Thud.
The sound of a heavy, waterlogged mass hitting the ground.
It was the Ghoul's body, split cleanly in two, that had been fighting Hitokawa just moments ago.
Thwack!!
Hitokawa strode straight up to the upper half and drove his Quinque into its neck without hesitation.
It wasn't an act of desecration. He knew all too well how stubborn these things were; this was just the investigator's manual, carried out to make sure it stayed dead.
"Keh! Grrrgh...!!"
As expected, the thing was still alive and convulsed like a fish hauled out of water, but the struggle didn't last long.
Its death throes were swallowed by the frothing blood spilling from its mouth, and the only thing left to replace its final scream was the sound of its nails scraping at the blade lodged in its throat, as if it were clawing at life itself.
At last, the hand that had been scraping at the blade went limp and dropped to the ground.
Even with no strength left to move, the Ghoul's [Kakugan] glared at Hitokawa in a final, desperate blaze of red.
What filled that gaze was resentment, hatred, and curse-laced malice.
Just looking at it made Hitokawa's stomach turn.
"Yeah. That's exactly how I felt the first time I put a Ghoul down."
For a man who had never killed anyone in his life, killing a Ghoul that looked so much like a human was no easy thing.
It took more trial and error than he expected before he could drive a blade into the heart of something that looked human, spoke like a human, and acted like a human.
That was why Hitokawa had mentally classified Ghouls as monsters that needed to be exterminated. It was a defense mechanism to protect his own sanity.
And now, that defense mechanism was starting to tilt dangerously, like a tower built on sand.
Because of one child who was turning the Ghoul that should have been a monster back into something closer to human.
"Haa..."
He was still incompetent now, but the feeling was so close to his rookie days, when he had first started as an investigator, that Hitokawa covered his face with one hand.
Even when he had split the Ghoul in two in midair just now, he could have taken its head off from the start instead of going for the neck. He had hesitated for a split second, and that delay had cost him the timing.
A faint hesitation had crept into his hand.
Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, he couldn't say, but in a situation where lives were on the line, it was clearly a negative.
Hitokawa was about to glare at the girl who had caused all this with resentment, but he stopped himself.
Seeing Eto sitting there, collapsed from the shock of crossing a line because of her own rash judgment, even his anger drained away.
Learning the sensation of killing.
Unlike Hitokawa, that was something that counted as a plus in the current situation, but if he thought about what came after this incident, it was clearly out of bounds.
"...Wait, why the hell am I worrying about what happens after the case is over!?"
His cooperation with Eto was only until Koma was rescued.
He still had no intention of backing down on sending Eto to Cochlea.
"Get a grip! If I don't stay cold-hearted, the ones who end up miserable are that father and daughter in the end!"
Hitokawa slapped his own cheek and forced his wavering resolve back into place.
What he didn't notice, however, was this:
The man who insisted that humans and Ghouls could never coexist had already accepted Koma and Eto's relationship as that of a father and daughter.
**
The intoxication that had seemed ready to take over her brain only moments ago was slowly fading.
And in its place, disgust at what she had done came flooding in.
What did he mean, "your dad would definitely scold you"? In the end, she had only used him as an excuse to look away from her own actions.
The line had already been crossed. There was no going back.
As the self-loathing kept rising, another feeling began to take shape in opposition to it.
It was curiosity.
Curiosity about herself, about the fact that she had crossed the line of murder simply because it was necessary.
There was no doubt that Eto had been the one to think it through, and Eto had been the one to carry it out. And yet, why did she feel that this version of herself was somehow "strange"?
Something had been there. Eto's reason and will—some effect from them that she herself had failed to notice had happened once more. What was it?
She could let it slide, but she had the feeling she shouldn't.
The intoxication that had possessed Eto just now.
When had it started? When she killed the Ghoul? When she first cut off the arm of the Ghoul threatening the little girl? Or... far earlier than that?
A snake's voice, coaxing her to come this way.
