So, hey guys and welcome to the third rewriting of the first chapter of this story… Wow, that's quite the mouthful.

Anyways, I didn't make this out of any self-loathing for myself this time. I just had this updated form of this chapter on me. Mainly because of the fact I tried to make it on spacebattles and failed… like super bad. I could seriously count the people following the story on a single hand.

Anyways, I spent hours editing the chapter, so I thought that I might as well put it on FF. Might as well make sure it doesn't go to waste, right? By the way, I gave the same treatment to the chapter after this, so check that out as well.

If you want a rundown as to what I changed… Um, I changed the general format of most of the dialogue and some of the dialogue itself, like the finishing line to the beowolf fight. I like the new one better than the old one, by the way, so go check that out, I guess.

Whatever… Here's the mandatory disclaimer and then here's the chapter.

-Mandatory Disclaimer-

I don't own either of these series, bro. Like not at all.

-Chapter 1: Martyr Failure-

He was a coward. That was the only thing he ever was.

He could try to disguise all of his real intentions behind pretty words about trying to protect the people he cared about, but deep down, he always knew that the only thing he was trying to do was protect himself. To protect himself from the one thing he feared most in the world.

And yes, he always was afraid.

Afraid of being left alone in this terribly unfair world again.

He thought by becoming stronger that he would be able to save himself from having to go through that despair again and so, with that motivating him, he pushed himself and pushed himself and pushed himself to become stronger.

He refused to be left alone again. He refused to allow the situation with his mother to repeat itself. So, to make sure that it would never happen, he fought with every ounce of strength he had, but in a cruel - yet admittedly expected twist of fate - his struggles only resulted in more tragedy.

His own situation ended up becoming a direct parallel to what it shouldn't, and he didn't even notice until it was too late.

His mother died because she bit off more than she could chew, working herself to the bone day in and day out. All to support the two people she cared about most in the world: her leech of a younger sister, who would consistently borrow money from her under the guise of desperation, and her only son, the last remaining remnant of the husband who passed long before he should've.

At first, he thought his mother a strong person for being able to support both with nary a complaint. He ended up thinking that most of the nineteen years he's been alive, but then, like all things tend to do, things changed.

He had been tricked into going down that alley by Rize, he had been crushed by steel beams courtesy of a clown, he had been turned into a ghoul by Kanou, he had been taught the basics of ghoul society by the ghouls at Anteiku, and, last but certainly not least, he had been sent through the wringer both physically and mentally by Yamori.

He could still remember the days he spent in that chair, being forced to be subject to Yamori's cruelty. If he was remembered things correctly, then he stayed - chained to that chair by his arms and legs - for a total of ten days before he managed to convince himself into renouncing what his mother had taught him. That his mother, despite how long she held out, was the farthest thing from a strong person. That her inability to cut her leech of a sister off was because she was too weak to do so.

Those just so happened to be one of the things that pushed him over the edge and finally made him accept the side of him that he had been repressing ever since that day - the day he first found out that he had been turned into a half-ghoul - or to be more specific, his ghoul side.

The moment he finally accepted that part of himself, he simultaneously let go of the part of him that had been unable to save anybody, not even himself. The part of him that was directly responsible for why he had to go through all that pain and suffering. The part of him that had lived most of his life being directed by the rule: "it is better to be hurt yourself than to hurt others".

Or, to be more specific, his human side.

At that moment, he refused to allow anything to stand in his way. He would even sacrifice his own humanity if needed, and it just so happened that the only thing that was holding him back from being strong was indeed his humanity. So, he got rid of it. Threw it off to the side like a piece of trash, before fully embracing his ghoul side and the undoubtedly bloody road ahead that came with it.

Without having to deal with those limitations, he was finally able to take full advantage of the superior speed and strength that came with being a half-ghoul. Making it so that, for the first time in his life, he could no longer be considered to be just a crybaby who endangered everyone around him.

After that, people considered him to be strong. Strong enough to kill anyone who dare cross him or anyone precious to him. That effort eventually garnered him so much fear from the doves that they rated him a S-rate ghoul. Definitely not a rank they just handed out willy nilly. No, it was something that was given to only the most dangerous ghouls.

One might think that with all of that respect and fear that had been directed towards him, that he'd be content with the platform he built up and focus on protecting his loved ones and yet, you'd be terribly wrong. Because, despite all of that, he still wanted to grow stronger. Strong enough to not just protect those he cared for, but to eradicate anyone and anything that stopped him from doing so.

To help accelerate that process, he took up the suggestion of the man who tortured him and began eating other ghouls. Because apparently, consuming another ghoul would allow the consumer to absorb the RC cells of the one being eaten, and with a high enough concentration of RC cells, a ghoul would be able reach a form very few of their kind ever reached.

These select ghouls were called "kakuja" by the doves.

They were ghouls whose RC cells had mutated so much that it caused their kagune to change alongside them. This new kagune gave its wielder immense amounts of raw speed and strength, but while the mutated kagune benefited its user on a physical level, another one of its more notable aspects was the toll it took on the wielder mentally.

The kakuja often times made the wielder lose absolute control of themselves when they used it and, more often than not, made the ghoul certifiably insane. There were some whispers going around the wards of ghouls who have been able to maintain control of their kakuja in the past, but unfortunately those cases seemed to be usually uncommon.

And as it turned out, he was not one of those lucky few.

The first time he drew out his kakuja, he lost so much control of himself that he actually attacked Banjou in his craze, nearly killing him with an arm through the stomach.

The second time got him to where he was right now...

In some unknown location down beneath the streets of the twentieth ward. Blood pouring profusely out of his left eye, which had been stabbed clean through just a few moments ago.

The perpetrator of said act of violence was standing over him. The weapon that he had used to take said eye in hand, holding it just a few centimeters above his one remaining good one.

It would've been quite the terrifying sight, if not for the fact he wasn't scared at all. Something he greatly attributed to the fact that he wasn't where he was supposed to be.

As of that moment, he should've been on the ground, waiting for his opponent to plunge the weapon through his head and ending his life as he knew it, but he wasn't.

No, now he was standing directly in the middle of his childhood home, staring at the figure of his mother hunched over the dining room table, clearly taking a short rest from all of the work she had been forcing onto herself.

If he remembered correctly, the exact same thing happened to him when he had been tortured by Yamori.

At the time, he didn't know how to explain it, but after having some time to think, he finally realized that it was his own mind attempting to block out the pain he was feeling. Doing so by making his innermost thoughts seem like they were reality.

Back to his days in that chair, there was no Rize trying to convince him to accept the fact that he was a ghoul. She was simply the manifestation of his repressed ghoul instincts trying to break through to the surface. The only reason she even started appearing was because his mind was slowly breaking under the pressure being put on him.

This time, the manifestation that was facing him was the childhood version of himself, which he assumed to be there to embody the humanity that he threw away so he could become stronger. He had to admit, the boy did a pretty good job of it, though it was sad to have such an epiphany just when he was about to die. Then again, wasn't he the one who said that if his life was ever a story, it would've been classified as a tragedy?

A bitter smile grew on his lips when he saw the tip of his opponent's weapon start to grow in size, which he assumed to because it was starting to approach his eye.

He didn't know what would happen once this final blow was dealt, and truth be told, he really couldn't bring himself to care anymore.

Whatever happened after this series of moments happened, and he would be absolutely powerless to stop it.

Though, he couldn't deny that a very small part of him wished for a miracle to happen in his tragic life, but then again... what were the odds of that happening?

After all, it was called a miracle for a reason.

...

"Hey guys, I think he's coming to!"

Was that a voice?

No… it couldn't be!

He was supposed to be dead!

So how was it possible that he could be hearing voices?

Another hallucination maybe? No, it definitely couldn't have been. Something he greatly attributed to the fact that he didn't recognize that voice at all.

That voice was foreign to him in almost every aspect.

Three things about the voice stuck out to him: the first being that it belonged to a female; the second being that whoever it was held no ill intent towards him, actually it sounded quite concerned; the third and final thing being that it sounded as if it belonged to someone who hadn't quite reached her adult years yet.

He could tell thanks to his experience living with Hi- Wait, why did that voice sound so concerned about him?

From what he could tell by voice alone, he didn't know who she was nor did she know him, so why did she sound so concerned about him?

Was she one of those people who helped anyone in danger just because they thought it was the right thing to do?

If so, she should probably stop thinking that way.

He knew better than anyone that state of mind was nothing more than a weakness. A weakness that most people and ghouls alike would exploit given the chance.

She was lucky that he wasn't like most ghouls, however, or she would've been food by now, though something about the whole situation bugged him.

Why was she acting so calmly?

