Four years later.
The eleven o'clock news cuts into the variety show that's on.
The anchor appears on screen and behind her they put up an aerial shot of helicopters circling an office building in the 20th ward, their searchlights pointing straight down.
"With an official announcement from CCG President Washuu Tsuneyoshi, the CCG has deployed a special combat unit tonight for the capture of SS-class ghoul known as the Chimera, who has terrorized the population of the 20th ward for the past several years. What you're seeing on screen are live images of the building where the target is believed to be located."
Next to the anchor a photo appears of a young man, around sixteen, fairly tall. He has long blue hair and a face that could easily be mistaken for that of a beautiful woman if you weren't paying attention. The photo is grainy and looks taken from far away, but clear enough to make out the features.
"The registered name of the ghoul is Tsukiyama Tatara, allegedly linked to the prestigious Tsukiyama family of the 21st ward. This is alarming. That a family with such a recognized reputation in Tokyo's business and cultural world could be tied to ghoul activity... The CCG will undoubtedly need to investigate these links thoroughly. This is a story that impacts the entire community of..."
The screen cuts to a shot from one of the helicopters. The building from above, and in the streets below there are military barricades with armed soldiers pointing rifles at the entrances and armored vehicles parked along the road.
Farther back, a crowd of curious civilians pushes up against plastic tape, phones raised to record.
And on the rooftop, lit up by the helicopters' searchlights, there is a hooded figure standing completely still.
The helicopter speakers say something in an authoritative voice, but the figure doesn't react.
It stands there a few more seconds looking at the helicopters, then calmly turns around and walks into the building through a rooftop door.
×××
On the seventh floor the building is empty and dark. The offices were evacuated a while ago, so there's nobody left inside except him.
Arata pulls his hood down and walks down the hallway.
His enhanced senses let him hear everything happening in the building, and right now he can hear the heartbeats of the soldiers and CCG agents climbing the stairs.
"Still on the second floor..."
He reaches under his jacket and pulls out a plastic bag. Inside is a long blue wig that looks pretty ridiculous up close but from a helicopter camera's distance looks like real hair.
He puts it on, walks to a window, and looks at his reflection in the dark glass. He twists his mouth a little.
Yeah, it looks enough like the photo from the news.
Well, obviously, since he's the one who created that identity in the first place.
—Brrr!
His phone buzzes in his pocket.
He takes it out, looks at the screen, and sees Touka's name.
"Yeah?"
"Hey, idiot."
Touka's voice sounds annoyed and confused, which is her natural state lately.
"Chimera is your nickname, right? What the hell am I seeing on TV? Why are there helicopters and soldiers everywhere... And more importantly, that ridiculous look!"
There's a scuffle in the background and the voice suddenly changes.
"Onii-chan!"
It's Saya, who had yanked the phone out of Touka's hands.
"What's with that last name?! Tsukiyama?! You're a Takagi! You're my onii-chan, not some Tsukiyama!"
"Hey! Give that back, you little pink brat!"
Touka tries to get her phone back.
"No!"
Arata laughs. Through one of his All-Seeing Eyes he can see them.
They're in the Takagi mansion's living room, with gamepads sitting on the center table and a Mario Party menu on the TV. The big wall-mounted television is showing live footage of the building surrounded by helicopters.
Rize is sitting on the couch with her legs crossed and a small frown, watching Saya and Touka fight over the phone.
"Calm down. The last name and the first name are both made up. Everything is fake. And the blue hair is a wig. Pretty ugly one, by the way."
Saya goes quiet for a moment on the other end, and it seems that after that outburst, her head has cooled back down.
"Tsukiyama... That's the last name of that weird guy who won't leave you alone, isn't it? The one who sends you perfumed letters and invites you to dinner every two weeks."
"That's the one."
That guy is pretty annoying, so Arata never bothered with his letters and definitely never met up with him.
Though once, Arata had hired a muscular man dressed as a magical girl and sent him to the meeting spot. That day that elegant bastard with blue hair was in shock for several days.
"..."
After a moment of silence Arata can see Saya press her lips together and tilt her head slightly.
"Ah... So what you want is to involve his family in order to... Okay. I get it. I get it. But onii-chan, will you be okay? There are a lot of soldiers out there, and the CCG..."
"I can handle them."
Saya doesn't respond for a few seconds, and when she does, her voice is quiet.
"You're going to kill all those people, aren't you?"
Arata listens to the heartbeats in the building. They're on the third floor now.
"Does it bother you that I'll kill that many humans?"
Saya lets out a long sigh and closes her eyes.
"It's not that... I mean, not exactly. They're the ones who've been hunting you for years, right? Crushing the Chimera... that's all anyone's been talking about for a while. If you don't do something now they're never going to leave you alone. But I'm worried that you'll... that you'll lose yourself in it, that you'll become bloodthirsty and won't be able to..."
Arata presses his lips together.
'That's a little late, isn't it, Saya? I've been out of my mind for a long time now.'
But he doesn't say that out loud.
"I'll be fine. Don't worry."
There's another scuffle and Touka gets her phone back with a sharp exhale.
"Give me that already."
Once she shoots a cold look at Saya, she starts talking to him.
"Hey, listen up. Be careful in there, you hear me? The CCG units have upgraded a lot over these past few months. They're using new ammunition that can pierce ghouls, and their Quinques got updated too, they've taken down ghouls that used to give them trouble. Those bastards have gotten really full of themselves lately, and they're planning to start a war with that group calling itself Aogiri Tree."
"Ah, really?"
Touka clicks her tongue, and a moment later her voice gets darker.
