Exiled
"In a city that breathes lies, the wolf arrives carrying the stench of black blood, and every step is a challenge to the abyss that forged him."
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Tokyo was a sick heartbeat—chaos made of neon lights that stabbed Ayanato Ashida's eyes like red-hot daggers. Shinjuku, with its skyscrapers spitting poisonous colors, was an affront to the gloom of the Cursed Forest, where Eden hid underground in a silence that crushed the soul. Here, the air smelled of human sweat, fried food, and broken promises—perfume that turned his stomach.
Ayanato walked like a specter, his black cloak—woven with red threads on the inside—fluttering like opened veins, every fold loaded with tiny needles that whispered promises of death. Beneath the fabric, his metal gloves—fitted with retractable claws sharp as razors—brushed the cylinder of Kokuseigu in his pocket: a gift from his master, forged with fragments of his own kagune. The weapon throbbed, not with life, but with a dark will, as if it already knew it would soon drink blood.
Seven hundred kilometers of dusty roads and corpses had brought him here. Every step from Eden had been a fight against the hunger roaring in his veins—an animal of black blood demanding flesh, pain, chaos. His boots, worn and stained with dried earth, struck the asphalt like they wanted to break it, every crunch an echo of the chains he'd left behind.
But he wasn't free.
His mother's laughter—Alicetroemeria's—still rang inside his head, a venom seeping into every corner of his shattered soul.
Run. Kill. Devour. Bring me the head of the strongest.
Her game. Her rules. His curse.
— Too much light… —he murmured, his voice a frayed thread swallowed by the city's roar—. Too many lambs who don't know what it is to fear.
His fingers brushed the cylinder of Kokuseigu. He felt its weight. Its promise. In his mind, a dark monologue howled:
Mother forged me to cut, to tear. But every cut is a reminder of Himari—of her red blood soaking the floor, of her heart beating in my hands. I can't stop. I don't know how.
Ayanato moved through the crowd like a predator in a sea of blind prey. His black cloak—woven by his master with threads that smelled like death—released a swarm of tiny black widows, spiders that slipped along the seams and scattered across the pavement, their minute legs brushing the asphalt like a lethal whisper. They weren't ordinary creatures; they were extensions of his will—black-blood spies seeking dark corners, cracks to hide in, prey to mark.
Tokyo didn't see them.
Tokyo didn't see anything.
The city was too busy screaming its own existence, drowning in lights and hollow laughter.
Hunger hit him like a fist in the gut—pain that wasn't only physical, but a void that grew with every step. He'd devoured bandits on the road, their throats opened beneath his claws, their bodies abandoned in ditches where rain would dissolve them. But it wasn't enough. Black blood demanded more—always more.
His red eyes, half-hidden behind strands of black hair, scanned the crowd. Smiling faces. Children running. Lovers arguing.
All so fragile.
So human.
So disgusting.
His hand closed around the cylinder. Kokuseigu vibrated like a heartbeat, eager to be unleashed.
Flesh. Blood. This is what I am, he thought, breath catching like each word reopened a wound. But I can't… not here. Not yet. Mother is watching me, even from a thousand worlds away.
Ayanato kept walking—until he collided with something fragile.
The impact was a human mistake, a stumble that broke the crowd's rhythm. A small body slammed into Ayanato, falling to the ground like a dry leaf. Ayanato didn't move—rigid as an obsidian statue, his metal gloves gleaming beneath neon. He looked down.
A boy. No older than thirteen. Messy black hair. Big eyes shining with an innocence sharp enough to cut. Fragile. Clumsy. Ridiculously human. His hands trembled as he tried to stand, and his lips stammered an apology.
— I-I'm sorry, sir —he blurted, voice a thread of fear and shame—. I didn't see you… it was my fault.
Ayanato stared at him, red eyes flashing beneath the hood's shadows. In the Cursed Forest, a stumble like that was a death sentence.
Where I come from, blocking the path of royal blood is an insult paid for in blood, he thought, his retractable claws extending a fraction—pure instinct.
He could slice him in one second. One movement, one metallic flicker, and the boy's throat would open like ripe fruit.
