I couldn't believe my eyes. I even pinched my cheek, wondering if I was trapped in some fever dream. But the sight before me didn't flicker. If it had truly changed, I would have been devastated in an entirely different way.
Because it was Eto.
Eto had appeared, moving as if nothing had happened. The wound that had completely impaled her abdomen was nowhere to be seen.
"E-Eto! How are you…?"
"I'm not entirely sure myself. By the time I regained consciousness, the wound was already healed."
Eto glanced back at me briefly.
"I can't say for certain, but I think someone fed me human flesh while I was down. There were bloodstains near me when I woke up."
Human flesh. Just as The Artist had consumed his comrade to heal, Eto had done the same? But who? The only humans in this building who could provide such a thing were Hitokawa and myself… ah!
'Could it be…?'
There was one other. Someone capable of providing flesh within these walls. But she should have been tied up in the second basement. Even if she had escaped, why would she help Eto?
"Papa! Watch out!"
Eto's voice snapped me out of my thoughts. Now wasn't the time for speculation. A kagune, swollen to twice its original size, surged toward us, filling the entire corridor. Eto kicked off the wall and struck the side of the tentacle, while I grabbed Hitokawa's unconscious body and dove to the side.
𝘉𝘖𝘖𝘖𝘖𝘖𝘖𝘔!!!
Diverted by Eto's strike, the kagune pulverized the innocent wall before retracting back to The Artist. His face was a map of bulging veins, as if he had suffered an intolerable insult.
"This half-dead brat…!! How dare you interfere and ruin my climax?!"
"Who was the one trying to tear a peaceful family apart first?! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!"
Wait… since when did Eto get so good at talking back? I wondered who she had been practicing on. I hauled Hitokawa to a corner and gripped the hilt of the broken greatsword and my revolver once more.
"Eto! Can you pin him down? Or at least stop his kagune!"
"On it!"
Above me as I sprinted across the hall, Eto used the walls and ceiling as springboards, lunging at The Artist.
"You little rat!!"
The Artist lashed out with his kagune. With fluid, rapid movements, Eto wove through the tentacles and reached him. Using her ukaku like a booster, she brought her foot down in a heavy strike, but The Artist's reaction speed was monstrous. He snapped his head back to avoid the kick and grabbed Eto by the ankle.
A sickening 𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬 echoed from her bone, and Eto's expression hardened. In that split second, I hurled the hilt of the greatsword.
"Pathetic!!"
𝘊𝘓𝘈𝘕𝘎!!
The Artist swatted the hilt away, but that momentary lapse was all Eto needed. She swung her free leg and stomped hard on his forearm. With a wet 𝘴𝘯𝘢𝘱, his grip on her ankle broke. She tried to follow up with a strike, but his retracted kagune was already closing in, forcing her to tumble backward to safety. Landing in a crouch, Eto now held the very hilt The Artist had just swatted away. She tossed it back to me.
"Sorry, Papa! He's a lot harder to handle than I thought."
"If he can keep up with your speed, he's definitely a problem…. How the hell are we supposed to take him down?"
"How? We use the most glorious tactic in the book: ganging up on him."
""...!!""
The voice that suddenly interjected snatched the hilt from my hand. Eto and I stared at him in shock.
"Hitokawa! You're awake! But should you be moving already?"
"You're bleeding everywhere, Mr. Hitokawa. Don't push it."
"Shut up. If a ghoul brat and a civilian are fighting an S-rate while a Ghoul Investigator is taking a nap, I'd never be able to show my face again. I'd die of embarrassment."
Hitokawa grumbled. He spoke as if he were fine, but his deathly pale complexion suggested otherwise. Still, I knew if I told him to sit out, he'd refuse with every fiber of his being. I gave up on persuading him and looked at The Artist.
The monster was snapping his mangled arm back into place, turning his head toward us. He looked profoundly displeased. Between the repeated interference and the uninvited guests, his "artistic mood" had clearly turned foul. I didn't think he would be holding back anymore.
I let out a weary sigh.
"Let's not die."
"Yes. I won't die."
"Right. None of us are dying today."
That was all the motivation we needed. To end this nightmare, to return home safe, and to settle the blood feud passed down from my father—we charged at The Artist.
His kakugan bloodshot and bulging, The Artist let out a primal growl.
"I don't care about the 'material' anymore…. All of you, just DIE!!"
He unleashed his kagune. Three massive tentacles, each capable of crushing a grown man into pulp, whipped through the air. They moved with a mindless, savage killing intent.
Eto, moving the fastest, engaged the first one. It was a tentacle covered in scales so sharp they could shred skin like a plane. Vaulting with her ukaku, Eto spun through the air, grazing past the tip of the weapon. Not stopping there, she stomped on the side of the kagune and ignited her ukaku to maximum output, disregarding the stamina drain.
The sheer force redirected the tentacle, causing it to slam into the second one.
𝘉𝘖𝘖𝘖𝘖𝘖𝘖𝘔!!!
The two tentacles became tangled, wedged deep into the corner of the wall and corridor. Thanks to Eto's quick thinking, two of the three were pinned. The final one lunged toward Hitokawa and me.
"𝘏𝘢𝘢𝘢𝘢𝘢𝘢𝘢𝘩!!!"
Hitokawa roared, bracing himself with the broken hilt.
𝘉𝘖𝘖𝘔!!
