"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! ... Not a chance!"
Yang yelled back instantly.
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? ... Sounds like German, '
Kaneki thought as he glanced upwards and found that the sun was getting really close to the horizon. 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? ... He's definitely a bigger person than I am. '
Weiss thought to herself as she ran.
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. Just be on the lookout for a clearing filled with stone ruins."
the girl with the bow was the one to answer him.
"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?'