"Sons of bitches... daring to come after you... Where exactly are you?"
Arata shakes his head, because he knows that question and knows what it means.
"Stay there, Touka."
"But I can get there in..."
"No."
Touka says nothing, but Arata hears the sound of her teeth clenching through the phone.
Arata looks through another one of his Eyes. Rei is heading to the living room alongside Meiko, and the two of them are carrying trays with chocolate buns and glasses of coffee. They've been cooking together.
'Heh. Touka and Rize's stomachs are in for a rough night.'
It's not that those girls' cooking is bad, quite the opposite. Both he and Saya, Rei, and Meiko enjoy it quite a bit, but ghouls like Touka and Rize suffer in silence.
Every time he sees them pretending to eat human food, he ends up laughing. And eventually he winds up with those two cute ghouls drinking his blood and giving him dark looks.
While he's enjoying that mental image, someone snatches the phone from Touka with a quick move.
"Hey!"
"What a shame I'm not there with you."
Rize's sweet voice comes through.
"I would have loved to kill a few of those bastards who keep bothering you. But well, there's always next time."
A brief pause, then she adds.
"Take care, darling~"
And she hangs up.
Meanwhile, Saya turns to look at Rize with her mouth slightly open, her small fang showing.
"...Did I hear that right? You just called him darling?"
Rize tilts her head to one side with a soft smile.
"I did. Do you have a problem with that?"
Touka cuts in with narrowed eyes.
"I have a problem with it too. Where did that come from?"
"Ah."
Rize puts a finger to her lips, as if trying to remember.
"We were watching Darling in the Franxx with Arata the other day, and I liked that word the girl uses. So now I say it to Arata, my darling. Is there something wrong with that?"
Touka's expression darkens, and her bangs fall over both eyes. She's giving off a terrifying presence.
Saya's clear orange eyes take on a dangerous gleam at the same time, as if she's running some kind of internal calculation.
"Arata... how do you think he'll react?"
Saying that, Touka asks Saya.
"Knowing onii-chan... he's probably going to love it."
Both of them turn toward Rize, who tilts her head and offers them an innocent smile, a gentle smile, a beautiful smile.
"Ara? Why are you both looking at me? That's not a problem for me, you know?"
"Bitch..."
Arata lowers the phone and looks at the dark screen for a second.
Darling.
"Umu. Yeah. I like that quite a bit."
Just as he's about to put his phone in his pocket, thinking that it'll probably get destroyed in the fight that's coming anyway, the phone buzzes again in his hand.
He looks at the screen and answers with a smile.
"Yeah, mom?"
"Do you need help?"
No greeting, that's the first tung Mrs. Yuriko says.
"I could contact Kiriko and ask for assistance."
"That won't be necessary."
A slight pause on the other end. Through his Eye, Arata can see Mrs. Yuriko sitting in her office with the TV on, showing the live news footage of helicopters surrounding the building where he is.
"Arata, wouldn't it be better to run in this case?"
"Does it bother you too that I'll kill that many people?"
Another pause, then she closes her eyes and answers.
"...Yes."
"That so. I see."
Yuriko lets out a long sigh, and when she opens her eyes again her gaze sharpens along with her tone.
"But I'm also aware that it can't be avoided. They've been investigating you for years, and you went through all the effort of building a false identity tied to the Chimera. I've watched you erase trails, manipulate records, fool spies from multiple organizations. All that work and all that time it took to pull off... it would be hypocritical of me to ask you to stop now and throw all of it away."
While he listens to Mrs. Yuriko speak, the sound of heartbeats climbing gets louder. They're on the sixth floor now.
"So..."
He can see his mom's cold smile through the Eye, and he wonders if he's rubbed off on her a little...
"Do what you have to do. Even if you have to massacre every last one of them... Just come back safe."
"Understood, mom."
At that moment the seventh floor door explodes and chunks of metal and concrete come flying inward. Taking that as the start of the hunt, soldiers pour in in formation, heavy weapons trained on him, weapons loaded with specialized ammunition for eliminating monsters.
Capable of piercing ghoul defenses and significantly slowing their regeneration.
Arata recognizes them because he's been watching through his All-Seeing Eyes as CCG researchers slaughter ghouls in the 24th ward.
He cuts the call and pockets the phone.
"Target located! Open fire!"
—Bang! Bang! Bang!
Automatic fire throws off sparks and smoke as bullets hit Arata's body one after another.
Piercing his chest, his stomach, his shoulders, his neck, his head, his body soon warps from the holes and the flesh that's been crushed and burned.
Each impact shoves his body backward, and blood sprays the wall behind him, making it look like a wall that's been hit with a bucket of red paint.
—Shhshhh!
His body shakes with the impacts and slides down the wall, leaving a dark crimson trail of smoke behind it.
For several seconds the bullets keep coming.
A minute maybe, or two. After that uninterrupted fire someone raises a fist and shouts the order to hold.
After the deafening sound of automatic weapons firing, the silence that follows is deeply unsettling.
From the assault, the hallway and the room fill with gray smoke and the smell of gunpowder. At the same time the soldiers keep their weapons trained forward without moving from their positions, and several of them reload with shaking hands.
"..."
Not one of them makes a sound.
Then from inside the smoke comes a wet noise.
"Kuhuhu..."
Followed by a low laugh that slowly climbs in volume.
A laugh that raises the hairs on the armed men's arms and sends cold sweat down their foreheads, because it is a shrill and unhinged laugh that should not exist after taking over a minute of modified rounds across the entire body.
"Good way to start."
Hundreds of red irises open in the gray smoke.