Ghoul investigators, such as Amon, Aura, Houji, and Arima, were Kaneki's heroes. However, through his idolization of said heroes, he became their very enemy. Kaneki's heavy breath wakes him, instantly he notices the large metal straps confining him to a surgery table. A fat and ugly man with a scarred face stood beside the table, wearing a gigantic white lab coat. The man took a drill, laughing as he stuck it into his flesh and implanted nails into Kaneki.
"No… No!" Kaneki yelled, squirming and seizing in a desperate attempt to flail out of the straps. Alas, to no avail.
Days become night, and nights become day, until finally an entire week has passed.
"Where am I…?" Kaneki asks as he wakes once more. His heart raced at the speed of a wild stallion.
"Kaneki Ken… such beautiful alliteration to your name. It's a shame that yesterday, you were found dead. The news say you jumped 10 stories, committing suicide. Yet not a single note, not a message, not an ideal. Not even a sign that you ever existed! When asked, not a single family member even knew your name."
"Where am I?!" Kaneki yells with a dark and raspy voice, the straps clinking and rattling against his back.
The man in the lab coat kneeled down toward his ear and chuckled.
"This is the afterlife, Kaneki. I am your ruler. I am your God. I am Doctor Kanou."
Kaneki growls.
"So desperate to live, despite your slow and merciless death pending every minute. Resist it. Resist your humanity."
"No!"
"Take my hand. Allow yourself to be reborn, not as the man you once were, not as an angel, but as the plague to society known as ghouls!"
Kanou injects a syringe full of venom into Kaneki. It was done. The surgery was complete. As the venom swam through his bloodstream, Kaneki's vision and life began to fade. The world before him, vanishing into nothing. Yet, in the darkness, a small shimmer of light sounds. Slowly, this light duplicates, until all that was gone was rebuilt piece by piece, into a time of the past.
"I'll have an expressio." Kaneki said as he entered a nearly empty coffee shop at the corner of 21st street.
"Coming right up!" The young female worker, Touka said.
He sat down at a coffee table, humming happily as he awaited the arrival of his date. The shop was practically empty, other than the elderly store owner. Touka, and Kaneki of course . Kaneki took a sip of his coffee.
"I wonder where she is." He thinks to himself, watching a soap opera on the television.
"Just an hour ago, the 20th ward was attacked by three ghouls. One wearing a skeleton mask, was captured by CCG members, however the rest are said to still be roaming the 20th ward. The only other ghoul identified is said to be wearing what looked like a cross between a trench coat and a lab coat, but that's all we know. If you live in this area, we recommend you evacuate immediately. Back to you, Jim." The news reporter said.
Coffee splashes onto the table, Kaneki's hand trembling wet as his eyes lock with the television.
"What's wrong, Sonny?!" The old man worried.
"My girlfriend… she lives in the 20th ward! I don't know what to do."
"There's nothing to be scared of, kid. I bet money she's already evacuated."
"I pray…"
His phone began to buzz. Kaneki took it out of his pocket and answered.
"Kaneki." Rize whispers into the phone.
"Rize, are you alright?!"
"No, Kaneki. No. Please, just know that I love you!" Rize said.
"Who the fuck is that?!" An intimidating voice says in the background.
"It's- it's my boyfriend!"
Rize struggles to keep the phone, the phone falling as you could hear her pained howl.
"Listen, little punk. If you want your precious girl here to leave the 20th ward unharmed, I suggest you come here within… hm… 10 minutes. A second later, and who knows what'll happen?"
Kaneki leaped out of his chair, dashed into his car and speeding through the city. He arrived at the 20th ward a couple minutes early.
Blood was splattered all over the streets and the walls. The speed of his breath increasing tremendously. A red arm of flame ignites from the sky, the shadow of a lab coat soaring across the road as the red flame smashed into Kaneki's car. Kaneki opens the door, leaping onto the concrete. Flesh on his cheek scrapes off like paint on a wall.
As Kaneki rolls onto his stomach and stands on his feet, he's confronted by a masked man wearing a white lab coat. In one hand, he strangles Rize, who is easily overpowered. In the other, his arm is extended, the red flame crawling into his back.
"I wonder which one of you I should experiment on first." The masked ghoul holding Rize said.
"Let her go!"
"Why should I?"
"If you don't," Kaneki unsheathed a gun from his pocket and clocked it "I'll kill you."
The ghoul bites Rize's neck in a split second, leaping away after stealing her energy.
"Rize!" Kaneki says, rushing to Rize's side.
"Kaneki.. Forget me. There's a child on the top floor of the apartment complex. He's bleeding out, you have to save him!"
"But what about you?"
"I don't matter right now, Kaneki! Save him!"
Kaneki shakes his head, climbing up the stairs to the top apartment and wiggling the doorknob.
"Locked." He says.
"Help me!" The child inside screams.
"The doors locked, I can't get in!"
"I don't want to die." The child inside cries.
He takes a step back. Boom. With a single kick, the door collapses. Inside, a young girl with a huge wound on her arm screams.
"It's OK, It's ok!" Kaneki says, removing his shirt and putting it around the wound, then applying pressure. The child screams louder the more pressure he applies, but he realizes she'll have to tough it out.
Rize enters the room.
"Rize, you're feeling better?"
"Y-yeah!"
"Call 911. We need to get this kid to a hospital."
Kaneki continued to apply pressure to the child's wound, until eventually, Rize began to giggle.
"Kaneki… I don't feel so good." She laughed, her eyes glowing dark red.
"No… No, no, no!" Kaneki says, pushing the child as far away as he could in the split second he had.
Rize tackles Kaneki into the glass window, the window shattering into shards of glass.
"Why did you have to become a ghoul?" Kaneki says as he falls to the ground, splattering into a blood stain on the concrete.
"Kaneki Ken… such beautiful alliteration to your name. It's a shame that yesterday, you were found dead. The news say you jumped 10 stories, committing suicide. Yet not a single note, not a message, not an ideal. Not even a sign that you ever existed! When asked, not a single family member even knew your name."
"Where am I?!" Kaneki yells with a dark and raspy voice, the straps clinking and rattling against his back.
The man in the lab coat kneeled down toward his ear and chuckled.
"This is the afterlife, Kaneki. I am your ruler. I am your God. I am Doctor Kanou."
Kaneki growls.
"So desperate to live, despite your slow and merciless death pending every minute. Resist it. Resist your humanity."
"No!"
"Take my hand. Allow yourself to be reborn, not as the man you once were, not as an angel, but as the plague to society known as ghouls!"
"I'll become a ghoul," Kaneki says "But not by your will. By my failure to save the one person I loved… I shall become what I hate most as punishment."
Red arms made of flame begin to sprout from Kaneki's back. It grabs Doctor Kanou by the neck, throwing him into the nearest wall. Kaneki burns away the metal straps keeping him down, looking over at the dirty hoodie and jeans to his side. What he wore before all of this mess started. He strips himself bare of his hospital gown, looking over at the dead body of Doctor Kanou and sighing before clothing himself.
-A year later-
Kaneki's phone buzzed in his pants pocket. He picks it up, but instantly sheaths it back as he finds another text from Hide, his college roommate. "You just disappeared one day," The text read. "Please, come back. I miss you." He was such an idiot. Anyone who leaves for this long isn't coming back.
Kaneki was dead, at least, to himself he was. Kaneki reaches behind himself and flips his hoodie onto his head, walking slowly over to the coffee shop where everything began.
"One cappuccino" He said as he entered the building.
"Coming right up" The old shop keeper said, with Touka nowhere to be found.