Today was the day Hitokawa was taking the Ghoul Investigator exam. I sent him some rice cakes as a little good-luck gift, but I had no idea whether he actually ate them.
After buying groceries for dinner and heading home, I noticed a white envelope tucked between the flyers in the mailbox by the front door.
When I checked the front, I saw that it had the recipient's address written on it, but no sender's address. It was a suspicious letter.
But the moment I carefully looked at the writing that said, "To Takaki Koma," I had no choice but to freeze.
"...Mister Kuzen?"
It was definitely Kuzen's handwriting.
Well then, how was I supposed to interpret this?
I was certain this letter had been sent to Mister Kuzen. Eto had also seemed to catch a familiar scent, because she kept reaching toward the letter.
But when I actually unfolded the paper, I was left speechless.
It was blank.
I held it up to the fluorescent light, rubbed it, even sniffed it, but no matter what I did, the only conclusion was that it was a completely ordinary blank sheet of paper.
"What is he trying to say? Is this some kind of code? Blank paper... white... nothing? Does that mean he's safe?"
But why send a letter at all?
He must be in a position where he can't come see Eto because of those people in the "organization"... If a letter came, does that mean he finally has some breathing room? If that were really the case, though, it would be better for him to come in person instead of sending this meaningless letter.
No.
"...Is it because he can't come?"
I looked out the window. The sun was almost down, and the chilly night air was filling the city.
Let's think this through.
I didn't know much about Ghouls, but even I could tell from the atmosphere that Mister Kuzen was an exceptional Ghoul. And yet even he said the "organization" was powerful enough that he couldn't guarantee Eto's safety, much less his own life.
He was probably still fighting somewhere in this city just to stay alive.
And in the middle of that, he'd managed to get a tiny, fleeting opening.
After catching his breath, the first thing on his mind would be his daughter.
Was she doing well? Was she growing up properly?
But he couldn't come see her directly. He'd managed to find a gap, but it wasn't nearly enough time to meet his daughter while avoiding the "organization's" eyes.
So he sent a letter.
He sent it to let me know he was still alive.
And the reason it was blank was...
"Uuuuuugh~!"
After spending a while with my head in my hands, trying to puzzle it out, I suddenly turned to look at Eto.
Maybe she felt comforted by the scent on the envelope, because she had fallen asleep with her cheek pressed against the empty paper envelope. The drool running from her mouth had completely blurred and erased Mister Kuzen's handwriting.
"...I see."
I wasn't sure whether the theory I'd come up with in my head was right.
But this blank paper was the only thing I could do anything with.
I grabbed a pencil and spent a while scribbling all over the blank sheet. After a moment, I set the pencil down and folded the paper neatly into an airplane.
"Here goes."
I opened the window and launched the paper airplane in a direction where it could catch the wind well.
Fortunately, today there was a tailwind. The paper airplane drifted forward in a lazy arc between the buildings.
What if I was wrong? Please, let this be right. Then again, Mister Kuzen was the one who sent this cryptic letter in the first place, so if I was wrong, there was nothing I could do about it... Still, I hoped I was right.
I watched the white paper airplane travel into the darkness, carrying all my thoughts with it.
Deep in downtown Tokyo.
In an alley just a little ways off from the streets packed with bright lights and endless foot traffic.
There, the stench of blood was so thick it was hard to believe it belonged to the same world as the one outside the alley.
Scattered around the place were corpses with their original forms horribly mangled.
Men in the same clothing as those corpses had surrounded the area from all sides, radiating a sinister presence.
And at the center of the circle they had formed stood a battered man in a fedora. There was no mistaking it. It was Kuzen.
He had spread his wing-like Kagune behind him and was breathing a little heavily.
"This is as far as you go, Kuzen."
Crunch, crunch.
The man chewing gum and wearing a disgusting smile let out an unpleasant voice like metal scraping against metal as he spoke to Kuzen.
"No matter how much you struggle, you're still just a bird in a cage. You can't escape the 'organization.' Give it up already and tell us where your child is."
Kuzen, who had been listening in silence, looked up at the sky and said, watching the sunset turn the heavens a shade close to purple.
"...I see. I suppose I really do have to give up."
