Hey there, Constant Readers! I'd like to take a moment to thank the wonderful Dis Lexic for allowing me to use his idea for a Tokyo Ghoul story. I've been wanting to do one of these for awhile now, and when I read through the one he showed in the first couple of chapters of Outsider Vault, I knew I'd found something that could be great. So yeah, credit for the idea goes to him, and you should read his stuff if you haven't already. I'm not using the Outsider Chronicles as part of the title, as I feel that's his thing, and I'm going to be trying my best to make this my own thing. That being said, I'm using what he's already got as a base for the start, so don't be too surprised by the inevitable similarities in the opening chapter.

I don't know what pairing I'm going to go for in this, maybe OC/Touka, only time will tell. This is primarily a crossover with the Underworld film series, but there are likely to be more crossovers added in a minor capacity later on.

Welcome to Top of the Food Chain!

Let's begin.

Death and Lycans

What my name was in my last life is not important. In the long run, none of my last life is all that important, anyway. Except for maybe my love of wolves and dogs that are like wolves, but if anything, that's just highly ironic and coincidental. I sincerely doubt any of what's occurred since I died has any relation to my opinions on certain animals.

Oh yes, you read that right. I died.

I'd tell you how it happened, but it's really rather embarrassing. Let's just say that the protagonist of KonoSuba had a less embarrassing death than the shit I had to put up with.

Waking up as a baby exiting the womb was a strange enough experience as it was. Even stranger was the name I ended up being given: Hideyoshi Nagachika. Yes, I had effectively been reborn as a walking plot-point. I hope that helps you to understand why my first thoughts upon this revelation were Fuck this noise. I didn't want to die just so Kaneki would grow a pair of balls! I had already died once in rather unspectacular fashion, I didn't want to die again and become the fuel for even more homoerotic fan fiction.

In case you somehow haven't put two and two together, I am now Hideyoshi "Hide" Nagachika in the world of Tokyo Ghoul.

I will grant you, there have been certain differences that have been rather shocking for me. The first was more a personal change than anything else. I had assumed that, due to having gone through school once before, everything would be a breeze. But the truth was that it was very challenging at first. I still had the English language practically engraved into my mind, and learning Japanese still came as something of an issue. The teachers and my mother – who raised me by herself – were afraid that I was "challenged." It took me awhile to get the hang of things, but I did eventually.

As stated above, I grew up with a single mother. It wasn't that much of a hardship, to tell you the truth, as she had a decent job, and according to her my father wasn't the deadbeat type despite never being around. All Mum ever told me about Dad is that he's Hungarian and they hadn't been together long before she got pregnant. That was it.

Then there's Kaneki. Now, despite all the evidence that I was your average squishy human in this world, I still felt like I should help the guy out. I grew to be his friend fairly quickly when we met. He looked like a kicked puppy a lot of the time, which is something I've always aimed to fix. We were both considered highly intelligent (well, once I'd gotten the language figured out, I was) and complete bookworms with a thing for horror. I introduced him to the genius that is Stephen King and we became best friends over people being ruthlessly mutilated in literature. It was a friendship made in Heaven.

But I can't believe I ignored all the evidence for as long as I did.

See, I'm anything but the average squishy human these days. I suppose I should have known I wouldn't be normal after being reborn into another world, another version of Earth, but it took me long enough to accept that Ghouls are real without panicking. The fact that I could hear dog whistles should've been a dead giveaway, but again, I ignored it. Christ, I could hear the neighbours from three doors down shagging several hours into the night at times (they were like fucking rabbits, I swear). I also managed to learn to identify my classmates by scent. Then (and this is nasty, so be warned) there's the fact that I like to eat meat so raw that it's practically still breathing. I once took some sausages out of our freezer, let them defrost, and then ate the lot of them raw. My high metabolism doesn't exactly help matters, either.

And finally, there's my short temper, which gets worse near the full moon … Do you see where I'm going with this yet?

The first time I ever acknowledged what all this seems to imply was a few weeks after my sixteenth birthday. I woke up somewhere I definitely didn't remember going the night before …

The headache was the first thing I registered. Then it was the fact that I was butt-ass naked. I could feel grass beneath me and there was something caking my lower face, chest, and hands.

I sat up, groaning, and opened my eyes. It was early.

I looked down at my hands. They were covered in blood. So was my chest. I felt something in my teeth and, despite how repulsive some would find the action, I used my bloody nails to pick it out. It was fur. Not too far away, I noticed a half-eaten rabbit.

