My body moved.
It was hard to tell whether that was after the sound of glass shattering rang out with a sharp crash, or whether I had moved before that.
What was certain was that if I hadn't moved, my head would have been taken clean off.
A dark red, metallic tentacle sprouted from the Ghoul's back and brushed against the back of my hand.
He drove it straight forward like an old spear from a battlefield, piercing through the window and surging into the space where I stood.
Crash!!!
The space above my waist was neatly sliced away.
As my body rolled across the floor, the phone on the shelf, a flowerpot, and other assorted junk were smashed to pieces and rained down on me.
In that instant, rage flared up.
Not because my life was being threatened. Not because I was upset over broken objects.
He was smashing the notebook with the address of the amusement park I'd planned to visit with Eto next week, the flowerpot I'd watered every day while looking forward to seeing it bloom. One by one, he was destroying things packed with precious memories.
That damned Ghoul was trampling the only place in this world where Eto could feel safe, with his filthy feet.
Maybe it was the medicine, but even knowing it was useless, the fierce anger I felt toward him decided my next move.
"I'm going to beat the hell out of you!!!"
I grabbed whatever was within reach. Feeling that it had some weight, I swung it with both hands.
My head, already muddled by the heat, only realized after the swing that what I'd been wielding was a guitar case.
Crack!!!
And then the guitar case, absurdly enough, burst into wooden splinters and scattered apart.
Beyond the spray of fragments, a black shadow came at me like a beast after prey. It was his right foot.
Thud!!!
"Ghk...!!!"
My breath fled my lungs all at once, as if it couldn't endure any longer. Both feet left the floor.
Weightlessness. One, two... how many seconds had passed? Could I even trust my internal clock right now?
It felt like I'd been floating in the air for ten seconds, but if I'd really been hit hard enough to fly that far, I'd already be dead.
But I wasn't dead. My side, struck by the kick, burned as if it had been seared with a branding iron. I think a few ribs were broken.
"Grrrgh...!!"
Clenching my teeth, I forced my body up from where it had been sprawled on the floor.
Endorphins raced through my brain, dulling the pain, and adrenaline gave me just enough room to keep moving despite the injury.
After charging in without thinking and getting a painful lesson... no, a lesson with actual broken bones, I cursed my own stupidity.
You idiot. Don't lose your head. Even if you fight with your brain, your odds are slim against this guy, so don't go charging in with brute force.
After barely getting back on my feet, I pressed a hand to my injured side and put some distance between us.
The gap between us was about six or seven steps, with a table holding a laptop in between.
"...How did you find this place?"
Suppressing my ragged breathing as best I could, I asked him in a low voice. This wasn't the time for idle chatter, but I needed even a little more time to think.
Fortunately, perhaps because he was relaxed after cornering me, he answered.
"Did you forget that Ghouls have a keen sense of smell? I followed the blood you spilled through the alley. Then I saw a taxi that still had your scent on it just pulling away. I remembered the license plate and kept tracking it. After I caught the taxi driver, he told me he'd dropped you off at this villa, so I came here. Well, I figured you might be up to something, so I cut every phone line in the villa, but the timing turned out to be perfect."
"Damn it...."
I'd thought taking a taxi would throw off any pursuit by scent, but once the taxi had been spotted, that plan had already become useless.
While I swallowed my curse, he looked over the splintered remains of the guitar case and smiled in a way that meant nothing good. The sight irritated me even more, and I frowned as I spoke.
"What?"
"No... When we first met, I had my suspicions, but I guess it wasn't just my imagination after all."
He tucked away his metallic [Kagune], then used his now-empty arm to pick up one of the fragments and bring it to his nose, closing his eyes as if savoring it.
"This guitar case smells like a corpse... You must have used all kinds of tricks to get rid of the odor, but it doesn't disappear that easily. What a lovely scent."
"...."
"So that's why you ran back then, right? 'There was a corpse inside the guitar case.' Even if you weren't a Ghoul, you must have had some reason to avoid running into the police. What could that reason be...?"
Thud!
I kicked the table up with the tip of my foot and charged at him.
This wasn't the time to think leisurely. I had to stop him from thinking. Before he reached that conclusion!
The table and the precious laptop flew through the air, only to be casually smashed apart by a flick of his hand.
The moment he swung his arm, I seized the outstretched limb without missing it.
Even if he was a Ghoul, his body weight wasn't all that different from a human's. I tried to yank his arm and throw him over my shoulder.
Boom!
But the body that had been rising smoothly to the halfway point stopped there.
His [Kagune], sprouting from his shoulder blades, had driven into the ceiling and pinned his body in place.
"Cheap trick."
"...!!"
The hand that had been gripping his arm was seized in return.
Drawn by the Ghoul's strength as he braced his feet against the ceiling like a handstand, my body was flung through the air again.
Crash!!!
My body flew into the kitchen.
