Footsteps drifted out of the darkness.
Many pairs of shoes struck the ground in a calm, steady rhythm, accompanied by a sound like something wet being dragged along.
The footsteps stopped in front of the hole we had blasted through the passage. Then, a man's voice I had never heard before rang out.
"Tsk, tsk... Looks like someone beat us to it."
"Could it be Maen and Kuroinu?"
"Well, who else would it be? Tsk. I didn't expect them to find this passage, though. Tsk, tsk."
He muttered in obvious displeasure, staring at the hole in the wall and the shattered concrete debris.
Every time he spoke, the wet sound of chewing gum clung to his voice in a way that was downright unpleasant.
"Whatever. Tsk. If those bastards want to dig their own graves, who am I to stop them? Tsk. But if they escape, it'll be a pain, so let's seal the hole while we're at it."
"What the hell are these guys?"
Etō and I were eavesdropping in secret, clinging to the outer wall a short distance away from where the mysterious men had gathered.
Etō had driven her fingers into the concrete with the crushing grip unique to Ghouls, and I was clinging to her as she held us up. She had sensed something off and decided to hide.
It looked like that had been the right call. From the conversation, these people did not sound friendly.
Etō and I held our breath, focusing on the voices below.
"Tsk. Any movement from Kuzen?"
"None that's been exposed so far."
"Tch. That damn bastard. After smashing one of our branches, he's gone and hidden himself for real."
"Mister Kuzen? What the hell, why is his name coming up here?"
I was thrown off by hearing someone I knew mentioned by complete strangers.
"So the intel that Kuzen had made contact with En and the Black Doberman was fake after all, huh. Tsk. Or maybe they weren't close enough that he felt the need to move. Still, just in case, make sure those two Ghoul groups are dealt with properly. Tsk, tsk. Who's in the CCG right now?"
"Arima Kishou is providing support, apparently."
"Arima, huh... If it's him, that's more than enough. Tsk. Rather, since Kuzen hasn't shown up, we've ended up using a slaughterhouse knife on a chicken."
I didn't know exactly how the situation was unfolding, but one thing was clear.
These people were after Mister Kuzen. They were his enemies.
Thirteen years ago, when Mister Kuzen left Etō in my care, he said he was being targeted by some organization.
I hadn't asked for details, but if even the powerful Mister Kuzen wasn't sure he'd survive, it had to be an extremely dangerous group.
That was why he had left Etō with me, and why I hadn't seen his face for over a decade. In other words, the organization's pursuit had continued relentlessly for over ten years.
And now, completely by accident, I felt as though I had brushed against the edge of that organization.
Is this whole suppression operation bait to lure Mister Kuzen out? A coincidence? Or deliberate? What the hell do these guys have to do with the CCG?
I wanted them to drop a few more clues for my deduction, but unfortunately, they weren't that considerate. It seemed they were done with their business and were about to leave.
"Tsk. Then I'm off. Handle the cleanup properly after I leave. The Ghouls in the sewer, and the hole in this passage."
With those words, the gum-chewing voice began to recede, only to speak again a moment later.
"...And that bat-like bastard hiding there and eavesdropping on us, too."
"...?!"
Shit. We've been found...!!
KWA-BOOOOM!!!
"Damn it! I never heard anything about this! We were supposed to be fighting the Ghouls in the 20th Ward, so why the hell did Ghoul Investigators show up and attack us!"
The one shouting in anger was a Ghoul who had originally lived in Ward 7.
He had lived a small, miserable life, hiding in an alley no one ever visited and surviving day by day by hunting the occasional lone human. But recently, the situation had changed when the famous En and the Black Doberman from the 20th Ward appeared.
A large-scale migration means a change in the ecosystem. It is the same whether the species involved are human, animal, or Ghoul.
Mass migrations have brought down nations, and animal migrations have wiped out the food supply of entire regions.
The appearance of the 20th Ward Ghoul group was no different.
When Ghoul density rises in one area, competition for food becomes fiercer, and they become easier for Ghoul Investigators to notice.
Just by existing, En and the Black Doberman were enough to make the Ghouls of Ward 7 feel their lives were in danger.
So they began to band together under a shared goal of survival: they were going to drive off the Ghouls from the 20th Ward.