"What in the hell is going on …?" I muttered to myself. Or what I thought was myself.

"I can answer that."

The words gave me such a start that I leapt to my feet and fell over again. Given my naked state, I suppose I looked rather undignified.

The man was well-built and tall. He had long, dark brown hair, and piercing blue eyes. He had a short beard and moustache. He was wearing tattered jeans, a rumpled shirt, and an old-looking long-coat. He was sitting on a big rock nearby with an amused expression on his face.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked as if he was the weird-looking one in this scenario.

"My name is Lucian," he said. He threw a bundle of something at me. "You might want to put these on."

As I picked up the bundle, I realised that it was a pair of my jeans and a plain black T-shirt. How this man – who I felt that I recognised for some reason – had gotten my clothes and found me naked in a field that I knew wasn't far from my house was baffling to me. And, in all honesty, I briefly feared for my purity when I realised I HAD WOKEN UP NAKED IN A FIELD AND A STRANGER HAD MY CLOTHES!

Trying my best to drive that quite frankly HORRIFYING thought from my mind, I awkwardly put my clothes on. I made a mental note to avoid Mum and head straight for the shower when I got home.

"All right, mate, spill the beans," I said when I finished getting dressed. I hadn't once taken my eyes off this vaguely familiar-looking man. Despite the fact that I was speaking Japanese, my very English mannerisms had remained entirely intact over the years. "Who are you and please, for the love of God, tell me you didn't fuck me bloody last night."

Lucian laughed at that. "You need not fear anything of that sort," he said. "To tell you the truth, I only returned to Japan because I needed some time away. I never dreamed you'd actually turn."

I blinked. "Turn? What d'you mean?"

Lucian chuckled. "All right, enough beating around the bush. Last night was the first full moon after your sixteenth birthday. You Changed for the first time."

I took a moment to let that sink in, then I knew where I recognised this guy from. This was Lucian, the first Lycan, from the Underworld film series. Tokyo Ghoul and now Underworld, I thought. What the bloody hell did I do in the last life to deserve this shit? Out loud I said, "Wait … Change? Full moon? Are you trying to tell me I'm a fucking Werewolf!?"

"Technically you're a Lycan, but yes, that's about the essence of it." Lucian grinned at me, showing a mouthful of very sharp teeth. "Natural born Lycans – Lycans who are conceived rather than turned due to the bite of another Lycan – Change for the first time once they hit sixteen. I'll admit, you're at least a little different since you're only half-Lycan, but the fact remains that you Changed last night."

It took me a little while to fully process what I was being told. Suddenly all the things that were different about me – all the things I'd failed to notice because I was more than a little distracted trying to cope with the fact that Ghouls exist in this world – made scary amounts of sense. There was one question still on my mind, though …

"How did you know I could Change?" I asked. "You don't exactly look local, so I doubt you're familiar enough with my scent to be able to tell, so how the hell did you pull that trick?"

"Your mother has done a good job keeping me up to date," said Lucian.

"… Oh dear God …" I said. The second those words had exited his mouth, I knew where this was going.

I think Dad sensed my realisation because he smirked and emphasised it by holding up an old photograph of him and Mum with their arms around each other, smiling at the camera.

I'm the son of the Alpha Lycan … Can you see how complicated my life was going to be yet?

And that's how I found out that Ghouls aren't as near the top of the food chain as they and everyone else thought. The top three on the food chain are the Immortals, the Vampires, and the Lycans, the monsters that only ever came out in the dark of the night. And then there's me, unique, the son of a human and the first of the Lycans. Needless to say, I was glad that I was pretty far away from the battleground that was the war between the Vampires and the Lycans. If I was anywhere near that mess, Viktor would likely have me killed on principal alone.

Anyway, over the next couple of years I spent time training with some Japanese Lycans that Dad knew. I'm sure he would have done it himself, but leading the charge against the Vampires isn't an easy job, I'm sure. I'm not a huge fan of war in general, but that prick Viktor deserves everything he's given. I only hoped that I, Frankenstein isn't part of this world, otherwise there will be two power-hungry Bill Nighy lookalikes running around.

