TRIGGER WARNING: MENTIONS OF BLOOD, DEATH, GORE AND CANNIBALISM DUE TO THE NATURE OF GHOULS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

'If it was humans that made you so cruel… then maybe you're a victim too. But, I won't become like you. I won't take lives for pleasure.'

Tokyo Ghoul, Volume 7

Lance was a lot of things, and he knew it.

He was the eldest child, which he thought was great because it meant that was there when Luis started walking for the first time and when Veronica was first able to eat without Mama having to blend the meat in a broken blender and making it look all yucky looking and when Marco was first born in one of the higher-level rooms of the apartment block that they were living in, though at the time, he had not been pleased with his mother's screams of pain.

He was also the fastest out of all the kids who lived with them in the run-down apartment block, able to run away from any of them when they were playing and able to catch any of them when they realised they did something wrong and decided to dash for it, even if he was only ten and the others were beginning to reach their teen years. His Mama would smile when he vividly boasted about this skill, and would always reply to his comments about how it was because of who he was, how he took after his Mama more than his Papa.

(He doesn't understand that much at the moment, but he was sure he'll get it soon enough. He always did.)

Lance was also one of the smarter ones of the kids in the apartment block. While the other his age moaned about being left along by the adults and being told to always stay indoors, or out of the main streets when they were able to leave the block, but Lance knew that there were things out there, monsters that ruled the world and forced them into a corner with a pretty smiled scarred into their faces. He didn't understand why they weren't allowed to rule, why their prey was allowed to rule instead, but he was sure he would learn soon.

So, Lance was a lot of things, things that made his mother smile and made his father proud and made his siblings look up to him and made all the other kids jealous, but at this particular moment in time, he was excited.

"Really? I'm allowed to come with you to get food?" Lance almost shouted, making his Papa smile (taunt and painful) and ruffle his hair, much to Lance's displeasure.

"Sure are kiddo, I've talked to your mother about it, and she agreed that you are old enough to learn about these things now," he said, picking up the old empty duffle bag and leaving the apartment bock with Lance trailing behind, a smile glued to his face. They walked together in relative silence for a while, content to listening the of traffic and people as they slowly but surely got closer and closer to their prey, still outside in the dead of the night, thinking that they were safe.

Before they got too close to the main road, close to the streetlamps and close to the prey, his Papa stopped him, and Lance watched in silence as the man put on a mask, one that vaguely reminded him of a sea monster, a Leviathan, with gills coming out of the side of the neck of the mask and huge beady eyes that glowed when his Papa put it on. In places, the dark blue leather had been torn off, leaving white scars and odd stiches in places.

"Okay Lance, I'm going to need you to follow every word I say," his Papa demanded, and Lance nodded quickly in reply. It was dangerous work, hunting. He had more often than not overheard the elder kids laugh when they boast about their close calls, and the mothers who have to rely on the gang nearby to get their food because they were simply not strong enough, and they hated that they had to do so.

So, Lance does as he's told. He sat at the opening of the alley, and he started to cry. It's a bit hard at first, he had never cried on demand before, but it helped that there are cuts on his face made by his Papa as he whispered apologies and he looked at the strange new world he's never been to before, and it was overwhelmingly bright on his eyes due to the artificial lighting and loud on his ears due to the prey's need to shout over one another, so much so that he wanted to cover them. So he did, he covered them and he cried louder, because that's what he was supposed to do, and once the tears started Lance found it hard to stop, not that he was supposed to stop. He's supposed to cry loudly and clearly to get their attention, and then his Papa will do the next part of the plan, not that he knew what that plan is yet, but he didn't care because it was loud and it was bright for night and it hurt his head.

"Aww, are you okay?" he opened his eyes (when did he close them?) looking up at the couple that had stopped by, the woman having gotten close to him, close enough for him to smell her disgusting breath and to smell her delicious skin and hear the thump thump of her heartbeat, while the man stayed back, with a briefcase in his hands and a worried look on his face. He still felt the tears fall, it was still loud and still bright but now he had her to focus on which make it all that bit easier, he guessed.

He sniffed loudly and wetly, and he knew he must look pathetic, because the woman cooed more and came closer to him despite the man's warning, and he shuffled backwards slightly into the shadows more, hid himself more. He didn't want her to touch him, didn't want her smell to cover up his own and he didn't want her soft subtle flesh to feel his rough skin.

"C'mon out of there, we'll take you to a police station, and then we'll call your parents, how about that?" she asked, and he let out a hiccup in answer. He didn't know what a 'police station' was, but it sounded scary. He had shuffled far down the alley now, with only the woman entering it, the man getting angrier and angrier at the entrance. It was dark enough to cover the violent shaking that started to cover his entire body. It wasn't until his back hit the brick wall that he realised how the woman, who smelt so nice yet so wrong, had cornered him.

"Hey, there's nothing to worry about little gho-" her words were cut off as his Papa came out of nowhere, his eyes glowing behind his mask, as he kicked the woman hard away from him, and she let out a scream that was cut off as she quickly hit the wall with a satisfying crunch, a delicious aroma coming from her still body as her blood stained the concrete below. Lance followed his Papa to the body, and watched mesmerised as he watched his Papa started to methodically tear into the woman into pieces, careful to make sure that the body pieces fitted into the bag and the head of the woman was unaffected and instead was left on top of puddle of blood that accumulated.