The two groups had the edge in notoriety and individual combat power, but in sheer numbers, the Ward 7 Ghouls were ahead. They outnumbered the combined total of the two groups by at least double.
Once they realized that the most frightening enemies, Maen and Kuroinu, were not with either group, they knew this was the perfect chance.
It was all well and good that they gathered in the sewer to attack, but then something unexpected happened.
The CCG launched a raid.
They had known the CCG would move sooner or later, but this was far faster than expected.
In the end, the Ward 7 Ghouls who had intended to surround En and the Black Doberman were instead surrounded by the CCG, leaving them no choice but to flee deeper inside.
This Ghoul was one of those fleeing from the investigators.
He had some ability to fight, but he judged that breaking through the wall of swarming investigators was impossible.
"How about that side? Any way out?"
"No good! Investigators are everywhere over here too!"
"What about that 'Brown Bear' bastard? He's a psycho, sure, but his skill is real! If we put him in front, we can break through!"
"Damn it! That guy got his head taken off by the investigator with the twin-blade Quinque earlier!"
The fleeing Ghouls gathered and searched for an escape route, but nothing looked promising.
The structure was already a maze of tangled passages, and every area that might have led to an exit had investigators waiting.
Just as the Ghouls' faces sank into despair under the tightening encirclement—
"Come to think of it, where are those guys?"
"Who?"
"Who do you think? The ones who dragged us all here in the first place! En and the Black Doberman! The investigators are this close and they're not even in sight!"
At that, the Ghouls exchanged looks. He was right.
When the investigators first surrounded the area, those two had been popping up here and there, as if checking positions, but now not even their shadows could be seen.
"Could they have found an escape route?"
"...!!"
It was a plausible theory.
They were a group that moved systematically, so perhaps they had found a weakness in the Ghoul Investigators' formation, or an escape route the others had overlooked.
"Find their trail!"
"Yeah! If we follow them, we can get out too!"
Just as the newly energized Ghouls were getting to their feet—
one of them sensed something and turned his head. The others followed his gaze.
Step. Step.
Light footsteps, so faint a normal person would have missed them.
In the middle of all this chaos and bloodshed, the sound felt eerily calm.
The gathered Ghouls stared tensely toward the narrow passage where the footsteps were coming from, then soon snorted with laughter.
What emerged from the darkness was far too small and young to be a Ghoul Investigator.
"What's this? Some brat got lost in here?"
"Hey. Look at what he's holding."
In the boy's right hand was a steel case. A Ghoul Investigator's case.
"That little thing's a Ghoul Investigator?"
"Let's just kill him and move on. If he calls for backup, that'll be trouble."
He didn't look especially dangerous, but whether adult or child, investigators were their enemies.
Deciding to deal with him before he could do anything stupid, three of the five Ghouls shot toward the boy like arrows.
"..."
The boy, Arima, did not make a single move to respond even as the Ghouls charged. He only moved his head left and right, looking around as if searching for something.
Seeing that, the leading Ghoul decided he was just some strange kid and swung his long fingers down at him.
Thoom!
In that instant, the world turned over.
One spin, two spins, three spins. The world rotated so fast it made him nauseous, until the floor surged up from below and smashed into his face, finally stopping the motion.
The Ghoul, blinking in confusion, realized what had happened.
At the edge of his vision, he saw the two Ghouls who had been following him now standing in front of him. Their faces were twisted in shock as they stared this way.
And beyond them was Arima, who at some point had drawn a long-bladed Quinque, while the first Ghoul's body collapsed weakly to the floor after losing its head.
Thud!
"Wha..."
"What did you do, you bastard!"
He hadn't even seen Arima open the steel case. And yet, in the blink of an eye, he had drawn the Quinque and severed the Ghoul's neck.
It had happened in a fraction of a second, far beyond the Ghoul's reaction speed.
"..."
Arima still did not even glance at the Ghouls. His gaze remained fixed on empty space, as if he had found whatever it was he had been searching for.
It was an absurdly open stance. It looked as if he were practically begging to be attacked, but after seeing the first Ghoul's head fly off, they hesitated.
Still, if they didn't seize this opening, there would be no more chances. Clenching their teeth, the two Ghouls lunged.
"You son of a...!!"
"Die...!!"
Their words never fully formed, scattering uselessly into the air. There was no way sound could be produced from mouths that had been separated from their necks.
