In a Ghoul's life, unfairness always clings like a tag.
Born into a body that couldn't survive without eating humans, rejected by humans for it, nearly killed countless times, and still forced to claw his way through life.
Koma Enji was one of the many Ghouls living that kind of existence.
But this was the first time he had ever experienced this sort of unfairness.
KWA-GA-GA-GA-CRACK!
The moment he kicked off the ground, countless lines tangled and spread everywhere. The concrete floor, the walls, the pillars, the ceiling—there wasn't a single surface that didn't bear the trace of his feet.
Moving in that frantic blur, Enji hurled himself toward the ground with ferocious momentum.
What he was aiming for was the back of the neck of the enormous shadow standing tall on the surface above. In his eyes, it was the spot where the man's weakness was most exposed.
Power ran from his shoulders down through his arms and into his fingertips.
Koma Enji had been born with weak [Kakugan] abilities. Because of that, he had trained a combat style that used his [Kagune] as a support and maximized the strength of his body itself.
At this moment, his arm was a weapon that would not lose to any other [Kagune]. The instant he swung it toward the back of the man's neck, certainty of victory even rose in him.
Puhah!
And then, in the next instant, Enji's body was sent flying as if it were nothing.
He couldn't even tell what kind of attack it had been. By the time he came to his senses, his body was already spitting blood and rolling across the ground.
This was it. The first unfairness he had ever truly witnessed.
The man had simply stood there and done nothing. And yet that alone had overwhelmed Enji.
Every attack was heavy and sharp, impossibly fast and fluid.
Speed and weight, sharpness and blunt force, flexibility and toughness—contradictions that should never coexist, all existing together. It was strength so absurd it was unfair.
"Khh...!"
Enji groaned as he struggled to his feet. But both his arms hung uselessly, unable to move.
Blood ran from the wounds split open at the ends of both collarbones where they connected to his shoulders, as if they had been carved out.
The previous attack had likely severed the tendons leading all the way to his arms with perfect precision.
It would take quite some time for the wounds to heal. With his arms unusable, Enji had no choice left but to flee.
Grit.
Enji ground his teeth. Then, with his [Kakugan] blazing, he glared at the man before him.
"You still didn't kill me. You had plenty of chances to blow off my neck or my [kakuhou]. You've always been like this! You had a chance to kill me for sure, and you still didn't do it! What, are you some kind of pacifist? A Ghoul born to take lives? Don't make me laugh!!"
"..."
The man before him did not answer. He was always like this.
The man had begun appearing around the 20th Ward at some point.
For a Ghoul of unknown identity to move freely through their territory was an irritating matter for anyone at the center of a faction.
So Enji sent his subordinates after the man. To recruit him if he seemed useful, to drive him out if he wasn't. To eliminate him if they couldn't even communicate.
But the results his subordinates brought back were none of those things. They hadn't recruited him, driven him out, or killed him. They had simply returned in a wrecked state.
For Enji, it was unexpected. The subordinates he had sent were fairly capable, with records of surviving battles against Special-Class Investigators.
And yet they came back with injuries just severe enough to render them completely unable to fight. It was proof that the man had not only overwhelmed them, but had also shown mercy.
From then on, Enji's group had frequent clashes with the man. Each time, seeing his subordinates return alive, Enji realized the other side was no ordinary threat.
The neighboring group, the Black Doberman, had grown hostile enough that war seemed likely to break out soon. They couldn't go into war with an unstable factor like this mysterious man hanging over them.
So Enji had been preparing to mobilize his entire group and hunt the man down, but it seemed the man had caught the scent first and stormed Enji's hideout.
It was a complete ambush. His subordinates were helpless and got taken down in an instant.
Even then, the man kept to that strange principle of his and only broke arms and legs, never taking lives.
Enji felt humiliated by it, but he still gathered his group.
If things continued like this, only his innocent subordinates would keep getting hurt, so he ordered an evacuation and took on the task of holding the man back while they escaped.
The result? As you can see.
Enji, the Ghoul known among Ghoul Investigators as the demon ape [A-bu] and feared for his brutality, had been beaten without even putting up a proper fight.
But more than his own defeat, what Enji hated was the man's refusal to take a life to the very end.
Enji was a Ghoul who had clawed his way through life. Because he fought with everything he had, he spared no mercy in surviving or in killing others. The Ghouls under him were the same.
