“Is it really all right to leave Kaigo like that?”
As they emerged from the sewers and stepped out of the abandoned building, a mysterious man asked the question to the man walking ahead of him.
The man in the fedora, chewing gum with a nonchalant air, answered without even looking back.
“Once he starts fighting, he’s the type you can’t control anyway. *Tch.* It's more efficient to use him as a disposable pawn here than to keep dragging him along.”
“The CCG investigators are going to take a beating.”
“*Tch, tch.* Same goes for the Ghoul factions. Since Kuzen hasn’t shown up, Arima will probably just clean everything up himself.”
A Ghoul who has awakened as a Kakuja is a being so powerful they are treated as a living disaster.
Yet, treating such a creature as nothing more than a disposable pawn, the men vanished into the city’s darkness, blending in as if they had always been part of the shadows.
Just before they disappeared, only the fedora-wearing man’s mutterings lingered in the air.
“Everything for the sake of balance....”
***
“Grrrrr!!!”
Kaigo. The Kakuja monster lowered the hand that had been covering its face. Barely thirty seconds had passed since it had screamed in agony from the loss of its limb.
White bone began to sprout from where the lower jaw had vanished, and a crimson glow slowly seeped from the empty socket where an eyeball had been ripped out.
At this sight, Enji and Kaya looked genuinely startled.
“It’s already regenerating? An injury that would take even my body an hour to recover from?”
“A body completely encased in Kagune.... Don’t tell me that’s actually a Kakuja.”
“It is.”
Koma answered, having overheard their mutterings.
He had just repurposed the metal shard he’d picked up for self-defense, pricking the tip of his index finger. After confirming that blood was seeping from the small wound, he pressed his finger into Eto’s mouth.
It was emergency first aid to treat Eto’s injuries.
As the blood flowed into her, Eto’s expression, which had been twisted in pain, gradually softened. She looked like a newborn nursing at its mother’s breast.
Though unconscious, her body seemed to instinctively know she needed this to survive, and she continued to suck the blood.
Once he confirmed the first aid was working, Koma turned back to the two leaders.
“That thing sees humans and Ghouls alike as nothing more than prey. It’s a cannibal. And it's faster and more powerful than any Ghoul we’ve encountered so far.”
“Ahh~ so that disgusting stare was that? The ‘jackpot, food!’ look?”
“Did it trade its reason for power? How pitiful. It can’t even tell who it should and shouldn’t pick a fight with.”
“Kraaaah!!!!”
With his vision partially restored, Kaigo spotted the two who had wounded him and let out a piercing shriek.
The Kakuja armor linked together like dense muscle fibers and thickened, swelling the monster's already enormous frame to nearly twice its size.
“Can we win?”
When Koma asked, the two looked back at him.
Enji’s lips curled into a smirk as he asked in return.
“And if we can’t?”
“Then we find a way to run. He destroyed the main escape route, but luckily I brought the map. For now, we should pull back and scout for another path....”
“Then you can just sit there comfortably and keep looking for that path.”
“Kaaaaaah!!!”
Before Kaya could even finish her sentence, the monster lunged. Charging forward and shattering the concrete floor beneath its feet, it had the momentum of a dump truck barreling straight at them.
Just as Koma spotted the monster’s brutal hands reaching out from both sides and opened his mouth to shout a warning—
Thud!
Enji and Kaya’s figures blurred, vanishing from their spots and diving straight into the monster’s reach.
“Don’t underestimate the Maen of the 20th Ward.”
“Tremble before Kuroinu.”
Enji’s fist slammed into the monster’s chest, and Kaya’s leg whipped into the monster’s lower jaw just as it was reforming.
Puhah!
What followed was not just astonishing, but miraculous. The monster’s massive body was launched high into the air, as if it had been a ball kicked by a professional soccer player.
Koma could only stare in shock. The two of them spoke in unison.
““We’ll handle this monster.””
Having spoken with such confidence, Enji and Kaya glared at each other the moment their voices overlapped. Their eyes screamed, Why are you copying me?
However, they didn't have time to waste on petty rivalry, so they turned that same intensity toward their subordinates.