Himari's image—blue eye, red blood—flashed in his mind, and for an instant his hand trembled. It wasn't pity. It was an echo. A shard of pain still cutting him from the inside.
— You don't need to worry, kid —he said, forcing a smile that felt like an open wound. Every muscle in his face protested, like he was betraying his own nature—. And I'm not "sir." I'm seventeen. My name is Ayanato Ashida. And you?
He offered his hand—metal gloves shining under the lights, cold as knife-steel. The boy hesitated, eyes studying Ayanato's strange outfit with curiosity before awkwardly taking it.
— Ken… Ken Kaneki —he answered, barely above a whisper, fingers brushing the metal with a mix of curiosity and fear.
Ayanato felt the warmth of Kaneki's hand—so fragile. So pathetic… but useful. A reference point in this city. The effort of not killing burned in his chest, like every second of restraint was a nail driven into his soul.
— You look like someone who needs a friend, Kaneki —Ayanato said, voice soft, but edged with something he couldn't hide—. I'm new here. Tokyo is… loud. How about you show me around a bit? I have a feeling we'll be good friends.
Kaneki's eyes lit up—disbelief and hope mixed together—and it stabbed Ayanato somewhere he didn't realize still existed. Kaneki nodded, cheeks reddening, and pointed to a street ramen stand across the road.
— Y-yeah, sure… let's go —he said, voice trembling with excitement.
Ayanato followed, footsteps silent as a predator's—though weighed down by an exhaustion that made him feel more human than he'd ever admit. In his head, the monologue continued:
It's a tool. A human map. But his blood smells like life… like something I don't deserve to touch. God, it's hard not to kill.
The ramen stand was an insult dressed up as refuge—a corner of steam and noise where humans pretended their lives meant something. The smell of broth, boiled meat, and human sweat hit Ayanato like a punch, reigniting the hunger roaring in his gut.
He sat across from Kaneki, metal gloves brushing the splintered wooden counter—each scrape a reminder of what he was. He paid with yen stolen from the pockets of men who no longer breathed, their bodies rotting in ditches outside Tokyo. Dead money for dead food.
The bowl steamed in front of him: broth that smelled like nothing, an echo of life that couldn't reach him. He held chopsticks with the same hand that had torn out hearts in Ashida rituals and brought a bite to his mouth.
Nothing.
The taste was emptiness—boiled grass, soulless water. His stomach twisted, not from hunger but from disgust, from contempt for this world pretending to be alive. He finished the bowl mechanically, each bite an effort to keep the mask in place.
— It's good, right? —Kaneki asked, timid but excited, like they were sharing a human moment.
Ayanato nodded, smile tight as a wire hiding venom in his blood.
— Yeah… it's fine —he lied, voice low, almost gentle, but edged with something he couldn't contain.
Kaneki chattered about books, about poetry—words sliding off Ayanato's mind like blood off a blade. In the Cursed Forest, words were weapons, rituals, poison. Here, they were useless luxury, a murmur as irritating as an insect's buzz.
Ayanato pretended to listen—nodding when needed, sketching smiles that cost him more than any murder. Every gesture was a lie. A chain binding him to a humanity he didn't possess.
When they parted, he copied Kaneki's awkward bow—imitating his humanity like an actor on a broken stage. When the boy walked away, Ayanato turned into an alley, his face dropping like a cracked mask. He leaned against a damp wall, the stink of garbage and metal mixing with the stench of his own existence.
He vomited.
The ramen. The lie. The effort of pretending human. It all spilled out in a bitter surge—black as his blood—burning his throat like a memory of Himari.
— I'm not like them —he whispered, spitting bile onto the ground—. I never will be.
As he spoke, a black widow climbed up his boots, crawling over his chest and vanishing into his hair—its legs stained with hemogen, whispering to Ayanato about his new home.
Home
"In a nest of rust and blood, the wolf weaves his refuge with threads of death, and silence screams louder than broken bodies."
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Ward 20 was an industrial corpse—a maze of abandoned warehouses where the air reeked of rust, gasoline gone rancid, and forgotten promises. The streets, cracked like dead skin, curled beneath a sky spitting acidic drizzle—barely enough to stain the asphalt.
