Shinaoto Minami.
She was peering curiously at the staircase leading to the second floor.
At first, it had been Takaki Koma—the man she'd gotten drunk with yesterday.
While they were talking about how he couldn't remember anything from last night, he suddenly went pale and ran up the stairs.
Then Eto, Koma's daughter—she looked young, so it was amazing to hear she was his daughter!—seemed to realize something, turned deathly pale, and ran after him.
In the end, Minami was left behind alone, completely shut out and none the wiser.
What was going on?
When they'd talked about last night, both of them had been calm.
Even after she said they'd been attacked by a Ghoul, they'd barely reacted. As if being attacked by a Ghoul was already old news to them.
Was there something even more chilling than almost dying at a Ghoul's hands?
That curiosity led Minami toward the stairs where the two had disappeared.
She took a step as if to sneak up, but Eto returned sooner than expected and blocked her path.
With her head bowed low, the girl gave off an atmosphere that was impossible to describe in words.
Minami tilted her head and asked Eto, who was coming down the stairs, "What's wrong?"
"...It's a family matter. Please don't interfere."
Eto's voice was drained of energy, yet edged with something invisible and sharp.
It was like watching a small animal bristle under threat of survival.
And Minami, smiling like a mischievous cat enjoying the reaction of a tiny animal, followed Eto into the living room.
"So something is going on after all~?"
"I said it's a family matter. And aren't you going home?"
"I'm curious about what happened. Can't you tell me just a little?"
At that, Eto seemed to reach her limit and shot Minami a glare like a spark.
Minami flinched a little at that gaze—something fundamentally different from what you'd expect from a child—then raised both hands.
"Okay, okay~. Looks like you don't want me here, so I'll head out~. I should get to work soon anyway,"
At the mention of work, Minami let out a gloomy sigh that was the very picture of a modern adult and gathered her things.
Then, just before leaving the entryway, she looked back at Eto and smiled faintly.
"But still, try to understand me~. No matter what, I can't help being curious~."
Just before closing the front door, Minami poked out one side of her face like a child playing a prank and said that.
Then her eyes changed in an instant, as if they belonged to someone else.
"Right now, your face... looks like someone about to commit murder, you know?"
"...!!"
"Heh-heh-heh♪"
Like a witch watching the wandering of a fairy-tale protagonist, Minami vanished, leaving behind only a laugh whose meaning could not be understood.
The front door closed with a quiet sound.
In the unpleasant silence that settled over the room, Eto touched her own face.
Was that just Minami teasing her?
Or...
"...You expect me to believe that?"
"It's all true."
"..."
Hitokawa covered his face with both hands, as if he didn't know what to say—or even what expression to make.
A silent, deep sigh.
That alone told me roughly how much confusion he was suffering through.
I told him everything.
My relationship with Mister Kuzen. Everything from how he saved me to how Eto came to be entrusted to me, and everything that happened while I raised Eto up to this point.
He frowned a little when he heard that I'd sourced food from the bodies of suicides, but thankfully he didn't bring it up.
I left out any subjective opinions. Adding those would only make Hitokawa resist harder.
At least within a range he could accept objectively, I made it clear that Eto was different from other Ghouls.
He said he didn't know she was a Ghoul, but if anyone had watched Eto all this time, he should understand.
Please, let this be enough to change his mind...
"...Yeah. I can see that Eto doesn't have any reason she absolutely has to be killed."
"Hitokawa..."
Good. Maybe this would work out after all.
Before I could even fully relax, Hitokawa's next words came flying in like frost.
"Instead, Eto will be imprisoned in Cochlea."
"...!!!"
Cochlea. The name of the Ghoul detention facility in the 23rd Ward.
An impregnable fortress built from the most advanced technology, and a purgatory for Ghouls. Once a Ghoul was locked away there, they would never see the light of day again.
He was going to lock Eto in a place like that? Heat surged from my heart all the way to the top of my head.
"Hitokawa!!"
