It was a dead end.
You're cornered now.
"Shut up, will you?!"
A chessboard one move away from checkmate. A game of janggi one breath away from declaring check.
No matter how hard you struggle, there's no way back.
You're cornered now.
"I said shut up!!"
Thud!
To shake off the ominous thoughts rising in my head, I slammed my fist into the wall for no good reason.
I could feel the stares of people passing through the night streets turning toward me in confusion.
As if fleeing those eyes, I ducked into a narrower alley. The number of people dropped, but nothing changed.
A Ghoul was after my life. And that bastard had changed tactics.
Instead of killing me by force, he'd decided to bleed me dry.
Nearly an hour had passed since I ran from home, and he still hadn't shown himself before me.
Did that mean he'd given up completely? No, not at all.
Now and then, I could feel his gaze hidden among the eyes of other people. That eerie, Ghoul-specific stare, the kind that looked at me like prey.
I wasn't naturally perceptive enough to notice that sort of thing.
But every time I felt that gaze turn toward me, the wound on my right arm throbbed. Maybe my conscious mind couldn't tell, but my instincts could.
He was still tailing me. He just wasn't attacking.
It wasn't because of the civilians. He had the authority of the police behind him, enough to ignore them for the moment.
And yet he wasn't showing himself because he was wary of me.
Because I'd kept slipping away even after being driven into a corner, he'd started to take me seriously.
If he lost me again this time, a Ghoul Investigator might get involved. That was the conclusion he'd reached, and so he refused to let himself drift too far from me.
Every route leading to a CCG branch was blocked by his gaze, obstructing my path.
I hated that it kept making me imagine him hiding at some corner and silently cutting my throat before anyone noticed.
But there was one thing he had misunderstood.
If he knew the truth, he wouldn't have hesitated for even a second. He would have tried to kill me outright.
I couldn't ask the CCG for help.
More precisely, I couldn't anymore.
Before he attacked our house, I could have. But not now.
Because he'd learned about Eto's existence.
I couldn't let him and a Ghoul Investigator meet now.
The moment he started spouting off about Eto as if he were ready to die with me, my threat would shift from Ghoul to Ghoul Investigator.
It would be a repeat of what happened five years ago, when I was chased around by my father.
Back then, I'd barely managed to talk him down. But if the target became an organization instead of an individual, persuasion was a fantasy.
The anti-Ghoul mindset was rooted deep in society, especially in the CCG.
Honestly, I'd be lucky if they didn't throw me into a psychiatric hospital on the spot for the crime of protecting a Ghoul.
I couldn't indulge in the naive hope that a Ghoul Investigator would scare him off. We were each holding the other's "fact we didn't want exposed."
He wanted to keep his convenient identity as a police officer, and I wanted to protect Eto.
As long as he lived, I'd be a threat to him. And as long as I lived, he'd be a threat to me.
The danger wouldn't disappear until one of us died.
No one in this world can sleep peacefully with a landmine beside their pillow.
He would never give up on killing me.
And I couldn't die like this either.
So I ran through the streets, searching for the last possible escape route I could still pin my hopes on.
"Mister Kuzen...!!"
Kuzen, Eto's biological father.
The man with power far beyond most Ghouls was my last possible way out.
But I had no way to contact Mister Kuzen.
I'd kept quiet about him to keep Eto and me away from Kuzen's "enemy," but now that decision felt like a mistake.
Up until now, the only times I'd met him were when he deliberately came to me or when we happened to cross paths by chance.
I was clinging to that vanishingly small probability, running through this endlessly vast city and its crushing population density, hoping to run into Mister Kuzen.
But even that was running out of time.
He'd probably realized by now that I wasn't running to ask the CCG for help.
The moment he understood that and moved to cut my throat, it would be over.
That was a dead end, plain and simple.
Once you're cornered, no matter what trick you come up with, it's still a dead end. There's no hope.
"Damn it!!!"
With my stamina nearly gone, I sprinted toward an alley where I planned to make one last desperate stand. No people, nothing but darkness—an ideal hunting ground for him.
I gave up on counting on Mister Kuzen. I'd have to force him to show himself and settle this.
My stamina was completely drained, and my lungs couldn't keep up with a body screaming for oxygen, so I collapsed against the wall.
"Cough... spit"
A metallic taste gathered in my mouth with the cough.
Turning my head, I spat out a sticky clot of blood that hit the ground.