If she followed that long body, what would be there? What would she see?
Crunch!!
The sound of flesh being torn apart echoed from the far side of memory.
I...
ate...
that...?
"Hey."
Gasp!
A voice pulled Eto up from the depths of her thoughts.
She jerked as if waking from a light sleep and lifted her head. Before she knew it, Hitokawa had come up beside her.
"You still need to rest?"
"...No. I'm fine now."
"Good. Then let's move. Staying here any longer won't do us any favors. And..."
Hitokawa glanced sideways toward one corner of the alley.
The girl Eto had just saved a moment ago. The girl who looked about Eto's age was still crouched there, eyes squeezed shut, even now that the Ghouls were dead.
She was trembling faintly, still frightened because she didn't understand what was happening.
Who exactly was that girl?
What was her relationship to the dead Ghouls, and why had she been carrying a [Q Bullet]?
There were plenty of things to ask. Maybe they could learn something unexpected from her.
"For now, we need to change locations."
Hitokawa folded the joints of his Quinque neatly, like folding paper, and tucked it into the steel case.
Eto, watching him, opened her mouth hesitantly.
"Mister Hitokawa. There's something I want to ask you..."
"Hm?"
"What happens if a Ghoul eats another Ghoul's flesh?"
Click.
Hitokawa closed the case and turned to look at Eto.
He had wondered what kind of question that was, but from the way Eto was staring at him with her mouth shut tight, it seemed like a very important one.
After a moment of thought, Hitokawa answered.
"Well... let's see. What I learned in investigator school was just that, for Ghouls, another Ghoul's flesh tastes absolutely awful, so it's hard to use as food."
"Is that all?"
"A higher-ranking investigator might know more, but... why are you asking something like that?"
"..."
After a brief silence, Eto turned her back and muttered, almost to herself.
"...I think I may have touched the forbidden fruit."
"???"
Hitokawa wore the expression of someone who had no idea what she was talking about, but Eto said nothing else and walked over to the girl.
**
My whole body felt wrong.
Setting aside the pain rising from the back of my head and my shoulder joints, I felt as if something had wrapped itself around my entire body and squeezed the life out of it.
Before I even managed to lift my eyelids, I already knew my situation was screwed.
"...I used to enjoy a game called Super Mario. There was this boss named Bowser, right? I used to complain about how that guy was obsessed with kidnapping a perfectly healthy princess in every installment. If you want love or whatever, what's the difference between that and violence when you force it on someone? So when I stomped him with Mario, I made sure to stomp him good."
As I talked, I slowly raised my eyelids.
Sure enough, I found my body bound up like an insect caught in a spiderweb, wrapped tight in compression bandages.
The surface against my back was cold enough to feel like ice. My body was laid out on a stainless-steel slab.
Unfortunately, I knew exactly what this slab was for. Watching too many medical crime dramas lately had been a mistake.
They used tables like this in those shows too, to drain the blood when dissecting corpses.
"But now I think my opinion of Bowser is changing. He does kidnap people, sure, but he doesn't do anything too terrible, does he? At the very least, he's not some lunatic who tears his victims to pieces and then tries to decorate them nicely afterward. If I could, I think I'd apologize to Bowser for every bad thing I ever thought about him."
"Ohhh~. So you've realized your mistake and are apologizing? Koma-kun, you're such a polite adult."
Minami's face appeared above my head, humming cheerfully.
There was a little bruising on her cheek and forehead, probably from the struggle she'd had with me. But Minami seemed unconcerned with her own injuries and looked down at me with a friendly expression.
Something gleamed in Minami's hand as she smiled and let it drop toward my face. It stopped about one or two centimeters away.
It was a skewer. Not the kind meant for barbecue.
"But before you apologize, there's something I want Koma-kun to answer first~."
Waving the skewer in front of my eyes, Minami's smile deepened.
"Should I gouge out your right eye first~? Or your left eye first~?"