.

Anyways, this is a short two-part action arc, to break away from the cushy life seen in Tokyo. Starring Kaneki, because Haise's already had enough chapters for now lol I'm going to try to do more mini arcs like this, because they're fun and they're actually fallout related lmao.

Okay, author's notes at the bottom. Please enjoy!


Out of the safe confinements of Tokyo's makeshift perimeter wall that protected its citizens from the hostile wasteland's many hazards, Kaneki had received intel from Vault 079's Overseer, Rio, that a raider camp had been spotted North West of their regained territory in Saitama, just north of Tokyo. With most of Saitama under their control, GOAT were in the middle of constructing a wall around the immediate area just outside their fortress above Vault 079, with the intention of creating a purifier ventilation system around their territory to begin expanding outward toward the rest of the ruined city.

While it was expected that GOAT would be met with hostile contact with the denizens of the wasteland, one particular group of highly skilled ghouls were targeting them. Identified by their short stature and tall ivory-white helmets that looked like a cross between alien and medieval fantasy, the gang of raiders were known around as 'The Blades', and were led by a troublesome woman who went by the alias 'Three Blades'.

Three Blades and a group of her Blades had sparked fury and the lust for vengeance amongst many of Konohagakure's survivors who had joined recently GOAT, after a recon team of them had been sent out to investigate the matter further after the Blades had used dynamite to sabotage Saitama's northern wall. Recovered three days later after multiple search and rescue teams were dispatched, were the massacred bodies of the first recon team, including Hayate Gekko: a young shinobi man who was the lover of the young kunoichi, Yūgao Uzuki.

Through the recovered reports on what the first recon team had found during their investigation of The Blades, Hayate recorded that the gang of raiders had an outpost North of where Saitama's walls had been sabotaged, on the north border of the city that was shared with Tochigi, Gunma, and Ibaraki, although, the shinobi had perished before he could lead his team to begin his search and destroy mission. If Kaneki would have gone alone or with a small group of ghouls, the search for where The Blades' outpost would have been a long endeavor; an endeavor that was based solely on a hypothesis.

However, Kaneki specially allowed Yūgao to accompany him for the mission due to the kunoichi's 'sensor type chakra', a concept that the one-eyed ghoul was extremely skeptical of at first. According to Yūgao, she would be able to track the exact location of The Blades' hidden outpost, due to the fact that they had taken so much of the mutilated remains of her deceased lover, and she would be able to follow the trail left behind.

Due to Kaneki wanting to go alone to lower the risk of casualties, he had tried thinking of an alternative way to have the strong and loyal kunoichi assist him, without her actually having to come along. When Kaneki tried showing the young woman with straight purple hair his Pipboy's map, who really reminded him of a less beautiful and robust version of Rize, he was told by her that she couldn't pin-point the location of The Blades' outpost that way, and that she needed to physically be there with him to lead him there herself.

Wanting to test just how accurate Yūgao's supposed 'sensory' cognition skills were, Kaneki took a piece of bloodied fabric from Hayate's uniform and hid it from her, and instructed her to find it blindfolded, to his surprise, she was able to do it effortlessly. Paired with her proven ability to administer basic first aid, along with her uncanny ability to seal away corpses into scrolls— a jutsu technique that had been previously helpful in storing the bodies of dragons and their offspring— Kaneki eventually came around to the idea of finally approving her request to tag along with him.

Armed with his quinque, a backpack filled with supplies, and a carbon black M1A1 that was equipped with automatic fire and a holographic scope mounted on the top rail, Kaneki was finally able to perform a field test on his new wasteland outfit. Fitted with his tactical black 'Eyepatch Mask' and a battle suit that was sleek and reinforced with onyx dragon-leather. Kaneki made sure to equip his black hooded cloak to blend in better with the shadows, as well as provide himself warmth in the chilly October weather.

Unlike Kaneki, who was equipped with modern military-grade technology and gear, Yūgao was wearing her standard Anbu Black Ops uniform, which consisted of a gray flak jacket, a black sleeveless shirt, long gloves that went up to her elbows with light forearm armor. Much like those who were from Konohagakure, Yūgao's outfit was very outdated and not designed for the brutality of the wasteland, such as her opened-toe shoes and unpadded light slacks that were made for acrobatics, and not for climbing through tetanus-infested ruins.

