A Tokyo Ghoul/KHR cross with a minor twist.

Feng awoke slowly, in the most comfortable bed he had ever been in his short life. Then again when you were a ghoul, having a home at all was a luxury as the odds of being orphaned young went up exponentially. There was a reason most ghoul children were generally home schooled, as they rarely had the best control.

He had managed to hide by virtue of his father being a martial artist, and citing that he wished to shield his son from corruptive modern influences like television when he should be training.

Old fashioned, but not something that would arose outright suspicion when the Doves started knocking on doors.

So you could imagine his shock and concern at being surrounded by humans, two of which could have been Doves off-duty with how dangerous they felt!

Then he smelled blood and his eyes shifted for a split second. He only realized his mistake when the darker one honed in on him with all the kindness of a shark who had taken an interest in you.

He shivered, terrified they would kill him on the spot.

"Now that is interesting..." he said quietly.

The other man sighed.

"Reborn, leave the poor boy alone. It's clear he's been through a bit of trauma recently and you are not helping," said the martial artist.

"You are only saying that because he's your younger alternate self," scoffed Reborn.

"They did warn us that this particular alternate was going to have a few...quirks...and unless you want to find another source of common information while she is still out cold," said the man patiently.

Reborn looked irritable, and went to check on someone in another room. The source of blood he smelled came from there, though now that he wasn't so terrified he realized it hadn't come from a wound at all, but a female who was having 'that time of the month'.

The martial artist came into view, and he nearly gaped in shock. The man could have passed for his father or older brother, because their face was nearly identical. He had a red robe on that only the elite martial artists wore, long braided black hair and eyes like dark chocolate that held strength behind their gaze.

He reminded Feng oddly enough of the dragon carvings he sometimes saw in temples.

"What is your name little one?" he said soothingly.

"Feng..." he said quietly.

"Are you under some sort of curse, or is that a natural side effect of something else? The way your eyes shifted I mean."

Feng stared at him in disbelief. He couldn't help what he said next, not after all the stress he had been under recently.

"You don't know about ghouls?" he blurted out.

The man blinked.

"Ghouls?"

"The good news is that she's fine. The bad news is that she'll be asleep for the next day and a half."

Feng stiffened.

"So, did you get an answer about the eye-thing?"

"He said something about ghouls."

Reborn blinked, wondering why that sounded familiar.

"Are you going to kill me?" blurted Feng, openly nervous.

"Kill you?" repeated the martial artist confused.

"Don't all Doves kill ghouls on sight?" said Feng.

"What do birds have to do with killing?" said Reborn confused, before he sent an oddly amused look at the other man. "Outside of bloodthirsty Skylarks, anyway."

The martial artist rolled his eyes, but didn't deny that snarky comment. Feng had the feeling it was an inside joke of some sort.

Still, the honest confusion about ghouls and doves helped to ease his initial panic.

"What sort of rock have you been living under if you don't know what a ghoul or a Dove is?" asked Feng.

"We're not from around here," said Reborn flatly. "Now what's this about doves and killing?"

Feng had the suspicion they weren't going to kill him outright, and hopefully explaining the reality of the world they were in would be enough to keep them from killing him anyway because of what he was.

"Ghouls are human-like beings who have certain...abilities. Unfortunately because of our diet, humans were less than happy when they discovered our existence, so they created a faction known as 'Doves' to exterminate us," said Feng. He didn't want to get into the whole "ghouls eat humans for food" if he could avoid it.

Reborn narrowed his eyes at Feng.

"Do the words 'Vindice' or 'Omerta' mean anything to you?"

Feng blinked.

"The second one sounds vaguely familiar, but I have no idea what it means."

The martial artist brought them back on track.

"So because your species is slightly different, despite looking the exact same as any other human, the humans decided they wanted to get rid of you?" he clarified.

"What's the real reason why humans don't like you?" asked Reborn.

Feng refused to say, terrified they would take it the wrong way and kill him because he was dangerous.

The martial artist sighed.

"Reborn, you're scaring him again."

"I don't want an unknown factor near her while she's out cold," said Reborn flatly. He narrowed his eyes at Feng. "You said that your diet was unique. I sincerely doubt that unique abilities are the only reason humans are determined to get rid of those like you."

"We can't eat human food. We can drink coffee, but the food humans make tastes terrible to us," said Feng.

The second he said that ghouls preferred coffee, Reborn shot a superior look to the martial artist. The other man rolled his eyes in exasperated amusement.

"Tea is a superior drink."

"Clearly ghouls have a more refined palate if they understand coffee reigns supreme," said Reborn smugly. "After all, who actually enjoys drinking soggy leaves?"

The other man gave him a flat look. Feng had the distinct impression this was a long-standing argument with him.

(He also became addicted to Reborn's taste in coffee from the first sip. Reborn was unbearably smug as hell for weeks.)

A few days later...

Feng quickly got used to the odd humans, even if he only met Hikari a day after she crashed into him.

It was when Arashi (the man who could have passed for his older twin, or at least father) heard his stomach grumbling repeatedly that they finally learned what a ghoul's diet consisted of.

Feng would be the first to openly admit he gaped at their reaction to the fact ghouls ate humans.

Reborn had dragged Feng with him to get groceries, mostly because the younger martial artist was incredibly tight-lipped about what a ghoul ate.

Some random thug accosted them, and Reborn killed him without a second thought. Only to pause when he heard the sounds of a human being torn apart by something.

Turning, he stared in bafflement when he realized Feng was eating the idiot who had annoyed him.

