A spray of blood bursts forth.
The agony of a severed arm, and the crushing sense of loss that follows, surges through his veins and optic nerves to slam into his brain.
Struck as if by a sudden blow to the back of the head, his mind spews out a volatile mixture of adrenaline and rage.
The Section Chief’s eyes were instantly dyed a dark, blood-red hue.
Driven by the searing pain in his missing limb, he wanted to rush forward and rip that bastard’s throat out right then and there, but the data labeled “experience” stored in the corners of his mind forced him to remain rational.
Charging in blindly just because he'd taken a hit was the kind of impulsive thinking reserved for nobodies worse than mayflies.
“Chief! Your arm...! That son of a bitch!!”
Like that idiot assistant, for example.
Seeing his superior wounded, the assistant had started to lunge forward in a blind rage, but the Chief stopped him with a sharp gesture of his remaining hand.
“Forget about me. Watch your back.”
“Huh?”
“Ah, damn it. Caught me.”
Kaaang—!!!
A metallic clash echoed wildly, bouncing off the narrow walls of the alley.
It was the sound of Hitokawa’s Quinque colliding with the Kagune the assistant had managed to deploy just in time; Hitokawa had leapt from a nearby building window to launch a surprise attack alongside Eto.
Even in the gloom before dawn, the assistant recognized Hitokawa’s white suit and his eyes widened.
“A Ghoul Investigator?!”
“Tch.”
When the strike intended to split a skull was blocked, Hitokawa kicked off the wall of flesh blocking his path and flipped backward.
Landing deftly, he naturally moved to block the alley entrance.
They had formed a pincer, with Eto in front and Hitokawa sealing the rear.
Neither ally acknowledged the other; their killing intent was focused solely on the prey before them.
Realizing the two were cooperating, the assistant spat out a curse.
“What kind of bullshit is this! Why the hell is a Ghoul Investigator working with a Ghoul?!”
“Don’t remind me, asshole. I’m already going crazy trying to figure out my own identity crisis here.”
Taat!
Hitokawa, crouched low as if carrying a greatsword on his back, twisted his torso and swung the Quinque with all his might.
The assistant blocked the blow and attempted a counter, but Hitokawa slipped neatly out of range and swung again.
Kagaang!!! Kaaang!!
The sounds of Quinque and Kagune colliding rang out in rapid succession.
Even with his subordinate locked in a life-or-death struggle with an Investigator right behind him, the Chief didn’t spare them a glance, let alone offer help.
Though he had recently developed a taste for toying with human corpses, the Chief had once been a Ghoul who had survived the harshest of lives.
Having survived both bloody Ghoul turf wars and CCG raids, his instincts were razor-sharp. He was confident that he would never be blindsided.
Indeed, he had sensed Hitokawa’s sneak attack well in advance.
But strangely, he hadn't noticed Eto’s attack until the very moment it struck.
It was a strike that had concealed everything—sound, wind, and even killing intent—like an owl swooping down to snatch the neck of a prey animal that had let its guard down.
She had likely aimed for his arm to save the girl whose head was about to be crushed, but a chilling question lingered in his mind: if she had aimed for his throat from the start, would he have survived?
“...Who are you?”
Outwardly, she was so petite she could be called a dwarf, and her voice was unmistakably that of a child.
If the face behind that Owl mask really belonged to a brat and not an adult, then how was she capable of such technique?
His years of experience were screaming at him.
The real threat wasn't the Investigator at his back, but the enigmatic Ghoul standing before him.
“...”
Eto didn't answer. Instead, she gently set the girl she had rescued from the assistant's grip onto the ground.
The girl blinked, still unable to process the chaos unfolding around her.
However, she was acutely aware that she had nearly died; her small hands were trembling violently.
Eto’s hand reached out from beneath her cloak and softly covered the girl's.
“It’ll be okay.”
Perhaps it was because the voice sounded like a girl her own age, or perhaps it was the warmth radiating from that hand.
The girl’s trembling slowly subsided.
“Could you keep your eyes closed for me?”
It was a light, gentle request, as if asking a friend for a small favor.
The girl squeezed her eyes shut in obedience. Eto stood up and turned her gaze back to the assistant.
“Just in case, I’ll ask. Do you know a human woman who seems to have a few screws loose, and a Ghoul wearing an insect-shaped mask?”
At those words, the Chief’s eyebrows twitched.
The description matched two of his associates perfectly.
“Ho... so you know our comrades?”
“I couldn't care less about them. What I want to know is the man they brought with them.”
“Hmm?”
Sensing a strange intensity in Eto’s voice, the Chief furrowed his brow.
The connection between the man named Takaki Koma that Minami had captured and the current situation was rapidly clicking into place.