Ayanato Ashida moved like a specter through the shadows, his black cloak with red threads billowing like a banner of death. Every step was a challenge, every breath an insult to the city that welcomed him without knowing it had let in a wolf. His metal gloves—with retractable claws sharp as razors—brushed the cylinder of Kokuseigu in his pocket, pulsing with a dark will that seemed to whisper: Kill. Devour. Claim. His hunger roared—not only for flesh, but for a purpose his mother, Alicetroemeria, had ripped out of him along with Himari's heart.
Ayanato stopped at the edge of a warehouse, his silhouette cut against a horizon of broken neon. He activated his hemogenic vision—a cursed Ashida gift that drenched the world in pulsing red, as if the city itself were bleeding.
There, in the dimness, he saw them: a small group of ghouls gathered inside, their kagunes glowing like sick fireflies in a sewer. Cockroaches. Trash that thought it was strong in a world it didn't understand. Their voices—rough, confident—leaked through the rusted walls, unaware of the predator watching them.
This place belongs to me, Ayanato thought, red eyes flickering like embers in the dark. One way or another, it'll be mine.
His fingers closed around Kokuseigu's cylinder—the personal guard crest of Alicetroemeria engraved on its surface, a reminder of his cursed lineage. He pressed the button, and the weapon came alive with a snap that sliced through silence.
From the grip erupted a colossal needle, as tall as a man, its thick edge pulsing with a red flare that beat like a sick heart. Kokuseigu wasn't a human weapon. It was a piece of nightmare—a fragment of black blood made solid.
Ayanato held it with inhuman calm, breathing slow and deliberate, as if every inhale was a vow of death.
He climbed the warehouse walls with the agility of a shadow, metal claws biting into corroded steel with a crunch that sounded like broken bones. The roof was coated in rust and grime, but Ayanato moved without a sound—ghost among shattered beams.
Through a broken window, he watched the ghouls inside. Four figures, kagunes twitching like vermin tails. They spoke with the arrogance of those who believe the world belongs to them.
— You sure the doves can't get in here? —one said, a scar-faced ghoul, voice dripping contempt—. This place looks like a trap.
— Afraid of humans? —another replied, bigger, his bikaku slamming the floor with a dull thud—. We're ghouls, idiot. We've got kagunes, strength, speed. They're nothing.
Ayanato smiled—but it wasn't human. It was the pleasure of a predator tasting its prey's mistake.
It won't be humans who catch you, he thought, fingers tightening around Kokuseigu.
Without a sound, he hurled the needle with a force that made the air tremble. The weapon slammed into the warehouse floor with a roar like thunder, inches from the ghouls. The needle pulsed, red flare lighting dust that floated like ash.
— You missed, idiot! —the scarred ghoul shouted, laughter jagged with arrogance.
There was no miss.
From the needle burst hundreds of red threads—sharp as barbed wire—unfurling like a living web. They tore through the ghouls' flesh with a wet crack, piercing muscle, tendon, bone. The first ghoul's rinkaku snapped like glass, blood splattering the floor. The second's bikaku tangled, sliced into pieces by the threads that imprisoned it. The other two's ukakus sparked once—then died—bodies hanging like broken puppets, swaying in a macabre dance.
Blood dripped, mixing with dust, forming puddles that reflected the red glow like a lake of nightmares.
Ayanato dropped from the roof, boots hitting the ground with an echo that filled the silence. He tugged the threads, and Kokuseigu returned to his hand with a hum, the needle folding back into the grip like a snake returning to its den.
He looked at the corpses—faces frozen in surprise and pain. He felt nothing. No triumph. No guilt. Only the void his mother had carved into his soul, a hollow even blood couldn't fill.
A decent nest, he thought, inner voice a cold whisper. I've got Kaneki's trail. I can find him whenever I want. This place will be my refuge—my fortress. Where the wolf rests before hunting.
He touched the red threads dangling from the ceiling, tightening them with his metal gloves. Each strand vibrated, loaded with a force that cut like a guillotine. With precise movements, he hauled the bodies up to the roof one by one—like trophies from a hunt.