If he remembered things correctly, and he probably did as this was literally a few moments ago, he should have two gaping holes where his eyes should've been. Definitely not the kind of injury someone that young should be so calm about.

There was concern in her voice, yes, but not the kind that one would show for someone with such a grisly injury. From the way she spoke, it sounded like she had simply found him lying on the ground unconscious, and not mutilated beyond all belief.

If that was the case and he wasn't injured to the extent he believed, he knew that he must have regenerated his missing parts at some point, but that was something else that bothered him about the whole situation.

To have regenerated from such a devastating injury, he would've needed some form of subsistence to fuel his regeneration, and to have gotten subsistence he would have needed to hunt.

That, of course, brought up the question of how much time passed since Arima dropped that quinque of his through his skull.

He estimated that the window he had to get the food he needed to regenerate was less than a few minutes. Mainly because people who've been impaled in their heads rarely lived past a few seconds.

It was clear to him that, like a lot of things, the same thing didn't necessarily apply to ghouls.

Before getting hit with that finishing blow, he took a spear through the head and continued to fight for several minutes afterwards. A fact that the artificial half-ghoul attributed that to the fact he only got impaled in one side of his head.

Having once read in a medical textbook that a human could live through getting impaled through the brain if damage was limited to one side of it, and since ghouls were built naturally tougher than humans, it only made sense that he would be able to move around after something like that. Taking that amount of damage to both hemispheres was another story entirely.

He didn't know much about ghoul anatomy, but if they were anything like their human counterparts, he should've been dead the moment Arima's quinque pierced his right eye.

But he wasn't dead, so what exactly happened?

Dammit, this was getting him nowhere! What was he even doing trying to answer questions he couldn't possibly know the answers to. Why was he acting like he could find the answers to any of them by simply mulling through possibilities through in his head?

That girl probably knew something.

The people she called over probably knew something.

So he opened his eyes and just then did he become acutely of how heavy his eyelids felt, but no matter, he forced them open and the first thing he saw was… the color red.

...

Kaneki didn't know what he expected when he first saw that sliver of red through his half-open eyes, but he certainly didn't expect to see the young face of a teenage girl staring down at him with a curious pair of gray eyes. Eyes that shared the same color as his own, but still somehow managed to seem brighter in comparison. So much so, that he actually found that it'd probably be much more accurate to call the shade of her eyes a shade of silver rather than gray.

She blinked at him with those lively, metallic-colored eyes and he blinked back with his own dull, lifeless ones.

"Hi there," she said to him, finally breaking the silence that had grown between them. Her tone was rather awkward sounding as she raised one of her hands in greeting. An act that vaguely reminded the young man turned half ghoul of a younger version of himself.

"Um… hi," that was the only thing he could manage to say back as he was still completely dumbfounded by what was going on, which ended up causing another impromptu staring contest to go on between them.

The two remained like this for several seconds before the girl once more broke the silence that had grown between them, "You know there are more comfortable places to sleep than on the ground, right?"

The artificial ghoul's eyes widened when he heard those words, instantly becoming aware of his current surroundings. External sounds and smells rushing into the forefront of his mind like they were the water from a destroyed dam.

Everything around him was, for lack of a better word, different.

The cold concrete ground that he was laying on just before he had blacked out was gone, replaced by what felt like a carpet of soft grass. The air that was once filled with the putrid stench of human excrement and freshly-slain corpses was now offset by fresh, clean air. The almost torturous silence that surrounded his fight with Arima had been filled by the pleasant sounds of birds chirping somewhere off in the distance.

Truly, this was the last place the young half-ghoul expected to find himself when he pried his weary eyes open.

Everything around him felt so serene, so peaceful. Definitely a departure from the tense atmosphere that seemed to follow him around everywhere.

It was a pleasant change to say the least.

Not wanting to take this new found calm for granted, the artificial ghoul took a moment to bask in the serenity around him like a warm blanket on a cold night. Two seconds passing him by before he decided to do something. Already knowing that he wasn't going to be able to scan his current surroundings for any dangers while he was on his back, he forced himself up into a sitting position to do just that and to his surprise, the act took little to no effort to perform whatsoever. Surprising, considering he remembered taking several rather large blows to the midsection in his previous fight.

As he sat himself up, Kaneki noted that he was still wearing the battle suit Tsukiyama had designed for him wear during combat situations, but there was something about his current attire that caught him by surprise. Not by the fact that he was still wearing it, he distinctly remembered putting it on before heading over to help fight the doves attacking Anteiku, but by how clean it was. It was completely devoid of any blood, which he had spilt plenty of during his attempt to save Kaya, Enji, and the manager from their aforementioned attackers.

"So you're alright after all," the girl standing before him stated in what had to be the happiest tone he had heard someone other than Hinami use in months. Doing a little self-congratulatory fist pump as she continued, "Looks like Yang is buying me those cookies after all."

As he listened to her speak, his eyes began the task of scanning the area around him and was almost immediately caught off-guard by the sheer amount of greenery that was surrounding him.

There were rows upon rows of trees and bushes all around him. So many, in fact, that the only thing he could see off in the distance were just more and more trees.

A forest?'he asked himself with narrowed eyes. How the hell did I manage to get all the way out to a forest in the shape I was in?

The snowy-haired half ghoul subconsciously began to rack his brain, looking for anything that could explain how he ended in a place like this.

I can't smell any gas in the air, which means that I have to be pretty deep into the forest, Kaneki mused to himself after having taken in a series of quick sniffs in through his nostrils. How could I have…?

He stopped that train of thought when he realized that he was doing it again. There was no possible way he could know the answers to the questions he was asking himself and yet, he kept on asking himself those kinds of questions like they would suddenly pop into his head.

Obviously, he needed to find someone who could answer the questions he had. Thankfully, there was someone in his general vicinity that fit that description.

Kaneki scanned the black-haired girl standing in front of him from head to toe, taking note of the long red cape that was draped on her shoulders, which he assumed to be the sliver of red he saw when he first opened his eyes. He then took the time to note how his earlier assumption of her age being somewhere in between a child and a full-grown adult seemed to be spot on.

If he had to guess her actual age though, Kaneki would have to guess that she was somewhere between the age of fifteen and sixteen. Maybe a year younger if she had gone puberty earlier than most females.

Black hair with red tips. Silver eyes. Pale as snow. Admittedly cute. That was everything that made up the basics of rather unique-looking girl before him.

One may ask him what about her appearance made her unique?

Well, her choice of clothing was a black blouse that had red corset-like lacing on her stomach area; a skirt of the same color that's red trimmings only reached her mid-thigh; and black stockings that went all the way down her legs to a pair of red and black boots. Truth be told, she kind of reminded him of the time he had went to Akihabara with Hide. He had seen a lot of girls dressing in a similar way during his time there.

I think it was called gothic lolita-style dress,'he mused to himself offhandedly.

So she was pretty unique-looking in his eyes, but then again, he must have looked pretty unique to her too considering that he was still wearing a skin-tight, black battle suit with only a high-collared shirt and a pair of baggy shorts of the same color to conceal his more private areas.

"Um… is there something on my face or something?" the girl asked him suddenly, forcing him out of his thoughts with a rapid series of blinks.

The artificially-made half ghoul let out a sheepish chuckle at the girl's discomfort, finding the irony in the situation to be quite amusing. He had always been the one to become unnerved by things like getting stared at for too long, so he never expected to be able to do the same to someone else without trying.

"S-sorry, I didn't mean to stare," he replied, his tone as sheepish as his prior chuckle as he began to scratch the back of his head.

The girl's expression immediately brightened as she waved off his worries with a chuckle similar to his, "It's alright, I guess you're still a little disoriented. I know I'd be if I woke up in the middle of the Emerald Forest with someone I didn't know standing over me."

The Emerald Forest?'he repeated the name to himself mentally, gray eyes narrowing slightly at the mention of the foreign name.

Kaneki wasn't - and had never been - the most well-versed at geography, but he knew enough to know that there wasn't a forest by that name anywhere near Tokyo. A detail that told him that someone physically picked him up and removed him from those sewers. There was simply no way he could've gotten here on his own fruition, even if he had found someone to give him the energy he needed to start regenerating, as he would never have been able to make it out of such a densely populated area without drawing attention of some kind.

That, of course, meant either one of two things happened to the snowy-haired ghoul after he blacked out: either someone retrieved his body from the sewer, fed him with enough human meat for him to recover completely and dragged him all the way out to this forest for some reason; or he was dead and the girl in front of him was some sort of grim reaper, assigned with taking him to some form of higher existence.

Both explanations seemed rather implausible to him. The first, because that explanation sounded convoluted as all hell, and that wasn't even adding in the fact he still probably would've died from his injuries long before the person responsible managed to get him out of those sewers.

