Burrow Under Your Marrow

𝙤𝙣𝙚

The sounds of distant sirens and the bustling city life were used by shadowy figures to sneak into the dark corners and seedy alleys that most upstanding citizens of society tended to avoid or worse fear (with the right reason) as it was these locations that tended to be crawling with criminals and villains that slipped the eyes of heroes and law enforcement.

It was these places that Kaneki used to roam around the city, hidden from eyes that would seek to capture him. He had enough of people binding him down in chains. No matter which side of the moral scale they claim to fall under. Tonight was his feeding time, this time he could schedule the least amount of times he had to hunt long pig. Kaneki sneaked around, hidden under the city's shadows, his nimble feet flying across the urban terrain. Ever since he became a freak of nature, a Ghoul with Rize's organs, he had to adjust his eating habits, specifically the fact that he was now a cannibal. Although can you really call it cannibalism if the cannibal is no longer wholly human?

However, since his arrival into this new world, that was in, his opinion -absolutely crazy. Whoever heard of heroism be a career and not a title you earned? This world was strange, somehow he could eat human food (albeit only small portions.) Which was a peculiar experience after years of being desensitized to the human palate, It was a strange sensation, akin to that of a twilight zone experience to take delight in eating his favorite meal when he was once a human —Burger Steak with meat from an actual cow.

Still, his body needed the Rc cells, through an unfortunate discovery where his body deteriorated and lost functionality from the low Rc cell count. Therefore human flesh was still his primary source of food. Unfortunately for him, there were no Ghouls here for him to cannibalize. It was difficult to tread this world with underground heroes lurking in the dark and villains looking to either kill or recruit him into their makeshift gangs with their ego forgetting that 'even monkeys can fall from trees.' (猿も木から落ち)

As he glided from rooftop to rooftop, making sure to stay near alleyways to allow both a high vantage point and an accessible way for him to fall from the roof and surprise his meal. A shriek alerted him to an alley closely situated near the territory of the straggling yakuza, the Shie Hassakai if he remembered correctly. Wondering if it was a wise choice to wander near Overhaul's territory a second shriek had made him choose.

'Better for me to eat now or let daylight slowly rise.'

Unfurling his rinkaku, his kagune wrapped around a fire escape staircase and used it to propel himself towards the sound. His kagune dissipated under a mist of blood and dropped on top of the roof immediately on top of the alley.

Jumping down into the surprisingly clean alley (well as clean as a dark alley could be) He focused on the man stabbing a woman's face with his steel covered hand. Cracking his knuckles, he shifted into his kakuja form wrapping the man and the woman with his centipede kagune he unzipped his mask and started eating the dead woman first, the blood spilling everywhere and bones crunched with every bite. The man with the steel hands quirk yelled and tried stabbing his kagune. Kaneki paid it no heed, focusing on eating his current meal. The man currently trapped in the centipede kagune, tried to resist harder as he sensed that the man in the mask was nearly finished with his meal.

"Get the fuck away from me you freak!"

The purse robber continued his efforts in punching and slashing at the kagune with his steel hands, however, this was to no effect as the masked man simply twisted his steel arms like moldable clay.

"Argk!"

An anguished scream erupted from the restrained man, blood and filth smeared across his face. Using his other kagune he crushed the man's head. His struggling body became limp, steel reverting back to human flesh (eatable) He ripped apart his head throwing it to the side and he tilted the headless body, grabbed it by the legs, and slurped the flowing sanguine ichor. The blood tasted foul, like curdled milk. Choking in disgust, Kaneki spits out the blood, throwing the body away dropping beside the dumpster with a sickening crunch.

'This world was like eating food blindfolded and one of the options was poisoned.' Kaneki theorized that it was due to the quirks. Gives the meat an unpredictable flavor.

Kaneki jumped up in between the alley buildings up into the roof, the rising sun peeking from the horizon. He kept running faster and faster, his rinkaku kagune jutting out and propelling him faster away from the scene of the crime and the yakuza territory. Luckily it seemed as though they didn't care or bother to check on the screams near his territory.

'Must be a usual sound to hear around these parts or the citizens are used to heroes risking their lives for them to actually care.' Kaneki mused, cleaning his face with a disposable wipe as best as he could so he could blend in with the late-night crowd without any of the patrolling heroes stopping him, or just suspicious people glancing anyway. He threw it in the garbage bin and jogged out of the place he hid in to walk with the crowd.

"Over there! The screams came from over there!"

'Looks like the patrolling heroes finally noticed something happened.'

As Kaneki walked, carefully trying to blend into the citizens and making sure not to attract attention, he sidestepped a couple of rushing heroes and police officers screaming for the crowd to move out of the way. He failed to notice a display mannequin's eyes following his retreating back before the lively eyes faded into a plastic sheen.

♞. AUTHOR'S NOTE

About the Japanese Characters added into the story:
I'm trying to experiment with how I write this story, adding phrases from Japanese sayings, texts from known Japanese authors as a way to learn how to integrate another language into my writing without it being too weird. The language shift might vary though so forgive me if it becomes annoying or wrong. I'm trying to avoid using google translate so... yeah.

Writing to this with this playlist it's in the external link.