Refusing to even equip a firearm or a quinque, much like most of the other the shinobis and kunoichis who he had mass hired, Yūgao agreed to only carry her dragon-bone sword with her— which in itself was crude and extremely makeshift, fitted with an iron handle, unlike the sleek manufactured quinque and dragon weapons from Tokyo that were made with modern techniques and technology. Believing that all she would need would be a duffel bag full of empty scrolls. a few MREs, and a flashlight and batteries, Yūgao insisted to Kaneki that he wouldn't have to worry about her, and that she could carry her own on the field.

The further they departed from the unfinished walls around their territory in Saitama, the worse the outskirts of GOAT's land got. Due to how ravaged the roads had gotten from when the Americans carpet bombed Japan, Kaneki and Yūgao had to climb over mountains of rubble and concrete that lyed in the ruins of what were once skyscrapers— similar to how GOAT's above-ground territory was, before Kaneki ordered clean-up operations to begin.


The weather got colder as they entered the grasslands between the urban metropolitan Saitama, and the more forest-inhabited old world of Tochigi. Using his false-eyepatch's recon camera, which would highlight living targets within a considerably far distance of where he was looking, Kaneki kept one finger hovered over his rifle's trigger as they walked through the waist-high field of wild grass and ruins.

The heavily overcast in the sky made the surrounding area hard for the naked eye to see, and the misty fog around them was in indicator that the surrounding area around them lacked any dragons— due to the large beings being known to radiate fallout from their bodies, which served as a harbinger of their presence. On edge and not quite sure why Yūgao thought that her dragon-bone ninjato sword would be of any use if they were ambushed, Kaneki remained crouched down and crawled through the thickets of tall grass.

"… So, what is it exactly that prevents you from using a ranged weapon? If you don't mind me asking, that is," Kaneki asked as he kept his ears open and eyes sharp, while following behind the slender woman in front of him.

Without looking back or allowing herself to be distracted, Yūgao kept her eyes ahead while following the blue Chaka trail that only she could see through the fields of grass, even as she answered Kaneki's question. "We're not trained to use firearms, and they rely on ammunition— it weighs you down," Yūgao replied back quietly, before wanting to ask her boss a question. "Boss, I should be asking the opposite of you… Why do you rely on weapons? You're very powerful on your own— those toys you carry merely serve to handicap your true potential."

"… True potential? You're talking about my kagune, and that thing I can do with dragons, right?" Kaneki asked curiously, as he continued to push past the tall grass that would brush against his mask and cloaked body. "I carry a firearm and quinque because those are both good weapons to fall back on, incase I need to defend myself or someone else while my kagune or kakuja are extended away from me."

Shaking her head while still following the highlighted blue trail in front of her, Yūgao grumbled with slight frustration as she led Kaneki around a half-eaten and dried corpse lying in the bush, so they could continue down their path. "I'm not talking about your ghoul curse, Boss— I was referring to all that untapped chakra within you," Yūgao clarified, while sounding uneasy— promoting Kaneki to, of course, wonder what she was talking about.

"My chakra? I don't understand… I've been told that the only people with 'chakra' are those who had a tie in with the founders of ninsū… Those from 'The Land of Fire', I mean," Kaneki said, while already finding himself trying to dismiss the thought of him potentially having anything to do with Konohagakure's 'ninja religion'. "… And 'ghoul curse', huh? Is that how you just see me or does everyone else share that same opinion of me?"

"M-My most sincere apologies, Boss— I meant no offense to what I said… It's just… It's unfortunate that you were once human, and now you're… N-Nevermind," Yūgao excused herself, after realizing that wasn't any way of expressing her opinion without coming off as rude. "But… Going back to what you said… Y-Yes. Yes, only those whose ancestors had a connection to Kaguya's children, or came from a family line of practitioners of jutsu, are able to have chakra in their bodies… Normally."

"Normally? Are you… Are you trying to imply that there's exceptions to that rule?" Kaneki asked with an apparent tone of skepticism in his voice, as he still wasn't completely under the impression that everything about ninsū was one-hundred percent accurate.

"Ngh…! Boss, there's no 'rules' when it comes to understanding who is born with the ability to use chakra, and who isn't— it's either you have the stuff, or you don't… To put it simply, that is," Yūgao replied back with a bit of frustration in her voice, before once again becoming more mild in her tone. "Every chakra I've seen has a color of some kind, most blue, but occasionally it's a different color… Yours? It's just… Black."