The second had a lot of flaws to it too, many of them rather obvious ones, but the most prevalent one to him being the fact the girl that was supposed to be his reaper certainly didn't act like one. She acted just like how a normal fifteen year old girl who had just found someone lying unconscious in the middle of a forest would, and that was it. He also didn't see why it was necessary to have someone guide the souls of the dead somewhere, especially when they could've been forced to go from the beginning, but that was beyond the point. Still though, he might have not the biggest believer in things like the afterlife, but he was pretty sure it would have a much more efficient system of handling things likes this. Considering the amount of people that died in the world every single day, he would've thought that was a given, but again, that was beyond the point.

So after looking at both of those options, and how improbable they were, Kaneki finally decided upon a course of action: he was going to ask the girl if she could guide him out of this forest and see what happened from there.

But before he could even begin putting his plan into motion, he was cut off by a voice that erupted from the treeline surrounding the two of them, "Hey lil' sis, what were you trying to say earlier? We didn't quite catch it."

The moment immediately after those words were spoken, someone emerged from the bushes and drew both pairs of the two teens' gray eyes immediately. When Kaneki's eyes fell upon the newcomer over, he decided to use the same approach he used to describe the red-clad girl in front of him to describe the newcomer. Short and sweet, which ironically enough, weren't words he would use to describe her.

Female. Long, wavy blonde hair that reached all the way down to her lower back. Light violet eyes. Pale, but not overly so. Pretty. Maybe two years older than the girl in red. Slight resemblance to the latter in terms of facial structure?

Those were the things about the girl that really stuck out to him on first sight. Other than her apparel of course, which compared to the girl with the long red cape draped on her shoulders, was relatively normal despite how… revealing they were. Tan vest with a gold piping over a low-crop yellow shirt, brown belt with an attached tan skirt over a pair of black shorts, and upper-calf high brown boots with heels.

As Kaneki registered the details of her general appearance in his head, he took note of how she called the red-clad girl her little sister.

Step-sisters maybe?'the artificial asked himself mentally, Or maybe a familial-like relationship, like the one me and Hinami have?

Before he could question the topic any further, another figure emerged from the same treeline and drew him out of his thoughts. Just like what he did with the other two girls, the artificially-made half ghoul ran his eyes over the newcomer and took note of anything that stuck out to him.

Also female. Also pale. Also pretty. Also seemed two years older than the girl in red. Hell, the only thing that he could say about her that wasn't essentially rehashing what he said about the other two was that she had long, straight white hair tied up into a side-ponytail. And just like the two girls who came before her, her choice of clothing made her stand out quite a bit.

Light blue bolero jacket with a red inside, a thigh-length dress of the same color that turned white near her bust, and a pair of blue boots that too turned white as they went up.

"Maybe we would've heard her if you had left that boarbatusk alone like I told you to," the white and blue clad girl retorted, arms crossed and expression locked into a scowl to further emphasize her disapproval.

Boarbatusk? Kaneki repeated mentally as he stared at the two newcomers.

"Oh come on, how was I supposed to know that tiny little thing's mother was so close by?" the yellow-haired girl countered in a fashion that made it seem like she was waiting for the other girl to say that, kind of like a child who did something bad and was waiting for their parents to say something about it.

"You have got to be kidding me!" the white-haired girl slapped herself in the forehead in frustration. "You and I both know that wildly charging at an enemy like that without properly surveying the area is a stupid idea!"

A pale hand held directly out in front of his face drew his attention off the two bickering girls. Following it to its owner, Kaneki discovered that it belonged to the girl with red cape who had found him.

"Don't worry about those two, they can get really into it sometimes," she said to him in an apologetic tone. Small sheepish smile crossing her lips as she continued, "My name's Ruby by the way, Ruby Rose."

Ruby Rose… Hm, that doesn't sound like a Japanese name... the artificial ghoul thought as he stared at the hand offered to him. A foreigner maybe, or maybe I'm the foreigner here?

Pushing the question to the back of his mind, he took the hand offered to him and allowed the red-clad girl, apparently named Ruby, to pull him up to his feet. Doing so with little to no trouble, from the looks of it. Then again, it wasn't like he weighed too much to begin with. Actually, the last time he checked he had only weighed 58 kg, which would probably classify him as slightly underweight for people his age.

"Kaneki," the artificial ghoul told her once he was back on his own two feet again. "Ken Kaneki, but most people tend to just call me by my last name."

"Nice to meet you Kaneki," Ruby replied with a cheerful smile, nodding her head once in a way that he couldn't describe as anything other than cute. Mainly because it reminded him a lot of Hinami. "So if you don't mind me asking, why were you lying out in the middle of the forest?"

He flashed her an awkward smile, subconsciously scratching his left cheek and averting his eyes as he answered the girl's question, "Truth be told, I really have no clue how I got out here. I just kind of woke up here."

It wasn't much of an answer, but it wasn't a lie. He just wasn't telling her everything.

"Well that's certainly worrying," said another unfamiliar voice from directly behind him.

Instincts immediately flaring up at the sound of voice, he turned towards the direction the voice came from on a dime and immediately entered a fighting stance, ready to fight back anything that might have wanted to kill him. The moment his eyes fell upon the owner of the voice, he immediately relaxed as the owner of the voice was just another teenage girl that had been sitting on a rock reading a book behind him. How he hadn't noticed her presence earlier was completely beyond him, but he already had way too many questions on his mind at the moment and he didn't want to add onto the pile, so he decided to not question it any further.

For the sake of originality, Kaneki decided to describe the girl in his head with a slightly different approach. Like the other three girls surrounding him, she had rather pale skin. Her black hair was long and wavy, and her eyes were a deep amber. The entirety of her clothing consisted of a black-buttoned-up vest with coattails, a sleeveless white undershirt, a pair of white shorts, and a pair of black stockings that started up at her hips and ended at a pair of ankle-high black heels.

The snowy-haired half ghoul also took note of the large, black bow that adorned her head.

Cute,'he thought referring to the bow, blinking owlishly at the aforementioned article of clothing as he added, almost makes her look like a cat.

"You dropped something by the way," the black-haired girl told him, not even bothering to look up from her book as she spoke.

Glancing down at his feet, the white-haired ghoul's eyes widened at the sight of something that definitely shouldn't have been there. It was his mask... The mask he clearly remembered ripping off during his fight with Amon.

"How the hell…?" Kaneki muttered under his breath before he knelt down to retrieve the previously discarded item.

He stared at the oh so familiar piece of leather with a toothy grin for a few seconds, feeling its familiar surface as if to make sure it was really there, before being finally broken out of his stupor by the sound of Ruby asking him, "Is there something wrong?"

The artificial ghoul glanced up at the red-clad girl from over his shoulder, taking a moment to collect his thoughts before shaking his head and replying, "No, it's nothing." He stuffed the mask into his shirt and stood from his kneeling position. "Just reminded me of something I'd rather forget," Kaneki added solemnly as he placed his right thumb over his index finger and pressed down on it, causing a loud crack to split through the air like it was a hot knife through butter. He then looked up and glanced over at the girls surrounding him, asking, "So, do any of you know how to get out of this forest?"

"Hey Kaneki," Ruby called out to him suddenly, breaking him out of the almost four minute-long stint of silence he had went into. One that he admittedly needed after he was properly briefed on what the four teenage girls were doing in the forest.

Apparently, they were sent to this forest to investigate a recent disturbance in the area and found him instead, opting to contact their superior, who they called Ozpin, that he would need to be evacuated before they could go on with the mission.

As they explained it to him, Kaneki noticed that their wording was really strange. They used the word 'headmaster' in a way that would be used to talk about a school official, not a superior officer. Polite and respectful with a hint of familiarity, but not overly so in either of those categories.

Why would a school send students out to investigate something like this? He found himself asking that question the moment they finished explaining. He hadn't been back to one of his college classes in quite awhile, but he didn't remember there being a class that allowed you to perform tasks a security guard would normally perform. And something else about the situation that bothered him greatly, What self-respecting headmaster of a school would willingly send their own students out into the forest without supervision? To investigate a disturbance they already knew could've been dangerous, no less?

That was pretty much as far as he got before Ruby cut off his track of mind.

I'm clearly somewhere far away from Tokyo and since these four my only way out of this forest, I'm going to have to be polite, Kaneki mused to himself before opening his mouth to respond.

"What is it?" the snowy-haired half ghoul asked, glancing over at the youngest one of the group from the corner of his eyes.

"Do you happen to have a weapon with you?" she asked, her tone harboring a child-like innocence that betrayed the nature of the question. He would've narrowed his eyes to reflect his suspicion if it hadn't reminded him a bit of Hinami. "It's really dangerous out here and you know, if something happens…"

"You want to know that I'm capable of defending myself," Kaneki finished for her, a small smile threatening to creep onto his face at the concern the red-clad girl was showing for him, which, again, reminded him of the last remaining Fueguchi.

