The call came at sunrise. Complications, his brother-in-law choked out, moved to an isolated part of the hospital wing.

Please - Please we need you the baby -

It was the first night of the term where Matsuda had slept without dreams interrupting [cruel, horrible mirage of dreams -torn bodies, broken children, trafficked victims - all humanity took upon themselves to ruin] he had slept well.

His brother-in-law's sobbing, news of his little sister's birth, sleep abandoned, Matsuda was up and out of the police dormitories before the sun could engulf itself above the horizon. Police stationed outside the dorm to monitor students couldn't have stopped him if he tried. No student without higher permission could to leave its premises without paying severe penalties.

"I'm sorry!" Matsuda shouted over his shoulder to the stupefied men and women on watch. They couldn't stop him, because they couldn't believe it was left-footed Matsuda breaking the rules. "Really sorry!"

Brother-in-law on the phone for directions, Matsuda met the shaken man outside an operating room filled with his sister's ear-shattering screams. He bypassed the man who reached for him and went to bang open the surgery doors because just what in the fuck was going on?!

"They locked it," Kei said. Pyjamas askew and dotted with blood at the sleeves. He was always a small man, but right now he looked to have collapsed in on himself in agony. "The baby…" he choked again. Teary eyes burned as he looked up to Matsuda, the police-officer-in-training, expecting him to somehow fix it. "God - I don't know what's happened."

Matsuda kicked the doors at another of his sister's screams. He had heard something like that in a lecture. From a victim of -

"Hey!" He turned to shout down the empty hospital hallway. Only now realising they were in a redevelopment part of the hospital. Nobody was supposed to be here.

The wrongness of it all clicked and Matsuda kicked at the door. Again and again "Kei!" He shouted and the man helped, until eventually it gave way and they stumbled into a sight of nightmares.

His sister was surrounded by petrified nurses, green scrubs splattered red, and the doctor between her exposed legs. Arms stretched over. Whatever he was doing Matsuda couldn't see, but he could hear the wet squelch and raw animalistic cries of his sister.

"What the fuck are you doing to her?!" Matsuda sped and tore the doctor from Keiko. The moment he did, he saw. "Keiko?" Somewhere in the short time span of ten seconds, screams had ceased, and through his little sister's exposed, open stomach he saw a baby eating its way out. A small, red bloody eye met his and it blinked.

Kei had rushed up behind him, saw the gory sight of his child eating his wife's insides and turned to collapse and retch.

"She was a lost cause," the doctor said in an exaggerated sigh. "The child took too much."

Matsuda stared at his sister's empty face. Frozen in horrific pain and then to the crevasse of her opened stomach. Surely there wass supposed to be more organs inside the body, right? He saw the chewing baby and said "oh." The child took too much.

Without thought he bent over and picked up the baby.

"Aaaa, I wouldn't do - " the doctor sopped and watched as the baby simply allowed itself to be cradled in Matsuda's arms. Dark, congealing blood stained his grey Police Academy jumper. "Nevermind."

"It…it ate the umbilical cord…" one nurse muttered

What unnerved Matsuda most, other than his nephew [he noticed] having eaten his way out of the womb, one eye ember red, still chewing, was how silent he was. Children were supposed to cry when being born.

Children also weren't supposed to eat their mother, Matsuda trembled a giggled.

"What is that thing?" Kei asked. He had crawled over his deceased wife and was now clutching her head against his chest. Not unlike Matsuda, upon noticing the way his brother-in-law was staring at his nephew, held him closer. Shielded the child from his father. "That thing ate…" Kei trembled.

"Your child was hungry," the doctor stood in front of Matsuda. The sound of wet flesh against floor caused him to notice another oddity of the night. The doctor was barefoot. "If you were starved and a buffet was laid out before you, would you not succumb to food?"

Kei laughed. Bloodshot eyes wide, he slumped to his knees. "It killed my wife."

"Your wife died from blood loss," the doctor stated calmly. "Your child simply fed itself with what was there. In short it was a natural death."

"Natural? it killed my wife! It killed Keiko" Kei rose to his feet and stormed to the doctor. "I'm not letting that bastar - " There was a glint of silver in the sugary lights and Matsuda couldn't breathe. He froze. Held his nephew tight.

A thin line dotted red along Kei's throat.

Before the line sprayed open with boiling blood, shocked eyes met his own.

Half of Matsuda's face got caught in the arterial tidal wave.

The Doctor turned to him. Wisps of a dark fringe dripped wet. Matsuda stepped back and slipped on the bloodied linoleum floor. He landed hard, wind nocked, and shielded his nephew from the Doctor. Breath coming in panicked spits like Kei's throat.

The Doctor cocked his head, considering. Almost lazily.

Live or die?

One of the nurses abruptly went to bolt from the room. A useless effort, the Doctor snaked the back of her hair and the girl's legs went flying before she was pulled down and stabbed in the brain through the eye socket. Her body spazzed then died.

"No!" Matsuda choked, met the Doctor's grinning blood splattered mask, and watched helplessly as he glided around the room finishing off the nurses.

Matsuda looked down to his helpless nephew, his stained police academy jumper and tried to gather his wits.

"This way, they'll think I killed her," the Doctor crouched his level. Bare feet contradicting his professional attire - along with the manic grin and gore.

