Here's a short chapter that's going to transition to this fanfic being a little bit of a slice of life drama, where Haise is able to try to reconnect with his loved ones.
The author's notes are at the bottom! Please enjoy this chapter!
Orange and purple hues of the setting sun lit up the destroyed ruins that hadn't been cleaned up within the 20th Ward; the aerial bird's eye-view of one of the largest areas amongst his city was cathartic for Haise. '… I think I can see some demoed areas with construction materials and vehicles parked out in dirt lots… There's some leftover calcified roots from that dragon… At least someone's trying to rebuild this mess,' Haise thought optimistically to himself, while wondering as to whether or not there was some ulterior motive involved with Tokyo's reconstruction, similar to how the British were only helping Tottori to have control of their trade port that connected them to China and Russia.
Staring outside with one hand holding on to the balance-support handle just above where the opened door of the helicopter passenger compartment was, Haise continued to contemplate the future of his city as the light of the setting sun shined on his front. Using his free hand, Haise reached up to adjust the microphone attached to his headset closer to his lips. "Koizuma, hey… Hey, we're here. We're finally here," Haise said in awe with a wide smile across his face, as he continued to survey the city as they flew over the 20th Ward, and toward where the buildings weren't nearly as destroyed.
Having been resting since they landed in the prefecture of Nagano to refuel their helicopter, Taiko let out a yawn as she stretched her arms up and over her head. "Mmmmnnn… Is that so?" Taiko asked with a slightly raspy voice, as she lowered her hands down to rub the sleep out of her eyes, wincing a hit from the rays of the setting sun's light that were cascaded past Haise's figure. "Ugh…! Do you mind closing that? It's bright outside…"
Furrowing his brows at Taiko complaining about the sun, Haise scoffed under his breath as he took a step back to shut the sliding door to the side of the helicopter. "… Weren't you living in a desert for like, your entire life…?" Haise asked half-sarcastically, before taking a seat across from where the dusty-pink haired girl was sitting. "Anyway… So, where are you going to go once we land? Got a friend, family member or something else lined up in Tokyo?" Haise inquired, to which he received a shrug from Taiko, before she could even vocalize her response.
"Nah, I got nothing like that here for me. Although, I'll probably just end up signing on with some mercenary company; it pays well, and it's not like I have much experience in any other field," Taiko replied honestly, and smiled cynically back at Haise, as he became visibly shocked at her response. "If that fails, then I could always try my luck with joining the "Tokyo Security Committee"; I've heard they're always looking for recruits."
Frowning at the plan of someone who was young as Taiko had for herself, Haise was about to voice his disapproval of it, but hesitated after recalling just how young some of the other investigators he met within CCG were. '… Yusa and his other two half-siblings were eleven years old when they started their training, so was Arima and Ihei, now that I think about it. And that one blond girl, Ayumu? Yeah, I think that's what her name was… She was fifteen when I last saw her with Hachikawa. Guess if it didn't matter then, then she doesn't matter now especially; "too young to drink, old enough to die", as they say.'
Nodding his head while finishing with lamenting over his thoughts, Haise smiled softly at Taiko as he relaxed his shoulders with his back slouching against the back-cushion of his seat. "You know… That's not a bad plan; I might end up doing that too, if I can't find anything else to do for work," Haise admitted, while wondering just how similar a life working within the TSC would be to how he used to live as an investigator for the CCG.
Perking up at the idea of having Haise fighting alongside her, Taiko bounced a bit in her seat as she tightened her hands into excited fists. "You really should join the TSC, or something else that involves fighting! You're really good at it, Sasaki! Especially when it comes down to being a "One-Man Army"!" Taiko said cheerfully, to which caused Haise to roll his eyes slightly.
"Just for the record… I didn't take pleasure in doing that to your gang, or even to whatever the hell crawled out of that facility. All of that was awful, and I'd be happy to never have to put myself through that again," Haise stated, frowning a bit while simultaneously being glad that he couldn't vividly remembering killing any people as he actually ended up doing; a memory block that he chalked up as a result of his subconscious trying to protect his fragile psyche.