Although Kaneki wasn't fully immersed in the science or understanding of chakra, the idea of there being a black energy within him that didn't originate from being a one-eyed ghoul creeped him out. Thinking back to when Teuchi mentioned Zaguya's lingering and corrupt will, Black Zetsu, who was said to be the father of all ghouls, Kaneki couldn't help but wonder if there was a connection between 'Washuu' and whatever Yūgao had said was inside of him.

Those thoughts were cut short, the moment Kaneki heard the faintest sounds of tall grass rustling from several different directions around them. Reaching forward and grabbing Yūgao by her hips, Kaneki pulled her back and quickly wrapped his red-glove over her white cat-mask to signal for her to be quiet, as he looked around with his tactical eyepatch to see if it could highlight anything around their radius. From what he could make out, there were sixty five-meter tall pale-white bipedal creatures with bird-like skulls, and the quieter Kaneki got, the more he could make out the faintest sounds of high-pitched chirps and peaks coming from all around them in the near distance.

Slowly, while he kept the now shaken young woman in his grasp, Kaneki reached out along the dirt below to pick up a small rock that resisted a few inches from Yūgao's muscular thigh. Rubbing the rock in his palm, Kaneki could hear the stalkers around him brushing closer through the tall grass while making ungodly clicking noises with their elongated beaks as they came closer to him and Yūgao. Knowing that they would be at a dangerous disadvantage if they were to try and fight while being circled, Kaneki hoped for the best as he threw the rock over his shoulder as fast as he could.

Almost immediately, the fields around them came alive as a cacophony of unholy shrieks and roads erupted from all around them, followed by thunderous footsteps stomping through the grass around them, as all the stalkers zeroed in on where they heard the rock land. "Run!" Kaneki shouted over the cries of high-pitched screaming and caws coming back toward them, after the stalkers realized that it had only been a trick and not their prey.

Getting up and beginning to sprint through the grass, it didn't take long to realize that despite Yūgao being a well-trained ninja, her human limits made her an easy target. Whatever was in the fields with them could run faster than an average ghoul, and Yūgao's running speed was even inferior. Knowing that she would be ambushed and ripped to shreds by the small army of stalkers coming back for them, Kaneki scooped her up bridal style before using his four kagunes to begin crawling at mach speeds through the tall grass.

Heading toward an old stone bridge that was mostly intact over the horizon, Kaneki dared to look back over his shoulder while Yūgao remained violently trembling in his arms, as he caught a glance at the terrifying and uncanny appearances of their stalkers. Just like how his eyepatch's camera had foretold when it highlighted a silhouette of one, the stalker appeared to be a breed of dragon orphans that were once owls.

Covered in white feathers, the stalker had the obvious head of an owl, with the exception that its beach-ball sized eyes appeared pitch-black, and beneath its long and bloodied beak was an ungodly sized mouth with too many oversized human teeth in them. On the ends of their wings that they were using to sprint toward them like gorillas, were large bloodied hands that appeared to be human in origin, save for the fact that the skin around the ends of the claw-like fingers were peeled back and rotting away as they dug into the Earth effortlessly.

All of the dragon orphans that Kaneki had faced before were all hulking beasts that never uttered a word, or if they did all they would do would grunt or hiss, never once had Kaneki the misfortune of seeing one capable of screaming bloody murder at him, while chasing him at an ungodly speed. What first alerted Kaneki to finally look forward and away from his pursuers wasn't just any scream, it had been a shriek of bloody terror coming from Yūgao, who had been staring ahead of them to see one of the stalkers jumping out in front of them.

Immediately trying to disrupt its momentum before it could use its beak to decapitate him, Kaneki had to carry Yūgao with one arm so he could take blind aim at the leaping stalker, who had its owl talons protruding from its four grotesque and lanky legs curled up with the intent of digging its claws into its prey. Landing about half of his thirty shots into the stalker's bird body, Kaneki only was able to lose its barings, due to the creature's white feathers being too thick and protective to allow for his bullets to pierce through them.

