School was absolutely dreadful for Kaneki. Being reminded of his mother ruined his entire day. He'll never forget the day that he stood next to her grave, gripping tightly onto the teddy bear in his arms, crying of both sadness and happiness. He hated her dearly, yet didn't want her to leave him alone. He honestly loved her.

In the present day, Kaneki spoke to a girl with shoulder length red hair and a baggy hoodie with sleeves that covered her hands and a huge hood that covered half of her eyes. Despite asking her name, she refused to respond and went back to the subject of the homework.

"And that's about all you need to know for the essay..." Kaneki says.

"You're amazing dude! You totally explained that way better than the teacher did. Thanks a bunch. Any chance I could ask you to come to my house? I've still got a few questions about the homework!"

"Your house?! Is that really necessary? I mean, I'd understand if I was an actual tutor or something, but I barely know you."

"Come on, please?"

"Fine" The word came out as an annoyed groan.

"So your names Kaneki Ken, huh...?" She asked as the two walked away from campus toward the 20th ward. Obviously, they weren't actually going to go there. Just nearby.

"Yeah... I get compliments on the alliteration in my name, haha..." Kaneki laughed, shivering from the thought of Doctor Kanou standing next to him while he was strapped to a bed.

"Really? You don't look too pleased about it."

"Oh, it's just because of a little bit of bullying here and it, that's all."

"Ah, I see..."

It was silent for a moment. However, eventually, a lightbulb lit up in her head.

"Hey, wanna go ghoul hunting with me?!" She asked..

"Wait, WHAT?! Ghoul hunting? Are you suicidal?"

"I've killed a couple before!"

"You?!"

"Yep... in fact, right now I'm looking for this scary looking one with a combination of a skeletal mask and eyepatch. The news won't stop talking about him! Legend says he hides in alleyways and eats girls he's seduced, like a vampire or something!"

Kaneki winces.

"Are you sure you want to do this? I know you got lucky a couple times, but unless you're a CCG member, you can't underestimate ghouls. There are stronger ones than the one you've killed, guaranteed" Kaneki says. The sun began to set. A fade between dark blue and yellow streamed across the sky.

She turned her back to Kaneki and removed her backpack. She unzipped it, unsheathing a cute white bunny mask.

"You're right, you know! But the thrill of mystery just motivates me. It could be anyone behind that mask! Maybe even you?"

"Have you seen me? My arms are smaller than twigs. I'm pretty sure if I was a ghoul I'd be more than dead by now."

"Catch." She said as she tossed a baseball bat at Kaneki head. Before he could move my arms up to catch it, metal collided with bone, smacking Kaneki right in the middle of his forehead.

After adjusting to his headache, Kaneki asks, "What are you giving me this fo-"

"Quiet!" She snapped.

The sound of laughing echoed throughout the alleyway. Despite the sun only setting a few minutes ago, it was now pitch black. The laughing continued, and as it did it grew louder, closer, stronger. It became more obvious that it was a female laughing. The girl Kaneki spoke with, who never mentioned her name, unsheathed a second baseball bat out of her backpack and gripped it firmly.

"Ka-ne-ki Ken! Guess who!" Rize said, caressing Kaneki's face.

"Rize?!" Kaneki gasped, Rize's hands moving down to his neck, strangling him from behind.

"Let him go!" Yelled the nameless girl wearing the bunny mask as she pointed the baseball bat in her hands toward the two.

"Who the hell are you? I'm not listening to some little girl." Rize hissed.

"That wasn't a request," The girl twirled her baseball bat around and said "It was a warning."

Rize quickly stuck her teeth into Kaneki's neck, stealing blood and sipping it up before he could even scream. As Kaneki drops to his knees and attempted to collect himself, the masked girl twirled into the air, flipping above the two and landing as she pulled her bat back and swung it with all her might.

Rize slammed into a wall, the wall making a crater where she landed. Her Kagune unsheathed, shaped in the form of a scythe.

"I'll kill you!" She shrieked, still not having slid down from the middle of the wall.