Laughing to herself about Haise trying to advocate himself as being a preferred pacifist, Taiko shook her head with an amused look on her cute face as she looked up into the one-eyed ghoul's confused stare. "Sasaki, you're funny, kekeke! If you wanted a life WITHOUT death, then you shouldn't have come to where this whole shitshow started!" Taiko pointed out, as the idea of Haise thinking he could avoid violence in one of Japan's most dangerous areas was entertaining to her to say the least.
Once inside the spacious and call white walls of the terminal, that had large window-panels built into for the travelers to watch as airplanes took up into the sky from the runways, Haise didn't know what to think as he heard Taiko's small footsteps following behind him as he went through each airport shop. Stepping through the automated sliding-glass doors that parted open for him, Haise was walking through the waxed hardwood floor of a shop that sold an assortment of snacks, electronics, books, and anything else someone would need for flying.
Hearing Taiko finally begin to stray away from his shadow, Haise was looking through the limited selection of books available for sale on the shelf before him, when all of a sudden he felt a small hand grab a hold of the end of his red jacket. Turning around with a mildly confused look on his eyes, Haise saw Taiko standing there with a handful of outerwear in one hand, while holding a bag of skittles in the other.
"Sasaki… Would it be okay to ask you to buy this for me, please? I don't have any money, but I'd like to have something sweet to eat… See the dilemma I'm having?" Taiko asked with an embarrassed look on her adorable face; the way she asked him to buy her a snack reminded Haise of the way Saiko used to ask her "Maman" to buy her food as well.
"… How much does it cost?" Haise inquired, while needing to mentally be sure to keep track of the stack of yen he still had in his pocket, from when he looted it back at Mr. Kamishiro's cabin.
"Oop, that's a good question… Lemme seeeee…" Taiko said half-playfully underneath her breath, before looking down at the white label that showed the price of the skittles. "… It's five-hundred yen. Is that alright?" She asked, to which Haise nodded his head before handing her enough money to pay for it and the tax.
"Have at it," Haise said with a warm smile across his face, after having seen the look of childlike excitement cross Taiko's face before she turned around. Thinking that she was going to check out with the cash register, the joy Haise felt turned into shock the moment he saw Taiko immediately shoot her arm out to snatch a handful of packaged snacks from the shelf nearest to her. Hearing the anti-theft alarms above the sliding glass door ringing as Taiko sprinted out of the store, Haise awkwardly turned around to see the cashier staring at him expectantly.
Giving the young woman an uneasy smile, Haise was nervously chuckling as he shrugged his shoulders at her. "Hehe-haha, uh… I guess you can take a girl out of a gang, but can't take the gang out of a girl…!" Haise cracked with his smile fading into a disappointed frown, as he reached into his pocket to pull out the rest of the yen he had been saving. "Here… J-Just take this, and tell security or whoever that it was paid for already, please," Haise requested, as he gave a considerably generous amount of yen to the cashier, before buying himself a bottle of water and a book that had caught his attention.
Given a plastic bag to hold his purchased goods, the cashier followed behind Haise to restart the anti-theft detector above the door frame as the one-eyed ghoul made his way out of the shop. Once again surrounded by white walls and white tiles beneath his boots, Haise quickly counted his leftover money before shoving it back into the pocket of his dark-gray jeans. Idly admiring the spectrum of bright lights and colors from the signs that were posted outside each vendor-shop, Haise followed the map of his terminal that was being shown on the massive overhead televisions that were hanging from each large archway he walked through.
Eventually making his way to the nearest food court, Haise was pleasantly surprised to see that all the fast food restaurants had ghoul-friendly alternatives for him to pick and choose from. Settling on buying himself a cheeseburger and side of fries from McDonald's, the old part of Kaneki that used to go absolutely crazy over crappy American food resonated within Haise as he plopped his homeless ass down on the brown-leather seat of the booth he chose to occupy.