The frying pan hanging on the wall fell, and plates shattered.
The hose on the sink jerked upward, and the valve at my fingertips turned, sending water spraying onto the bare floor instead of into the sink.
Tap.
He pulled his [Kagune] free from the ceiling and landed lightly on the floor.
Grinding my teeth until they bled, I got up. In one hand, I grabbed the frying pan that had fallen to the floor and swung it at the back of his exposed head.
Twitch.
The instant I saw his [Kagune] writhing, survival instinct surged up stronger than excitement.
I abandoned the attack and ducked my upper body. The [Kagune], sweeping horizontally in a wide arc, sliced through the space where my neck had been.
And a beat later, the Ghoul, now turned away from me, seized my lowered face with a brutal hand.
Boom!!
"Kraaaah!!!"
My head was slammed into the wall.
Apparently he had held back the force of the blow, because my skull didn't shatter and spray brain matter across the wall in some grotesque abstract painting.
But the gauze covering my wound came loose, the cut on my forehead split wide open, and the blood seeping out stained the wall.
The concussion left me unable to move my body.
He flung me away like a stuffed doll, tossing me onto the wreckage of the broken laptop and table.
"Is this some kind of occupational habit? You're reacting so violently that I'm curious what you're hiding. You forged an identity and other test records to become a police officer, but you were still proud enough to do the job? Though I suppose eating the occasional person who came up to you thinking you were a cop was a nice little bonus."
"Ghh...."
Unable to do anything but groan as I crawled along the floor, he apparently decided I was less than a bug and turned his gaze elsewhere.
He spotted the refrigerator and walked toward it. I tried desperately to get up, but the only thing rising was the dizziness and nausea.
He stepped over my body, strode to the refrigerator, and flung it open. Then he pulled everything out and dumped it onto the floor.
And then he found it.
The slab of meat hidden in the deepest part of the refrigerator.
He peeled off the plastic wrap, picked up a piece of meat, sniffed it, and swallowed it in one gulp.
"Heh heh... No doubt about it. Human flesh."
I could hear his vile laughter.
Still lying face-down, I reached out my hand. Just a little... a little more....
"Human flesh in the refrigerator... I've heard of humans with a taste for eating human flesh. I suppose I could think it was your own food... but my instincts point to something else."
I'd reached it. With this now....
While I held my breath, I heard him rummaging through the kitchen. And then I heard the sound I least wanted to hear.
I flicked my gaze sideways to check him. What he was holding in his hand was unmistakably Eto's.
"A child's spoon and chopsticks... Ah, I see. So that's what this is. Hahahahahaha!!! This is a masterpiece!!"
Apparently he'd sniffed them too, because he was now certain that the owner of these utensils was a Ghoul.
He threw his head back as if he'd just witnessed the funniest farce in the world, then looked back at me.
"Raising a Ghoul! What the hell kind of screwed-up mind do you have!?"
"...."
Gnash....
Still lying face-down, I ground my teeth hard enough to make a sound.
He had reached the conclusion after all. He'd found out about the existence of Eto, the one thing I least wanted exposed right now.
He strode toward me again. Whether it had come off in the car crash or not, his dirt-stained bare foot was right in front of my face.
He bent down toward me and let out a sneer.
"What a bizarre hobby. Are you the type who gets excited by seeing something that isn't human? Did you get your kicks from subjugating and raising a being superior to humans? Hey, come on, tell me."
Grip....
The tendons in the hand gripping the frying pan stood out thickly.
It was torture listening to him insult Eto along with me. But not yet. Not now. Wait for the right moment.
Biting my lip, I endured the insults raining down from above my head. Then I noticed the tap water that had started in the kitchen pooling on the floor and reaching his feet.
"...Want me to tell you?"
"Ha! About what? How your Ghoul pet was the shame of all Ghouls?"
"No...."
Planting a hand on the floor, I pushed myself up and raised my head.
When I looked up, the face reflected in his eyes was twisted with rage so badly that even I barely recognized it.
"How dangerous it is to insult a man's daughter right in front of her doting father."
And then, right after that,
Crackle crackle crackle!!!
"...?!!!"
Sparks flew from the Ghoul, and his body stiffened for an instant.
He must have been bewildered by the current suddenly surging through his body.
The answer to that question was easy to find if he only shifted his gaze a little.
The wire I had used to unlock the handcuffs.
It had been shoved into the hole of an electrical outlet and was touching the ground.
And the end of that wire was touching the tap water that had spread from the kitchen.
And standing in that water was the damned Ghoul who had just been insulting me and my daughter.
But I didn't tell him that.
As the sudden shock left his body unable to move properly, I murmured in a low voice.
"Bite down, asshole."
Shaking off the aftereffects of the concussion, I gripped the frying pan with both hands and swung it with all my strength at his face.
Boom!!!!!
A bright, satisfying sound rang out, cutting straight through the pressure in my chest.