“What are you gawking at?! Get in there already!”
“If you don’t want to fight that thing with your arms ripped off, move it!”
“Huh! S-sorry, boss!”
“I-I’m going, sis!”
Only then did the subordinates, who had been dazed and distracted, snap back to their senses and rush the monster.
Koma looked bewildered, realizing that he had been the one stealing their attention.
Had they really been so distracted by a human talking to their leaders that they ignored a Kakuja monster right in front of them?
Of course, the fact that he was human was unusual. But what had truly shocked them was Eto in his arms.
A human was not only cradling an injured Ghoul child, but was drawing his own blood to feed her for her recovery.
To Koma, it was a natural act of care for Eto, but to the Ghouls watching, it was a seismic shock, as if the very foundations of their world were collapsing.
To some, he looked like a rabbit thrusting its neck into the mouth of a wounded lion to save it; to others, he looked like a Madonna cradling a saint.
Captivated by the sight of the two, the subordinates had remained frozen until their leaders' shouts finally broke the spell.
“Kraaaah!!!”
The monster, launched into the air by Enji and Kaya’s combined strike, came crashing back down.
Despite the violent impact, it didn't seem severely damaged. Its thick Kakuja armor and abnormal regeneration were proving to be a problem.
To tear through that armor and deliver the meat beneath to their masters, swarms of red monkeys and black dogs bared their fangs and charged from all directions.
As they lunged, the two leaders issued an absolute command.
“I think we can skip the introductions for those two, right? Protect them with your lives while you fight.”
“If you let even a scratch get on either of them, I’ll personally rip your throat out.”
***
“....”
Following the faint currents of air, Arima stopped in his tracks. The scent of the wind had changed.
He pressed his ear against a nearby pipe—one that ran vertically from the upper levels.
Noise and vibration echoed through the rusted iron. It was close. Right below him.
Something was happening on the floor directly beneath.
Judging by the number of Ghoul signatures, it was likely En and the Black Doberman he had been searching for. Perhaps they were fighting amongst themselves.
Arima pulled away from the pipe and pondered.
The reason he had left the extermination squad to come here was a single order from his superiors.
“Ensure that no Ghoul leaves the 7th Ward sewers alive.”
Since the operation began, the two Ghoul groups had vanished. Then, a strange breeze had alerted him to the existence of a hidden escape route.
The moment he realized this, Arima had slipped away from the main force to intercept the exit.
The thought of reporting it to the other investigators hadn't even crossed his mind. Even if he had, they likely wouldn't have believed that he had located an exit simply by "feeling the wind."
Arima looked down the length of the passage.
If he followed the path and turned a few corners, he would eventually reach the lower cavern. The problem was the time it would take. It would be far more efficient if he could simply break through the floor.
To Arima, the thick concrete floor was a greater obstacle than any Ghoul waiting below. The Quinque he had brought would take far too long to dig through it.
“I should have brought a heavy-type Quinque....”
As he muttered this while lifting his metal case, a menacing presence rushed toward him from behind at high speed.
Arima leaned his upper body to the side, dodging effortlessly.
Whoosh!
“Oh? You dodged?”
The one who had attempted the kick was none other than Hitokawa, who looked absolutely livid.
Behind him, a dozen investigators, including Hoshino, were staring at Arima with expressions of sheer exhaustion.
Arima, genuinely confused by their reactions, tilted his head. “Is something the matter?”
“Is something the matter?! You’ve completely lost your damn mind! These sewers are still Ghoul territory! You think you can just wander deep into their nest alone and not have anyone notice? The investigators behind me have been chasing you this whole time!”
Hitokawa had just finished executing a troublesome Ghoul, only to be hit with a wave of fury when Hoshino reported that Arima had vanished.
He knew the boy was eccentric, but he hadn't expected him to completely ignore the chain of command.
Some investigators pushed ahead out of overconfidence, but who would have expected such behavior from a mere second-class investigator—and a minor at that?
Arima was temporarily assigned to Hitokawa’s team, and Hitokawa felt responsible for him. Thus, he had hurriedly gathered available personnel to track him down.