'This… This, has been a long time coming,' Haise thought excitingly to himself, as his fingers peeled back the yellow wrapper of the burger; exposing the unimpressive "impossible" patty that had a slice of cheese, onions, ketchup and mustard, all sandwiched between two slices of lightly grilled buns. Giddy like a schoolboy, Haise was practically bouncing in his chair as he raised the cheeseburger up to his eager mouth; chomping down on it before tearing a piece off it.
Letting out a pleased hum while repeatedly chewing down on the food in his mouth, Haise felt an animalistic urge to cast aside his manners after swallowing the first bite. 'The bun is so soft, and the flakiness of where they grilled the exposed undersides contrast beautifully with the combined condiments! The sizzling patty and onions… And the cheese! It's like I'm sitting down at the park bench during a Sunday BBQ-feast!' Haise thought poetically to himself, as he messily tore into his McDouble like a feral ghoul would do when devouring a corpse.
His humming tune turned into excited moans, and the moans transformed to ravenous growls and maniacal laughter, until Haise was left sobbing loudly in his seat; his lips and fingers covered in ketchup and mustard. Wiping himself clean with several brown paper napkins, Haise was red in the face while tears were flowing down his cheek as he used another cheaply made napkin to blow his nose. "It's…! It's so-o-o-o, go-ooo-ooo-dddd-aaaaahhh…!" Haise wept to himself like a madman; calming himself more and more with each handful of salted fries he shoved into his gullet.
Having gone through the surreal experience of enlightenment and emotional release through what Haise called "burger-nirvana", the one-eyed ghoul had thrown his trash away and was rehydrating his body by sipping on the ice-cold bottled water that he had gotten from the shop Taiko stole from; occasionally wiping his eyes clean of left over tears, as he read through the first few chapters of the Sen Takatsuki novel that he had gotten to celebrate his own arrival.
The aforementioned book was titled "Blood on the Wings", and unlike anything the author had written before, the book in Haise's hands wasn't fictional at all, but rather it was a true-crime novel that followed the events of the "Dragon War" itself. In her book, Takatsuki wrote about how the shadowy group known as "V" had always been the ones controlling the CCG from behind the veil, and in turn were one of the many shadowy organizations who strived to keep humans and ghouls are constant war with one another; a cruel method in order to keep themselves in power, and to maintain "balance" within the world.
From what Takatsuki wrote about V, the vile organization had secretly been stationed in Tokyo over a century, and had political agents working all over Japan, as well as Germany; hence why the CCG and the GFG were always working hand-in-hand with one another. According to the book, V had gone into hiding during the Dragon War, using Rize against her will to transform most of Tokyo into ghouls, while the Clowns and dragon orphans caused mayhem and destruction.
After two weeks of constantly losing ground against the Clowns and dragon orphans, NATO had finally launched a world-wide effort to provide support to the entire mainland of Japan; with the United States and South Korea primarily focusing on Tokyo. During the six months that the Dragon War lasted, the United States would bomb the city-sized writhing mass of RC-cells that was Rize's dragon in order to prevent it from growing past the borders of the 20th Ward; an act that would later cause a rift when the United States refused to provide financial compensation for the buildings caught in the blast radius of their bombs.
In the end, Arima Kishou and Furuta Nimura had betrayed V in order to rescue Rize Kamishiro from dying; an unlikely outcome that only came into fruition only after Furuta had been convinced to help undo the wrongs he had done; a last-minute decision made, only after that the mutated RC-cells found in the spinal fluid of the dragon orphans contained enzymes that could reverse the accelerated aging process that he and his kin had been plagued with. Once the two powerful men had joined forces with Aogiri Tree's leader, they formed the first group made of humans and ghouls called "GOAT".
