"Alright." Rei stood still, completely unbothered by Sage's poisoned drenched words. Such tones had never really bothered him in the first place, even when coming from a figure of authority. His face was blank as he continued to stare forwards at the flickering flames, the sounds of the world all drowning out into the distance for him. His pale eyes merely watched the flames and the smoke intently, something oddly mesmerizing about them. He knew he needed to look away from them, but he couldn't find the power in himself to do so at the moment.

Thoughts rapidly began to fill his mind as he watched, so many things he couldn't entirely keep up with himself. The ghoul- no... creature, that had entered the building was of immense interest. With a nose like Rei's, you learned a lot about scent. Certain things had a distinct kind of smell, like fire, ghouls, laundry detergent. And that stranger smelled off from the typical ghoul. He was going to completely blame the fire on this one, too. The smell of smoke, blood, and fear was too heavy in the air to really pick anything else out right now aside from the blatant smells you couldn't miss. But there was something strange about that ghoul and Rei wanted to know what it was, for better or for worse. Were they alike on the inside? Did that other ghoul have all the same parts he did? Were they missing a few screws? Maybe a few screws too many? Were all their organs in the proper places? Did they have extra organs? Did they have scars? If they had scars, where did they come from? Why? It wouldn't be too hard to figure out once he got whomever it was in his hands, all it would take would be one simple-

An image flashed in Rei's mind for a few moments, one he had seen quite frequently that left him standing up just a bit more straight with his head lowered. A large pristine white medical room, a tray set up perfectly for the next operation. Rei could distinctly smell the disinfectant and hear the silent hum of the machines in his ears. There wasn't anyone strapped to the table this time, but he could still hear the faint laughing now in his ears, a familiar voice speaking to him. Trying desperately to get him to pick up the surgical tools to do something to a body that wasn't even there.

_{"They are monsters. We need to learn all we can from them."}

Rei mumbled something completely incoherent to himself.

_{"You? A monster? Oh, no, no! You are not a monster. You are Rei! You are a person!"}

Some more soft mumbling as he took several quick steps back, away from the flames. The distant sound of long-since over screaming filling his ears as more bloody images flooded his mind.

_{"Ah, they are so ugly, aren't they? On the inside and on the outside too. No matter how much you cut them up and dice them, they are all the same either way."}

It is here after the few words that Rei can distinctly recall turning his head to look over at the four other tables in the large room, corpses all cut up and ripped into bits- some pieces in jars while others remained discarded on the tables or in bowls. It was impossible to tell if they were human or ghoul at this point, they all just looked like chopped up bits and pieces to him.

Rei suddenly jerked a bit violently, freeing himself from his thoughts. His jaw was clenched so hard he wasn't sure how he didn't break several of his teeth, a few beads of sweat rolled down from his forehead but it wasn't because of the fire or anything. Sucking in a shuttering breath and slowly exhaling, Rei gave one firm shake of his head at the cursed flashbacks that being in that human lab had left him with. He knew the real answer to that thought, though. The real, honest to god answer to it. It was only now that he allowed himself to look toward Sage and faintly frown before turning around and quickly starting to walk elsewhere, not even giving word that he was leaving. A hand was quickly brought up as he rubbed at the dark circles under his eyes. It wasn't an uncommon occurrence for him to just up and leave, it wasn't as if he had been told to stay. Plus, some walking would do him some good right now. If he was actually needed, it wouldn't be too hard to contact him, it wasn't like he was hiding his presence or scent in the slightest.

This world wasn't a hard one to figure out. Everyone was a monster, everyone was ugly on the inside. Rei wasn't afraid of monsters, he was one of them, had been raised by a human one. Everyone he knew or had ever met was one of them.

What was truly scary were the actual people.
What were actual people like?
How did they survive?

“Rei, make sure the rest of our soldier’s get home quickly.”

Blatant disobedience was unforgivable. Blatant disobedience was unforgivable. Blatant disobedience was unforgivable.

The four words repeated themselves in Rei's mind repeatedly as he came to a complete stop, rapidly turning himself around only to continue to walk directly back towards the fire and the several ghouls that were still straggling around. What they were doing exactly, Rei didn't really care. Even though he had nearly been out of earshot he still heard what Sage said, they had no reason to still be standing around twiddling their damned thumbs like infants. It didn't take Rei long at all to approach the few stragglers, his gaze narrowed intently upon them, hands stuffed into his pockets. The small group of four turned to look at him, the faintest of smile sliding onto Rei's face before he spoke in a rather monotonous tone, highly unimpressed and slightly irritated sounding.

"Get moving. You were given orders. Go home." But the five just looked at him and then at each other, then back to him. They were a few younger ghouls, ones that still had some rebellion in their blood, that were willing to disobey when the 'boss' wasn't looking. It only furthered proved this 'rebellious' bit when one of them looked him dead in the eye and snorted.

"We are still hungry-"

"Then you should have eaten faster. There will always be more, though. Now leave." Rei's voice left little room for any real argument, especially as the faint smile faded from his face and a look of irritation appeared. He didn't like dealing with teenagers. The four mumbled among themselves for a few moments, but just as Rei was opening his mouth to give them a final warning one of them moved forward a bit too quickly towards him and Rei just wasn't going to deal with this today.

Without a second thought he kicked out his left foot, catching the smaller male directly in the chest as he tried to continue forward. There was a satisfying cracking sound he could practically feel in the air as the teenager went flying backwards, leaving the other three to stare at them with wide eyes. The kicked teen smacked right against the sidewalk with a discerning gurgling noise escaping his mouth, skidding a small distance as Rei simply dropped his foot back down, his look of irritation replaced with boredom. He narrowed his stare at the three that quickly stood up, looking at Rei and then back to the unmoving teenager for just a split second. They looked back to Rei, nodded rapidly, then promptly took off as fast as they could all manage. It was almost comical how they stumbled over each other while slipping into one of the alleyways. Almost. They had abandoned their companion though and he honestly wasn't sure if it was because they were afraid they would be next or if they really didn't care that much about him. Not like it really mattered anyway.

Whatever they had been thinking was clearly misguided and wrong, but Rei wasn't concerned with that now as he looked around once again and gave the air one good sniff. All gone, whomever else had been straggling around had already taken their leave, just leaving Rei and the soon-to-be dinner a couple of feet away from him. Shrugging, knowing it was time for him to leave, he turned and walked over to the teenager and gazed down upon him with a blank face. He had kicked him a bit too hard, just maybe. There was a clear indent in his chest where Rei's shoe had dug in with more force than necessary for someone this scrawny and malnourished.

Shrugging it off though, Rei merely turned as four slender dark red tails escaped from just under the end of his jacket. The barbed ends swished back and forth in a tail-like fashion before jolting outwards, burying themselves into the teenagers body in various spots. One in a leg, an arm, the chest, the last one stuck right into the neck. This bit of the sidewalk was quickly finding itself covered in more blood than soot from the flames as the tails worked together, easily lifting the body from the ground as Rei steadily began to wander off back down the way he had been walking before. Blood dripped from the corpse onto the ground occasionally as he moved.

By the time the sounds of the sirens reach his ears, Rei was well out of dodge, having ducked into an alleyway to avoid the commotion as his stomach rumbled loudly. Maybe he had lied a bit earlier, he was still hungry.