Due to my human side, my Lycan form was very much out of my control at first, but with training, I was able to keep my conscious mind whenever the transformation came. In fact, after enough training, I was able to make the Change at will, which is nearly unheard of for young Lycans. I'm not sure if it's the fact that I was born a Lycan or that I have a human side, but once I'd gained control of my Lycan form, I had remarkably less trouble controlling it than even much older Lycans did. On the downside, however, for there just had to be one, my human half made it so I'm not as strong or fast as a full-blooded Lycan, although I know I'm strong enough to go toe-to-toe with Ghouls and Vampires if the need arises. The mix of DNA also made my human form a lot stronger than it should have been, which I was immensely happy to hear.

The thing I love the most, however, my saving grace as it were, is my near-immunity to the effects of silver. Yes, it was irritating and made me itch like an absolute motherfucker, but the most damage it could do to me was make me run a light fever, whereas it would have killed a full-blooded Lycan. My wolf form is also somewhat smaller and slimmer than those of my fellows, so I have a certain advantage in agility. For some reason, however, the tail remains when I'm in my human form. That's annoying because I have to rather uncomfortably bandage it to my back when I go out in public.

Anyway, things were mostly uneventful for a few years. I would train, go out on hunts with the local Pack whenever there was a full moon, hang out with Kaneki, go to school. You know, the usual stuff. I even got into university studying Literature.

Then came that long-dreaded fateful day.

The day Kaneki took me to the café.

The café had a very welcoming environment to it. It was a brightly lit and coloured place. The food was pretty damn good, too, even if I wasn't especially a fan of how cooked it was. Honestly, they could've just given me the stuff raw and I would have been fine. In any case, the only thing I didn't like about the café was the smells, and that wasn't a problem for anyone else because most of the people in there were human. I, on the other hand, could smell every last bit of BO on everyone who happened to come in. It was a smell I was used to, granted, but combined with the smell of the food and drinks, it wasn't an altogether pleasant assault on my nostrils.

"So, this is where you met your sweet princess?" I asked Kaneki as we sat down.

"Shut up, Hide," he said. Kaneki was an average-looking guy if a little on the scrawny side. He had full-looking black hair that draped down over his forehead and stopped just before his eyes, which were a dark grey. "Yes, this is where I met her."

The news report about the Ghoul attack on the Takada building started to play on the TV they had mounted on the wall.

"That's pretty close by," I commented as a waitress put our food out in front of us. "Pretty terrifying." Not to me, but to the humans. Rize and Jason were pretty strong Ghouls, but considering Lycans were still considered a myth by basically everyone, they wouldn't be expecting me to turn into a big wolf monster if we ever met (which we certainly would be). So, considering that, I had the element of surprise on my side.

"I guess so," Kaneki mumbled. "But I've never even seen a Ghoul."

"Doesn't mean you can't be scared of 'em," I said. "Imagine it: you think that tall guy approaching you in the street late at night is just some randomer, but no! He's chewing on your ass like it's a steak in no time flat." It felt in slightly bad taste to joke about Ghouls while Touka was nearby, but fuck it, my sense of humour has always been rather deranged.

"That's not nearly as funny as you think it is," said Kaneki, looking sufficiently creeped out. "That wolfish grin of yours makes it more unsettling than anything else."

One day he would learn to appreciate the irony of that statement.

"So, is dream girl in here now?" I asked him. "Is it her, by any chance?" I subtly gestured to Touka with my eyes.

Touka was definitely pretty. She was a teenage girl a couple of years younger than me, maybe as little as a year younger, I couldn't remember, with a slender frame. Her dark purple hair was cut off before it could go past her shoulders, and there was a long series of bangs that reached her chin and covered most of the right side of her face, and she had blue eyes. Again, she was an attractive girl, and if it weren't for my foreknowledge and sense of smell, I never would have guessed she'd be a Ghoul.

"No, not her," said Kaneki, shaking his head. "Though I guess she's pretty cute, too … The girl I'm going out with was a customer, not a waitress."

I hummed in feigned interest as I finished up my food. Touka must have noticed that because she came by to collect the plates immediately.

"Thanks," I said to her. Never underestimate showing a little kindness to customer service workers; they see enough shitty customers throughout the day that it's normally very appreciated if you're just a little polite. That being said, it took a lot of willpower on my part not to wrinkle my nose slightly as she came near me. Ghouls, you see, have a very distinct smell: they smell of dried blood and coffee. It's not a horrible smell, but it's also not something you want to enter your nose on a regular basis.

Touka stared at me for a moment. I noticed her nose twitch and was put on edge somewhat. "No problem," she said quietly.

She knows I'm different, I was suddenly sure. Ghouls smell different from humans, and so do Lycans and Vampires, the lot of us. Odds are she doesn't know what's different about me, but … I noticed that Kaneki was staring at me. "What? Do I have something on my face?"