"Um, yeah!" Ruby exclaimed suddenly, pointing one of her index fingers towards the sky as if she just realized something. "That's totally the reason why I asked!"

For some reason, the artificial half ghoul wasn't quite convinced that was the only reason why she wanted to know if he had a weapon on him, but he decided against calling her out on it as he didn't sense any malicious intent behind the girl's words. What he did sense, however, was more along the lines of a mischievous nature. The kind one would see within a child who just thought up what they assumed to be 'the best excuse ever'.

"Then no, I don't have any weapons on me," Kaneki replied bluntly, something that he immediately regretted when he saw the red-clad girl's expression become crestfallen.

He raised an eyebrow at the girl's sudden change in expression, confused as to why something that simple would elicit such a response from the girl.

"Don't worry about her short-stuff, she's just really into weapons," said the blonde-girl from earlier, popping into the conversation so naturally, it was almost as if she was fully expecting have to do so at some point. "Like so much that I sometimes worry if she'll ever manage to get a boyfriend."

The half ghoul with hair as white as snow blinked at said girl, brows furrowing as he repeated the impromptu nickname she had given him, "Short-stuff?"

"Well, since I don't really know your name, I needed to call you something so…" the blonde-haired girl trailed off while rotating her open palm in a circle. A sign he took as her expecting him to be able piece two and two together.

Now that he had a closer look at her, he found that she was indeed taller than him. She didn't make him look like a dwarf in comparison, but she was definitely taller than him by at least ten centimeters.

"Ah, I see," he replied as he subconsciously started to scratch the back of his head in embarrassment. Not wanting to be called such a demeaning nickname, he decided that it would be best to properly introduce himself before it firmly latched itself to the girl's mind. "My name is Kaneki, by the way."

"Well then, nice to meet you, Kaneki," the girl started, shooting him a brilliant smirk as she suddenly dashed over to Ruby's side. "The name's Yang, and I think you already know my little sister, Ruby."

She wrapped one of her pale arms around the red-clad girl in question as she said this, causing her to let out a cute yelp in surprise.

She called Ruby her sister again, he noted, his curiosity about the two relationship peaking as he watched the two interact with one another. So are they actually sisters or-

His curiosity must have been showing on his face, because his train of thought was cut off suddenly by the voice of the dark-haired girl with the bow, who apparently had the answer, "They're half-sisters."

The snowy-haired ghoul glanced over his shoulder at the girl, who was still reading the same book from earlier, and mouthed the word 'oh' at her, before returning his attention back to the two half-sisters standing in front of him. He couldn't help but smile at the sight he saw.

Yang still had her arm wrapped around Ruby's waist. The owner of which was fighting desperately free herself from her step-sister's iron grip, even resorting to flailing her legs about to gain some separation.

"Let. Me. Go!" Ruby yelled as she continued to struggle.

"Nope!" Yang yelled back instantly. "Not a chance!"

Suddenly, the girl with the same hair color as his, who was standing next to the two the entire time let out a groan and asked, "Could you two save the fooling around for, I don't know, after we get out of the forest infested with Grimm?"

Grimm? Kaneki repeated inwardly. He could tell from her tone that she wasn't necessarily afraid of whatever she was referring to, but it was clear that she would rather not deal with whatever it was at all. From the way the two half-sisters reacted to the statement, which was an immediate ceasing of what the white-haired girl referred to as 'fooling around', he could infer that whatever the term 'Grimm' was referred to wasn't meant to be taken lightly.

"As much as I hate to admit it, Weiss is right, we have to get going before nightfall comes," the girl with the bow interjected, who finally looked up from her book and pointed up towards the sky.

So the girl with the white hair is named Weiss, huh? Kaneki thought as he glanced upwards and found that the sun was getting really close to the horizon. Sounds like German, he noted whilst thinking back to some of his conversations with Tsukiyama, who would constantly interject such phrases into his everyday speech. Just where in the world am I?

"Alright, what are we waiting for then?" Ruby asked as she prepared herself to take off for the treeline, but was stopped in her tracks when Yang grabbed her by the hood on her cape, which caused the red-clad girl to fall back comically and onto her back with a loud thud. "Hey, what was that for?"

Instead of giving an answer, Yang simply pointed her thumb over at him, which made him blink owlishly. The red-clad girl mouthed an 'oh' before picking herself up off the ground and walked over to him.

"Do you think can keep up with us?" she asked him.

Kaneki could barely stop himself from smiling at the question.

The entirety of team RWBY could hardly believe what they were seeing. When Kaneki said that he could keep up with them, none of the girls expected him to actually be able to do so without putting up a good deal of effort. Something they all pretty much assumed about the young man due to his rather scrawny-looking exterior.

Instead, three of the four girls were treated to the sight of the black-clad young man running side-by-side with Ruby, who was easily one of the fastest students in Beacon, with what seemed like very little effort on his part.

"Dang, when you said you could keep up, I didn't expect this!" Ruby exclaimed as they ran, mentally making a mental note to ask him to race once they got back to Beacon.

Instead of bragging, which a good portion of team RWBY fully expected him to do, he simply gave a curt nod in response and continued running.

So he isn't going to brag about being almost as fast as Ruby? Weiss thought to herself as she ran, He's definitely a bigger person than I am.

Weiss, truthfully, didn't know what to make of the tag-along with the same color hair as her. He spoke to them with a politeness that was uncommon for young men his age, but politeness could easily be faked and she should know, she's been doing it for years now. So, she couldn't say she trusted him just yet, but if that politeness was in fact genuine, it wouldn't surprise her if they got along just fine in the future.

"How much longer until we reach this clearing you talked about?" Kaneki asked while ducking under a low-hanging branch, reaching up and snapping it so it wouldn't hit the girls trailing behind him.

"Not much longer, we should be coming up on it soon," the girl with the bow was the one to answer him. "Just be on the lookout for a clearing filled with stone ruins."

"Thanks…" the snowy-haired young man began to say before realizing he didn't really know her name. "I'm sorry I don't think I caught your name."

"Blake, my name is Blake," she told him curtly.

Kaneki glanced back at the girl with the bow and gave her a nod of acknowledgement in response, but not a second later, his attention was drawn off of her and onto whatever he had just snagged his foot in.

Dammit, should have been paying attention, the artificial half ghoul thought to himself calmly as he began to fall face first towards the ground.

Standing directly behind him, Blake watched as the black-clad young man fell forward and she prepared herself to jump over his body once he hit the ground, but instead of falling face first into the ground like she expected he would, he did something rather surprising. Kaneki, as he fell, planted his hand into the ground and pushed, resulting in a flip that she could only describe with one word: graceful. He didn't even slow down that noticeably when his feet landed back onto the ground, he just continued to run like nothing happened in the first place.

The faunus in hiding couldn't help but be impressed by how routine the action seemed to the young man, it was almost as if he planned for it to happen, though that also only made her wonder what else he was hiding under that stoic expression he displayed.

"Hey, I think I see a clearing up ahead!" Ruby informed everyone, even though they could all see the clearing she was referring to.

When he emerged from the depths of the brush, Kaneki slowed to a stop and found himself standing in front of stone ruins, probably the one Blake had told him about earlier.

The snowy-haired ghoul took note of how different these ruins looked compared to the architecture of the ancient stone structures that he had seen in books about Japanese history. These ruins in particular reminded him of pictures of ancient Greece that he had seen in a book he read when he was younger.

Am I even in Japan anymore? Kaneki asked himself mentally, a familiar feeling of dread welling up inside him as he stared at the ruins in front of him, his mouth hanging open slightly, Dammit… what the hell happened to me?

"Yo, Kaneki," the sound of Yang's voice called out to the snowy-haired half ghoul, breaking him out of the reverie he had accidentally fallen into. "There something wrong?" The blonde asked, tone concerned beyond belief. "You've been staring at those ruins for a full minute now."

"No," he replied with a slight shake of his head, clenching his fists so tightly that they started to bleed. He did his best to not let the dread he was feeling leak into his voice as he spoke, "Everything's fine." The answer was a weak one that he doubted would fool anyone, but uttered it anyways. "I'm just having a hard time trying to wrap my head around the situation, is all."

It didn't take a lot for him to figure out Yang didn't buy the answer, but another voice - one that was completely unfamiliar to the half ghoul - stopped her dead in her proverbial tracks.

"There you four are," a voice that was much more masculine-sounding came from somewhere behind him, "and I'm guessing that you're the young man they found unconscious in the forest."