He drew Kokuseigu again. New threads spilled out, wrapping the corpses in a cocoon of red silk, metallic texture glinting in the dim light. They weren't just bodies.
They were supplies—meat preserved for when hunger became unbearable.
Kokuseigu's silk was more than a weapon: it was art, a net stronger than steel, able to slice anyone who tried to cross it.
The black widows began to emerge—hundreds of them—tiny legs crawling over walls, floors, bodies. They weren't simple spiders. They were shards of Ashida will—blood guardians weaving their own invisible, lethal web. They spread through the warehouse, occupying every corner, tiny eyes gleaming in the dark.
Ayanato watched them, their presence a reminder of his master, his mother, the Eden that had spat him out. Every spider was an echo of his curse, whispering: This is your home now. A nest of death.
He sealed doors and windows with red silk walls, each thread drawn tight until it sang like a harp string. That metallic silk would cut anyone who tried to enter—human or ghoul—like a knife through flesh.
The warehouse was no longer an abandoned shelter.
It was a fortress.
An altar to blood.
And here, Ayanato could remove the human mask he'd worn with Kaneki.
As he wove—hands moving with ritual precision—his mind filled with echoes: Himari's red blood, the weight of her heart in his palms, Alicetroemeria's laughter still chasing him.
Mother made me a weapon, he thought, fingers trembling for a heartbeat before hardening again. But this place is mine. Not hers. Here, the game changes—and I'll do whatever I want.
The warehouse hummed with silence, broken only by the skitter of black widows and the creak of silk. Ayanato sat in the center, Kokuseigu resting across his lap, black cloak spread like a spill of shadow. His red eyes glowed in the dimness, fixed on the hanging bodies, on the web he'd made.
Tokyo was a board.
And he was the wolf claiming his first move.
But deep inside his soul, a whisper reminded him the game wasn't his.
It never had been.
Broken Brother
"Protecting a lamb doesn't erase the blood on the fangs. It only sharpens them in silence."
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Three years had passed since Ayanato Ashida arrived in Tokyo—five years since the Cursed Forest spat him out like a broken bone. At twenty, his face had lost the raw fury of youth, replaced by an icy calm: a mask that fooled everyone except himself. The city was still a blind flock, but he'd learned to walk among lambs without showing teeth. His black blood still roared, but now it did so in whispers—held back not by mercy, but strategy.
Tokyo hadn't changed him.
It had only polished him—like a katana waiting for its moment.
Ayanato lived in an apartment in Ward 20 when he pretended to be human—a place that clashed with Eden's rot. White walls. Polished wooden furniture. Huge windows that let in the light of a city that never slept.
But the comfort wasn't for him.
It was for Kaneki.
The boy—now sixteen—had the biggest room, with shelves crammed full of books, a desk where he scribbled notes about literature, and a bed with Egyptian cotton sheets Ayanato bought with blood-stained money. Everything was a gift.
A gilded cage for the lamb Ayanato had sworn to protect.
— Ayanato, you didn't have to buy me this —Kaneki said one morning, holding a new notebook, voice trembling with that awkward gratitude that defined him.
Ayanato, sitting on the couch with a coffee he wouldn't drink, looked up. His red eyes—hidden behind amber contact lenses—studied Kaneki the way they always did: not like a friend, but like a reflection. Kaneki, with messy black hair and a timid smile, was Himari reborn. Not in flesh. Not in blood.
But in that fragility Ayanato had failed to save once.
— It's nothing —Ayanato replied, voice low, almost soft—a mask perfected after years of practice—. You like reading. You need space for your stuff.
Kaneki smiled, unaware of the weight behind those words. He didn't know the yen paying for the apartment, the books, the food in the fridge came from slit throats in alleys, from bodies dismembered in the night. He didn't know the industrial freezer in the kitchen—always locked—didn't hold market meat, but fragments of lives no one would claim:
Fingers. Tendons. Hearts.
Ghouls caught in Ayanato's web. Arrogant criminals who challenged him. Lone ghouls who thought they were safe.
Ayanato ate in the dark—each bite a reminder of his curse—but always far from Kaneki, so the boy would never see the wolf beneath the mask.
Ayanato didn't love Kaneki. Brotherly love was a luxury the Ashida never learned.