"I think she likes you," he said. There was a small smirk forming on his face.

"I ain't into jailbait," I said. She was actually only two years younger than me, I knew, and perfectly legal, even by the standards of my last life. But I didn't need Kaneki to know that I knew that.

"Oh come on, Hide. She's three years younger than you, at most."

"My dear friend Kaneki, we're here to discuss your love life, not mine. Now can we please get back to discussing this girl who's had you in a permanently hardened state for the last few days?"

He looked like he was about to retort but suddenly blushed and ducked his head down. Anyone else might have thought what I'd said had embarrassed him, but I knew that Rize had just walked in. How did I know that if I couldn't see her? I could smell her. More accurately, I could smell that the café, to me at least, suddenly reeked of blood, fresh blood. It wasn't just the blood, either; I could smell the bloodlust she had, and it disturbed me. My fight or flight instinct was pushing back and forth. The only reason I managed to keep from growling out loud was because I dug the claws that had sprouted on the ends of my fingers into the palms of my hands, drawing blood but using the pain to keep myself quiet.

Part of me wanted to get out of there, knowing that anything that reeked that much of blood could bring no good. But another part, a bigger part, was itching at me to Change and rip her to pieces in the middle of the café.

I was very tempted to do so.

"Are you … doing okay, Hide?" asked Kaneki.

"… I'm fine," I said. I tried my best to keep the tenseness out of my voice, but I was unsuccessful. I bit my tongue in a further attempt to keep from growling loudly, but I felt my teeth starting to sharpen and my tongue starting to bleed. I was losing control. I needed to get out of there. "I'm gonna head off, Kaneki. See ya." I threw the money for my food down on the table, as well as a tip for the wonderful service, and ducked out of the café. I had to pass by the murderous bitch on my way out, and that only made me want to go more crazy.

I got outside the café and immediately ducked into an alleyway. What I went through when I finally let my anger loose wasn't a full transformation, but it was enough that anyone who might have watched would have freaked out. My teeth became fangs and my nails became claws and I could feel my eyes change even if I couldn't see them. I gritted my fangs and let loose a feral-sounding growl that felt so good now that it was finally out. I could still smell Rize, could still see the image of her face in my head …

"GRRRAHH!"

The roar that exited my mouth as I took out my frustrations on a nearby bin must have attracted quite a bit of attention. Hell, they probably heard it in the café.

I'm going hunting tonight, I decided as I hurriedly exited the alleyway, looking around to make sure no one had noticed that it was me who made that ungodly noise. I was in the clear. My head was far from clear, however, and I knew I wouldn't feel fully myself again until I killed and ate something. Hunting was something generally done with the local Pack on the full moon, but there was no rule against solo hunting on other nights, so I didn't feel any need to worry.

So caught up in my own thoughts was I that I didn't even notice I was being watched from within the café.

About ten minutes later, as I was cutting through an alleyway on my way home, I found that I didn't need to wait for the night in order to hunt. My prey not only found me but wrongly assumed it was the predator.

I could smell that the man was both a Ghoul and a binge-eater the second I laid eyes on him coming in the opposite direction in the alley. What he looked like was irrelevant, all that mattered was the fact that he stank of blood, though nowhere near as much as Rize had. The second we went to pass each other by, his eyes went red and he grabbed me by the throat. He tried to push me back against the wall, but I didn't budge.

Then I Changed.

Have you ever seen the look on a man's face when they realise they've fucked up? It's quite hilarious. The wide-eyed expression on this Ghoul's face was almost enough to take me out of my foul mood all on its own. Almost.

I didn't even give him a chance to do anything. One snap of my large jaws around his head and he was as dead as they get.

I reverted back to my human form but kept my eyes, teeth, and claws the way they were. I was about to indulge in a meal, after all.

Oh, don't act so shocked. I'm a fucking Lycan! I've eaten humans, Vampires, and Ghouls before, though generally only when they're stupid enough to pick a fight with me. And even then, normally it's during the full moon, when I and the other Lycans in town are a lot more rowdy, even with our control of our wolf forms.

I was about midway through eating the guy's arm when my phone rang. It was Kaneki.

"Hey, Kaneki," I said, chewing on the raw flesh and then swallowing. "How's it going?"

"Good," he said. He sounded excited. "Hey … you know that girl? I got a date with her! We're going to the bookstore tomorrow."