The black-clad young man in question glanced over his shoulder towards where the voice came from and found that two people, one being a middle-aged man with silver hair and the other was a similarly-aged woman with blonde hair, had decided to join their little group of four standing in the clearing.

The two were staring at him with observant eyes, seemingly strengthened by years of wisdom. Studying him like he was a stray dog they just found on the street.

They're probably looking to see if I'm going to be dangerous or not, the artificial half ghoul speculated, but why do I feel like there's something more to it than just that?

"Don't you worry your sweet little head about them, short-stuff," Yang told him while roughly placing her hand onto his shoulder, an act that forced him out of his thoughts almost immediately. "They're with us."

To say Kaneki the sudden contact surprised him would've been a major understatement, she was lucky that she had spoken up before she did so because otherwise, he would've attacked on instinct alone.

"Really, Ms. Xiao Long?" the middle-aged woman asked the girl, she shook her head disbelievingly while holding the bridge of her nose between two dainty fingers. "You've just met the boy less than an hour ago and you're already giving him a pet name?"

The snowy-haired half ghoul blinked at the woman's statement at first, his mind taking a few moments to fully comprehend what the woman had implied, and simply let out an awkward chuckle in response when he finally did.

He fought hard to stop the blush that was threatening to creep onto his cheeks, but unbeknownst to him, a small tinge of red did manage to sneak its way onto his features as he replied, "I-it's nothing like that." His attempt at reassuring her came out way too flustered for his liking as well, "She just gave me that nickname because she didn't know what my real name was."

"About that," the older man with the silver-hair spoke up suddenly. "Your name is Kaneki, am I correct?"

The half ghoul in question gave a nod before asking, "And who might you two be?"

"Ah, my apologies, we completely forgot to introduce ourselves," the silver-haired man began politely, but with very little emotion to it, "I am Professor Ozpin, Headmaster of Beacon Academy."

"And my name is Glynda Goodwitch," the older woman with blonde hair added once Ozpin finished. "I'm in charge of teaching the students of Beacon how to fight effectively against the creatures of Grimm."

Both of their introductions troubled Kaneki greatly. When he had first heard Weiss talk about the Grimm, he thought it was a problem that was confined to this forest and to this forest only, but to have an entire section of a school's curriculum dedicated to learning how to fight them meant one thing. That the situation with the Grimm was serious and widespread enough for people to take action against them. It also probably meant that they had been a problem for quite sometime.

An idea suddenly popped into his head then.

Why are they teaching teenagers how to fight something that's obviously dangerous? Kaneki asked himself.

To him, that meant that this Beacon Academy's entire purpose was teaching teenagers how to fight things like the Grimm, because he highly doubted that any self-respecting high school had an optional class for that sort of thing.

The levels of dread inside the artificial ghoul rose to exponential levels as he realized what that implicated. He definitely wasn't in Japan and he was beginning to doubt that he was even in the same world anymore.

His reasoning?

First off, the six around him spoke of the Grimm like they were this place's equivalent to ghouls, which basically meant that they spoke about the subject calmly even though they knew that they were obviously dangerous. It wasn't just that though.

From the way the spoke, they sounded like they were expecting him to know about the Grimm, which meant that having knowledge about the subject was commonplace here, wherever he was. So why did he have absolutely no knowledge about the subject then?

Kaneki knew that he didn't know about everything under the sun, but he knew how the world worked. If something was even remotely dangerous to humans, the media would jump on it eventually. That, or the government covered up, but based on how liberally the six around him spoke of the subject, that clearly wasn't the case.

Nothing, and he meant absolutely nothing, could've proven his point of more than the celestial object that was now hung just a little over the treeline of the Emerald Forest.

It was the moon as he remembered it, but with a giant gash on its side causing it to remain its crescent form as its broken parts hung loosely next to it.

What the hell happened to me? Kaneki asked himself as he stared wide-eyed at the damaged moon before him. What happened to me what happened to me what happened to me what happened to me WHAT HAPPENED TO ME?!

"Kaneki!" the sound of Ruby's voice drew the snowy-haired half ghoul out of his thoughts almost immediately. He glanced over at the red-clad girl, who was currently standing beside him with a worried look plastered over her face, and asked her in a tone that held zero emotion in it, "Something the matter?"

"'Something the matter'?" he heard Weiss yell from somewhere behind him. "You've been staring at the moon for literally three straight minutes!"

Ozpin, who had been quietly watching this "Kaneki" for the entirety of that three minutes, noticed the change in the young man's demeanor almost immediately. His once wide-eyed face suddenly became completely void of emotion in less than a second's notice.

Ozpin recognized the look instantly and was immediately struck with a wave of pity for the young man. He had only seen that look on the faces on the most veteran of hunters, which of course made the headmaster question what he had went through in his past.

"Can I ask all of you a question?" Kaneki spoke up suddenly, voice still harboring no emotion. "Do any of you know how far away we are from Tokyo?"

"Toe-key-yo?" Ruby repeated, saying the syllables to indicate that she had no idea as to what he was talking about.

"That's what I thought," the snowy-haired young man stated, head now angled down towards the ground, which caused his snow-white hair to cover his eyes completely.

That was the moment all four members of team RWBY dawned expressions of concern, all of them wondering what had happened to cause such a sudden shift in demeanor. But before any of them could ask him what was wrong, a series of loud howls erupted from the treeline.

The reaction from the hunters-in-training was instantaneous. In a matter of moments, each of the four teenage girls equipped their weapons.

Ruby was holding her signature red and black colored, high caliber sniper-scythe that was lovingly dubbed: "Crescent Rose".

Weiss was holding her steel-gray rapier of standard-length that could shoot vials of raw dust at her enemies. A weapon that was named as elegantly as its wielder: "Myrtenaster".

Blake, in contrast to Weiss's rather practical-looking weapon, was wielding something akin to an over-sized cleaver with a gray and pink paint job that was named: "Gambol Shroud".

And last but certainly not least was Yang, who was wielding a pair of yellow dual-ranged shot gauntlets that she called: "Ember Celica".

Almost as if on cue, four hulking half-wolf, half-human beasts emerged from the trees. Their fur was pitch-black and they all had white bone-like protrusions covering their bodies, including their faces that served as a mask to cover everything but their eyes, which shined a bright red.

"Beowolves," Ruby spat as she prepared herself for battle.

This prompted an almost immediate sarcastic response from Weiss, "No, you don't say?"

"Alright so how we doing this?" Yang asked before immediately suggesting, "One wolf each?"

"Sounds good," Ruby answered with an affirmative nod, "So which one…"

The red-clad huntress in training trailed off when she noticed a familiar young man dressed in all black walk past her and directly at the four beowolves.

"Young man, what do you think you're doing?!" Ms. Goodwitch demanded. "Get back here and let us take care of this!"

Kaneki stopped at that order and glanced over his shoulder at the woman, casting her a glare that could've rivaled the beowolves in intensity, and answered with a simple, yet effective, "No."

After uttering that one word answer, he continued advancing towards the beowolves. Striding towards with a nonchalant feel to his step.

All four members of team RWBY opened their mouths to try and get the snowy-haired young man to stop advancing, but they were cut off by Ozpin, who simply told them, "Don't interfere just quite yet, I want to see what he's capable of."

"But Professor Ozpin, he doesn't even have a weapon to defend himself with!" Weiss protested, clearly outraged by the notion of letting an unarmed civilian take on four beowolves by himself.

"Yeah, Weiss is right, how is supposed to beat four beowolves on his own with nothing but his fists?" Yang asked, backing up her teammate with little to no hesitation, though she was still very afraid for the young man's safety.

"At least let us help him so he doesn't get himself killed!" Ruby chimed in, the amount of worry coursing through her veins now reaching amounts that rivaled the amount of blood she had in her system.

Blake could only stare at Kaneki, her gaze holding a mixture of shock and amazement at what the white-haired young man was doing. He was currently staring down a group of four beowolves without a weapon in his hands and he was acting like it was nothing but a walk in the park. Something that she doubted some hunters could do as easily.

"None of you need to worry," Kaneki told them all, voice still completely emotionless as he spoke, "when I told you that I was capable of defending myself, I wasn't lying…" Cracking the middle joint of his index finger, he continued in a much darker voice, "Now then..."

With that, Kaneki shot towards the four beowolves at a speed that caught everyone watching completely off-guard.

The artificial half ghoul took note of this and immediately jumped on the opportunity. He jumped towards them once he deemed himself close enough and landed a solid right hook on the face of the closest beowolf to him, which caused a loud cracking sound to ring through the air.

The force from his attack being so great that it caused the pitch-black beast to rear back in pain, holding its now cracked bone mask with its giant clawed hands as it did so.

