My brain is hot.
It felt as if fire were running through my veins instead of blood.
What did this bastard just say?
Kill? Kill who?
My father?
This bastard killed my father?
I knew I needed to stay calm. There was always the possibility that this bastard was lying.
But the emotion boiling up from the depths of my chest said otherwise.
I don't care. Truth or lie, this bastard said something he should never have said. Right in front of me.
My throat tightened. I wanted to sink my teeth into those disgusting eyes in front of me.
But no matter how hard I strained, my head wouldn't budge.
Because this bastard—the one who called himself the boss or whatever—was holding my head firmly in both hands.
That was enough.
Bang!
Like a shrimp flicking its body, I drove myself up from my toes.
My whole body was bound, but I wasn't fixed to the iron bed. Using that and the fact that my head was pinned in place, I slammed my knee into his face.
Crack!!
"!"
Even if I drove my knee into a Ghoul's body hard enough to break it, it shouldn't have done much damage.
Still, he must have been startled, because those disgusting eyes vanished from my field of view.
"Oh my! How surprising. To think you'd attack in a situation like this. Is this what they call like father, like son?"
The owner of those eyes drifted into the shadow where the lamp light didn't reach and let out an admiring sigh.
Rubbing my knee, which throbbed like I'd slammed it against steel plate, I glared at the silhouette hiding in the dark. I could feel a mocking gaze reaching me from within the shadows.
"Takaki Harima. I've killed many Ghoul Investigators, but your father was especially memorable. Like a wounded beast, perhaps. No matter how hard I pressed him, his eyes never died. Just like you now. In the end, he met his end from excessive blood loss, though."
"Shut up...."
"I wanted those eyes so badly I could have preserved them as a work of art. But if I'd left them there, the other investigators would have swarmed in and taken me down, so I had no choice. I truly regret what happened back then. I should at least have taken the eyeballs."
"I said shut up!!"
I could guess why this bastard kept talking about my father. He was just enjoying himself.
He was savoring my rage, pure and simple.
At that nauseating behavior, I barely managed to keep my composure.
Because losing my head here was exactly what that bastard wanted most.
"...You. What are you?"
I forced down my anger and asked him.
Perhaps because I'd hidden my rage faster than he expected, I could sense a faint note of disappointment from the shadows.
"Didn't you just hear me? I'm the boss here. I used to work alone, but one day I realized something. More works were needed to make this world more beautiful. But if you focus only on mass production, the quality of the work drops. That's what art is. So I gathered a few people like me. I leave the low-quality but fast-to-make pieces to the others, and I put my own heart and soul into creating works of the highest quality. That's this company."
"Making works." From that alone, I could infer that this insane company's policy of dismembering people and decorating them was all coming from that bastard.
Suddenly, I remembered a conversation I'd had with Hitokawa before.
A Ghoul who wasn't part of any organization, but did the exact same things this company did.
Could it be that this bastard....
"...You're the Artist?"
"Oho! You know my alias? As expected of a Ghoul Investigator's son. The CCG's methods are truly irritating, but they did give me a nickname that suits me very well."
He seemed to like being called an "artist."
He really believed that killing people, decorating them, and then hanging them out on the street like advertisements for his work was art. There was even conviction in that madness.
Everyone I'd met in this building today was insane in one way or another, but among them, this bastard stood out as the biggest lunatic.
The Ghoul who killed my father, the boss of this insane company, and the Artist.
He didn't seem to want to show himself, as if he were trying to maintain some mysterious persona from the shadows.
All I could tell from the silhouette and his voice was that he was a tall man.
He dragged over a chair and sat down, then continued.
"Takaki Koma.... In fact, I've been watching you for far longer than you think."
"...!"
At his words, I quietly swallowed.
He'd been watching me for far longer? What was the meaning of that? Did he mean he'd wanted to dismember me and turn me into something from the start?
The silhouette in the shadows pressed the tips of five fingers together as if giving a speech and went on.
"What is the most beautiful thing about humans? Appearance? Body? Hair? Voice? Heart? No. None of those! The most beautiful thing in humans is emotion. Pure, intense emotion is humanity's true beauty. So when does that emotion shine brightest?"
Maybe it was my imagination, but I felt like the corners of his mouth lifted at that moment.
"When they bear a grudge. Not love, not friendship. It is when they purely resent, hate, rage, and harbor murderous intent that human emotion is expressed most vividly. That sight is so alluring it gives me chills!"
I was getting chills too.
From the sight of this bastard saying such things in a voice trembling with excitement.
"To be honest, I had high hopes. I thought you'd be angry over your father's death and come chasing my trail for revenge. I expected that same wildness in you, the son of that man. The result? A huge disappointment. You didn't do a thing for four years."
Glad to disappoint you.
It had been worth suppressing the hatred boiling inside me, if only for Eto's sake.
"As a final test, I sent you a Ghoul-countermeasure pistol in your father's name. To remind you of your father's death and place a weapon in your hands that could let you take revenge."
"...You were the one who sent that Q Bullet?"
"To be exact, I was the errand boy~!"
Minami, who had been standing a step back from our conversation, suddenly raised her hand and cut in.
