5. Brilliant plan.

Two years after encountering Eto, now Yorinitsu was nine years old. His height was already cathed up with the girl's height. His black unkempt hair reached his shoulder. The only thing that remained unchanged was his clothes which were made from CCG uniform fabric.

Actually, he could wait for a year or two before went to the ground with Eto, but he thought that time was money. For him, living underground didn't give any substantial profits. On the other hand, the faster he went to the surface, the more time he could get to develop.

Moreover, he could not stand the environment of the 24th ward any longer. He longed for sunlight, fresh air, food, and entertainment media.

Yorimitsu did not prepare anything special for his journey, just two quinques and a spare set of clothes in his backpack. He planned to walk along the underground tunnel because they were reached anywhere under Tokyo. He was sure he could find a way out after getting lost for about two to three weeks.

"Are you sure you're not coming along?" Yorimitsu asked the green-haired girl before his departure.

"No. I still have something to do in this ward." Eto shook her head. "Moreover, I want to start out there alone and when we met again, let's see whose organization is stronger."

"That sounds interesting, although I still have no idea how to create an organization, though."

"That's your problem." She spoke. "beware not to get killed by nobody."

"Come on, you also know me, killed by someone? me? I can fight with a first-class investigator without losing, and with this speed, there's no way I will die." He scoffed off. Although not mentioned his skills, just his speed which was almost equal to a high-speed car was enough for him to run away from any dangers that he might encounter.

"""

"Fuck! I almost died just now!"

Under the tunnel of the 24th ward, Yorimitsu shouted loudly after he slumped on the grounds. Many bodies in white clothes lied on the ground near him. There were many wounds on his body but none of them were lethal so his words were just a child's ranting.

A moment ago, he had encountered a group of doves so the fight erupted naturally. Yorimitsu used his quinques which looked like a giant axe and daggers to fight efficiently, he didn't even have to bring out his kagune.

"I just walk out from my home and encounter an entire team of doves, and the strong team!" He sighed and asked a black-haired investigator which looked like a leader. "You're the head of this team, right? You're pretty strong, what is your rank? First-class? Associate-special?"

"Chief Marude, what should we do?" The doves did not answer his question but looked at their leader anxiously. The name that came out of their mouth was a little unexpected for the boy.

"Marude, is it Marude Itsuki?" He thought. Tokyo ghoul had a truckload of characters that he didn't even bother to remember, he cannot even remember all of the names of special-class investigators but Marude was an exception. He first appears as the commander of the Aogiri suppression in the 11th ward, a guy whose motorcycle was destroyed by Suzuya.

"So is he already a special-class now?" He thought. "No, more importantly, if this is his team, does that mean..."

His eyes wandered into the remaining doves and found a white-haired investigator with sunken cheeks, standing beside him was a beautiful woman that he had a decent strength judging from previous clashes.

"Dose these two already at the 24th ward now? It should be almost one year before Eto comes out in the original, isn't it?"

These two investigators should be Mado Kureo and his wife, Mado Kasuka. According to the original, they would encounter Eto roughly one year later, then Marude will give a retreat order with Kasuka acting as a rear guard. She was torn to pieces by Eto and Mado fell into the madness of vengeance.

"This team encounters Eto in the original, and now they encounter me. Does Marude has any luck with one-eyed ghouls?" He shook his head, didn't know whether this was considered good or bad luck. After knowing the opponent's identity, he did not intend to slaughter them like Eto. He had no confidence in crushing this team, not to mention any grievances, whether they were killed or not was their business, not his.

"Well, let's stop here, I don't want to fight you yet. Nice to meet you then." He stood up and retracted his quinque back into the bags before walking away.

"Wait! Don't run!" Seeing the enemy trying to ran away, Marude shouted.

"Come on, You know that you cannot kill me now, not without consuming most of your men, and I cannot kill all of you too. What's the point of fighting?" He spoke before running away, with his speed, all they could do was look helplessly as he disappeared. "Don't worry, I'm now traveling to Tokyo so we will definitely meet again."

"That's the most worrying part!" Marude gritted his teeth, this guy just effortlessly almost one-fourth of his men, and with quinque! Just the strength and this irregular behavior, he did not need any experience to predict that this guy would definitely become a troublesome figure for CCG. How could he be at ease when he knew that Yorimitsu would go to Tokyo?

"Marude-san, what should we do next?" One of the investigators asked.

"Abort this operation." He ordered with a heavy tone. "We've lost too many of our men, and we need to tell the headquarter about this ghoul too."

After the encounter with the Marude squad, he did not find any danger anymore. He continued to travel until the surrounding area changed from a meat wall made of kagune to a normal concrete wall and the air became fresher and fresher, which were signs that he had come out from the 24th ward to a normal underground passage. And it wasn't about walking out from the 24th ward because that entire ward was the underground labyrinth itself so it is about 'going up' rather than 'going out'.