And this man? What was he? He had the strength to overwhelm anyone, and yet he refused to kill anyone to the end. Was he playing around? Was he intoxicated by his own power? Rage surged up so violently it made Enji sick.
At this point, survival no longer mattered.
He wouldn't be satisfied until he crashed into the man before him until his last breath. That was proof of the life he had lived.
As Enji, with both arms sealed off, sharpened his body as if turning the [Bikaku] he had used for support into an offensive weapon, the man finally spoke.
"Let's stop here. You shouldn't stay here any longer."
"Ha! So now you want to run with your tail between your legs? Not a chance. This fight won't end until I cut off your arms and legs and blow away that last neck of yours!"
"Can't you feel them? The ones approaching this place."
"...What?"
At those words, a chill like cold water being poured over his blazing head ran through him.
He could feel it. The vibrations of footsteps, the sound of breathing, and killing intent, all heavily suppressed but drawing closer to this place.
How could he not know? He had fought the owners of that presence his entire life.
Less than a minute after Enji noticed the presence, the windows and entrance were smashed apart and unfamiliar figures stormed into the hideout.
White coats that fell to the ankles. In their hands were [Quinque] shaped like guns.
A group of Ghoul Investigators.
They had charged into Enji's hideout with a vicious air, but when they saw the empty building with no one inside, each of them couldn't hide their stunned expressions.
"Damn it! The monkeys caught the scent and ran already!"
Marude Itsuki, who commanded the Ghoul Investigator team, angrily hurled off his protective helmet and said, "We worked so hard to control the information and uncover the hideout of that Ghoul group, the En, so we could wipe them out in one go, and somehow the leak got out. Those bastards were already gone."
"Well, there's nothing we can do about missing them. These things happen, don't they?"
"Shinohara, you stay out of this! I could let the small fry slip away, but we should've caught Maen at least! If we'd taken him, promotion would've been guaranteed! Where the hell did the information leak from!!"
According to his plan, the En group, unable to anticipate the CCG's raid, should have been exterminated here. But in his miserable position, Marude scratched his head irritably.
And from a building at a distance, two figures watched that scene.
It was Enji and the man, who had slipped out through the hideout's secret passage.
Though the hideout had been empty, Enji felt a chill run down his spine at the sight of the investigators who had seized it in an instant. They were the same people who had been caught off guard and beaten one-sidedly by the man's ambush. If it had been investigators instead of the man, the result would have been disastrous.
Enji kept his eyes on the investigators and spoke.
"So that was it? The reason you suddenly attacked?"
"I doubted they would believe me easily if I told those who are hostile to me that investigators were coming. We were short on time, so I had to use a rough method."
"Why help us when you knew we were hostile?"
For Enji, it was incomprehensible.
Hostile groups rarely offered help unless there was some benefit involved. And his own group had been firmly intent on eliminating the man.
And yet the man had moved to help Enji. He wanted to know why.
"A few days ago, I witnessed an impressive scene. A man ran out into the road to save a child who had dashed into traffic while playing ball. His movements were not human. He was a Ghoul."
"Hmph. What a Ghoul with far too much useless meddling."
"And that Ghoul is now beside me."
"..."
Enji turned his head away so the heat rising in his face wouldn't be noticed. Then he muttered an excuse.
"That was... well. If there's a cat carcass lying by the road, it just makes you feel gross for no reason. I only cleaned it up before it ruined my mood."
"Whatever reason you had doesn't matter. You saved that child, and I witnessed it. So I helped you."
"That's really the reason? Just because I saved some human brat?"
"Would it be more convincing if I said I was moved by it? I don't think any other reason is necessary."
The man continued.
Because of the darkness of the moonless night sky, his expression was hard to make out, but for some reason, it felt like he was smiling.
"Even a life that has no choice but to live by taking from others can still help someone, can it not?"
"..."
A life that has no choice but to live by taking from others... The man's voice strangely struck Enji's chest.
It was a phrase that referred to the man, to Enji, and even to his subordinates.
All Ghouls in this world are trapped within that frame.
Like birds living in a cage.
"...You're right. I do owe you for this. I owe you my subordinates' lives too, so I can't just keep quiet. Give me something I can do. I want to repay the debt."
"Hmm... I've only recently managed to settle into my circumstances, so I was thinking about what to do next. I was considering opening a café."