By the time he landed back onto the ground, the three other beowolves had regained their grip on the situation and lunged at him from all sides. Their long claws aimed directly for his head, but unfortunately for the beasts, that was what he was expecting them to do.

In response, Kaneki jumped directly at one of the weaker-looking beowolves, using its face as leverage to launch himself further up into the air to gain some separation from his opponents. Turning his body in mid-air so that he would be facing his enemies, not wanting to have his back to them upon landing.

When he finally did land, he immediately shot towards the beowolves again. Doing so at a much slower speed in an attempt to throw the pseudo-werewolves off, and surprisingly enough, it worked.

They were expecting him to get there sooner than he actually did, which caused them to hold up their arms up to their heads to protect themselves a little before he was actually upon them, leaving their lower bodies completely wide open to him. That was when he decided to go full speed and send a left uppercut right into the stomach of the closest beowolf with enough force put into it to launch the wolf into the air slightly, which was immediately followed up by a spinning hook kick to the jaw that sent the wolf flying towards the treeline.

It didn't take too long after the wolf - the one that he now dubbed beowolf #2 - went flying into the trunk of a nearby tree, which effectively disabled it permanently, for the other three wolves to try attacking him again.

Beowolf #3, the one to his immediate right, and #4, the one to his left, slashed at him with their claws while Beowolf #1, the one with the giant crack in its face standing directly in front of him, attempted to chomp down onto him with what teeth Kaneki hadn't punched out already.

He ducked under the claws of beowolf #3 and backflipped over the claws of beowolf #4. Knowing that the jaws of wolf #1 were fast approaching him, he turned his head towards it and expertly weaved under its jaws.

The artificial half ghoul sharpened his fingers into a point and slammed the tip into #1's stomach, his hand piercing the hide of the beast with very little resistance.

Back over on the sidelines, everyone under the age of 17 currently had their jaws firmly planted on the floor as they tried to get past the fact that the rather scrawny-looking young man dressed in all black, the same one they found lying in the middle of a forest completely unconscious, was fighting four beowolves at the same time… and winning.

"I gotta admit," Yang began, clearly impressed by how well Kaneki was faring. "Short-stuff packs a wicked punch."

"Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with you there," Weiss replied, watching the scene unfold with a look of shock.

Kaneki pulled his arm from out of the beowolf's midsection, a viscous black liquid now covering his arm up to his elbow. He was just about to fling the substance off of his arm when he noticed a familiar scent radiating from it.

No, it couldn't be... Kaneki thought while staring at his aforementioned arm, completely missing the fact that the being he just jabbed his arm into evaporated like water next to him.

Unfortunately, the artificial half ghoul was never able to try and confirm his idea, because before he could try and do so, he noticed an incoming claw from the corner of his eye. Knowing that he wasn't going to be able to dodge the attack, he simply raised his arms over his head and took the attack, but no claws slashed his skin. Instead, he found himself being raised in the air and thrown towards a nearby tree. He slammed into the trunk of said tree at great speed, causing a loud cracking sound to come from either his bones or the tree he hit snapping.

"Kaneki!" Ruby exclaimed worriedly, stepping forwards to try and help the snowy-haired young man, but was stopped when she heard him say.

"Don't worry about me," the young man in question told her as he stood back up slowly, a smile creeping onto his face as he felt his RC cells start mending the broken vertebrae in his spinal cord back together. "I've been through a lot worse than that."

Beowolf #3 and #4 didn't waste anytime in charging at him again, but unlike last time, Kaneki was prepared for the attack and side-stepped the horizontal slash of wolf #4. He then retaliated by grabbing said appendage by the forearm and slamming the palm of his hand into its elbow.

A loud snapping noise came from the arm, which was immediately followed by affected party's literal howls of pain.

The half ghoul didn't waste any time admiring his work, he immediately jumped back and away from wolf #4, just narrowly missing getting hit by #3's incoming claws by a few centimeters.

They may be strong, but I can predict their actions easily, Kaneki thought, smile still gracing his lips. These things really are just nothing more than wild animals, aren't they?

The snowy-haired ghoul shot towards his right and circled around the two beowolves. Their beady red eyes followed him like he expected and it was clear that they were waiting for him to attack them again, but he wasn't going to do that just quite yet. He wanted to make sure of something before then.

Knowing that he couldn't be seen doing what he was going to do, he jumped into the nearby trees and licked some of the black liquid on his arm off, doing all of this while running just deep enough into the trees where he could see his enemy but they couldn't see him.

It tasted absolutely disgusting, or more specifically like someone blended the smell of shit and the taste of rotting fish gusts together, but he noticed something off about it immediately. He could actually swallow the liquid without wanting to puke his guts out, and once the liquid crawled down his throat, he felt absolutely invigorated.

So these things are like ghouls? Kaneki's bloodthirsty smile only growing larger by the thought. They may taste even worse... but at least I have another food source other than humans.

Not wanting to look like he jumped into the woods for absolutely no reason, he broke a low-hanging branch off a tree and chucked it at the two beowolves. They reacted just like he predicted they would.

The two pseudo-werewolves immediately began focusing on the branch, probably thinking that it was a serious attack on his part, completely missing the fact that he had jumped back out of the brush and was now running towards them.

As the wolves turned their bodies to evade the incoming branch, Kaneki jumped up towards beowolf #3 and planted his right foot into its shoulder, before putting all of his strength into a kick to the back of the wolf's head with his other foot. The resulting kick ending with the wolf's head flying clean off of its shoulders.

Unlike last time, the rinkaku ghoul took note of what happened to the beowolf once he killed it, So they evaporate upon death? That means I'm going to have to eat them when they're alive to actually to be able to consume them.

Back with the group of six watching the black-clad young man fight, everyone, and that includes Ms. Goodwitch and Professor Ozpin, were still trying to get over the fact that he literally kicked a beowolf's head off.

"Oh come on! How is that even humanly possible?" Weiss exclaimed in her stupor, despite already knowing that it was in fact not humanly possible for someone to kick a beowolf's head off without dust.

By this time, Ruby had almost managed to stop fully worrying about Kaneki's well-being, but she was finally able to after seeing him decapitate something with a mere kick, which prompted this response from her, "I don't know, but I do know one thing. That. Was. So. Awesome!"

"I have to agree with Ruby," Blake chimed in from out of the blue, nodding her head in agreement. "That was pretty impressive."

"Just impressive?" Yang repeated disbelievingly. "That was- Oh wait." Before saying what she was going to say, the blonde-haired teen walked over her little sister and placed her gloved hands over the fifteen year old's ears. "That was freaking badass!"

With that, Yang removed her hands from her sister's ears, who immediately asked, "Hey! Why'd you have to cover my ears?"

"No reason~" the blonde bombshell answered innocently in a sing song voice that would've failed to convince an infant of her innocence.

"No reason, right…" Ruby trailed off as she returned her attention back onto Kaneki, who was just finishing the last beowolf off.

Said black-clad young man was now standing over the last of the four beowolves, his face stony as ever as he shoved the bottom of his boot into the wolf's now broken bone mask.

"I know that you probably don't know the answer to this, but do you know what euthanasia is?" Kaneki began emotionlessly, while cracking his index finger once more. "It's the act of putting something down if they're suffering through a pain they won't survive," he continued as he applied more pressure on the Grimm's face, eliciting pained whimpers from the pseudo-animal, "and I'm guessing it's safe to assume that by doing this, I'm making you suffer, right?"

The snowy-haired ghoul put a little more pressure on the beowolf's mask, causing the pseudo-werewolf to let out even more strangled whimpers of pain.

"So, I'll do you a favor and put you down just here and now," he began as a full-blown bloodthirsty smile crept its way onto his lips. "I mean, I wouldn't want to make an animal suffer now, would I?"

With that, he lifted his boot up from the wolf's bone mask and stomped down onto it with all of his might. The mask gave way instantly and his foot went through straight through the beowolf's head, killing it.

The resulting mess would've been a gruesome sight to behold if the body hadn't disintegrated literally a second later, but it wasn't like he could complain too much about that, though he did kind of wish that he could've gotten a second longer to admire his handiwork.

It definitely would've helped to quell the surge of emotions that was currently running through his veins.

He still couldn't quite believe it.

Somehow he had managed to get himself thrown into another world. He didn't want to believe that was the case, but clearly, it was.

How else could he explain the four wolf-like creatures that he had just killed? How else could he explain the fact that none of the first six people he met after awakening had no clue what Tokyo was when it was the capital city of a world power? How else could he explain the fact that a good portion of the moon was fucking destroyed?

Other than this being some sort of weird hallucination that made him feel physical, not mental, physical pain, he had no clue.

Despite that, being in a different world was really the last thing he was concerned about at the moment, he was truthfully more concerned for the fate of his friends.