But it would be a little bit wrong to call these with the word "passage" because some parts of it were a deep tunnel in a vertical line that was huge enough to stuff an entire building in it with many stairways, bridges, and other sub tunnels that leads to the other places. It was literally another underground city, just with less dangerous ghouls.

"Seriously, how can ghouls do all this? Not to mention the harassment from CCG, just materials required and time that invest in it was already incredible." Yorimitsu sighed. He had to respect the ghouls in the past that could make all of this underground kingdom.

Then, Yorimitsu found some ghouls around there, asking for directions and knowing that he was currently in the 7th ward. It didn't matter, though, since it was more than ten years before the story he knew, he didn't have any knowledge to gain an advantage, just knowing that this wasn't the 1st ward to 4th ward that was under the tight control of CCG or the 23rd ward which Cochlea located was enough.

He borrowed (robbed) normal clothes from ghouls that tried to attack him to make him look like a normal kid before finding the passageway to the surface.

"Ha Ha, yes, finally, how nostalgic." The wind, the sunlight, the buzzing streets full of cars. Yorimitsu looked around himself, immersed in these views that he hadn't felt for almost ten years. He felt so emotional that his tears started to roll down. It's like he was a sailor who found an island after drifting in the sea for many years.

He roamed around the city for a couple of hours to make himself familiar with the new environment. During this time he also used his nose and ears which far exceed normal people to observe the people, finding many ghouls from their peculiar smell.

"Bu the way, I wonder how will a human taste likes?" He thought, although this was somewhat brutal, after eating ghouls all year round, he really wanted to try a meal with human meat as the main dish.

He knew that this wasn't the time to indulge in his own desires. He planned to live openly as a normal human, which would be easy with the fact that he could eat normal food and won't be detected by an RC scan, although his scent might be somewhat problematic, the most important thing to do now was forging his legal identity.

This leads him to his current destination. The legendary starting point of all protagonists.

The orphanage.

He didn't know what was up with the novel that liked to write the protagonist to be an orphan. But think of it, it might not be different from having one. The protagonist was just a teen or even a high school student but most of the time, the parents just weren't there. They just went to another country or had the same role as the tree in the drama show, just existing.

Maybe the writer wanted the protagonist to look like someone who was mature and could make a decision by himself so the writer did not put anyone that can control the protagonist into the story.

But for whatever reason, Yorimitsu did not care. Now, he pretended to be an orphan because he wanted to create a fake identity and used it in the future. In his plan, he intended to go to school and even attended the university, so solid identity proof was a must.

Although most of the orphans in this world would be sent to investigator school and trained since they were a child, there were still many civilian orphanages opened in Tokyo, and due to the high mortality rate, the amount was higher than in his original world.

He spent three days to find a suitable target and found the orphanage in his ward. It was a small orphanage with around thirty kids in rural area. He observed this orphanage until he knew the layout. And that's when he started his plan.

In the middle of the night, Yorimitsu sneaked into the orphanage. This was a small orphanage so it didn't have a night shift like the hospital so sneaked into this place wasn't different from taking a stroll in 24th ward.

"Here it is." Yorimitsu smiled after rummaged through the files in the document rooms and found the dcument that recorded names of the kids in this place. He looked at it for a moment before founding a pen to wrote his name down. Trying to made his handwriting looked as similar to the nanny in this orphanage as possible.

Living in analog place had one advantage, it took only a moment to created a new identity.

"After tonight, I will be reborn." He smiled and placed the document back, saying some cringe line.

That night, the orphanage was engulfed in the crimson flame.

The flames came too fast and sudden that people in the orphanage did not respond, the flire killed most of the adults, the remaining children tried to ran away but due to their ages, they could not unlock the door and trapped in the orphanage. When the firefighters broke into the building, only three kids remaining. A nine years old kid and two babies.

No one knew the cause of the flame but they inferred from the starting point in the kitchen that the flame should started because someone forgot to turned down the stove.

"Chief, what should we do with them?" One of the firefighter asked the leader.

"Just leave them there, there will be people come to deal with this." The leader said before talked to the oldest boy who now full of stains from the smoke. "Kid, wait here for a momement, alright?"

"Yes." He agreed before asked with fear and hesitant. "But...what will happen to us next?"

"Don'd worry, someone will takecare of you." He smiled. "You...what's your name ?"

"My name is Yorimitsu," The boy said. "Minamoto Yorimitsu."

That's right. All of this was done by Yorimitsu. He forged his identity, lit the flame, killed the adult before killed the other kids who could ran away by themself, let the others which old enough to remember the truth died by flame and smoke, remain only two infants in his arms.

Now, his identity was 'the boy who survive (from the flame)', the fire had destroyed all of the clues or other suspicious points. After he move to another orphanage, no one will doubt his identity anymore!

"I'm such a genius." He smirked.

However, most of the plans tended to go wrong. His complacent face become stiff after he saw two men in white clothes.

"We are from CCG, and we will take this boy." One of the investigators said to the firefighter before talked to shirou with a smile on his face. "Let's go little brother."

Sometime, the plan seem to worked too well.