Fortunately, the trail was easy to follow. Arima had left a breadcrumb trail of Ghoul corpses wherever he went.
When Hitokawa first found him, he had felt a momentary surge of relief that Arima was safe. He had seen too many overconfident rookies end up as lonely corpses in the dark.
But now that he knew Arima was fine, his irritation exploded.
With veins popping on his forehead, he shoved his face close to Arima’s. “I’ll give you a choice. Do you want to take one clean hit from me right here and call it even? Or do you want to go back and handle a pay cut and a hundred written apologies on your own?”
“I’ll take the pay cut and the hundred apologies.”
“The fact that you chose that without a shred of hesitation or remorse makes me even angrier...!! Just take the hit already!!!”
Just as Hitokawa, now completely losing his temper, clenched his fist—
KWA-GA-GA-GA-BOOOOM――!!!!
A sudden, violent impact made everyone in the area stagger.
A massive shock erupted from beneath their feet, and a section of the floor a short distance away surged upward as if swelling from below.
Sensing danger, Hitokawa grabbed Arima by the shoulder, yanked him back, and roared to his men.
“All units, battle positions!!”
Shing! Clang!
At Hitokawa’s signal, the investigators drew their Quinque in unison.
Hitokawa looked back toward the disturbance. The raised floor cracked open like an eggshell, and a monster emerged from the breach.
“Kraaaah!!!!”
It was a behemoth. While it retained a human shape, its surface was anything but human skin.
It was a mass of dark red, writhing cells. Recognizing the form, Hitokawa gasped.
“My God! A Kakuja?!”
“Kraaaahhh!!!!”
The Kakuja monster shrieked and raised both arms, looking like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum over annoying flies.
It swung both fists down like massive war hammers.
KWA-GA-GA-GA-BOOOOM!!!
The impact sent a violent tremor through the passage. But that was only the beginning.
The concrete could not withstand the shock and shattered, the cracks racing toward the group of investigators.
“....!!”
“Huh...!?”
“What the hell!!”
The investigators screamed as the ground vanished beneath them. No matter how they flailed or grabbed at the walls, they couldn't stop the descent.
The entire floor was collapsing!
As they plummeted into the vast cavern below, Hitokawa’s voice echoed through the air.
“When we get back, you’re writing two hundred apologies, Arima Kishouooooo!!!!!”
Apparently, he was more upset about the punch he didn't get to throw than the sudden monster attack.
***
“Ghoul Investigators?! Why are those bastards falling from the ceiling?!”
Katsura Akihiko, one of Enji’s subordinates, stared in horror as investigators rained down alongside chunks of the collapsing ceiling.
The Kakuja monster, which Enji and Kaya had launched upward, had returned with an unexpected payload.
“Tch! We can barely handle one Kakuja, and now we have to deal with investigators too!”
Nomiya Seiichi, one of Kaya’s subordinates, clicked his tongue while clutching his wounded shoulder.
The monster was so powerful that even a glancing blow had left him with a severe injury. Dealing with investigators on top of this seemed nearly impossible.
“Um....”
At that moment, Katsura and Nomiya turned to a voice behind them.
Takaki Koma was approaching, carrying the unconscious Eto on his back. For some reason, he was using the map to hide his face as he spoke.
“What’s going on... no, what is happening, sir... no, that’s not it... What tidings do you bring?”
Koma was human, but he was under the protection of their leaders.
Struggling between whether to speak casually or formally, Katsura ended up blurting out a bizarre, archaic style of speech reminiscent of a historical drama.
“Do you happen to have a spare mask?”
“A spare mask?”
Nomiya raised his voice, unable to comprehend why Koma was asking for a mask in the middle of a war zone.
But Koma was deadly serious.
“When those investigators fell, I heard a voice I really shouldn't have. If you have one, lend it to me, fast! If they find out Eto and I are here, it’s going to be a nightmare!”
Koma’s voice was as desperate as a human being hunted by Ghouls.
It was a cruel irony that the "monster" he was hiding from was actually his own friend among the investigators.
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