It didn't feel like she was trying to lighten the mood so much as just butting in because she was bored.
"You have no idea how hard that was~. Just breaking into the police station vault to steal the Q Bullet was a journey you couldn't hear without tears. Want to hear about it?"
"I don't want to hear even a speck of it, so stay out of the way."
"...Tch."
Minami puffed out her cheeks as if sulking and stepped back again.
After brushing her aside, I glared once more at the boss hiding in the shadows.
"What a shame. I didn't move the way you wanted. I handed that gun over to the CCG the moment I got it. It's a citizen's duty to report an unregistered weapon."
"Indeed, because of that I had intended to give up on you. I decided you were just a petty civilian who wouldn't even dare to seek revenge. But fate is a strange thing. You, whom I had meant to abandon, ended up catching Minami's eye and appearing before me like this. And I learned something new that can only be seen in person."
A hand slowly reached out from the shadows. It was a grotesque hand, with untrimmed nails and finger joints bent like dead wood.
The tip of that hand pointed at me.
"When I look at you, I feel so many emotions. Hatred directed at me, barely restrained but definitely there; patience, so you won't be swept away by that hatred; fear, born from recognizing the overwhelmingly unfavorable situation; and yet courage, resisting it all the same. Truly, it's been a long time since I've seen emotions this dazzlingly clear and distinct. It's like looking at a small jewel. I want to cut and polish it with my own hands and create a masterpiece that will never be forgotten by the world....!"
Drip. Drip.
Wet liquid fell at his feet and formed a small puddle.
This bastard was drooling while looking at me, wasn't he?
The strongest gaze yet slammed into me.
The intent was unmistakable: he wanted to scan my insides like an X-ray, check even my marrow, and remake me into something new. Nausea surged up my throat.
What an appalling place. Hell itself would be more peaceful than this.
What saved me from that gaze, which felt like it might knock me unconscious, was unbelievably Minami.
"No, Boss!"
She spread her arms wide and blocked the gaze pouring toward me with her whole body.
At the sudden help, I looked at her with a silent why?
"I'm the one who's supposed to use Koma-kun as material this time!"
"...."
Of course you are, you damn bitch.
In other words, she was saying his body was hers to use, so don't take it away.
The boss said in a troubled voice, "Can't you do something about that? I really want this one."
"No. That was decided in the meeting. Besides, Boss, you already have another subject picked out."
"I do have one picked out, yes. It'd be a waste to let the theme of a child avenging a lost parent just sit there. So the daughter of the woman I hunted recently is about ready to move. Even if she's only seven, she's got remarkable drive. Hmm, should I settle for that child?"
The boss fell into thought, and I wanted to scratch my ears, but I was bound and couldn't.
What the hell did this bastard just say?
Seven years old? She's the same age as Eto. He gave that kind of kid a gun and made her come for revenge?
"What a bastard, that one."
"Ah, our boss is kind of a bastard, yeah."
"And you think you're not?"
I was sneering at Minami, who didn't seem to realize she was exactly the same kind of person, when a phone ringtone came from the boss's side as he continued thinking.
Ringringring! Click!
"What is it? ...What?"
Whose call was it, and what was said?
In an instant, the boss's gaze in the shadows changed.
Throb. Throb.
The scar on my right arm, which had been quiet for a while, started aching again.
Until now, his gaze had been disgusting, but it had never once made the scar on my right arm react. Of course it hadn't. Until now, he had been acting as an artist.
But if my arm was throbbing, that meant his gaze had returned to that of a Ghoul.
The purpose was probably to fight.
"Looks like there's an intruder. I'll send the deputy and be on my way."
Leaving only those words behind, he opened the door and walked out.
Minami tilted her head, wondering what kind of big deal an intruder was, while I, having guessed who it was, clenched my teeth.
The scar on my right arm throbbed.
"Now then...."
Beep.
After ending the call with the boss, the section chief looked straight ahead.
The entrance of the abandoned building stood wide open. Someone was there, backlit by the faint light of dawn.
The section chief's eyes, which usually had the warm look of a kindly old man from a fried chicken shop, opened wide and flashed with a sharp light. That sharp gaze swept over the uninvited guest's feet.
"What business do you have with a 'gift' like that, Owl Mask?"
What stood before him was a small Ghoul with its whole body covered by a blanket. The loose blanket and the owl-character mask made it look almost like a human-sized owl standing there.
At the owl's feet lay two objects. The section chief knew exactly what they were.
Because they were coworkers from the same company.
The severed heads of the section chief and the chief were placed side by side at the owl's feet. The section chief stared at them with a flat expression.
They were only fit to play pretend in a company; there was no real affection between them.
Even so, that didn't mean he felt nothing about someone cutting off two coworkers' heads and bringing them here as if to show them off.
This was a clear violation of territory. A challenge directed at them.
"What do you want? If you've come to claim territory, then just know that everyone who tried that before you has already been buried in the ground and go home."
"...."
Though he issued the eviction notice, the Owl Mask didn't retreat. Instead, it stepped forward.
Whoosh!!
Red light burst from its right shoulder like flames, or like a bird's wings.
"I heard your answer. Die."
The section chief also revealed his Kagune and charged at the Owl Mask.