"Just because there's no reason to kill her doesn't mean she isn't dangerous!!"
Hitokawa shouted back and grabbed my arm.
What he shoved in my face was the scar on his right arm.
A scar that looked as if a child had bitten into it and torn it open.
Seeing that, I lost my voice for a moment, and Hitokawa spoke calmly.
"Eto did that, didn't she?"
"...It was a child's mistake. She's never done anything like that since."
I had deliberately buried in my memory the time in the past when Eto had been pushed to the brink of losing her reason.
If he found out about that now, things would only get worse.
"A child's mistake? The moment she lost control even once, that said enough. Whether that kid is good or evil, if she has the 'Ghoul instinct,' then she needs systematic surveillance. That's the path for Eto."
"...The path for Eto?"
Thud!
I grabbed the arm that was holding mine and tore it away.
"Don't make me laugh. Did you forget I'm the child of a Ghoul Investigator? I know the ugly rumors about Cochlea too! You're not going to tell me you don't know them, either, are you, an active Ghoul Investigator!?"
Cochlea wasn't just a facility for imprisoning Ghouls.
On the surface, they claimed to guarantee Ghoul human rights, but behind the scenes, human experimentation on Ghouls was being carried out in order to research more effective ways to kill them.
And Ghouls who became useless—or whose bodies were reduced to corpses—were turned into minced meat by a press machine deep underground and buried in some place no one knew about.
Hitokawa's brows twitched, as if he'd heard something about it too. But he quickly steeled himself and said, "Those are just rumors!!"
"Even if they're only rumors, that doesn't change the fact that it's hell for Ghouls! Are you really going to send Eto there? You know how kind that kid is!! We've been together this whole time!! And you'd really lock Eto up in Cochlea just because she's a Ghoul!?"
"Yes!! If we don't do even that, Ghouls and humans can't coexist!!"
Snap.
The moment I heard that, the thread of reason barely holding in my head broke.
When I came to my senses, I was already swinging my head hard and slamming a headbutt into Hitokawa's face.
Smack!!
"Ghk!!"
Blood burst from his nose as Hitokawa groaned and forcibly stopped his head from snapping back, yanking it forward again.
He'd reached his limit too, and with a face twisted in anger, he drove a fist into my stomach.
Thud!!
"Guhk!!"
The air burst out of me, and my waist folded on its own.
But I didn't collapse. I lunged forward, grabbed Hitokawa around the waist, and took him down with me.
Hitokawa was definitely strong—he trained every day to fight Ghouls—but I wasn't the same as I'd been before. After fighting that police Ghoul, I'd realized how weak I was, and I hadn't devoted myself only to childcare after that.
Crash! Bang!
We rolled across the floor, trading punches wildly.
Blood splattered everywhere, and the room fell into chaos.
Smack!!
Only after we were separated by a kick—whoever threw it, I couldn't tell—did the fight finally begin to settle.
Maybe because our training time had been different, my body, after taking so many hits, had nowhere left that wasn't hurting. But Hitokawa had apparently taken more damage than expected too, because he grimaced and spat blood into his mouth.
Hahh...!! Hahh...!!
We both sat on the floor, glaring at each other.
In the end, Hitokawa was the first to get up.
"You and I both got too worked up... We can't talk like this. I'll come back tomorrow, so let's talk then. Until then, this matter is on hold."
Still not fully recovered, he walked to the door while I remained unable to stand.
With his hand on the knob, he said to me, "Don't even think about running. If I sense you trying to flee with Eto, I'll report it to the CCG immediately and get people moving."
"..."
I said nothing.
Hitokawa took that as his answer, opened the door, and—
"Ah..."
He met Eto's frightened face standing right outside.
He'd told her to wait downstairs, but it seemed she'd come back up after hearing the sounds of the fight.
"..."
Hitokawa... passed Eto by without saying a word.
The sound of his footsteps as he calmly descended the stairs and left the house told me what he was thinking: no matter what expression this child made, it was meaningless now.