"So you've finally come to your senses. Good. Enough of this pointless resistance..."
"It would be awfully selfish of me to send something so incomprehensible and expect people to understand the meaning behind it..."
"...?"
The man had no idea what Kuzen was talking about.
Just as he was wondering if Kuzen had lost his mind under pressure, a white speck entered Kuzen's eyes as he looked toward the sky.
"...!"
Whoosh!
Kuzen spread his Kagune like wings and shot upward.
Startled by the incredible speed that surpassed everyone else's reaction time, the man shouted a beat too late.
"He's running! Catch him!!"
The other men hurried after Kuzen, but he wasn't running away.
Leaping up the gaps between building exteriors like a stunt performer, he reached the sky and snatched the paper airplane that had been carried on the wind.
There was no doubt about it. From this paper airplane, faint but unmistakable, came the scent of a "friend" and "that child."
As Kuzen unfolded it, a warm smile appeared on his face—a smile his former comrades would never have known.
"...Thank you, Koma-kun."
What appeared when he opened the paper airplane was... the sight of his beloved daughter sleeping peacefully, drooling in her sleep.
Whoosh!
The black-clad men leaped into the sky after Kuzen.
Kuzen carefully folded the paper with his daughter on it and tucked it into his chest. Then he wrapped his wing-shaped Kagune around his arm.
The Kagune coiled around his arm sharpened into a single blade, then drew a straight line toward the enemies.
Fwoooosh!!!
Along the line he cut, the men's bodies were split apart all at once, spraying blood as they burst apart like fireworks.
Cutting through that shower of blood, Kuzen charged again at the enemies still on the ground.
"Let's keep going and do our best again."
There was no trace of fatigue left in him after seeing his daughter's face.
"I-I burned it... completely white...!"
After finishing the written exam for Ghoul Investigator School, Hitokawa Tomoru was lying on a bench in a nearby park, fighting off exhaustion.
The exam had gone pretty well, or so it seemed. But no one knew the results yet.
What if I fail? Will I do okay on the practical?
As he looked up at the bluish-purple sky while worrying about all sorts of things, he suddenly said, "Huh? What's that?"
Just a moment ago, a shadow that looked like a bird but also like a person had risen and vanished in the sky above the city center.
Wondering if he'd seen it wrong, he rubbed his eyes and looked again. The strange shadow was gone, but instead there seemed to be a flash of red mist before it disappeared like an illusion.
His mind was tired, but curiosity won out by a little, and Hitokawa was just about to walk toward where he'd seen the strange shadow when—
"Huh? Isn't that old man!"
He spotted a familiar face along the way and changed direction.
There, standing was none other than Koma's father, Takaki Harima.
Harima had come by a few days earlier to prepare for a lecture invitation from Ghoul Investigator School, and when he heard a familiar voice, he turned his head.
"Hitokawa? What are you doing here?"
Because Hitokawa and his son Koma had been friends for years, Harima knew his face well enough. They hadn't had many chances to meet since Koma started living on his own, though.
"Don't tell me you came here for the exam? To become a Ghoul Investigator?"
"Yes!"
At Hitokawa's confident answer, Harima let out a bitter sigh.
"I'm the type who'd like to stop anyone I know from becoming a Ghoul Investigator if I can... It's a very dangerous job."
"I know. But I still want to become a Ghoul Investigator."
Was that steady, unyielding look in his eyes because he didn't really understand how dangerous Ghouls were, or just because he was young and reckless?
For Harima, who no longer clearly remembered what kind of feelings had led him to become an investigator, it was a question without an answer.
"I see... Have you eaten dinner? If you want, I'll treat you."
"Ah, it's okay. I'm just going to rest a little and head home to prepare for the next practical exam."
After chatting for a while, Hitokawa, now looking up at a sky that had fully turned into night, was the first to say goodbye.
"Well, I should get going."
"All right. Keep getting along with my son, too."
"Of course. Please say hi to Koma and the baby for me, too."
"...What?"
Harima frowned, sensing something odd, but Hitokawa didn't notice and bowed before running toward the train station.
Having missed the chance to stop him, Harima repeated the words he'd just heard under his breath.
"The baby...?"