"Sounds like you got lucky," I said. This time I was successful in keeping the tenseness out of my voice.

"Yeah … Hey, are you eating something?"

"Yep. You caught me in the middle of dinner."

"Sounds pretty … moist. Are you eating that raw crap again?"

I smirked. "I guess you could say that."

"It's a genuine miracle you never get food poisoning … Well, I guess I'll let you get back to it. Bye."

"Bye." I hung up.

The time-frame had been set. I had another hunt to go on tomorrow, it would seem, so I decided I'd better head home.

"Thanks for the food, pal," I said to the dead Ghoul. Then I Changed, jumped up onto the rooftop of the building beside me, and made for home as fast as I could.

The next day I had one hell of a stomach ache. It was so bad that I found myself going to the shop just down the road from my house in order to buy some milk and indigestion tablets. I burped into my hand as I started walking home. "Damn, that guy I ate last night is repeating on me," I muttered to myself as I walked unhappily. "See, this shit right here is why I hate junk food."

"There is a reason we don't tend to eat Ghouls," said a young woman's voice beside me.

I had apparently been joined on my little walk by Yoriko Kosaka. She had neck-length hazel-coloured hair that was styled in something of a bob-cut, with thick bangs coming down over her forehead. Her eyes were black but looked dark grey. When I was reborn into this world I never expected to be a Lycan, and when I discovered I was a Lycan, I sure as hell didn't expect that Yoriko, Touka's best friend, would be a Lycan. I knew her quite well at this point, as we were both members of the Tokyo Pack and joined up together with the others to hunt at every full moon.

"I'm an equal opportunities carnivore," I said to her. "Human, Vampire, Ghoul. Anyone stupid enough to attack me or my friends is basically volunteering to be lunch. I met your friend in that café yesterday. I think she noticed something weird about my smell. Just thought I'd let you know in case she starts sniffing about 'cause our scents are similar."

"Thanks for the consideration," she said dryly. "I was looking for you, by the way. I saw that human friend of yours hanging out with a Ghoul earlier. She reeked of fresh blood, nearly drove me crazy. You might wanna—"

I dropped the bag I was carrying my stuff in and took off running without even waiting for her to finish. How the fuck did I forget that was today!? I berated myself. It may fuck up the coming events, but I didn't care, there was no way I was going to let Kaneki die if there was any chance I could stop it. Don't be too late, don't be too late, don't be too late …

I was too late.

I scaled a building and Changed as to move faster. I ran off in the direction of the book shop. It was night, so there was little to no chance of me being seen. The sweat in my fur was unbearable, but I ignored it. You're a fucking idiot, Hide! I cursed at myself. You let a little indigestion make you forget that your best friend is meant to die tonight!? Fuck, fuck, fuck! Gotta be quick … I've gotta stop this …

All hope was dashed when I heard the sounds of screaming, followed a few moments later by the sound of metal falling from a high place and impacting the ground with a series of clanks and thuds that set my heart racing all over again. I landed on a beam above the site of the "accident" a few moments later, just a little too late to rip apart the bastard responsible for dropping all the metal down there.

"God damn it," I growled out. The metal bent and moulded beneath my claws, which were squeezing in frustration and rage. "When I finally get my chance, I'm gonna rip that fucker apart limb by limb …" I trailed off as a thought came to mind.

Maybe I should bite Kaneki?

Despite being a Lycan-human hybrid, I was still a carrier of the Lycan virus, and as such, my bite could turn a human into a Lycan. It was even theorised that, because I'm a half-breed, any Lycan I turned would have my immunity to silver even if they became a full-blood Lycan. That was only a theory, however, and since I'd never turned anyone before, I had no way of knowing if it was true. But … the chances of Kaneki being killed by the experience was too high for me to risk it. At the very least, him being turned into a half-Ghoul would mean he was definitely going to survive. All I would have to do is make sure he doesn't get tortured by Jason and make efforts to snap him out of his moping all by myself.

Compared to the other shit that's going to be going down relatively soon, that ought to be a walk in the park, I thought.

All that worked out in my mind, I left. I found that Yoriko had been considerate enough to leave my bag of stuff outside my house for me. She was a good friend.

"I'm sorry, but your friend said he isn't up for receiving visitors," said the nurse at the front desk of the hospital.

I'm not surprised, I thought. He's got one red eye and is completely unable to eat regular food. Anyone waking up to something like that would probably have trouble talking to people. I understood and had expected this, but there was still something about him not wanting to speak to me that genuinely hurt. The truth is simply that I had stopped thinking of him as a fictional character years ago; he was my friend and I was worried about him.