“I see. So that’s it. That Minami bastard... I thought he’d brought back some decent material, but it turns out he just brought us a nuisance. Damn it all.”
“Where is he?”
“Who knows? I’m not the one in charge of turning him into a ‘work of art’ this time. He might be getting dismantled piece by piece as we speak.”
“...”
Eto fell silent.
The Chief shifted his weight, preparing to deploy his Kagune. He intended to bait Eto into a blind rage with his provocation, then counterattack with a fatal blow the moment she lunged.
And just as he expected, Eto was boiling over.
Her right eye and shoulder burned with a heat that felt as though it might ignite, her every instinct screaming to unleash her fury.
And then...
“...?”
The Chief narrowed his eyes in confusion.
The heat that had been ready to erupt from Eto vanished in an instant.
It was as if a surging tide of magma had been suddenly frozen by a massive glacier.
In a way, it was only natural.
Because what she was about to do was a very important “first” for Eto.
Dad...
Eto closed her eyes and pictured the missing Koma.
She knew he would never condone what she was about to do. He would be heartbroken. She was certain of it.
Eto knew she was about to do something wicked.
—What’s so wicked about it?
Another emotion whispered in her ear.
She had long known that this was the voice of her “self as a Ghoul.”
—The wicked ones are those who messed with us while we lived in peace. It is the world that stole Dad away. What is wrong with taking back what was stolen?
But Eto rejected the whisper.
If you do something bad, you must be punished. It was a simple truth, though one that almost everyone tried to avoid.
But she had to accept it. Because that was the only path that mattered for her.
I will be punished.
She would save her father, and then she would let him punish her properly.
That is the difference between ‘me as a Ghoul’ and ‘me as a human.’
The whispers faded into silence.
It would be fine.
Even if her hands were stained with blood, even if this act led her down a dark and irreversible path.
If it was her father, he would surely scold her and set her right.
That thought brought her peace.
And with that peace... she could kill them all.
Fwoooooosh!!!
“!?!?”
Without warning, Eto’s [Ukaku] erupted in a brilliant, flame-like burst, catching the Chief completely off guard.
Simultaneously, Eto hurled the object she had been holding.
It was the Chief’s own severed arm.
“As if this could possibly work!!”
The Chief swatted the limb away with contempt. He had not survived this long by falling for such amateurish distractions.
Using the erupting [Ukaku] as a booster, Eto launched herself forward.
Her speed was terrifying, nearly impossible to track for anyone without Ghoul reflexes.
The Chief reacted instantly, deploying his Kagune.
His was a [Koukaku], a type that held a natural advantage over Eto’s [Ukaku].
While the [Ukaku] offered incredible mobility, it lacked the raw power to pierce a solid [Koukaku] shield. He planned to halt her momentum and then drive his blade straight through her heart.
Taat!
However, just before impact, Eto veered sharply, flying diagonally toward the alley wall.
She kicked off the stone surface, rebounding like a billiard ball.
Trying to hit my blind spot? Not a chance!
He curled his [Koukaku] tentacles, forming a sturdy shield to protect his back. His defense against flank attacks was flawless.
But Eto ignored him entirely, sailing right past.
She leapt over the Chief’s head, kicked off the opposite wall, and shot forward like an arrow.
She was heading in a completely different direction from the Chief.
In that split second, the Chief realized something was horribly wrong.
Puhuk――!!!
The sound of flesh tearing, of muscle and bone being forced apart by brute force.
The sound seemed to freeze time itself.
The Chief, who had been bracing for an attack, and Hitokawa, who had been swinging his Quinque, both froze, their mouths hanging open in shock.
“Cough...!! Wh-what the hell...!!!”
The assistant spat out a mouthful of blood, staring in disbelief at the small hand protruding from his own chest.
It was unmistakably Eto’s hand.
She had pierced straight through his heart, her arm tearing through his chest from the back.
Too absorbed in his fight with Hitokawa, the assistant had never seen the strike coming. In fact, he hadn't even considered that she would target him.
Pshuk!!
With a wet, sliding sound, Eto withdrew her hand.
The assistant staggered, as if trying to resist the inevitable, but his knees buckled and he collapsed into the growing pool of his own blood.
The light vanished from his twitching body in an instant.
“So this is my ‘first kill’...?”
Eto gazed at the blood coating her hand.
A dull, oppressive red.
A warmth of roughly 36 degrees Celsius.
The metallic scent of blood tickling her nose.
The bitter, iron taste of death.
As these things drained away, the living body became a corpse.
Reflecting on the experience, a line from a novel she had once read drifted into her mind.
“‘A life lived by one person is so heavy, and yet its end is so light’...”
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