As she began to fall down, the masked girl darted toward her, slamming her baseball bat into Rize's stomach. Rize's Kagune became thinner and wiggled rapidly in response to the pain. Rize spit up blood as she was pinned back onto the wall. Rize was hit twice more by the steel bat, each time more and more blood flooding out of Rize's mouth.

"No, stop!" Kaneki shouted.

The masked girl looked back, still applying pressure to the bat, and tilted her head in confusion.

"What the hell's wrong with you? Why would I stop?!"

"That ghoul... She's someone I know!"

"Seriously? She's a reincarnated type, huh! Just let me knock her out, I won't kill her."

"No. Please don't hurt her. Anything but that, please!"

"How else am I going to-"

Rize's held her right hand in the air, her nails growing into claws.

Kaneki leaped from where he was as he saw Rize slash her hand downward. Kaneki pushed the masked girl away from Rize. Rize's claws slashed Kaneki's right eye open. Bloody bits of eyeball drooping onto the ground. Rolling on the ground and screeching, Kaneki holds his hand over his damaged right eye.

Funny, he thought to himself. It happened on the same eye he made his masks' eye-patch on.

Kaneki woke up being carried on the back of the girl who wore the bunny mask. He had not yet asked her of her name, so he decided to simply call her Rabbit. Unlike when they went ghoul hunting, she was not wearing her mask. Kaneki yawned, stretching one of his arms and hanging on to her back with the other.

"It's morning... What happened after I passed out?" He asked.

"Let me start with the questions, alright? Why didn't you use your kagune back there? We would've had a much better chance if at least one of us used or ghoul forms."

"Kagune?! W-what are you talking about? You mean those things ghoul's have?"

"Drop the act, it's so obvious, Kaneki! You fit the description of the Masked Pervert perfectly, capturing you was a walk in the park."

"Masked Pervert?! Why can't you just call me Eyepatch!"

"Aha, so you are Eyepatch!"

"I- wh- damn it!"

Rabbit laughed heartily.

"Anyways, you said capturing. Are you part of the CCG?" Kaneki asked.

"No. I'm actually a ghoul too-y'know! A reincarnate type, just like you. We at the 20th Ward are renowned for our peace. When a ghoul thinks it's a good idea to feed on non-suicide types in our ward, we capture them and leave them for the CCG to deal with."

"Oh I see. That's a relief, actually."

"Mhm!-"

"Another thing I wonder is, what is a reincarnate type? You've said it twice now. I thought all ghouls were just... yeah, ghouls."

"Remember the theory that you can implant a kagune into a dead person? The procedure is a bit more complicated than that, but a reincarnate type is a ghoul that was originally human. They were killed, but their organs were replaced by a ghouls. Most ghouls are not reincarnate types."

"Is that so? How are other ghouls made?"

"I'm too lazy to explain, go find some book or something at Anteiku."

Anteiku? That was a really odd word, Kaneki thought. Was it some foreign library? Maybe it was Chinese.

"Is this my mask?" Kaneki asked as he felt an eyepatch on his right eye.

"Of course not, dumbass. That's an actual eyepatch! Your eye got cut clean off back there! I had to stop the bleeding myself, too."

"Thank you."

"Thank me? Don't you mean thank you? You lost your eye trying to save me. It kinda was your fault that happened in the first place, but at the same time my fault that it ended up your fault, and wel.. y'know..."

"Yeah, you're welcome." He rolled his one remaining eye.

"So now that you know who I am, where am I going to be captured...? Some prison?"

"That was the plan... but I saw what you did for me back there. You're a good person. So I'll let you keep your freedom AND your life under one condition."

"Condition...?" Was the last sentence he said with so called "Freedom". Flash forward 30 minutes, and he was in a fancy white tiled bathroom, shaving the hairs off his neck and chin. He slipped on a vest and tied a tie to compliment it. Kaneki walked out with an annoyed look on his face.

"Welcome to Anteiku." Kaneki said, practicing the line to greet people to Anteiku, the JAPANESE coffee shop in the 20th ward.

"You look so depressed when you say that, man! Smile, like this!" She said as she gave a forced smile, her mouth wiggling and trying to revert back into a frown, the bags on her eyes drooping menacingly.

"Your smile is way too forced. It's creepier than my mask."