Together through a carefully planned attack, GOAT and the CCG's surviving investigators launched a raid into the dragon itself, after the United States had deployed a nonnuclear warhead that had been designed specifically to blow the top off of the dragon; allowing for the boots-on-ground team of fighters to infiltrate into the dragon's exposed nucleus.
Described by Takatsuki as a "Hell-on-Earth", the 24th Ward where Rize's body was located had been infested with monsters that were far more deadly than the common drone that made its way to the surface. Amongst the horrific creatures that were hypothesized to by Takatsuki to have been made in the imagination of Rize, none were as ferocious or terrifying as the monster who was guarding the green-sac that housed the dragon's host.
The "Leviathan" was similar to the Hydra of Greek legend; it was a cluster of black-flesh attached to the cavernous ceiling that loomed over the destroyed underground-city, with serpent-like appendages made out of a boney-amalgamations of black-flesh and thick-fibers that hung off the chins of their giant mouths like beards. Despite its ungodly size, the Leviathan was able to extend its necks out like lightning-fast vipers, devouring anything that was unfortunate enough to get detected by the hormones that it was pumping into the 24th Ward.
The terrifying abomination combined with the bloodthirsty dragon orphan specimens brought forth an uphill battle that was only won thanks to Arima and the Owl being able to push their way through the hordes of hazards to pull Rize free from the heart of the dragon itself; killing it, along with the Leviathan itself. Having to annihilate the rest of the larger dragon orphans within the city, GOAT and CCG ended up dwindling down to a group of twenty-six by the end of it; a stark contrast between the hundreds of men and women who came down into the belly of the beast to meet Death itself.
And before he could read onto the next section of the book, which seemed to go after the aftermath of the Dragon War, Haise looked over the top of the opened pages before him to see none other than a thunderstruck expression plastered on the purple-haired ghoul who stood beside his booth. "C-Cher Dieu du Ciel…! This feeling… It can only be Deja Vu," The man whispered underneath his breath, as he leaned forward with one hand down on the table to support his weight, as he carefully analyzed Haise's surprised expression.
Smiling back uneasily with a closed-lip smirk, Haise slowly closed his book before setting it down on the table before him. "… Hey there Tsukiyama, it's… Nice to you again, heh," Haise greeted awkwardly, while not knowing whether or not he and the Gourmet were still on good terms or not. While Tsukiyama was standing there, frozen and appearing as though he was confronted with an Angel from Heaven, Karren stood to his side, appearing far less interested in reuniting with Haise than her master.
"Sasaki," Karren said with a bored tone in her voice; appearing inconvenienced with the whole ordeal, but still respecting Haise enough to verbally acknowledge his existence.
Raising a hand at her to wave slowly, since he himself was still processing the reality that both Tsukiyama and her had aged, albeit gracefully, Haise smiled at Karren while still sitting down awkwardly. "Hey Kanae-"
"-Karren. I go by "Karren" now, young man," Karren quickly corrected him, all while establishing her seniority over him in age.
Nodding his head back at her, Haise let out a throaty chuckle while still feeling Tsukiyama's piercing eyes gazing into his very soul itself. "Oh, sure; sorry about that… "Karren", you-"
"-Ms. Rosewald; you haven't earned the right to call me by my first name. Show respect to your elder," Karren said, interrupting him before he could finish saying what he wanted to say to her; appearing dead-serious, despite how ridiculous Haise found the whole situation to be.
Holding back a laugh behind a wide grin, Haise reached up with one hand subtly to cover his mouth from Karren's view, and took a moment to recompose himself before naturally letting his hand fall back down softly on the table. "Ahem… "Ms. Rosewald", you look really good! Love with you did with your-"
"-KANEKI-KUN!!! YOU'RE TRULY HERE!!!" Tsukiyama screamed on the top of his lungs with a wide-eyed expression of unparalleled joy written all over his smiling face, throwing his hands up in the air to thank the heavens above for delivering his "Kaneki" to him.
