There are limits to living alone.
That is why living things form groups, hoping to overcome those limits.
It was the same for Enji. The difference was that he had more than enough skill to survive on his own. The people around him, however, did not.
Taking in and caring for the ones who couldn't survive alone was the beginning of Enji's group, [En]. As they built up strength and expanded their reach, his group eventually grew into one that wielded considerable influence even in Ward 20.
But they were not the strongest. There was another group that divided Ward 20 with them.
The Ghoul group Black Doberman. And the woman who led them. She was mostly known by the name Kuroinu.
When predators' territories overlap, conflict is inevitable. The Ghouls of [En] and Black Doberman were constantly clashing over one thing or another.
They were thorns in each other's sides, each wanting the other gone as quickly as possible, but neither could move easily. [En] and Black Doberman were nearly equal in strength.
If two equally matched forces went to war, then even if one side won, the other would not escape without fatal wounds.
And if other Ghouls or the CCG tried to swoop in and profit from the chaos, they would be wiped out without question.
So while both sides had avoided direct battle, the conflict between the two groups only grew worse as time passed.
Enji decided it was no longer tenable and began preparing for an all-out war. Their side had also detected movement suggesting the other was aiming for the same thing.
Ghouls with sharp information were scheming to reap benefits from Ward 20, which was about to become a battlefield, and the CCG was even plotting to catch both groups in one sweep while they were distracted by each other.
But the all-out war never happened.
It was because of the wandering Ghoul caught between the two groups: Kuzen.
The leaders of both groups, each of whom had received help from him for their own reasons, seemed to respect his wish not to see the blood of his own kind spilled, and put away the blades they had been about to draw.
That prevented war from breaking out, but the resentment between the two groups had not disappeared. They had only postponed the moment the bomb would go off.
The leaders of both groups respected Kuzen, while also hoping he would side with them. That was the only way to secure an advantageous position in any future conflict.
For that reason, both groups were prepared to do anything to win Kuzen's favor.
And the one request Kuzen made of them was simple.
Help his friend and that friend's family.
After several days of searching with nothing but the name Takaki Koma to go on, the two of them finally found his house.
And then, like enemies meeting on a narrow bridge, they happened to visit on the same day and ended up face-to-face.
Click.
Coffee was set down in front of them.
The rich aroma of freshly brewed beans should have been enough to calm the mind and body, but for some reason, tension hung over the space around the square table.
Slurp.
I took a sip and moistened my mouth, all the while glancing sideways at the two people seated on either side of the table.
On the right was a man named Koma Enji.
He said he had been sent by Mister Kuzen. His expression was grim, but he didn't seem all that dangerous.
On the left was a woman who introduced herself as Irimi Kaya.
She was a beauty with delicate features, but there was something gloomy about her. Still, like Enji, she didn't give off a particularly dangerous feeling.
The problem was the space between them.
As their eyes met across the table, the air crackled as if some chemical reaction had taken place. Because of that, ever since I brought out the coffee, the atmosphere had remained strangely tense.
They clearly knew each other, but not in any good way.
This mix of tension and awkwardness was a little difficult to handle.
Come to think of it, even when Hitokawa had nagged me about how long I planned to stay a widower and that half-forced matchmaking date got interrupted by Eto barging in out of nowhere, it hadn't been this tense.
"Meow~"
The cat we kept at home must have sensed the awkward atmosphere, because it let out a cry that seemed to say, "What weird people," and wandered off. For some reason, today made me want to be a cat.
I turned my head and looked at Eto.
If she had been in her usual mood-maker role, she would have eased the atmosphere with a few words or actions, but today she was unusually quiet. Was she wary of strangers?
Eto took a sip of coffee and shifted her gaze to me. She was leaving everything to me.
I had no choice but to clear my throat and break the silence before speaking to the two of them.
"Um... could I ask your names one more time?"
"Koma Enji."
"Irimi Kaya."
Both of them answered plainly. But neither took their eyes off the other.
"Right. Enji-san, Kaya-san. So you both came at Mister Kuzen's request?"
"I don't know why he assigned me to work with some monkey like this."
"That's rich coming from you. Even if I don't know the details of your organization, why would he pair me with such a nasty woman...?"
"..."
No good. These two had absolutely no intention of dropping their hostility toward each other.
They would have started a fight long ago if this weren't my house.
"S-so then, what exactly did you come here to help with? These days we're not exactly living in luxury. After nearly dying a few times from Ghoul attacks, the compensation I got from the CCG has piled up quite a bit."
It wasn't something to brag about, but I wanted to change the mood somehow.
"There's nothing especially specific. He just told us to help if you ever ran into trouble."
"If you need money for living expenses, I'll add some. If you want to go traveling, I'll assign capable people to escort you. And if there are any annoying pests around you, I'll make them disappear without a trace. For example, a monkey who comes into someone else's house and sits around taking up space for no reason."
"A monkey? You must mean a dog, you idiot. I know a great place that serves dog meat soup. Want me to recommend it?"
Why did things get even more ominous when I tried to mediate? Why did they sound like disposing of people was part of everyday conversation?
Mister Kuzen, what kind of people did you send over here?
I'd had no news from him for so long that I didn't even know whether he was alive or dead, and the first thing that finally came was two strange visitors.
Just as I was about to take another sip of coffee to settle my uneasy hands, Kaya seemed to decide this was a waste of time and turned her gaze to me.
So she was finally paying attention to me.
"There's one thing I'd like to ask. Are you human?"
"Unless some mad scientist transplanted Ghoul organs into me while I was asleep, I'd say yes, I'm human."
"But the child beside you seems to be a Ghoul."
"Yeah. She's a Ghoul."
