Tokyo Ghoul: Regina

god.

Usui

I never missed a day of the week going to the shrine as a kid. My grandparents were staunchly religious,  and felt that I would turn up like my parents if I didn't pray every day, and pray to the gods every week for an hour. After they knew the potential I had for this world, they also put me in cram schools in middle school, before eventually realizing that I could be the smartest person in the world. That's why they turned to the Academy. After the conflict many years ago, they signed me up for classes and put a regime in my head because they knew I'd could run the human side of Tokyo. Work till your body gave out. Of course I knew that I had to work to put something forward for myself, but this time, I had to constantly show myself and be the smartest person in the room, and be a good person to make the gods proud. That's what the motto was for myself and what I stood by during the Academy.
When I was sixteen everyone was given the Quinx exam, to determine what group of people could be able or are fit to become a quinx. Only two people in my class were capable of becoming one. Myself and another student named Yukio Amano. He was someone that was polar opposites to me, he was a rebellious student, he had some of the lowest grades in our class and he was the loudest dude besides Naito. As someone who was always told to be proper and respectful and smart, seeing a person like that made me envious. How he was able to have so much freedom to be himself, while I was supposed to be cold, quiet, and submissive to rules.

I was estatic to be given the opportunity to become a quinx, I could finally be so much more than a intelligent weapon, however, as the day to the surgery grew closer, my grandparents put that desire to a halt. They wanted me to be a pure blooded human with a human conscious.
"Why do you want to destroy your future, Etsu? You don't need to do that to us." My grandmother scolded me as I stood outside of the Academy building, my head to the ground, clenching my fist as they scolded me. "Your goal is to become a peacekeeper and serve your purpose with that beautiful intelligence of yours."
"Yes, ma'am." I replied to her as I raised my head.
"Now, you go tell the doctors that you will not be participating in that surgery, you do not need it."
"Yes, ma'am." I nodded as I headed back in.

"You're really going to have people control what you do?" Amano asked me as I walked by. "You're seventeen, when are you going to finally grow into your own?"
"I don't know what you intent." I said.
"The quinx surgery, you and I were the highest scored on the test, you're better than everything that I can do, and you're just going to give it up to be an assistant to people, serving others, when you could be the leader." He came up to me, fixing his black hair in the process and standing in front of me. "Control your future, you smart idiot."

I continued with the surgery after we spoke, but out of fear that my grandparents would find out, I asked for special permission that I would be classified as a human on my documents. After I woke up from my surgery my eye was acting funny. It was a complication with the donor, and it was left to be always activated. To hide this, I covered my left eye with an eyepatch, and I walked forward. Until.
"Yo yo yo, Usui ,you're needed." My professor touched my shoulder as I was finishing up my work.
"What for?"
"Reina Marude wants to talk to you." He confided to me, whispering into my ear. "It's very important."
I stood up and walked out of the room and into the room with the door wide open, to a woman with long, messy black hair and green eyes. She was sitting there on her phone, giving a smirk that showed me she wasn't a calm woman.
"ETSU USUI, HELLO!" She stood up and extended her hand. "Reina Marude is my name and I can't wait to meet with you, an IQ of 172 is so impressive, I've never met someone with such great intelligence."
"Thank you, Miss."
"Oh just call me Rei here, or Reina, doesn't really matter, now let's get started." She sits down and grabs a file. "Recently I've been given the chance to run my own squad with a little twist to it, we're mixing humans, ghouls, and a quinx in it, to see how they'd cooperate, and I'm doing it with my colleague." She sorts through the file with many papers of my classmates, before quickly noticing Amano after mine. "Here you are, Etsy Usui, seventeen years old, a human, you're the top of your class but your strength isn't subpar to Marikou Naito's."
"She's the strongest in the class, I could never be as strong as her." I sighed. "Why'd you choose me, I was shot put in going to graduate and become an intelligence peacekeeper."
"No, sweetheart, I feel like you could be a little weapon, I remember the time I watched everyone's training sessions before, you took down Kaito Arita with a good technique strategically and effectively, even if you stumbled some times, you had will." She puts the file in her bag.
"Yeah because she's always tried too hard, she'll never be a strong peacekeeper." I said.
"I chose each member on something I saw in them, I saw Kaito in her leadership skills and determination, Shima Toyama in his collected nature and sword skills, Yukio Amano in his quick movement and team building, Marikou Naito in her strength and tenacity, and Jirou Kishimoto in his compassion and emotion, and the way he controls his upper body, is mesmerizing. I chose each of you because I found something in you, something I didn't have in your age, Usui, you have potential to take over the TSC when you're older, and if you come under my wing, I'll be damn sure to make sure you're the youngest director ever." She spoke to me, which made me start to cry.
"No one has ever spoken to me with such sincerity before. I wiped my tears away.
"Do you accept my offer to join me?"
"Yes, yes I do!" I agreed.

"Hey, Usui, why don't you finish up for the day, you've done as much as you could." My superior said to me as I closed my book.
"Finish up? But I'm almost done." I whined as I took my glasses off.
"You're already on your way to being promoted again, soon you'd be a first class peacekeeper, go get yourself a drink and get some sleep."
"Okay." I mumbled as I grabbed my bag. I forgot what day it was again, but I know my birthday is coming up soon. I'll be twenty two. I don't really tell the others about my birthday, as I'd usually prefer to not celebrate it and focus on my work. But I did slip it to Amano after a long drinking binge after Naito and Kishimoto came back from Oslo. Hopefully he forgot, I just want a peaceful day myself.

I managed to get myself home with avoiding the others, I noticed Arita and Kishimoto hanging out again, I don't know how to feel about them together still, it seems very weird to me as I never saw them talk in the Academy.
"I'm home." I shouted as I opened the door and turned around to close it. Loud poppers went off and I hear the sound of cheering.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, USUI!" My squad shouted at me as I turned around. Everyone, including Arita and that new guy Satoru, was wearing birthday hats and Naito shot a confetti ball.
"What is this?!" I said all confused.
"It's your birthday today, silly!" Naito walked up to me and grabbed me with her arm and pulled me in for a hug.
"Yeah, dude!" Amano laughed as he also put his arm around me.
"Amano was the one who paid for everything, he even forced us to get gifts." Arita tells me as she drank her drink.
"I didn't know what flavor cake you wanted, I hope chocolate is okay." Amano says as he goes to pull the cake out of the fridge.
"Amano really stepped his game up in the last few years." Hide says as Naito and Amano huddle around the cake. "He got in shape, he started taking his job seriously, remember his psycho crazy mother? Yeah he cut ties with her and stopped taking those pills, it was hindering him."
"He really became less of a pain. I'm surprised." Arita sighs as she sets her drink down at the table.
"USUI GET YOUR BUTT OVER HERE WE'RE SINGING YOU HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" Naito and Amano shout for me as everyone gathered around. I stood still as everyone started singing to me, staring at the cake. I never was rewarded with things from my grandparents, only notations of the intelligence that I was born with. But, this is the greatest gift I've ever got.
"Thank you all!" I said to my squad, as I cried a little.
"Let's eat cake, everyone!" Reina shouts as we cut the cake.
"We'll skip." Arita and Kishimoto backed out.
"Oh yeah, I forgot you two can't eat regular food."