"A café? With strength like yours, you could easily build a Ghoul organization that would make the CCG tremble. You're a strange one, aren't you? Well, should I become an employee or something? I've barely ever brewed coffee before."
"I'd appreciate that, but before that... yes. I'd like you to help my friend and his family."
"A friend? Who's that? No, wait, that's not even the point anymore, but what's your name? I can't keep calling someone I owe 'you' or 'sir' forever."
At that question, the man turned to look at Enji.
Looking at him up close, Enji thought his face was lined with a gentle set of wrinkles that didn't suit such incredible skill.
"Kuzen. Yoshimura Kuzen, I am called."
**
So I'd come to meet Mr. Yoshimura's friend, which was fine... but...
Coming here at Kuzen's request to find Takaki Koma was one thing, but I had no idea how I was supposed to help him.
No, more importantly, the identity of Kuzen's friend was the real twist.
Enji, who had been sitting at the table with his arms crossed, slowly shifted his gaze. Toward the kitchen.
From there came the clatter of dishes and the sound of two people talking.
"I know Ghouls can drink coffee, but... should I make instant coffee, or brew beans?"
"Instant should be fine, right? Dad drinks it all the time."
"But Mr. Kuzen is a guest. Instant feels a little cheap, so I should brew some beans for once."
"...That's human, right?"
Enji still couldn't hide his stunned expression.
He had come expecting a monstrous Ghoul, if not quite on Kuzen's level, since this was supposedly Kuzen's friend. But what he found was a human, no matter how he looked at it.
A Ghoul couldn't possibly give off such a deliciously human scent.
"Should I use the teacups... the ones Hitokawa used when he came over?"
"Dad. There are spares stored up in the ceiling, remember?"
And the girl who followed him around calling him Dad was just as strange.
The scent of Ghoul and human was mixed together in a bizarre way.
If he called her a Ghoul, she looked like a Ghoul who had just tasted human flesh. If he called her human, she smelled like a human who had just brushed shoulders with a Ghoul on the street.
But the presence Eto had shown when she guarded the front door against Enji was unmistakably that of a Ghoul. Then there was a problem.
A Ghoul who called a human Dad and followed him around? What the hell was this?
At the very least, something that should never have happened by Enji's common sense was unfolding right before his eyes.
He was deeply confused, but Enji soon forced himself to settle down.
Right, this was Kuzen we were talking about. Of course his personal connections would be anything but ordinary.
Having witnessed Kuzen's strength and character, Enji chose to believe that through the respect that had already taken root in him.
Ding-dong~!
Then the doorbell rang. From the kitchen, Koma's voice called out.
"Ah, sorry! Was it Enji? I'm taking something out of the cupboard right now, so I can't move. Could you go answer it for me?"
But no matter how he looked at it, wasn't that a little too careless?
He'd come here on Mr. Kuzen's request, but he was still a Ghoul, wasn't he?
Was it normal to send a guest to the door before even knowing what kind of person he was, or even what species he belonged to?
"If it's someone wearing a white coat, then please act human. They'll be a Ghoul Investigator."
At Eto's words that followed, the last scraps of Enji's common sense shot straight into the upper atmosphere.
What the hell kind of house is this!?
What kind of home was it where a human father raised a Ghoul daughter and Ghoul Investigators came by as guests!?
Left speechless by an environment far too shocking for him, Enji staggered toward the front door.
Maybe it was a joke, but just in case, he put on his calmest human face and opened it.
Fortunately, there was no Ghoul Investigator outside, just as Eto had said.
There was a woman instead.
She had short bobbed hair and wore black clothing. Her face was finely shaped and beautiful, but her lowered eyes gave her a somewhat gloomy air.
"Excuse me. Is this Takaki Koma's... house..."
The woman had started speaking the moment the door opened, but her voice gradually faded away.
Her expression twisted in shock as she stared at Enji, and Enji answered that expression with one of his own.
"That rotten mountain monkey!?"
"That damn mutt!?"
"Huh? You know each other?"
"You know each other?"
As Enji and the woman glared at each other and shouted, Eto and Koma came out of the kitchen carrying a new teacup, and both of them gave them strange looks.
"That rotten mountain monkey!?"
"That damn mutt!?"
"Huh? You know each other?"
"You know each other?"
As Enji and the woman glared at each other and shouted, Eto and Koma came out of the kitchen carrying a new teacup, and both of them gave them strange looks.