Once he was done, his Papa turned to Lance, his body relaxed and his eyes no longer the glowing red but the warming brown that Lance was more used to seeing. Lance smiled at him, his nose still running but the wound on his face had stopped bleeding now and seemed to be showing signs of healing now.

"Are you okay, Lance?" his Papa asked as he helped him up, and Lance nodded in reply, even though the action made his head throb and he regretted crying so much for a moment, but only for a moment as there was a proud looking the honey brown eyes of his Papa and it only made him smile more.

His Papa goes to open his mouth, and to this day Lance wonders what he was about to say. Maybe it would have been something off handed, a random comment about the smell or the noise. While they are the most likely thing to have been said, Lance doesn't like to think like that. No, Lance likes to think that his Papa lasts words would have been words of praise, words reassuring Lance that he did everything just like he asked. Maybe it would have been advice, words to tell him how to do the job better, how to catch them up in the nest right and proper. On the bad days, the ones where his Mama refuses to leave her room in the new apartment or when the hungry stomachs of his siblings got a bit too loud for his likings, he hopes that it would have been words of love coming out of his Papa's mouth, words telling him how much he loves his Mama and his brothers and sister.

But, no, the last thing to leave his mouth is a gasp of surprise and a trail of blood as a sword suddenly appeared through his Papa's midsection, bloody and blue. It leaves him just as suddenly as it came, the sickening of slicing flesh echoing around the alley.

It was like watching a grainy video in slow motion, as Lance watched his Papa's fall and hit the ground with a sickening crunch, a repulsive aroma coming from his still body as his blood stained the concrete below. It was hard to see with the dark and the tears in his eyes, but Lance was able to vaguely make out the man that was with the woman at the opening of the alley before, but he was unable to do anything as he approached slowly but steadily, his hand gripping the bloody and blue sword.

Something inside Lance told him to run away, to go back to his Mama and cry and tell her what happened and to let her comfort her and tell him that everything was going to be okay. But instead of turning around and running away, he just stared at the approaching human with his blue and bloodied sword, and he vaguely recognised the feeling of his limbs shaking somewhat. It didn't take long at all for the man to get close enough to strike Lance, and instead of running away like he should, like his instincts were telling to (he wouldn't be able to catch him either, he was very fast for his age), his eyes merely looked down at what is now his Papa's corpse, and he felt a tear streak down his face.

"My name is Investigator Alexei Días. You killed my wife. Prepare to die," he whispered, and it was the only warning Lance got before there was a sword in his stomach, being pushed in more and becoming less blue and more bloodied. Lance glanced down at the sword, before looking up at the man in confusion, tears falling down his face more and more.

He… he didn't want to die.

He couldn't die! Not here, not when his Mama and his siblings didn't know about his Papa's death and when none of them had the food, they needed the food. That was his job, he needed to make sure that they were fed and looked after like his Papa used to. His Mama would be said to hear that her husband was dead, but she would be devastated.

He couldn't do that to her.

There was a sudden pain in shoulder, like something was coming out of his skin and ripping him apart. There was a look of fear in the dove's eyes, and Lance took a guilty pleasure in the way that the man's eyes widened and his hand on the blue and bloodied sword shook, and smiled openingly, feeling some blood from his mouth (when did that get there?) dibble out and start to fall down his chin. Something fluttered near his head, something that made dove, Investigator Alexei Días, scream, something that shot out a flurry of blue diamonds that impaled him over and over and over again. He was dead before he hit the fall, and the sudden loss of pressure on the sword made it slip out on the concrete, still blue and still bloody.

Falling himself, Lance reached a hand over his stomach, and he felt the blood and the damaged internal organs trying to come out on his hands, a strange feeling, knowing how your own intestines felt in your hands. He could feel the edges of the wound burning, as if they were healing, and his stomach rumbling, reminding him of the nice smell that laid beneath the rancid one. There were two corpses now (one less mouth to feed), no one would mind if he ate his fill this time, he'll make sure to ration his next meal, make sure the others get more on their plates next time.

How are they getting food next time? His Papa was dead.

He was dead.

He was dead.

He was dead.

Lance crawled painfully to the dead dove, shoving the blue and bloodied sword away from his path as he reached the bleeding arm, and tore it off and began his meal. He had eaten a good part the torso by the time he was done, and the wound was visibly healed, though he could feel them swish around dangerously when he walked. Frowning, he fitted as much of the other body in the bag, now too heavy for him to carry properly but he could drag it home. The only full corpse left was now his Papa, and he knew if he was to come back here later the body would be gone, and he would be shot at. So, he goes over to his Papa's face and takes off the mask, eyelids heavy and puffy from all the crying and his stomach pulsing in pain, and he takes it in for the final time.

He's never going to see him again.

Picking up the handles of the bag and beginning to pull, Lance stopped thinking, he only did. He pulled the bag home, he ignored the whispers with the rising sun in the background, he struggled listing the bag up two flights of stairs, he collapsed in his Mama's arms with a background of tears and sobs and mummers from the other neighbours.

Lance was a lot of things, and he knew it.

He was capable of killing those who threatened and his family, and he knew it.

A.N. Hey, so new story, and it continues off of my other Tokyo Ghoul/Voltron crossover that follows Shiro and is much more light-hearted than this one, which can be found on my profile. I hope you enjoyed and please leave a comment and tell me what you think!