But he protected him—like a rusted instinct that refused to die.
Every time Kaneki hugged him on his birthday, every time he gifted a book with a dedication written in clumsy handwriting, Ayanato felt Himari's echo. His sister—blue eye, red blood—had died under the claws of the Mother of the Black Blood. Kaneki, with suicidal innocence, was the closest thing to redemption Ayanato would never consciously seek.
— You're like an older brother —Kaneki said one night, during a dinner Ayanato barely touched—. I don't know what I'd do without you.
Ayanato looked at him, face unmoving, heart an abyss. Kaneki's words were a knife—not because they hurt, but because they remembered. They remembered Himari's heart in his hands, the taste of her blood, the scream that never escaped his throat.
— Don't say that —Ayanato replied, voice colder than he meant—. Just… live. That's enough.
Kaneki blinked, confused, but didn't push. He never did. He'd learned not to ask—to accept Ayanato's silences as part of their "brotherhood."
The fridge was always full for him, stocked with human food Ayanato carefully bought: ramen, rice, fresh fruit. But the freezer—with its steel padlock—was forbidden territory. Ayanato claimed he kept "low-quality meat" for himself, a personal taste. Kaneki, naïve, believed him.
The nights belonged to Ayanato.
While Kaneki slept—dreaming paper worlds—Ayanato went out to hunt. Not for pleasure. Not for hate. For necessity. Black blood demanded flesh, and Tokyo was an endless banquet.
Ghouls in alleys. Dealers on forgotten corners. Ghouls trapped in his threads who thought they could face him.
All fell into his web—thin filaments cutting with a precision he didn't feel. Every death was mechanical, an echo of Eden's rituals, but without his mother's fervor, without Ashida glory.
Only emptiness.
In an abandoned warehouse, under a broken streetlight, Ayanato dismembered his latest prey: a ghoul that had tried to ambush him. Flesh tore beneath his claws, bones snapping like dry branches. He opened the portable freezer he carried—a habit learned to leave no traces—and stored the pieces:
An arm.
A liver.
A hand still wearing a cheap ring.
He ate a piece right there, hot blood dripping down his chin, but his red eyes didn't shine. There was no satisfaction.
Only routine.
This is what I am, he thought, wiping blood from his Needle with a rag. A breathing weapon. A walking knife. No redemption. No purpose. Just the next cut.
He returned to the apartment before dawn, the industrial freezer swallowing his haul with a quiet hum. He washed his hands, blood mixing with water, and stared into the mirror.
His face was that of an older brother. A student. A normal man.
But his eyes—even behind contacts—were Ashida eyes.
Days with Kaneki were a carefully built routine. Breakfasts where Ayanato pretended to eat. Conversations about university classes Ayanato attended only to maintain the façade. Walks through bookstores where Kaneki bought novels with money Ayanato handed him.
Everything was for Kaneki.
So he could live.
So he wouldn't end up like Himari.
— You should read this —Kaneki said one afternoon, offering him a book with a worn cover—. It's about a man looking for his place in the world. I think you'd like it.
Ayanato took the book, fingers brushing the cover with a softness he didn't feel. He didn't answer. He didn't know how.
But he slipped it into his bag—beside the threads and the hidden needle inside his grip. Another piece of the mask. Another scrap of the lie that kept him anchored.
I protect him because he's weak. Because he's Himari. Because he's what she would've wanted. But what if this is just another order from Mother? What if I'm only playing her game?
The city kept spinning, blind to his truth. Lambs laughed, worked, loved—while the wolf walked among them, hunger contained but never extinguished.
Ayanato knew he couldn't stop.
The Mother of the Black Blood had sent him to Tokyo with a mandate: devour, destroy, bring back the strongest head.
But for now, protecting Kaneki was the only thing that gave him a purpose—no matter how fragile the purpose was.
If he dies, there'll be nothing left. Not even the void. And still… it's all a lie. If he knew what I am… better not to think about that.
Ayanato closed his eyes, his mother's laughter echoing inside his skull. Tokyo was his board, Kaneki his anchor, and black blood his chain.
The game continued.
And he didn't know if he would ever be able to stop playing.