Singing songs of praises in French, Tsukiyama shamelessly pulled Haise out the both to wrap him affectionately in a bear-hug; being too distracted with telling Haise about how much he had missed him, while Karren subtly blushed as she raised a hand up to methodically comb her fingers through her half-neck length, lavender-colored hair. "… Danke," Karren whispered in an audible voice; feeling strange after receiving a compliment that was specific, which was something that she wasn't used to getting very often.
And just like that, Haise had Tsukiyama's arm wrapped around behind his shoulder; the man talking his ear off about how he was going to be staying at his family's mansion with him and his servants. With Karren following behind them, Haise was walking alongside Tsukiyama as they made their way out of the terminal; the outside of the large building looked relatively normal, like it always had. And at that moment, Haise couldn't help but to feel like he first had, when Tsukiyama first took an interest in him about eleven years ago.
And there we have it! Taiko has left Haise's company, and we get an introduction to Haise meeting with Tsukiyama and Karren. I purposefully left a lot out, for the sake of pacing. Eto's book was meant to be a way to cement what happened during the Dragon War, without getting into the aftermath.
Originally, I was going to have Arima dead by the time this story takes place, but I decided to keep him around so Haise has a father figure in his life lmao. With that decision being made, Eto would definitely have someone to talk to; albeit, they were never social with one another, so Eto would still have had to rely on Hinami for being a social outlet
The next chapter will probably have Haise catching up with Tsukiyama, while they either go out to shop, to the beach, or just hanging out at his mansion. Karren will, at first, find herself disliking Haise being back in Tsukiyama's life; especially now that Shuu is able to take joy in knowing that Haise now has all of his memories from when he was Kaneki.
Time for the reviews.
Let's bring it back, fellas! Haise hasn't even reunited with Eto left; he's far from knocking her up. Let's focus on developing the relationship in a meaningful way, before he gets the deed done. Having Kaneki/Haise absent from her life has given Eto enough motivation to pursue him, so expect her being the driving force of wanting to connect with Haise.
And I'm still planning on posting this on AO3, I just have to make some adjustments. TSC, not TSG; I've got to fix that. And I'm glad you liked the battle sequences, and did my best to make it entertaining.
You've written quite the backstory for "Kaneki Jr" lmao. Furuta is a troll, and would have found it hilarious to get Eto pregnant to confuse her, but unfortunately he probably would have just done it himself while she was unresponsive, instead of doing a makeshift seminal implant. Overall, that scenario was entertaining to read, but it definitely would be off putting for some readers. Trust me, I wanna write lemons as soon as possible, but we gotta do it right.
As far as that Yusa idea as well, I'm probably not going to go with it; that too would be a bit of a turn off for those who like Kaneki x Touka. Instead, I'm going to have Yusa be with someone closer to his age, like… Twenty-one by now, Touka would be twenty-eight. I might have "Grave Robber" Yumitsu Tomoe be with him, since she would be twenty-one as well. Haru would be fifteen going on sixteen, so it's best to sort of just leave her without a boyfriend for now.
Touka would have probably tried dating, but it never worked out since she wouldn't be able to get over Kaneki, and that would have caused the relationship to go nowhere with whoever she tried dating. Hinami would have been with Ayato, and probably would have lost her virginity to him; their relationship would have ended because of him having issues with being in a relationship. Realistically speaking, neither Touka or Hinami would be virgins by this point; but we're going to ignore that, because again, that might be a turn off.
Let's just assume that Eto, Touka, Hinami, and Saiko are virgins. Mutsuki, sadly, isn't, nor would anyone else be.
Oh, Yusa could be with Ayumu too.
Arima could get with Ihei. Ihei seems willing to commit incest if it means being with Arima as his lover.
All in all, I'm still on the fence about Haise impregnating anyone anytime soon; children oftentimes get in the way, and thus would impede on the story. At least for now.
Anyways, that's all for now. Until next time, bye bye.