"Can you at least let me know when he'll be discharged?" I asked. The worry as seeping into my voice.

"I think he's being discharged later today," said the nurse.

"Thanks," I said.

As I walked out of the hospital, I briefly thought about leaving some food at his house like Hideyoshi did in canon, but then decided that buying food that wasn't going to be eaten was a waste of money I didn't really have. I would've felt bad if I hadn't done anything, however, so I bought him some coffee, knowing that's the only thing he can drink now.

God, I would hate being a Ghoul, I thought, cringing. Never being able to enjoy a cup of tea again … the horror!

I often ate people anyway, so that part wasn't so much of a concern.

Part of me was getting him the coffee just to see if he would be able to figure out that I knew already. It's not the sort of thing one just comes out with in conversation, so I thought leaving vague hints would be good enough for now.

Now to go help with the festival, I thought unenthusiastically. Oh, the joys of peer pressure.

Stalking isn't something I like doing, but I felt it was necessary in this case. With Kaneki adamantly refusing to see me, presumably on the grounds that he was afraid he would eat me, the only way I could make sure he was safe was to keep an eye on him as often as I could. I tipped him off about the book signing by leaving a message on his voice mail. It was an attempt to cheer him up, but I quickly remembered exactly what that led to, and realised I had inadvertently made the situation worse for him. I felt bad.

I was outside his place on the night he decided to go for that walk of his. It was strange to look at him in real life. His one Ghoul eye, his one human eye, the look of distress on his face. It saddened me to see him in such a state, to tell you the truth.

If only I'd gotten there quicker, I thought as I followed him, sticking to the rooftops. I could've just eaten that Rize bitch and he would've been under the impression that some monster ate the monster about to kill him, I wouldn't have even needed to reveal myself. But no, I let a fucking stomach ache get the better of me until Yoriko reminded me that he was out with one of those God damn binge eaters.

It was eating away at me, it really was.

The fact that Kaneki was maniacally muttering to himself about eating flesh and then immediately berating himself over it didn't exactly help, either. It was at this point that I really started to curse my "sit and wait" attitude. All right, Kaneki may not have wanted to talk to me for fear of eating me, but that didn't mean I couldn't have approached him about the situation. For some reason, however, I hadn't done that, and now I was watching him from the rooftops just waiting for something to happen. It was more than a little shitty of me, in hindsight.

You know why, though, don't you? the voice of my subconscious whispered. You're just as afraid as he is. You don't want him to know that you know, otherwise he might start hating you for keeping everything from him. He might even find out you're a Lycan and become afraid of you. You're a coward, sitting back and doing nothing because you're too afraid of losing a friendship.

I struggled to keep focused on Kaneki as I realised just how right that was.

It was when Kaneki started sniffing the air and running off that I snapped out of it enough to start running after him.

And it was a few moments later that I stopped doing nothing.

Kaneki Ken fell to his knees in despair as he realised that wonderful smell – the one that had reminded him so much of his mother's cooking – turned out to be a fresh corpse in an alley. Kaneki just couldn't help it any more. After spending so long without eating anything, the sweet, delicious-smelling thing that had lured him out here was a fucking dead man! The only thing he had been able to ingest like a normal person was that coffee that Hide left him after his hospital stay … which, the more Kaneki thought about it, was very convenient. But that was hardly on his mind at the moment. He realised that his craving for human flesh was affecting his sense of smell, and the thought that such a thing could seem so delicious to him finally broke him down. Kaneki Ken began to silently weep on his knees in the alleyway.

"You're a Ghoul … aren't you?" asked he man currently chowing down on the corpse. "What's wrong? Are you all right?" He smiled in what might have been a comforting manner, but thanks to the blood caking his lower face, looked more terrifying than anything else. "It's okay, don't cry, I'm Kazuo. I haven't eaten anything in awhile, so I'm afraid I can't share too much with you, but …" he tore a hand off the corpse and held it out to Kaneki, "here, you can have som—"

Then he was kicked several feet by a new arrival.

"Good riddance," said the new arrival. "You should know better than to trespass on my feeding grounds."

He was a young man, around Kaneki's age or maybe a little older, with short, unkempt brown hair that swept off a little at the sides and bangs that swiped to the left side of his forehead. His eyes were light brown and over them was a thin pair of glasses. He looked down at Kaneki in some curiosity.