Gritting his teeth while needing to let go of his assault rifle to protect Yūgao, Kaneki shielded the two of them with his forearm and let out an agonizing grunt as he felt the stalker chomping its giant jaws down on his offered limb. Falling backward from the sheer weight and force that the leaping owl-like monster used against them, Kaneki heard Yūgao letting out a shriek of pain, and looked down to see that it had pierced her legs and side-abdomen with two sets of talons, while Kaneki himself felt the monster repeatedly stabbing his abdomen and left thigh with its remaining limbs.

Fueled by adrenaline and her fight-or-flight response, Yūgao tapped into her chakra to activate her 'kenjutsu' technique to rapidly hack away at the owl's legs quickly enough to sever one of its four legs. Seeing her as a bigger threat than the one-eyed ghoul, the stalker let go of Kaneki's mangled forearm and let out a awful screech that immediately made the kunoichi freeze up— the color draining from her skin as she watched the owl unlatch it's human jaws before proceeding to jerk its body down to try to bite her head clean off.

Luckily for Kaneki, Yūgao's defiant act had bought him enough time to use his non-dominant hand to upholster Yukimura 's handle from his belt. Not having the luxury to wait for the quinque's handle to finish forming, Kaneki used his one-eyed ghoul strength and agility to chop the stalker's lower jaw off— causing it to let out a blood-curdling cry before it finally got its head sliced apart into nine sections. Having no time to celebrate or check on the injured kunoichi, Kaneki scooped her up and ignored her cries of pain as he barely managed to launch himself forward from the horde of stalkers, who just barely missed him by a half a second.

With his injuries already healed, Kaneki was fully prepared to make his stand the moment he finally reached the large stone structure that bridged the gap over a river of rushing rapids. "Alright… Come and get me," Kaneki muttered defiantly beneath his breath, as he quickly lowered Yūgao's bleeding body safely in the middle of the structure, before unraveling his ten-meter long black-centipede kakuja from his lower back.

Empowered by the versatility that Darkside's DM-cells allowed for his kakuja to take various shapes and forms with, Kaneki was able to easily annihilate any and all of the stalkers who were leaving the cover of the tall grass to try and confront him. Without any obstructions in front of him, or without any way for the humanoid owl-like monsters to ambush him, Kaneki was free to rip and tear through their bloodied feathers until he had single-handedly wiped out an entire army of their kind.

Once victory was his, Kaneki used his unusual ability to drain DM-cells with his kagune to extract all the nutrients and RC-cells from the dragon orphans' corpses, and felt refreshed and better than ever after absorbing what he wanted from them. Although normally he would choose to use Yūgao to capture the corpses of the dragon orphans with her skill to seal objects into scrolls, Kaneki knew that she wasn't in any shape to perform jutsu or any kind, let alone stand on her own.


Using whatever medical supplies she had packed in her backpack, Kaneki was able to disinfect and treat her open wounds under Yūgao's supervision. Even then however, Kaneki knew just as much as she did that her injuries were beyond the point of what basic first aid could do for her, and despite his objections, Yūgao had insisted that he carry her to the wayward marker that her sensory vision allowed her to see— repeatedly telling her boss that if they had gone too far, and that she wouldn't survive the journey back to their base in Saitama.

Not knowing what fate had in store for, and with the only meaningful path available to him being to move forward, Kaneki did his best to keep Yūgao steady in his arms as she led him through the dark wooded area. The deeper they got into the southern forest of Tochigi, which had grown exponentially since the bombs fell outside of its borders, the more spectacles that the two were able to spot, such as traditional red and black Japanese bridges, fences, and archways that seemed to be around since the days of feudalism.

With his Pipboy flashlight and eyepatch's night vision mode active, Kaneki had no trouble following the directions given to him by the young purple-haired woman, whose skin was cold like clay. While pointing with her extended arm to where she wanted Kaneki to go, Yūgao quietly told him about herself, starting with when she was first selected to join the 'Black Ops' group of ninjas known as 'Anbu'. Yūgao told Kaneki about how her sensory skills made her a candidate, and it was then that she told him that she served underneath Kakashi when she was younger.

Navigating through the forest floor and amongst the tree and branches that he needed to swipe away with his quinque, Kaneki revealed to Yūgao that he had an older brother who Kakashi hated, and neither he nor Haise really knew why. While she was a little surprised to hear that her boss knew who Kakashi was, Yūgao couldn't help but to laugh weakly while musing about how trouble always went looking Kakashi, and not the other way around, so it didn't seem too odd for her that someone like Kaneki would have gotten wrapped up in her old role model's business.