Kaneki managed to save Irimi and Enji from death momentarily, but if they ran into Arima in the state they were in, and he knew they would considering V14 was the only way out of the 20th ward, they would have no chance of taking down the reaper of the CCG. He didn't know what happened to the manager since he hadn't been able to reach him. He could've been killed or he could've survived, either way Kaneki highly doubted that the man who had been able to boss around two SS-rated ghouls for years would go down without much of a fight.

The snowy-haired half ghoul also couldn't be sure about what would happen to the group he was leaving behind after his reckless actions.

What would happen to Ichimi, Jiro, Sante, and Banjou? They weren't very powerful on their own so what would happen to them after he was gone?

What would happen to Tsukiyama? He was strong, but the way the gourmet acted when he left to save the ghouls at Anteiku worried him.

And then there was Hinami. What would happen to the young ghoul that he considered a younger sister? He didn't hold a single doubt that she would be able to take care of herself, but he had no idea how she would react to yet another person close to her disappearing without a trace.

The more Kaneki thought about it, the harder he clenched his fists. He needed to get back to his world, but how could he when he didn't even know how he got here in the first place?

Just like that, what he needed to do became crystal clear to him.

He needed to get back. He needed to get back. He needed to get back. Heneededtogetback. Heneededtogetback. Heneededtogetba-

"Hey Short-stuff, you okay?" the sound of Yang's voice drew him out of his thoughts.

The snowy-haired ghoul took in a deep breath before turning towards the blonde-haired girl behind him, silently thanking her as he nodded in response to her question. His mind was going into dark places and bad things tended to happen when his mind went to dark places.

The nod didn't seem to convince her of his wellness, probably due to the fact the emotionless expression he was wearing wasn't very reassuring, but she didn't call him out on it. In the end, he was someone they just met in the woods and she must've thought that it wouldn't be appropriate to ask something so personal so early.

The snowy-haired ghoul silently thanked her again as they walked over to the rest of the group, who were waiting for him. Their expressions surprising him momentarily.

After something like that, he expected them to look at him in a different light, but to his surprise there was very little change to their demeanors.

Ruby was still smiling at him sweetly, Weiss still had that impatient scowl on her face, and Blake was still reading that book of hers. Ozpin and Goodwitch were still watching him curiously, but this time with slight smiles on their faces. Even Yang, who noticed the changes in his demeanor earlier, still had that same confident smile spread across her features as he looked at him.

The smiles directed towards him proved infectious as a moment later, the emotionless facade he put up cracked and a thin smile spread across his face.

How could they remain so positive after what I did to those beowolves? That question looped in his mind as he approached them, but a certain blur of red coming towards him at top speed made him stop.

"That. Was. So. Awesome!" that blur of red exclaimed as she bounced up and down in front of him like a puppy who hadn't seen its master in awhile, you know if dogs started carrying around giant metal scythes. "You were like one of those guys I've seen in kung-fu movies! You were all like (A/N: insert generic kung-fu movie noises here)!"

Kaneki couldn't stop himself from letting out a sheepish laugh at Ruby's words, flattered by the comparison. Having seen some of those movies she was talking about, he could thank Hide for that, and immediately knew that she couldn't be anymore wrong though he wasn't going to tell her that quite just yet.

So instead, he decided to give Ruby this response while scratching the back of his head, "I'm not that good."

"Oh come on! You don't need to act all modest, you were freaking awesome against those beowolves!" Ruby countered. "I mean, you beat them all with nothing but your bare hands. Your bare hands! Do you know how many people who could've done that?"

"Not a lot?" he guessed.

"Exactly," the red-clad teenager replied with a proud nod, "so take a little pride in how strong you are, will you?"

'Take a little pride in how strong you are'... Kaneki repeated as images of his fights with Shachi and Arima. I guess I do forget how strong I am sometimes... Memories of what happened in V14 replayed themselves in his mind suddenly, but unfortunately not strong enough.

"Yeah, Ruby's right," Yang interjected whilst slapping him on the shoulder like she did earlier. "After what you did, I'm sure you get a free pass on being humble just this once."

Not knowing how else to respond, the snowy-haired half ghoul simply nodded and flashed an appreciative smile at the girl's statement, though he doubted that he could ever be confident in his power ever since his fight with Shachi. The beating he received that day was a reminder that even though he was considered a strong ghoul - the CCG didn't give out the SS-rating to ghouls for no reason after all - there was always the chance that his enemies might be just a bit stronger than him.

So, that's why he vowed to never get too overconfident in his abilities again, otherwise he might lose the drive to become stronger and in turn, get weaker than he was when he started out. But then again, was power really something he wanted if the result was something like his kakuja?

He really didn't know the answer to that question anymore.

Away from the group of five teenagers, Ozpin and Goodwitch were conversing quietly about the events that just transpired in front of them.

"What do you think, Mr. Ozpin?" the middle-aged, blonde huntress asked curiously. "He's certainly strong, you'd have to be to punch clean through a beowolf, but…"

"You fear that he's too unstable to have around the other students," Ozpin finished for her.

"So you saw the bloodthirsty grin he had when he was fighting too?"

"It was rather hard to miss, but if he was a danger to us, he definitely would've tried something by now," Ozpin countered, making reference to how friendly he was acting with the group of four teenage girls that he named team RWBY. "At the very least we should give him the benefit of the doubt. If we can convince him to join us, I'm sure he'll be a great asset to have in the war against the creatures of Grimm."

"I guess you're right, but if something happens-" Goodwitch began before Ozpin cut her off.

"If the time comes, I'll take full responsibility," the headmaster reassured his subordinate as he turned his attention back onto the group of teens currently conversing.

Four of which being students of his, and one he genuinely hoped would be one in the future.

When Ruby and the others brought him back to Beacon Academy, Kaneki didn't expected to be immediately dragged up into the headmaster's office, by none other than the man himself.

So, that's how he found himself sitting in front of said man with a rather large metal desk between them as they made idle small talk. Nothing special too special happened between them, just a brief getting to know each other up until Ozpin asked, "Where did you say you were from again?"

Kaneki anticipated that question being asked for a while now, but he still couldn't decide on how to answer. A part of him wanted to lie and make himself look less suspicious, probably say something along the lines of him not being able to remember his place of origin, but he had his doubts of his plan working.

The man just didn't seem like the type to miss much and Kaneki didn't know how he would respond if he decided to call him out on it, and given his lack of knowledge about wherever he currently was, trying to come up with another believable lie would be rather difficult.

He could try and avoid the question entirely, but there was always the chance that the conversation may lead back to the topic and if he kept sidestepping it for too long, he would eventually be called out on it. No doubt about that.

Then, there was the option of telling the man the truth and giving up the fact that he was from another world, which, of course, seemed like the option to avoid when it first crossed his mind. Now, that he had a chance to think about it, however, he realized that it would probably the be the more beneficial route for him to take.

If he was ever going to be able to get back to his friends and his own world, the artificial half ghoul knew that he was going to need someone else's help eventually. Truth be told, it'd probably be more beneficial to him to get someone in a influential position in society to back him than just pretending from this world. Someone like that could get him out of any sticky situations if it ever boiled down to it.

Flat out telling the man that he was from another world would also help him in the long run. Living in a society meant that one knew the basics of how it worked and he would definitely need time to learn those basics. A fact that might have led to some rather awkward conversations in the future, especially if one were to come up that was so well known that he couldn't just play off as simple ignorance. That would also, in turn, draw some attention his way and he'd rather not deal with anything like that so early in his time here.

So with a route set in his mind, Kaneki took in a deep breath and began to explain to the middle-aged man before him, where exactly he came from.

"So, what do you guys think's going to happen to Kaneki?" Ruby asked the four other members of team RWBY as they got themselves ready for bed, all of them already in their pajamas.

"Given how crazy today has been, who knows?" Yang gave an exaggerated shrug as she strode over to her bed, letting out a loud yawn as she asked, "How about you, Blake? What do you think's going to happen to short-stuff?"

"Knowing Ozpin, I assume he was offered a chance to become a student here at Beacon," Blake replied as she turned a page in the book she was reading, not giving much of an answer after that.

"Well, I guess that makes sense considering what he did out there..." Weiss interjected as she finished her usual pre-sleep routine, one that was probably more intricate and time consuming than some girls' morning routine, "but for some reason, I doubt that he'd actually agree to come here."

"Huh, why do you say that?" Ruby asked her partner with more than just a hint of curiosity in her voice.

"Well, here at Beacon, the fact is that students usually have to join a team and he just seems like one of those 'lone-wolf' types, don't you think?" Weiss explained, crossing her arms over her chest as she explained. "You know, one of those guys who does everything on their own because they think they're the only ones who can."