"I've never seen you before," he said. He started walking forward. "Whoa, how come only one of your eyes is red?" He rubbed the back of his neck. "That looks pretty nasty." His own eyes turned red and he grabbed Kaneki by the throat, forcing him up against the wall. "Did you think you could hunt in my feeding grounds and get away with it?"

"Pretty rich words considering this territory is basically unclaimed now," said a new voice, one Kaneki recognised. Hide was walking away from a wall, having to move up from a crouched position as if he'd just jumped down from somewhere. "Didn't anyone ever teach you to pick on someone your own size, Nishiki?"

"Nagachika," Nishiki said in a surprised growl. "What the hell're you doing out here? More to the point, what the hell's a human doing just walking up to a pair of Ghouls? Do you have some kind of death wish?"

"The only wish I have is for you to put Kaneki down," said Hide. He looked deadly serious. "If you don't, you might get hurt, and I'm sure you don't want that."

"That a fact?" Nishiki looked amused. "It's nice to know I'll be ridding the human race of some stupidity when I eat you."

"H-Hide … r-run …" Kaneki choked out, afraid for his friend's life.

"Don't worry about me, Kaneki, I'll be fine," Hide said, waving him off. "That's the thing with you Ghouls, all thinking there's no one who could top you on the food chain. Well, you three are about to find out that you're not the only monsters in the world."

"Can't you count?" asked Nishiki. "There's only two of us here."

"Oh no, we've got an observer in the shadows. I can smell her quite clearly."

A slightly startled gasp was all the evidence needed to prove that he was right.

"Now I'm gonna give you one last chance, Nishiki," said Hide, stepping closer so that he was right in Nishiki's face. "Let … him … go."

Nishiki's grip tightened, causing Kaneki to cry out.

"Make me."

"Gladly."

Hide grabbed Nishiki's wrist and started squeezing. From what Kaneki had found out about Ghouls these last few days, this shouldn't have done anything at all, but Nishiki actually gasped out in pain and released his grip on Kaneki's throat, letting him fall to the ground where he started gasping for air. A series of small cracks could be heard emanating from Nishiki's arm.

"Th-That's not possible," said Nishiki through gritted teeth. "H-Humans can't be this strong …"

"Oh, but didn't I tell you?" asked Hide. His eyes were now a ghostly, unnatural blue. "I'm not human."

Hide's muscles suddenly began to expand. He struggled to get his jacket off, which he managed, but the rest of his clothes started to rip apart. His skin turned black and sprouted fur, his arms lengthened, and his nails morphed into powerful-looking claws. There were two cracks as the bones of his knees turned backwards and his feet lengthened out into clawed paws. His face bulged out into a fang-filled muzzle and his ears lengthened out and sharpened at the tip. The monster that had once been Hide threw its head back and howled into the night sky.

"So, still think I'm a weak little human?" asked Hide. If his face was still capable of grinning, Kaneki was sure it would be. "Then go ahead and try to eat me!" Hide squeezed tighter on Nishiki's arm for emphasis, but …

CRACK!

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!" Nishiki cried as his arm basically snapped in half.

"Oh, oh, I am sorry," said Hide, who released his grip immediately. "That was honestly meant as an intimidation tactic more than anything, I wasn't really planning to … fuck, are you all right?"

"W-What the hell are you!?" Nishiki cried out. He gripped his arm and took off running.

There was silence for a few moments.

"Well," said Hide, transforming back into his human form. His clothes were tattered, but not so much that they fell from his body, "that was awkward."

"Hide, you, he … what?" Kaneki asked, confused.

"I'll tell you in a minute," said Hide. "But I'm afraid I'd rather explain to everyone who wants to know face to face. So," he turned around and looked toward one of the rooftops, "are you gonna come down so we can actually have a conversation?"

A few second went by with nothing happening, then Touka jumped down from one of the rooftops and looked Hide dead in the eyes. "What are you?" she asked.

"Lycan," said Hide. "Kinda like Werewolves, except we can control our transformations." He looked down at the dead Ghoul from before. "I know you're not used to this sort of thing happening to you guys, but would you mind too much if I eat him? He'll probably give me indigestion, but I don't like to see things go to waste."

Touka looked remarkably uncomfortable for a few moments, then sighed. "Go on," she said.

