Although Ken Kaneki had a comfy-enough office back in the United Front's headquarters in the 20th Ward, next to the same building district where Tokyo Security Committee's Main Office stood tall and proud above Tokyo, the proud father and leader sat in the comfort of his wife's cafe, :re. While Kaneki understood that it was more professional and appropriate to be in his designated office space while conducting business, he found that spending time in the comfort of his own home during times of stress allowed for him to think with a clear mind; and ever since the recent dragon orphan attacks have been on the rise, he found himself spending less and less time in that office. "Son of a bitch…" The thirty-nine year old half-ghoul muttered to himself as he tapped his tablet pen against the side of his booth's table. According to the morning brief he didn't attend that morning, another nest of dragon orphans was discovered underground a children's hospital. Now, what used to be a children's hospital was now a grotesque nesting ground for the eyeless abominations, and according to the reports of increased attacks against peacekeepers, Kaneki had reason to believe that there were more dragon orphans being reproduced. Frustrated, Kaneki folded his red-framed glasses and set them aside his white ceramic mug of piping-hot coffee before burying his face into his hands.
From across the barista counter where she counted the slow morning's till inside the cash register, Touka brushed the right side of her bangs away from her pristine face as she took notice of her husband. "What's troubling you, Kaneki? Is it work again?" Touka questioned. Speeding up the task at hand, Touka quickly finished counting the money in the register before making her way to the seat parallel from her husband. Placing her tender hand over Kaneki's scarred hands, Touka smiled reassuringly at her beloved partner while stroking the sides of his stark-white hair. "Hey, hey… Everything's okay, alright? You're here, I'm here, and our daughter is safe upstairs… It's going to be okay."
Reluctantly, Kaneki's face slowly shifted up from his palms to gaze into Touka's beautiful purple irises and loving smile, which gave him the confidence to lowerer his arms from the table. Sighing, Kaneki reached over for his cup of coffee before taking a small sip. "Thanks Touka… You know that hospital in the 11th Ward?"
"Jihi Hospital?" Touka asked with a furrowed brow. "Yeah, of course I know it: that's where Ichika was born… Why, what about it?"
"This morning, the Tokyo Security Committee had reports early this morning, like around three thirty, the hospital was over ran by dragon orphans, and that was only figured out by Ayato while he was on his way to his apartment… He called it in, but by the time reinforcements came and had a perimeter camp set up, we lost over ninety peacekeepers while trying to secure the outside area… And it's only nine o'clock." Kaneki grimace as he set down his cup of coffee. "This operation is becoming more of a problem than I thought it was going to be… Now I have peacekeepers refusing to go in, so I have to rely on Front Line's agents to complete the raid themselves… I'm going to have to lead the raid myself at this rate."
Hearing this, Touka's eyes shot open wide and her jaw fell agaped while she felt every motherly fiber in her body tense up. "... It may sound selfish of me, but… I don't know how to feel about you offering yourself up like that! I… I understand that it's your duty as their leader to be in that position, but… After what happened to Naki, and seeing Miza and her children at his funeral…!" Touka muttered with a look of absolute terror in her eyes. "My God, babe… When even is the last time you left the office? How can you expect yourself to just pick up from where you left off?"
"Touka, I know it's scary for you… Trust me, I'm not exactly thrilled about it either… And hey, it's only been a few years; I still got it!" Kaneki said with an uplifting smile as he took his other hand to gently squeeze Touka's outstretched hand. "I understand that this isn't easy for you, and it probably won't be easy for Ichika to hear either… Especially when she's still trying to get into that American University…"
"Harvard; she wants to get into Harvard." Touka clarified while shrugging. "I hope you're ready for when she gets that letter of acceptance, because my baby girl is the smartest little biscuit in Tokyo." The proud mother said in a matter-of-fact tone of voice as she felt her smile coming back across her pink lips. "I hope your wallet's ready for that too."
"Me too, haha…" Kaneki chuckled uneasily as he shook his head. "Hopefully she gets that scholarship… But incase she doesn't, we're going to have to pick up the check for her, and for that to happen, I'm going to have to do my duty as Front Line's leader." Kaneki replied with as much as a reassuring smile as he could muster while he looked at the hesitant acceptance in Touka's eyes regarding their current situation. "You know that it's no longer about either of us…"
"It's about Ichika, I know… San Francisco, that's where wants to live right?"
