After leaving his son’s apartment, Takaki Harima had not walked far before he spotted the colleague who had been dispatched with him.
The man, possessing a relaxed and easygoing air, noticed him and raised a hand in greeting.
“First Class Takaki. Did you get a good look at your son? Even so, I’d appreciate it if you’d refrain from leaving your post while on duty.”
“Isn’t that because you spent far too long on that news interview, First Class Fujiwara?”
Fujiwara Kimura was a Ghoul Investigator with less experience than Harima, but they shared the same rank and were roughly the same age.
Normally, Ghoul Investigators worked in pairs: an upper-rank investigator—divided into First Class, Associate Special Class, and Special Class—paired with a lower-rank investigator, divided into Third, Second, and First Class.
However, Harima’s previous partner, a First Class investigator, had recently been promoted to First Class and transferred away.
Consequently, until a new partner could be found, he had been paired with another First Class investigator and dispatched here on an ad hoc basis.
Fujiwara Kimura stroked his prized beard and held up the documents in his hand.
“While you were away, I looked into a few things and found a suspicious lead. Not long ago, there was a clash between Ghoul organizations in the neighboring 8th Ward. It seems one Ghoul, acting as a field commander for one of those groups, fled here to the 7th Ward with serious injuries. The timing lines up almost perfectly with the murder of the bakery owner.”
Harima carefully scanned the documents and remarked, “For a Ghoul, he left the signs of cannibalism far too openly; I thought he was simply a fool. But if he was forced to feed in a hurry to treat his injuries, that would explain it.”
“Exactly. And after the incident, there was witness testimony that a suspicious, bleeding man entered the sewers near Hamei Middle School.”
“Then we have our search area. Let's move out.”
Harima and Fujiwara let their white coats flutter behind them as they strode toward the sewer entrance.
To a stranger, they would have looked like ordinary office workers heading to work early in the morning, but from a Ghoul’s perspective, their footsteps must have felt as heavy as those of the Grim Reaper.
“……”
“Hm? What are you thinking about so intently?”
Ghoul hunts were perilous; an ambush could happen at any second. It was a time for absolute vigilance, yet Harima kept drifting into his own thoughts, prompting Fujiwara to warn him.
“……It’s nothing. It’s just that when I visited my son’s place earlier, something bothered me.”
“If the Ghouls’ feared ‘Butcher’ turns out to be a doting fool worried sick over his son, the Ghouls you’ve slaughtered will be rolling in their graves.”
“Don’t mock me. Isn’t it only natural to worry?”
A dark shadow fell over Harima’s face as he chided Fujiwara.
“He’s a poor child who lost his mother in *that* way. I may not be able to play the role of a father, but I want that boy to grow up safely, without any trouble.”
“Fair enough. But what was it that bothered you?”
“……A baby.”
“……What?”
Fujiwara frowned at Harima’s muttered reply.
“It was faint, but…… there was the smell of a baby in my son’s apartment.”
Harima recalled the memory of when his own son had been an infant, long ago. Back then, his home had carried a similar scent.
Had there been the smell of formula, he might have been certain, but even without it, the faint, lingering scent of baby powder and diapers had drifted through the apartment.
“A baby? Your son is a high school student, isn’t he? What would a baby be doing in a high schooler's studio? You must have mistaken a scent from a neighboring unit.”
“Could that be it……?”
Even so, his son’s behavior had been oddly awkward, unlike his usual self…… The doubt flickered through his mind, but he was forced to abandon the thought.
They had reached the sewer entrance.
The sewer gaped open like a tunnel, exhaling a foul stench reminiscent of a beast’s breath.
“……There it is. Blood.”
After taking only a few steps into the darkness, Fujiwara bent down and brushed his hand over a visible smear of blood.
It had dried, but it wasn't yet brittle. It was a fresh stain.
“So he really did hide in here…….”
“Fujiwara! Above!!”
At Harima’s sudden roar, Fujiwara reflexively looked up.
From the stained ceiling, a shadow suddenly swelled and plummeted toward Fujiwara’s head.
It was a man in his early thirties, clutching a wounded abdomen with one hand.
His eyes burned with the crimson [Kakugan], the unmistakable mark of a Ghoul.
And from his back, a red, tentacle-like appendage sprouted like a tail, falling with the precision of a guillotine—a Kagune!
KAAANG!!!
The Kagune descending upon Fujiwara was deflected with a metallic shriek.