"Why?" Matsuda could only ask. No. No — he had a lot of other questions. All pertaining to his severely cannibalistic nephew, but he couldn't find himself to speak more than one word lest he break out into terrified giggles or worse; cry.

"Because it's more believable," the man, who Matsuda just now noticed looked far too young to be a surgeon, far too put-together after killing a whole bunch of colleagues, shrugged and looked down at the baby. "Don't you dare go feeding him anything other than human flesh."

"huh?"

"Normal food will kill the little guy. Don't want that now, do we? I totally wish I could stay and help, but I've got a half-brother to pester," the Doctor went to pat his nephew's head and Matsuda scrambled back. Breath caught.

Hand still outstretched, the Doctor scoffed and left.

.

Matsuda is aware he isn't as smart as others. Average. Passable. Least to succeed. Least to become something in the world.

The Academy doesn't put up a fight when he puts his career on hold. They let him go, gives condolences and forget he exists. He isn't a loss to them. He wasn't much to begin with.

Now he has a nephew to take care of and Matsuda's parents died early and left him a cushy finance to sit on for emergencies. He was going to leave it to his little sister.

Now he has to use it for her funeral.

Now he had to use if for her son.

The kid, who he's named after Kei, should absolutely terrify him. Not once has the child cried, thrown a tantrum, or laughed. The child has sat with Matsuda at home [cleaned and wrapped in blankets] and done nothing but watched him with the concentration of a predator. Somewhere in the chaos, the red eye had dimmed to silver. Keiko's eye colour.

Matsuda is fine with being averagely smart, but he's determinedly loyal to family. Kei is the last of it. Maybe that's why Matsuda is fine with it all.

Maybe.

Maybe he's just in shock and once it wears off he'll go insane.

.

Kaneki is five and holding the back legs of a teenage girl who earlier that night, had jumped to her death off the nearby cliff. He knows this because he and his Uncle had sat in the comfort of their svu near the drop sight. Playing Guess Who or Eye Spy until some suicidal individual came along and served them a delight.

It was a weekend routine of theirs. Father son bonding. Developed by his Uncle sometime during early infant years. Easiest and lawful way to feed him.

Before Kaneki could walk and hold things, it was his Uncle carrying the dead bodies into the trunk.

Now he helps.

Common courtesy, you know?

"Easy does it," Matsuda placed the girl's back into the trunk and helped Kaneki lift her legs to follow. Not that Kaneki needed help. The kid could bench press a truck - but it was the little things that helped Matsuda deal with everything. "She might last you a couple days," his uncle eyed her like a cow dealer. "Maybe we should wait for another - although," he eyed his wrist watch. "You start elementary school is tomorrow."

"She'll do," Kaneki poked her leg. "I'd like to go home now, Uncle."

Matsuda smiled a little, as though laughing at a joke he wasn't clued into. "As do I. Let's get you back and draw you a warm bubble bath."

For Matsuda's sake, Kaneki asked with a bunch of childlike hope, "Do we still have bubbles?"

"I'll make sure we'll have enough for eternity." Matsuda promised.

They close the trunk, hop back in the car and drive off. Kaneki stared out of the backseat window. No matter how powerful a creature he is, he still had to abide child laws.

Matsuda didn't know Kaneki was about the same age as him, neither being a reincarnated soul.

.

"Why's your hair white?" A kid Kaneki sat next to in class asked.

"My uncle said my birth was traumatic."

"Tr -" the kid scrunched her face up at the big word, decided he was too intense of a guy, and turned to another girl for a more zen experience.

Kaneki moved from desk to desk before finding a quiet compatriot he could complete his arts and crafts assignment with - that didn't involve annoying questions about his hair or screaming about whatever got their mood in a flex.

"Miss I'm done!" Kaneki called over the teacher and was transported to the 'reading corner'. His silent companion followed not long after and together they examined the exciting selection of child-books.

Kaneki decided to flip through a book.

"You can read that?" The kid asked. Silence torn.

Briefly, Kaneki entertained a glance to the child who resembled a doll. Floppy brown hair and big, bright hazel eyes the only darkness against his baby white skin. The kid's mother had dressed him up nice and tidy. Not a single crease struck out.

"Unfortunately."

"It's got a blue sticker on it."

"Uh huh….So?"

Large eyes squinted. "It's for the third years."

And they were first.

Kaneki tossed the book back to the pile of blue stickers, saw the yellow collection for first years, picked some simple looking own and sighed. "God damn."

"You can't say that."

Kaneki scoffed at himself, "I've got a five year old telling me what to do."

"You shouldn't say words like that," the kid spoke clearly and without trouble. As though he had repeated the abc's by himself in private to perfection. "The adults won't like you."

"Well howdy- fucking - doo," Kaneki slapped open his stupid yellow sticker book and hissed to the brat, "I don't care."

Unperturbed, the kid went on, "I like you so you have to. I don't want to be associated with a meany."

"I'm not a meany - associate?" Kaneki blinked and wondered if he had heard that word come out of a five year old's mouth. The child preened a slight satisfied preen at his appreciative silence. "You know that word?"

"If I say it I know it."

Kaneki flicked the kid's forehead. Tiny inflated arrogance peeving him. The kid yelped and slapped both hands over the red mark. Bewildered that he had done such a thing.

Many years later, this child who is Yagami Light will have wished he had never met Kaneki.

.

.