"Hah... hah..."
I leaned against the wall and tried to catch my breath.
The surroundings were... quiet. I still couldn't feel him closing in. If he never came, that would be fine too...
My leg wobbled.
"Ghk..."
I'd only relaxed a little, and already the strength in my legs was slipping away.
You idiot, get a grip. If you let your guard down here, there's no coming back from it.
Footsteps.
"...!"
One small sound made my whole body tense up.
Someone was coming. Was it him?
I bit my dry, cracking lip. Searching for anything I could use as a weapon, I picked up a shard of glass small enough to hold in one hand.
Even knowing it wouldn't help as a weapon at all, even knowing it would only worsen the cuts in my palm, I had no choice but to grip it hard.
If I didn't, I felt like I'd go insane from the fear that even medicine couldn't suppress.
I planned to try talking to him as a final desperate move, but the chances of failure were high. No, failure was inevitable.
There was no way a lion would listen to a mouse with nowhere left to run.
And if that happened, then at the very least... I'd have to shove this shard into his eye and make my feelings clear in the most direct way possible.
Though I wasn't even sure my body had enough strength left for that.
"Eto..."
At the edge of death, the only thing on my mind was worry for Eto.
I'd felt the same when I nearly died at my father's hands, but wow, I really had become a hopeless daughter-doting fool.
If I died, that kid would cry.
And I hated my own helplessness for not being able to run to her side and wipe those tears away.
Footsteps. Footsteps. Then a sharp kick off the ground.
It sounded like the approaching presence had confirmed I was trapped and was now moving in.
So no conversation, then? Fine. All that was left was the struggle of the powerless.
Come on, then. In the Ghoul world, there's that urban legend about a one-eyed Ghoul someday appearing to save them all, right? Even if I die here, I'll personally gouge out your eye and make you look just like the Ghoul from the legend...!
With that thought, I lunged at the Ghoul charging into the alley.
In the dim space untouched by the city lights, a Ghoul's crimson [Kakugan] glowed.
I thrust the shard of glass toward that one and only [Kakugan]... and stopped halfway through.
...Only one [Kakugan]?
"Dad!!"
"E-Eto!?"
The Ghoul who had rushed into the alley was my adorable daughter, Eto, with a [Kakugan] in only her right eye.
Whether she'd fallen while running or what, her whole body was covered in dirt, and the moment she saw me, the tears she'd been holding back spilled over and soaked her cheeks.
"Dad! Dadddyyy!!!"
Wham!
Without slowing down at all, Eto threw herself into my arms in a terrifying full-body tackle.
If it had been just a normal child's charge, I could have caught her easily, but this was a Ghoul's physical strength, and I was already battered all over and screaming in pain. For one instant, I thought I saw the River Styx.
Huh? Father? Your face has gotten awfully plump since I last saw you... Focus, me! I'm not dead yet!!
Shaking off the hallucination born from pain, I did my best to comfort Eto as she cried her heart out in my arms.
"E-Eto. Don't cry! Good kids aren't supposed to cry, remember? There, there, stop crying!"
Eto's emotional outburst was mostly my fault. The house was already in that state, and then I disappeared too—how worried must she have been? And now, with her able to guess exactly where I'd been, my absence must have hit even harder.
Just thinking about Eto wandering the city in fear, searching for me, made my chest ache.
Part of me wanted to let her cry until she calmed down. But not now! Because right now...
"...!!"
The bandage wrapped around my right arm throbbed with a warning.
That Ghoul-specific gaze, the one that looked at me like prey. It wasn't Eto. Ever since that day, Eto had never once looked at me like that.
Then there was only one bastard left! I hugged Eto tight and threw myself hard to the side.
The next instant, a dark red meteor crashed into the spot where I'd been standing, carving the impact into the ground.
KRAAANG!!!
"Ghh...!!"
"Dad?!"
Because I'd moved in a hurry, my arm and back were scraped raw against the ground littered with glass shards, bits of metal, and other trash.
Turning my body to shield the startled Eto, I looked toward the direction of the explosion from a moment ago.
"Dad, huh? I thought it was bad enough when I learned you were raising a Ghoul, but seeing it with my own eyes is even more ridiculous."
"Say one more word about Eto, and I'll kill you."
From within the thick cloud of dust, I spat out cold fury at the police Ghoul sneering at me with contempt.