Yūgao admitted that she had never heard of Haise Sasaki, but she did tell Kaneki that Kakashi was always private about his past, so it was to be expected. Her team was known as 'Team Roe', and she had been Kaskashi's second in command— and was the one who discovered Sasuke after his family had been murdered by his older brother, Itachi, to which Kaneki really didn't know who she was talking about, but allowed her to ramble on as they drew closer to their destination.

And as they entered through a heavily-floral cavern in the woods, Kaneki maneuvered around the oddly growing tropical flowers and plants dangling from the roof of the cave and from below, as Yūgao went on about how she met her lover, Hayate, who was originally the one who taught her the art of kenjutsu, and was the one responsible for her skill in the art of the blade. And as Kaneki pushed past the jungle vines growing from the ceiling of the cave, he could hear Yūgao wearily chuckling and laughing to herself about her poor performance earlier, and wondered if Hayate would forgive her for slipping up once she saw him.

Having been too distracted with the giant vine-covered vault door that read '937' in large font, Kaneki didn't catch on to Yūgao talking about how excited she was to see Hayate, until it was too late. Wide-eyed and stunned, Kaneki stood frozen to the spot as he looked down at the deceased kunoichi in his arms, who appeared at peace with a tender smile etched onto her gray lips. Although Kaneki had just gotten to know her, he still quietly mourned Yūgao's passing and felt the burden of her death on his shoulders.

Although he knew it to be irrational, Kaneki felt like he was giving up on Yūgao when he finally built up the courage to walk over to a beautiful patch of blue maui flowers. Laying her body down and crossing her arms over her chest, Kaneki laid the crude dragon-bone sword that he once thought so little of beside her body, before covering her up with his large black-hooded cloak. Not being religious, all that Kaneki could do was hope that somehow, in some way, that Yūgao and her lover would meet again, and silently thanked her for her service, before making his way to the control panel near the vault door, to plug his Pipboy into it.

'She's a 'sensory type'… Maybe if there is an afterlife, that'll help her find her lover,' Kaneki thought with some hopefulness in his heart, as he hacked into the locked control access. Once he was in and managed to activate the vault door's release protocol, Kaneki unstrapped the rifle from his back and changed the mag, all while sadly staring at the covered body of Yūgao.

And as the yellow overhead lights built into the cavern's ceiling spun to life, causing the surrounding area to be dimly lit in its erie basking glow, Kaneki stood with his four glowing-red tendrils unraveling from his lower back, as he methodically did a weapons check with his M4A1 rifle and quinque, as he waited for the vault door to tear through the jungle vines and open up for him. Not wanting Yūgao's death to be in vain, all Kaneki had in mind to do in that very moment while waiting, was to kill every single Raider from The Blades hiding away from his wrath— a vengeful wrath, that Kaneki was impatiently


waiting to unleash on those who had brought him and his soldiers so much grief.

Next chapter, we'll get to see the 'Black Reaper' side of Kaneki, aka, his White Haired persona too lol.

I'm going to make Mini-Nukes and Fatman Launchers rare in this lol, it wouldn't be too climatic if they could just mini-nuke everything lol. Not that much to say in the author's notes tbh lol, now that I think about it…

I'm thinking of Kaneki either killing every ghoul in the blades, or sparing Miza, and imprisoning her instead. He's definitely going to be merciless in the next chapter, so expect Kaneki to be brutal. Rip Yūgao, you were kind of a cool character lol.

Her death will serve the purpose of letting Kaneki learn the hard way that going out alone or in a small group just means that he's going out unprepared. Seeing her jutsu and chakra abilities for himself, while learning to respect them after she sacrificed herself to help find the raiders who murdered her lover will make Kaneki want to expand on his medical team, which will motivate him to seek out Tsunade, once he talks about Yūgao's death to Jiraiya.

Also wanted to write this sub arc as a prerequisite to the major arc I'll be writing, which takes place in Tochigi— which essentially is just a giant scenic forest with waterfalls, hot springs, a volcano, and of course, Vault 937 will be GOAT's new outpost.

Alrighty, that about does it. Short chapter, I know, but that's okay I think. Gonna be busy for the next two days, so I ain't gonna be able to write until Wednesday. For now, have a damn good day!