"Thank you," said Hide. He walked over to the dead Ghoul and hauled him off the corpse of the human. Then he ripped one of the Ghoul's arms off, his eyes turned blue, his teeth became fangs, and his nails became claws. He started eating the Ghoul, completely unbothered by the blood running down his chin.

Touka picked up the hand from the dead human and held it out to Kaneki. "Do you want this?" she asked.

Kaneki reached up for it … then realised what he was doing and used his other arm to rip himself away. He clutched his arm to his chest and tears poured from his eyes as he used all his willpower not to give in to the hunger. The fact that Hide could be so casual about eating a man, even if it was a Ghoul, horrified him.

"You're not eating?" Touka asked in confusion.

"Kaneki, mate, I understand that you're probably freaking the fuck out, but you're only making it worse by starving yourself," said Hide. "It's not like you killed him yourself. Just eat. You'll feel better and you'll be able to think more clearly."

"Oh wow, only one of your eyes has changed, that's crazy," said Touka. "Wait, you're the guy who was with Rize! Why didn't she eat you? And what's with your eye?"

"I sincerely doubt he's in any fit state to talk to us right now," said Hide. Touka looked at him in confusion. "That Rize lady is dead – good riddance, by the way – but she got a few bites out of him first. My best guess is that some idiot doctor transplanted some Ghoul organs into him, and … well, as you can see, he isn't exactly all Ghoul, is he?"

"Please," Kaneki said in a low, struggling voice. "You two have to help me. I know you might find this hard to believe, but I'm actually human, and yet …" he felt his arm creeping up to take the hand again, "… I wanna eat that! Part of me wants to shove it in my mouth, but I know I can't! 'Cause if I do, I won't be a human!"

"You're way past the point of no return in regards to that, Kaneki," said Hide.

"B-But I've been able to drink that coffee you gave me!"

"All Ghouls can drink coffee," Touka cut in. She held out the hand again. "If you're in that much pain, then just eat."

Kaneki reached out again but stopped himself again. He slapped the hand from Touka's hand aggressively. He was fighting this with every fibre of his being. "No way!" he yelled, collapsing against the floor. "No way! No way! No way! No way! There's no way that I could ever eat another person's flesh! I can't be a Ghoul, not if this is what it's like! I've never even hurt a fly, so how am I supposed to survive if I have to kill to eat!? Well I won't! 'Cause I'm a human!"

I hated this.

Kaneki sitting there, suffering because of his refusal to eat. I wanted to save him from this, but I got wrapped up in my own very minor problem, and this was the result. I wanted to make the pain stop, but I couldn't do that unless he would just give in and eat, which I knew would take a lot of convincing.

"This is ridiculous," said Touka, moving over to the corpse. "Why don't you just give in already?" She ripped the other hand off the corpse. "If you don't have the nerve to eat it on your own, then let me give you a hand."

I swallowed the piece of dead Ghoul I had been chewing. "Why don't you let me try?" I offered. "No offence to you or anything, but I've known him a long time, he might actually listen to me."

Touka looked at me for a few moments and then sighed. "Fine," she said, handing me the … well, the hand.

The pun is too obvious to even dignify, though Touka said it aloud mere moments before.

I went over to Kaneki and knelt down in front of him. "Kaneki," I said, "I know that you're scared. Hell, I was kinda freaked out the first time I ate a person, too, but you've got to understand, this is the only way you stay alive."

Kaneki just kept on crying.

"I'm sorry, Kaneki. I'm so, so sorry that this happened to you, that I couldn't stop this happening to you, but it's the hand we've been dealt. I know it seems rough now, but you'll get used to it."

"I don't want to get used to it," Kaneki groaned out.

"I know. But you'll die if you don't eat … and I don't want you to die." I tilted his head up by the chin and held the hand right in front of his face. "Please eat."

"No …" he breathed out.

"Okay, we've tried your way, now we're trying mine," said Touka. She snatched the hand off me and attempted to simply shove it into Kaneki's mouth.

I wasn't going to be having that.

So what do you think, Constant Readers? The earlier parts of the chapter are mostly my own take on what was written by Dis Lexic, I'll admit it, but the last part in the alley was all me. I was very strongly considering having Hide just eat Nishiki, but I feel like I need to keep him around, so I didn't go through with it in the end. That's not to say there aren't other situations I'm planning on having this version of Hide change up down the line.

I do plan on including the storylines of the Underworld movies as part of this story, though where they pop up will be left my little secret. There are a couple of other crossovers I'm planning on including, though I'll be keeping those to myself until the time comes for them to become relevant.

See you next time!