Something flashed, and the single head rolling on the floor became three.
The faces of the other two Ghouls watching from behind went pale.
Just by approaching, they had seen Ghoul necks drop like wet paper. It was enough to make their skin crawl.
One Ghoul tried to flee, leaping from his spot. He figured that if he escaped through the hole leading to the ceiling, Arima wouldn't be able to follow.
Puk!
As if mocking that thought, a Quinque shot through the back of the fleeing Ghoul's head, pierced through his forehead, and embedded itself in the ceiling. Arima had thrown it.
The Ghoul, unable to reach the hole, ended up dangling from the ceiling, impaled.
The sight of him twitching with his limbs hanging limp, not yet fully dead, was horrifying.
Only one Ghoul remained.
He wanted nothing more than to run, but then he changed his mind.
By throwing the Quinque to take down the fleeing Ghoul, Arima had been left empty-handed.
No matter how physically capable a human might be, fighting a Ghoul barehanded was nearly impossible.
Deciding that if he didn't finish this now, the human could recover the Quinque and kill him, the Ghoul activated his [Kakugan] and charged.
"Die!!!"
The [Koukaku]-type Quinque was wrapped around the Ghoul's arm to bear the weight. Just as its tip was about to reach Arima's body, the boy vanished.
The Ghoul, eyes wide in shock as he searched for the vanished Arima, suddenly found his vision swallowed by darkness.
And then came a burning agony.
"KRAAAAHHHH!!!!"
The Ghoul could not suppress his scream as pain like molten metal pouring into both eyes tore through him.
Arima had somehow climbed onto the Ghoul's arm and, as if plucking out bowling balls, gouged out both of his eyes with his fingers. Realizing his eyes had been stabbed, the Ghoul whipped his head sideways to pull the fingers out.
But Arima's fingers met no resistance.
Instead, they added force to the Ghoul's own movement, wrenching his head around until his neck twisted beyond the limits of the body.
Crack!!!
The force of the violent twist burst out from the Ghoul's neck.
With a chilling sound, the neck bones shattered, and the Ghoul's knees gave out helplessly.
Srrrk...
At that moment, the Quinque embedded in the ceiling could no longer bear the weight of the impaled Ghoul and slipped free.
Arima caught the handle of the Quinque as it dropped straight down over his head, smashed the Ghoul's skull apart, and pulled the weapon free.
The Quinque, tracing a blood-red arc, fell toward the Ghoul with the twisted neck and severed his throat.
In less than ten seconds, five Ghouls had been killed, and the only one left standing was Arima.
Even though Ghoul blood had splattered in every direction, not a single drop stained his clothes. Arima stepped lightly down from the body of the headless Ghoul and started walking again.
His gaze was still fixed on the empty air.
No, more precisely, on the wind blowing through that empty air.
A single breeze that no one else would have noticed, something that would have been ignored. But it was different from the wind circulating in the damp underground.
This was wind from outside. A single current of air drifting in from a direction completely different from the entrance the investigators had used touched Arima's skin.
"...There's another exit."
With that murmur, Arima followed the wind and moved on.
If there was an exit, the Ghouls trying to escape would surely gather there.
KWA-BOOOOM!!!
Something shot up diagonally from the direction of the suspicious men toward the wall where Etō and I were.
At first I couldn't tell what it was, but when I saw the dark red mass writhing, I realized it was a [Kagune].
Thump!
As the wall exploded, Etō hoisted me onto her back and leaped toward the passage on the opposite side.
We escaped the range of the flying concrete fragments, and Etō's feet landed on the floor. Seeing us revealed, the mysterious man looked surprised.
"Oh? A character mask for kids, huh. Tsk. You've got strange taste."
The man in the long black coat and fedora spoke while chewing gum, sounding mildly incredulous.
That was what Etō and I looked like right now.
We were wearing the Owl character masks we had brought just in case, and our bodies were wrapped in a blanket.
With Etō carrying me, from the outside we looked like one person with a thick upper body.
So it did look a little ridiculous that someone so broad-shouldered was wearing a kids' character mask.
"Who are you? A Ghoul I've never seen before,"
the gum-chewing man asked. He must have decided we weren't human based on the way we dodged the first strike.
Grip.
I felt Etō's arm tighten around me.
I know. You mean don't let us be exposed, right?