"Weiss and I rarely agree on things, but I have to agree with her here," Yang admitted with a small nod of her head. "I've come across a couple of those types and the way he fights reminds me a lot like them in a way."

"Really?" Ruby asked with a tilt of her head, but a sudden series of knocks on their dorm room door stopped any of them from giving an answer.

"I'll get it~!" Yang sing-songed before rushing to answer the door like a child. "Who is it?"

"It's Ozpin," answered a familiar voice came from the other side of the door in all its emotionless glory. "I have something important to discuss with the four of you."

"Oh, then come on in," Yang replied before unlocking the door and opening it for their headmaster, only to met with a sight that gave all four girls a pleasant shock.

As they expected, headmaster Ozpin walked through the door with his signature cane in hand, but he wasn't what surprised them. No, what surprised them was the familiar snowy-haired young man following him, clad in, well… nothing but a pair of black boxers and a white towel that hung loosely off his bare, pale shoulders.

"Ah, I must apologize for Mr. Kaneki's state of undress," Ozpin said after noticing the rather surprised faces on two of the four teens before him. The only outliers being Yang, who was staring at the young man with a lecherous grin on her face, and Blake, who continued to read from the book in her hand, seemingly completely unconcerned by the situation that was unfolding in front of her. "He requested a shower before he coming here and I had a maid go get his clothes washed without having any replacement clothing on hand."

"S-so why didn't you just wait for them to get finished being washed?!" Weiss asked while averting her eyes from the undressed form of Kaneki, a slight blush appearing on her pale features as she did so.

"That's what I suggested initially, but he insisted that it was fine and that he would like to get this out of the way as soon as possible." Their headmaster explained tiredly. "So, naturally I obliged."

"So you just had him walk all the way here from the clock tower, dressed in nothing but his underwear?" Weiss asked in a much steadier tone, but it was clear by how her pale blue eyes were averted off to the side that she was still actively trying not to look at Kaneki.

This gained a nod of affirmation from Ozpin, which prompted the heiress of the Schnee dust company to let out an exasperated sigh.

"Sorry, I guess I really didn't think this through, did I?" Kaneki asked, his lips curling up into a sheepish smile as he scratched the back of his head in embarrassment.

"Well, you're not going to hear me complaining," Yang stated while still staring directly at him, now nodding her head slowly as she continued to blatantly admire the young man's rather impressive physique.

"So, Professor Ozpin, what did you need to speak with us about?" Ruby hurriedly asked, attempting to shift the conversation away from her snowy-haired friend's lack of clothing and his perfectly sculpted bo-

Woah! Where did that come from? she asked herself mentally before the sound of her headmaster's voice brought her back to reality.

"Oh yes, as of tomorrow, Mr. Kaneki here will be attending classes here at Beacon and like all students, he will need to have to go through initiation," Ozpin explained, "which means he's going to need somewhere to rest so he has enough energy to fight effectively tomorrow, but due to the rather short notice of his arrival, we don't have a place for him to stay the night and I'm sure you all can piece together the rest."

"So, you're basically saying that you're going to have him stay here with us since he doesn't know anyone else here at Beacon," Blake said dryly, still not looking up from her book as she spoke.

"Exactly," was Ozpin's response, his voice equally as dry.

"Excuse me sir, but did it ever cross your mind that having a half-naked young man sleep in the same room as four teenage girls, could be a tad bit uncomfortable for some of said teenage girls?" Weiss asked Ozpin with a tone that was a mix of outrage and curiosity.

"Yes, but after my talk with Mr. Kaneki here, I thoroughly believe that he's not the type of person to try and do something to a sleeping girl during the middle of the night," Ozpin explained to the heiress. "It's one of the reasons why I'm even letting him sleep in your room in the first place."

Surprisingly, that statement alone was enough for her to let out a sigh of contempt and say, "Fine, he can stay here, but it doesn't mean that I have to like it."

"That's all I ask of you, Ms. Schnee."

"Truth be told, I'd be more worried about what might happen to him during the night, rather than what might happen to us," Blake commented dryly as she turned another page in the book she was reading, making clear reference to the grin Yang was flashing towards the white-haired young man, whose eyebrow was beginning to twitch uncomfortably under said gaze.

Headmaster Ozpin paid no attention to the fidgeting young man next to him and said, "That is all, I hope you all have a good night." The silver-haired man then turned his head torwards the snowy-haired young man. "Especially you, Mr. Kaneki," he stated, "you're going to need it for tomorrow afternoon."

With that, Ozpin turned on a heel and exited the dorm room, leaving the five teenagers completely to their own devices.

Kaneki scanned the dorm room around him and immediately took note of the strange bedding arrangements. Two beds were on the floor as they should be, but the two other beds were placed directly over the ones on the ground, forming a pair of makeshift bunk beds.

"Sorry again about this," Kaneki apologized to all of them once again, or more accurately one of them in particular. "Like I said, I really didn't think this one through."

"Don't worry about it, we all had to stay in the ballroom our first day here at Beacon, boys and girls alike so it's nothing new to us," Ruby reassured him. "Yang and I'll go get the spare blankets, I hope you don't mind sleeping on the floor."

"Or you could share a bed with one of us, my bed has plenty of room, you know~," Yang chimed in causing a slight blush to slowly crawl onto his face.

"N-no the floor is fine," Kaneki reassured her, nearly choking on his words as they came out, eliciting a giggle from both Ruby and Yang as they went to get his makeshift bed ready.

Both finding the sight of the young man who killed a group of four beowolves with his bare hands only hours ago, blushing a small amount of teasing completely and utterly absurd.

Knowing that it might take a while for his bed to be ready, the snowy-haired young man walked over to the second thing in the room that caught his attention during his initial scan of the room.

It was a long wooden bookcase that was about the height of one of the single beds next to it and was filled to the brim with books. Kneeling down so that he was exactly eye level with the top shelf of the bookcase, he began browsing through the titles, looking for anything that seemed interesting.

The black-haired girl who most of the books belonged to immediately took notice of this and asked him, "Looking for a book to read?"

"Um yeah, any suggestions?" he asked while still browsing the titles, immediately taking notice of the fact that he had seen some of the same titles on books from his world.

"It depends on what you like to read," was Blake's response to him.

"I tend to like books that are written in a more descriptive manner and are serious in nature," Kaneki recited in a tone that made it seem like saying it was second-nature to him, as he was saying this his gray eyes suddenly noticed a book that was different from the rest. The rest of the other books had brown, black, or blue covers. This book on the other hand had a cover that was colored a deep crimson.

Curious about what it contained, the snowy-haired teen pulled it out from the shelf and flipped to a random page.

"Then, I would suggest you read-" the black-haired teen began, immediately ceasing all talking when she glanced down and saw him reading out of that book.

Oh crap, he found my copy of Ninjas of Love, Blake thought, screaming at herself mentally for not hiding it better. Calm down Blake, calm down, he can't possibly know that it's yours. You just have act normal… Act normal.

Kaneki's expression remained steely as he realized what type of book he was currently reading. His usually strong desire to read dying inside of him as he closed the book and placed it back in the bookcase without a word.

With his want to read completely shattered into a million pieces, he decided that it was best to just sit himself down on the floor and let his thoughts wander, so that's exactly what he did. As he sat there with his back to the bookshelf, he let his thoughts wander back to his conversation with Ozpin.

Act normally, huh? he repeated the sole instructions Ozpin had given him on the way to team RWBY's dorm room. What exactly defines being normal around here, I wonder?

"Hey Kaneki, you're bed's ready," Ruby told him while gesturing towards a pile of spare blankets and a single pillow that was positioned directly in front of Weiss's bed.

The snowy-haired half ghoul gave her and Yang an appreciative nod before standing up and walking over towards the makeshift bed.

"Remember, if you get too uncomfortable on the floor, my bed is always open," Yang told him in a low, seductive whisper as they passed each other, causing yet another blush to fight its way onto his cheeks, eliciting a giggle from said blonde bombshell.

Kaneki let out an awkward laugh as he hurried to his makeshift bed. It wasn't anything extravagant, but it wasn't like he expected it to be in the first place. He let out a relieved sigh when he slipped himself in between the two blankets and allowed his head fall onto his pillow.

After everything that happened to him in the past couple hours, sleep came easy to him and unfortunately so did the nightmares…

-Chapter End-

Speaking of nightmares… This was a nightmare to edit. Like I said, I spent hours combing through it to fix some of the mistakes I missed on the initial edit.

One of the reasons I stopped posting on spacebattles, really. It was goddamn tiring to try and edit two-thousand words every two nights or so. Hours were spent and not a lot was given back to me, so I just had to stop and focus on my current stuff.

So… um, yeah. Go and check out the edit of chapter two.