Looking over, Fujiwara saw the iron briefcase that had intercepted the blow flying away, crushed and mangled.
Though the case was ruined, it lay open and empty. The contents had already been deployed.
Clack-clack-clack!!
Before the sound of rapid assembly had even ceased, Harima lunged at the Ghoul still suspended in the air.
In his grip was a massive blade, nearly as large as Harima himself. It looked like a heavy cleaver used for slaughtering cattle.
The weapon forged through endless conflict to hunt Ghouls: a Quinque!
KUWAAAANG!!!
Harima’s swinging Quinque and the Ghoul’s Kagune collided with such force that the impact blasted the two of them ten meters apart.
But the instant their feet touched the ground, they charged at each other again without a moment's hesitation.
KUWA-GAGAGAGAGAANNG!!!
A savage, bloody battle erupted in an instant.
The Ghoul’s Kagune expanded like an imugi, smashing the supporting pillars of the sewer as it surged forward, while Harima met the onslaught with monstrous strength, swinging his Quinque in wide, powerful arcs.
The man fighting the Ghoul bore no resemblance to the father who had worried for his son moments ago.
He was now a vessel of ferocious killing intent, consumed by the desire to dismantle every bone, piece of flesh, and organ of the creature before him.
“KRAAAAAAAH!!!!”
Driven to the brink by his injuries and the relentless pressure of the investigator, the Ghoul’s patience snapped. With a furious howl, he swept his Kagune sideways in a massive arc.
The Kagune, swollen to its maximum size, was now thicker than the sewer pillars. The overwhelming strike of murderous intent leveled everything in its path, obliterating walls and pillars alike.
Fujiwara ducked low, barely escaping the blast.
Once the dust settled, he searched for Harima, but the man had vanished. Had he been swept away by that blow?
Certain of Harima's death, the Ghoul turned toward Fujiwara as if to say, *You're next.*
That was the Ghoul’s fatal mistake.
SQUELCH!!
“Ghk!!”
Filthy sewer water erupted upward as the massive butcher’s knife pierced straight through the Ghoul’s back.
The Ghoul let out a blood-choked scream.
“No matter how keen your senses are, it seems you can't smell through the stench of filth, can you?”
Harima hadn't been hit; he had deliberately submerged himself in the sewage to hide.
Even Fujiwara felt a chill at his partner's resolve—the sheer obsession required to throw oneself into such revolting water without a second thought, all for the sake of victory.
SQUELCH!! CRACK!!
Harima twisted his torso violently and yanked the Quinque from the Ghoul’s back. Then, using the explosive recoil of his spine snapping back, he swung the blade with all his might.
With a sickening crunch of bone, the Ghoul’s head was sent flying into the air.
But he didn't stop there.
SQUELCH!! CRUNCH!! SNAP!! THUD!! CRACK!! SQUELCH!!
As if possessed by a demon, Harima relentlessly hacked at the corpse.
He tore through flesh, shattered bone, and ground the internal organs into the dirt, continuing the destruction as if it were still not enough.
Light only returned to his void-like pupils when Fujiwara approached and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“That’s enough. No matter how much of a Ghoul it is, it was a sentient being. There’s no need to desecrate the corpse like this.”
“Nonsense. Did they show us such courtesy when they killed our people? There is not a single shred of them worthy of pity.”
Though his voice was ice-cold, Harima ceased the butchery and retracted his Quinque.
Fujiwara sighed. No matter how many times he saw it, he could never get used to how Harima became a completely different person the moment he faced a Ghoul.
“You really have no mercy in you. Isn’t it almost time for you to retire? At this rate, will you ever be able to take off that suit for good?”
“I have no intention of taking this suit off until the day I die.”
Harima gripped his white coat with a blood-stained hand and glared down at the remains of the Ghoul, which no longer held any recognizable shape.
“Every single Ghoul in this world—I will kill them all with my own hands. Man, woman, old, or child... every last one of them……!”
***
“Gah?!”
I jolted awake from my nap, recovering from the exhaustion of my father’s surprise visit, as a horrific nightmare clung to me.
“Ugh…… I dreamed that Father was charging at Eto with a knife……”
Please let that not be a prophetic dream…… With that worry in mind, I looked around for Eto.
“Eto? Where are yo…….”
“Daaa?”
I stopped mid-sentence.
I had just witnessed Eto using her monstrous Ghoul strength to punch a clean, gaping hole straight through my laptop.
“ETOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”
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