Strictly speaking, only half of one... but it was better not to say that here.
She was Mister Kuzen's guest, but I wasn't sure how much I should reveal. For now, it was probably best to keep the fact that Eto was his daughter hidden too.
"Why is a human raising a Ghoul child?"
At Kaya's question, Enji also shifted his gaze to me, as if he had been wondering the same thing.
"Well, there are all kinds of circumstances."
Slurp.
I drank my coffee and avoided giving a direct answer. Perhaps sensing that I didn't want to talk about it, Kaya didn't press further.
"Still, from our perspective, it's a strange thing. A Ghoul and a human living together so casually."
Enji was right.
If Ghouls were wolves, then humans could be called sheep. Sometimes a sheep that had made up its mind would try to stomp a wolf to death with its hooves—that was a Ghoul Investigator. That was their relationship.
Did it make any sense for beings with such a complicated relationship to live inside the same fence? Anyone would dismiss it as nonsense. And yet here was proof of the opposite, right in front of me.
"I had a rough time at first too. But people are ultimately creatures that adapt. Now I can even dismember corpses without batting an eye."
"That's a lie. Dad still has nightmares sometimes when he's seen a corpse that day."
"Eto, shh."
I pressed down on Eto's head to tell her to stop saying unnecessary things. Eto clamped her mouth shut, and her head sank below the table.
Then Kaya asked again.
"Where do you get food?"
"At dawn, I sometimes check suicide spots and secretly take any corpses I find."
"Isn't that dangerous? You could run into Ghouls who are after the bodies of suicides."
"That's why I go with a bodyguard."
The bodyguard peeked her head back up over the table.
Even Hitokawa, who knows our situation, doesn't help with food procurement.
He says there's a risk of being recognized by other Ghouls, and that as a Ghoul Investigator, it's the last line he can't cross.
"From now on, you won't need to go through that trouble. We'll handle the supply on our side."
"Huh? No, there's no need to go that far."
"No need to refuse. This is the least we should do, since Mister Yoshimura asked us to. That's probably why he sent me here in the first pla—"
"Wait a second."
Kaya's words were cut off by Enji's low voice. He glared at her, not bothering to hide his irritation.
"What are you deciding on your own? I'm the one who received his request. If anyone's going to handle the supply, it'll be me."
"You're still here, you wild monkey? I thought you'd gone home already. I'm in the middle of an important conversation, so get lost."
Ignoring Enji, who had been there the whole time, Kaya spoke.
Her voice was cold enough to be below freezing, but Enji, meeting it head-on, only seemed to heat up with anger.
"There's an order to even cold water, but it looks like the positions of your brain and your bladder got switched. Your head must be full of piss. I got here first. What gives you the right to butt into my business after showing up later? Isn't that a little rude?"
"Hey, hold on a sec...!"
Just as the murderous mood that I thought had finally calmed down began to rise again, I tried to stop them. But by then, their attention had already moved away from me.
"Manners are for civilized people. It's ridiculous for a barbarian who only knows how to get worked up to talk about manners."
"Listen! I don't know what kind of relationship you two have, but calm down for now...!"
"Ha! I'm surprised you can even laugh with that stiff face of yours, like a dead corpse! Your subordinates would be shocked if they knew!"
"They'd be shocked if I brought back your head."
"..."
"My head? Are you saying I can go back alive today?"
"Wouldn't be impossible."
Silence.
The next instant, both Enji's and Kaya's eyes turned a vivid red Kakugan.
One more moment passed, and Kagune burst out from behind their backs. It was about to turn into the instant they lunged at each other—
Boom!
The table shot up between them as if to block their path.
Thanks to that, the two empty coffee cups and the two cups that hadn't even been touched yet flew through the air. Startled by the sudden turn of events, Enji and Kaya stopped the blows they had been about to strike and looked to the side.
In the same overturned posture, I showed them a thoroughly pissed-off expression.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, coming into someone else's house and acting like this?"
Crash!
Only then did the table fully topple and the cups shatter, filling the room with a racket.
I'd been trying to treat them as Mister Kuzen's guests, but my patience hit its limit at the sight of these two running wild like it was their own living room.
"Have you two idiots eaten your common sense for breakfast? You show up out of nowhere and try to turn someone else's peaceful home into a mess! If you're that desperate to tear each other apart, go outside and fight!! Beat the hell out of each other in an empty lot, and don't even think about coming back into this house until you've watched the evening glow together, acknowledged each other, and made friends!!!"
Bang!!
The door slammed shut with a sharp, irritated crack.
Enji and Kaya stared at it with blank eyes.
Their aliases, Maen and Kuroinu, are practically synonymous with terror in Ward 20.
Ghoul Investigators break into a cold sweat at the mere mention of those names, and Ghouls who drift in from other wards run for their lives the moment they hear the two of them have appeared.
So what was this human, Takaki Koma?
He was scolding them, lecturing them, and now he had even thrown them out at the door.
Maybe ignorance really was courage. Maybe he simply didn't know their reputation.
But flaunting or explaining their position as Ghouls to a human was embarrassing too.
Normally they would have solved this with force, but they were wary of what might happen if they carelessly handled someone who was Kuzen's friend.
He had been able to handle their organization on his own while strictly adhering to pacifism. Now imagine if he abandoned that pacifism in anger. There would surely be a storm of blood.
Enji scratched his head and stared at the tightly shut door. Koma's heart was just as tightly shut as that door.
To fulfill Kuzen's request, they would first have to open that firmly closed door.
"Damn it, what a mess..."
"..."
"Should we go to an empty lot and have it out first, then come back?"
"Are you an idiot?"
Kaya suddenly felt a pang of doubt at the fact that this fool was her sworn enemy.
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