"It's between that or San Diego, but I think she's leaning more towards Monterey Bay if I'm being honest." Kaneki mused as he excitedly watched the expression change on his wife's face. "I heard her last night talking about how she wants to open her veterinary clinic there."
"Where ever she ends up moving to after she graduates, I'll be happy… Just as long as it's not in Japan." Despite what Kaneki had just heard his wife say, Touka's smile only grew wider as she began to imagine a life for her daughter that was on the other side of the world. "Maybe when the dragon orphans are all gone… Maybe then will I long for her to be back home."
"... Y-Yeah, me too." Kaneki said with a sad smile across his face as he began to imagine the cafe without his beloved fifteen-year old daughter running around late at night and causing mischief. "Plus her English is really good, I-I'm sure she'll get approved any day now…!"
As the married couple switched topics and moved onto a more pleasant subject, both Kaneki and Touka were both completely oblivious to the adolescent girl who had hid herself behind a wall along the steps of the oak stairwell that led up to the bedrooms above the cafe. Anxiety and troubled thoughts flowed freely through the usually care-free half-ghoul as she felt her heart racing underneath her small chest. While thoughts of her father opening the destroyed doors of the hospital to traverse through corridors of blood-stained walls and severed bodies terrified her, Ichkia felt her mind going numb as the stairway around her seemingly began to spin around her. Just before losing her balance to vertigo, the young teenager grabbed hold of the railings leading down to :re's cafe dining area. Stumbling down the wooden steps, Ichika was able to catch herself from falling over and quickly regained her balance just in time to see her parents' confused faces staring at her. "... Good morning guys…!" Ichika greeted with a nervous tone in her voice as she tried her hardest to act natural. "How'd you guys sleep?"
"Good, we slept good… How about you? Hungry?" Kaneki asked as he reached over to unfold his red-framed glasses. "I think we have some synthesised breakfast burritos in the freezer… Not the greatest, I know, but you know how hard shipments are to get these days." Kaneki mused with a tired sigh as he slid the red-frame of his glasses up his nose.
"Oh don't be sorry dad… Trust me, I know." Ichika reassured with a nervous wide smile on her face as she rushed over to wrapped her small arms around her father's chest. "I love you, and thanks… Thanks for looking after all of us…!" Ichika choked as she buried her cheeks into her father's abdomen.
"Ichika, I love you too… How much of that did you hear?" Kaneki asked with a saddened expression as he returned the loving embrace. She had always been that way with her parents; if something was bothering Ichika, Kaneki and Touka immediately knew from determining how long she held them and how tightly her arms were wrapped around them.
"Why… Why does it need to be you?" Ichika asked softly as she rested her head against her father's black dress shirt. "Surely there's an alternative… Drones? Perhaps controlled demolitions can be more practical… After all, I think it's more important to try and stop the dragon orphans rather than trying to reclaim medical equipment."
"Normally I would agree with you… However, there's plenty of blood, medical equipment, and possible survivors that could still be trapped there… You know that as much as I do." Kaneki argued reluctantly as he heard a small gasp escaped from his daughter's lips. "The truth is even if we just looked for survivors, we need everything we can get these days… It's not like Tokyo is getting a lot of shipments these days..."
"But why? Why are we still here if that's the case…? Surely our safety is more valuable than… What, patriotism?!" Ichika asked in a frustrated tone as she pulled back from her father's embrace. "People are leaving here everyday dad, why aren't we doing the same?!" Ichika demanded as she felt her hands tightening into fists. "I-I'm sorry, it's just… Why are we fighting so hard for something that seems like a losing battle…?!"
"Because Ichika, if I leave this place, than I turn my back on everyone whose placed their hopes and dreams onto me… If I leave, then I take with me that hope for a better future." Kaneki explained calmly with a loving, warm, and understanding look in his eyes as he placed his hand on top of her shoulder. "I understand from a logos point of view, that fighting for Tokyo's security seems outlandish and rather futile… I understand that, I really do… Perhaps I'm holding onto something that I don't want to be taken away from me, but the reason why me, your mother, and everyone else is here is for one reason: hope."
