Tangled Fates {Tokyo Ghoul/Seraph of the End}

Chapter 2

The truck lurched to a halt, startling the children inside. The door swung open and Kaneki braced himself for a bright light, but was met with none. Wherever they were, it was dark and gloomy. Kaneki stepped out of the truck, under the careful eye of the hooded men.

He turned back and helped the younger orphans out of the truck, with Mika and Yuu's help. Children began coming out of other trucks and large crowd accumulated.

Kaneki walked over to Hide, keeping an eye on the hooded figures.

"Who do you think they are?" He whispered, gesturing towards the white-cloaked men.

Hide leaned towards Kaneki. "I think the question is 'what do you think they are?'. When they were taking us to the truck, I noticed they had fangs."

Kaneki's eyes widened. He looked at a pair of them that were having a conversation and noticed with his heightened vision that Hide was right.

"Do you think they're vampires or something?" Kaneki asked, only half joking.

Yuu, hearing the conversation scoffed. "Vampires aren't real."

'Human eating monsters with impenetrable skin and weird tentacle things aren't supposed to be real either, but here I am.' Kaneki thought sourly.

_____

The children were led through a dark city, with castle-like buildings and medieval looking bridges. They were told to change into white tunics that matched the colors of the cloaks the hooded figures wore. Afterwards, they were separated into multiple single-file lines and one by one, told the cloaked figures their names and ages which were imputed into devices.

The Hyakuya group was shown to a house in some kind of run down residential area, where the children settled in together. By then, the younger orphans were exhausted. Akane helped them settle in the attic, before coming downstairs. She, Kaneki, Yuu, Hide and Mika sat together at the table. Kaneki was the first to speak.

"What should we do?" He asked, fiddling with a strand of black hair.

Yuu stood up, smacking the table with his hands. "Isn't it obvious? We should escape! We can't let them keep us here like livestock!"

"Calm down, Yuu." Mika said. " We don't even know what they want with us. I think we should wait and figure things out. You saw how many of them there are. Escaping would be impossible."

Yuu sat down, still looking angry.

Kaneki nervously spoke up. "Also, what would we do once we're out there? The virus will kill us when we turn 13, and we would be alone. All the adults are dead."

Yuu stood up. "I'm going to bed." He proclaimed, stomping off. Mika immediately stood up. "I'll go after him."

Hide also picked himself up from the table. "I should go too." He proclaimed loudly, giving Kaneki a pointed look.

Kaneki frowned back, looking confused.

Hide gave him an exasperated glance. He then straightend up, looked from Kaneki to Akane and wiggled his eyebrows. Hide spun around and went upstairs.

That left Kaneki and Akane alone.

Kaneki turned red. 'I suppose Hide is Hide, no matter the situation. But seriously, not the time.'

Akane stood up. "I guess we should get some sleep too." She smiled, standing up. "I'm going upstairs."

Kaneki stood too, pushing the bench back. He turned to follow to Akane when his stomach growled. His left eye throbbed and he realized that he didn't have his eyepatch. Kaneki quickly brought his hand up to his face, covering his eye.

"I'm going outside for a while." He called hurriedly.

Akane turned around, looking worried. "Kaneki you shouldn't it's dangero-" She cut off. Kaneki was already gone.

_____

Kaneki's bare feet pounded into the ground as he ran away from the house. His stomach ached with hunger and his head was pounding. He needed to get food quickly. The only problem was, he'd never killed someone before. All of his meals had always been packaged and ground.

Kaneki continued running. 'I'll think about it later. I just need to get away. I'm a danger to my friends right now.'

Suddenly, he ran into something hard. Kaneki fell backwards, landing on the ground. Eyes wide, he looked up, still covering his left eye. His exposed gray orb met the red eyes of one of the cloaked people that brought them here. The man looked down at Kaneki emotionlessly.

"What are you doing out past curfew? I believe we warned you of the consequences." The man began moving towards Kaneki, reaching out to grab him.

Kaneki looked back at him blankly, his mind repeating the same word over and over again. Food.

The man's fingers reached Kaneki's wrist about to grab him. Just before he touched him, his hand went limp.

Drip... Drip... Drip...

Blood fell onto the stone ground. The man was confused. He looked down at his chest and saw multiple red tails piercing his abdomen.

Every instinct in Kaneki's body told him to eat the man. So, without any regard for his morales, Kaneki bit into his flesh. In a crazed frenzy, over, and over, and over again. Until finally, Kaneki realized that there was nothing left to eat. Confusion crossed his face. He blinked, and that simple action seemed to bring him out of his trance.

Kaneki looked down at the pool of blood in front of him.

"Wh-what... have I done?"