The impact was staggering. A normal human couldn't have stopped a tentacle the thickness of a tree trunk, but Hitokawa was a Ghoul Investigator. He was a man who had forged his body specifically to stand against such monsters. He looked precarious, as if he might snap at any moment, but he held the line.
I slid across the floor, slipping through the razor-thin gap between the kagune and the concrete. The pain of the floor scraping my back flared, but it was better than being dead. Emerging from beneath the tentacle Hitokawa was holding back, I came face-to-face with The Artist.
I aimed the revolver—with its final, solitary bullet—directly at his head.
"Let's end this!!"
"TAKAKI KOMAAAAA!!!"
The monster let out a shriek and arched his body.
"What?!"
"𝘒𝘨𝘩!!"
𝘛𝘏𝘜𝘋!!
The tentacles Eto and Hitokawa had been pinning suddenly lashed out, throwing them both aside. Now free, the kagune closed in from both sides like a Venus flytrap, aiming to crush my neck.
Despite this, I didn't run. I pulled the trigger. He had made a fatal mistake—driven by rage, he had focused on swinging his kagune rather than moving his body. This was the only chance I would ever get!
"𝘏𝘢𝘢𝘢𝘢𝘢𝘢𝘢𝘩!!!"
𝘉𝘈𝘕𝘎!!
𝘉𝘖𝘖𝘖𝘖𝘖𝘖𝘔!!
"𝘏𝘶𝘧𝘧! 𝘏𝘶𝘧𝘧!"
My lungs burned with every breath. I had fired the Q-bullet at The Artist, and his kagune had slammed into me. That was what should have happened.
But I was alive. And the reason was Eto, who was currently clutching me, gasping for air.
"Are you a moron, Papa?! If you judge it to be too much, you're supposed to run! Why did you stay until the end? Do you really think you're some hero in a manga?!"
"I don't think you're in a position to say that…."
"What's that supposed to mean?!"
Just before the kagune could crush me, Eto had poured her last remaining strength into her ukaku and dived between me and the strike. She had tackled me, pulling me through the gap in the tentacles by a hair's breadth. Thanks to that passionate tackle—one that would have made a pro footballer weep—I felt like my ribs were cracked, but I was breathing.
"What happened to him?"
I stood up, pulling away from Eto. The Artist stood there, frozen in place. His kagune lay limp on the floor, unmoving.
Did I fail? I had aimed for his head.
In that moment, The Artist's body tilted. He began to fall forward like a rotting tree—
𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘮𝘱!
Suddenly, he thrust a foot forward, bracing himself.
"You…! You bastard…!!"
His voice was a shredded rasp. As he turned his head toward us, a horrific sight was revealed. From his left forehead to his right temple, a deep furrow had been plowed by the bullet. His skull was shattered, exposing a glimpse of white brain matter to the air. His left eye was bulging out, nearly dislodged by the pressure of the shot.
By all accounts, it was a fatal wound. And yet, he didn't die.
"I'll… kill you…!! I'll kill… you!!"
His speech was stuttering, as if his brain was misfiring, but he was undeniably alive—and overflowing with a murderous aura he could no longer contain. His limp kagune began to writhe once more.
'My god! Did the aim drift when Eto tackled me?!'
Knowing the cause didn't help. I was out of bullets, and Eto had exhausted her strength saving me. I swallowed hard, realizing there were no exits left.
"DIE-EEEEEEEE!!!"
He shrieked and swung his kagune. In that instant—
𝘚𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳.
A bottle flew down. Not from the corridor, but from the hole in the ceiling directly above The Artist.
The glass broke, and the liquid inside drenched his body. The realization that this wasn't an ordinary liquid came a second later.
𝘚𝘐𝘡𝘡𝘡𝘡𝘓𝘓𝘓𝘌!!!
The liquid began to bubble and hiss violently. The Artist's skin began to char and melt instantly upon contact.
"𝘎𝘙𝘈𝘈𝘈𝘈𝘈𝘈𝘈𝘈𝘈𝘏𝘏𝘏𝘏!!!"
'Acid…?!'
As he screamed in agony, I recognized the content of the bottle. The acid was burning through him in real-time, some of it even seeping into his shattered skull. Writhing in pain, The Artist looked up. His remaining eye, not yet touched by the acid, fixed on the figure above who had dropped the bottle.
"You…!! How dare you betray me…?!?! You, of all people…!!"
He bared his teeth and redirected his kagune upward, toward the floor above. He seemed determined to drag whoever was up there down to hell with him.
But his final wish went unfulfilled.
𝘚𝘛𝘈𝘉!!!
A short, dull sound. With that one noise, his rampaging kagune went still. His eyes rolled back as he succumbed, and The Artist collapsed forward.
Embedded deep into the space between his nape and the back of his head—right into the medulla oblongata—was the blade of the broken greatsword.
"𝘏𝘶𝘧𝘧… 𝘩𝘶𝘧𝘧…."
The man who had driven that blade into the back of his skull let out a ragged, exhausted breath.
𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘥!
He collapsed in the opposite direction. Eto and I scrambled to our feet and ran to Hitokawa.
"Hitokawa!"
"Mr. Hitokawa! Are you okay?!"
As Eto and I worked to stem Hitokawa's bleeding, I looked up at the hole in the ceiling. The morning light was pouring through now, but there was no longer anyone standing there.