Feng realized his error, but it was too late.

"...Are you telling me that your kind eats humans?"

Feng swallowed what he had in his mouth...for a last meal, it was barely acceptable.

"Yes?"

Why did Reborn have such an odd look in his eyes?

Reborn eyed the corpse, then Feng.

"About how much of him can you eat at once?"

Feng looked at the arm in his hands, then at the corpse.

"A third, but that's mostly because I'm starving at the moment," he said honestly.

Was...was that glee in his eyes?

Reborn took out his phone and called Arashi.

Feng stared when he realized the content of the conversation, which essentially boiled down to "We're keeping him!"

"You...you're not scared of me?" said Feng, not daring to hope.

"I'm the World's Greatest Hit Man. Whatever supernatural powers you possess are nothing compared to my skills, and the day I let someone like you beat me I might as well quit the game entirely," said Reborn matter of fact. "Besides, do you have any idea how annoying it is cleaning up corpses so the cops don't come bothering me later?"

Feng tilted his head.

"What's a hit man?"

"Someone who takes contracts to kill high profile people for a lot of money," said Reborn.

Oh. Suddenly the idea of Reborn being very happy with keeping a ghoul around made perfect sense, if only to help dispose of the evidence. And bodies were dead weight in general.

Smelling a few of the younger ghouls he knew around, Feng finished as much as he could before discreetly moving the body someplace they could get to it out of sight of the main road.

The reaction Arashi and Hikari had to the knowledge of what he ate was equally baffling.

Complete and open acceptance. Hikari even pointed out a few reasons why ghouls could be a good thing if the humans could get over the fact that they had to share their place on top of the food chain.

"Why are you so accepting of me?" asked Feng, openly confused.

As one, Arashi and Hikari pointed at Reborn.

"He's the world's greatest troll and chaos magnet. Compared to him when he's feeling bored, a being that eats humans to survive is considerably tame," deadpanned Hikari. "Besides, you have feelings the same as everyone else and haven't tried to eat any of us in our sleep."

Not that he could, but it was the principle of the thing.

And that, as far as the odd humans were concerned, was that.

Feng actually grew to like being around them. Arashi knew a lot of martial arts and was more than happy to teach him and Hikari how to protect themselves. Reborn was a headache, but he was willing to share his coffee and was one supplying most of Feng's food...it was rather surreal that the humans completely ignored the contents of the special freezer from where Reborn brought home his kills for Feng to dispose of.

If this was what being part of a family was like, then he didn't mind at all.

Feng stared.

"Did you just headshot a Dove?"

"I take offense to the fact they thought I would let them kill my favorite cleaner," said Reborn, as if he hadn't just casually murdered the bogeymen of the ghoul species.

Feng tuned out the 'cleaner' comment. By this point he knew Reborn was a complete ass by default, but the fact he cared enough to kill the Doves trying to dispose of Feng for the singular crime of being a ghoul made him happy.

Besides, cleaner was one of the nicer descriptions he'd heard of ghouls.

Still the fact remained that Feng had been identified as a ghoul. Within the week, Reborn disposed of three more Doves and Arashi even killed four more. It was becoming ridiculous.

"I wonder how they would react if they knew they had pissed off a couple of humans who are way out of their league?" mused Hikari over tea.

Feng snickered.

"They wouldn't care. Anyone caught helping someone they know to be a ghoul or even siding with them is killed. The Doves really hate us," said Feng. He sank into the hug Hikari gave him.

"So there aren't any humans who date ghouls?"

"Oh there are, but it's nearly impossible for children to be conceived of it. Especially if the mother is human," said Feng.

Hikari thought that over and winced.

"Let me guess...the ghoul side tries to devour the human one, right?"

Feng nodded.

"I have heard of one half-breed ghoul, but the combination of human and ghoul is far more likely to be created by complete accident than by nature."

"What do you mean?" asked Arashi, having walked in on that comment.

"There have been cases, well rumors really, of one-eyed ghouls created by accident because major organs were transplanted into a human, creating a hybrid," said Feng.

Arashi sighed.

"And considering the organ trade, the odds of that happening skyrocket provided the supplier has no idea that the other party is a ghoul."

Reborn had brough home another one of his kills, only to discover that the corpse was actually a ghoul who stupidly tried to eat him when Feng refused to touch it. Since it wasn't anyone Feng knew, Reborn did a minor dissection of the corpse and found that biologically, it was almost impossible to tell humans and ghouls apart so long as their kagune remained hidden and their eyes didn't shift.

While there were ghouls that ate other ghouls, Feng was kept well fed enough that he never wanted to try his own kind.

"I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of these Doves bothering us," said Arashi.

"What are you planning?" asked Hikari.

"Reborn is going to infiltrate the place and destroy their servers before uploading a virus that corrupts all the information not backed up by hard file for the past ten years. Considering we tend to lead the Doves to areas without decent cameras, they would only have word of mouth on what we look like anyway."

"And considering Papa's cosplay habit, it wouldn't be too hard to disguise ourselves once we leave the country," said Hikari. "Where are we going?"

"Japan," said Arashi.

Feng felt depressed. He worried that his new family would leave him behind.

"Which is why we're going to get Feng fluent in Japanese, among other languages, before we leave," said Arashi smiling.

Wait, what?

Feng stared at him in shock.

"You didn't really think we'd leave you behind, did you?" said Arashi. "I care for my students as if they were my own blood."

Arashi kept silent on the strong hug Feng gave him hearing that he would be going as well.