Without even speaking, Etō and I were on the same page.
We couldn't let these guys get any clues about us.
I wasn't about to let an unidentified group chase us, and since they were after Mister Kuzen, Etō's existence also had to stay hidden.
Fortunately, they seemed to think we were one person.
That was thanks not only to the blanket, but also to the fact that Etō had somehow reduced the sound of her breathing and pulse to an extreme degree. Was this the result of the training she had mentioned before—the one about erasing one's presence?
There was no need to correct their misunderstanding, so I should act as Ghoul-like as possible.
I'm a Ghoul. I'm a Ghoul... Okay, suggestion complete.
I lifted my face behind the Owl mask and glared at the suspicious men.
"That's my line. Who the hell are you?"
I lowered my voice as much as I could, trying to create a different atmosphere from usual. Honestly, I had to fight the urge to cringe at how dramatic it sounded.
Meanwhile, the man showed a flicker of interest.
"Hmm... If you don't know us, then you must not be one of Kuzen's Ghouls."
"I asked who the hell you are, Kuzen or not. Why are you attacking me?"
"Whatever. It doesn't matter. Since you saw us, we can't let you live anyway. Tsk. We'll just kill you and dump you in front of the investigators."
Ignoring my words and talking only to himself, the man looked as if he had reached a conclusion, and my brow twitched.
"You filthy bastards. Did your mother teach you to just talk over people and cut them off like that?"
Shit, I let a full curse slip out in a fit of irritation...
I'd been careful not to swear in front of Etō because I thought it would be bad for her upbringing, but the man's attitude was so damn rude that the words came out reflexively.
The gum-chewing man looked stunned, as if he had never expected to be insulted like that, then eventually pressed his fedora down lower.
"I've lived long enough to see a Ghoul with a mouth like a sewer. I'd love to tear your mouth apart myself, but since Kuzen isn't here, there's no reason to waste time. I'll leave your cleanup to this one."
With that, the man turned and walked off in long strides, and his subordinates followed behind him.
What remained was a man on all fours like a quadruped beast, both hands on the ground.
Unlike the others in black coats, his upper body was bare and his lower body was covered in worn leather pants.
Seeing the [Kakugan] in both eyes, he was definitely a Ghoul. He looked like the owner of the [Kagune] that had struck first.
"Grr, grrrr..."
But something was wrong with him.
He was drooling, and the pupils in his [Kakugan] were expanding and contracting repeatedly.
Veins bulged grotesquely all over his body from the neck down, and his skin had turned red as if it were being cooked.
"Play with him a little, Kaigo."
Leaving only those words behind, the men disappeared completely into the darkness, just as they had when they first appeared.
And the man called Kaigo, once given the order, began to roar like a beast whose leash had been cut.
"KRAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
"Kgh!!"
I grimaced and clamped both hands over my ears at the scream that felt like it would tear my eardrums apart. At the same time, I kept my eyes on the opponent's movements.
What the hell?!
I stared wide-eyed at the unexpected sight.
The [Kagune] sprouting from the man's waist swelled in size, then began to cover his body.
As the [Kagune] enveloped the already large man, he transformed into a monstrous creature that seemed as if it would fill the entire passage.
"Grrrrrrrr!!!"
Throb! Throb!
The [Kagune]-covered man turned his gaze toward us. The scar on my right arm started aching like an alarm going off.
A gaze looking at me as prey.
But I'm pretending to be a Ghoul right now. Since I'm with Etō, I've managed to mask the scent of a human to some extent, so he should be reading me as a Ghoul.
Then why is my right arm reacting?
Does that mean he sees Ghouls as food?
KWAANG!!!
He charged at us, cracking spiderweb fractures across the floor.
As I watched the Ghoul rush toward us, exploding larger in my field of vision, a line from something Hitokawa had once said flashed through my head.
—I only saw it in the records too, but among Ghouls there are sometimes lunatics who end up eating other Ghouls. It's called cannibalism, and if they keep doing it, their [Kagune] mutates and covers their body. That power is on a completely different level from ordinary Ghouls.
—We call that [Kagune] state [Kakuja], meaning "the awakened one." If you ever meet a Ghoul whose body is covered in [Kagune], run without looking back. It's a disaster born from madness. It's not the kind of thing you can talk your way through, and brute force won't work either.