"Hope…? Hope for a tomorrow that may not come?" Ichika sighed as she felt her vision growing blurry from the tears that were beginning to accumulate in her gentle eyes. "Everytime I look outside, I don't see hope… I only see fear… So-someday, I want you two to leave this horrid place and move in with me to California…"
"Ichika, tomorrow is never guaranteed; no matter where you live... You only see fear outside, because that's what you choose to look for… When I go outside, I choose to look for hope of what may come." Kaneki sighed as he gently brushed his fingers through his daughter's hair. "It's a rather complex situation, I'm aware of that… Besides, dragon orphans are just a bunch of idiotic hunks of valuable kagune; I thnk your old man is more than capable of fighting something that doesn't even have eyes, ears, or a nose." Kaneki chuckled as watched with a sense of joy as his daughter gave him a playful smirk.
"I don't know dad, lately you've been raiding more boxes of doughnuts than actual nesting grounds for quite a while now!" Ichika teased playfully as she poked her father's rock-hard abs. "I'm telling you, if those were real doughnuts, you'd be in trouble!"
"You're probably right, sadly enough!" Kaneki laughed as he suddenly picked his daughter up by her sides. "Speaking of which, you need to eat more! You're smaller than your what mother weighed when I first met her…!"
Hearing this, Touka's face turned from being one of a proud mother who was watching her husband and daughter having a heart-to-heart, to one of shock. "H-Hey! You're one to talk! Ichika, when I met your nerdy dad back when he first walked his boney-ass into my cafe, he looked like we weighed as much as a small bag of potatoes!" Touka pointed out as she glared at her husband. "The nerve of some people…"
As I watched my dad apologize prefuselesly to my mom, I felt a comforting warmth wash over my mind, body, and soul. The sort of familiarity within these whimsical moments served as a welcomed distraction from the reality that Tokyo was living in.
It was only a few months ago that the amount of dragon orphan sightings were at an all time low. It was during my graduation that I recall that there was even talk about a celebration that was planned on being hosted at the TSC's Main Office; a fancy ball dance of the sort. It was actually during the time that my parents were taking me dress shopping that my dad got the first report of a dragon orphan attack in a very long time. Since then, there's been a mandated curfew for everyone to be indoors by eight o'clock and more than half of the city's population has dwindled down due to either moving out of the country, or by more… Undesirable causes. Due to Tokyo being considered a hotspot for dragon orphans, imports from overseas have become a rarity, and food along with clean water has become a luxury that not many were able to get their hands on.
Due to the lack of synthesised food, ghouls were being forced to resort to hunting for dragons orphans due to their muscles being edible. However, seeing that dragon orphans were dangerous game to hunt, it was an easier and safer option for ghouls to simply move out of Japan and over to the United States or South Korea to start their lives again. Those who either lacked the resources or will to immigrate were forced to either scavenge the nesting grounds for food, or to attack and devour human meat.
My parents are waiting for me to leave Japan, to move over to the United States so I could pursue a higher education and to leave this city. The truth is though, I never applied for college; at least not yet… Until my parents are safe, I vowed to myself that I would stick by their sides until then. But only fools wait for the future to come to them.
That morning, before leaving to head to the TSC's Main Office to volunteer myself to help raid the same hospital I was birth from, I lied to my mom and dad, and told them that I was going to the library. I was a prodigy, a legend in the ghoul community; although I never fought before, I knew how to use my kagune and that was enough for me.
Hope is something that one keeps for themselves to get through times of trouble, for me, it's a tool, not a miracle. Miracles are obtained only by those whose wills are strong enough to grasp that future with their own hands, and not by hoping it's given to them.
I'm actually surprised by the lack of Ichika Kaneki fanfiction on this site; I think there's only one?
The titular protagonist in this fanfiction won't be Ichika, but she'll basically be a main protagonist. I figured that dragon orphans and dragons would be fun to write about, because unlike ghouls, they don't need motive other than following the order of their dragon.
This is just the prologue; in the next chapter, I'll introduce the main protagonist, Dragon Slayer, who yes, is essentially just Goblin Slayer but more modern and still a human.
My plan for the main cast of dragon slayers are going to be: Dragon Slayer, Ichika, Eto, and probably two more characters who I have to think of lol.
Feedback is appreciated, thank you!