"Walking around a park this late at night
you've got quite some nerve."
A crisp, pleasant female voice drifted from the figure ahead.
Fushimi Kyo narrowed his eyes slightly. Under the dim streetlights, he finally saw her clearly.
The newcomer was petite.
A red cloak enveloped her entire body, while her exposed face and slender legs were wrapped tightly in white bandages.
That appearance
If it wasn't Takatsuki Sen, then who else could it be?
"Miss," Kyo said calmly,
"may I ask why you've come looking for me?"
Stimulated by the intoxicating scent radiating from her body, Kyo's gaze burned with naked intensity.
There was no one else around he made no effort to hide his emotions.
After harvesting so many evolution points from the Ghoul Restaurant, he had already raised both his physical attributes and swordsmanship to Lv4.
Although he hadn't yet fought an S-rank or higher ghoul head-on
With his current strength, enough to instantly kill Yamori, even if he couldn't defeat Takatsuki Sen outright, surviving wouldn't be a problem.
So at this moment, he wasn't afraid of exposing himself at all.
"What exactly… are you?"
Takatsuki Sen asked slowly.
Facing Kyo, she felt an unsettling sense of obscurity
a feeling she had only ever experienced when standing before , the Special-Class Investigator.
And Arima was a half-human bred in the Sunlit Garden
a being that exchanged lifespan for terrifying power.
Yet the person before her was undeniably human.
The dense blood aura around him screamed it.
That contradiction made her deeply uncomfortable hence the question.
"Before I answer that," Kyo said softly,
"could I borrow something from you?"
Saliva slid down the corner of his mouth.
His eyes were filled with undisguised desire.
"So fragrant… so delicious…"
"I really want to take a bite."
Every single cell in his body seemed to be screaming the same thing.
"…Huh?"
Takatsuki Sen froze for a moment.
She hadn't expected that kind of response.
"Borrow what?" she asked instinctively.
"Your kagune."
The moment the words fell
Kyo vanished from where he stood.
In the next instant, he reappeared directly in front of her.
A fist tore through the air, accompanied by a deafening sonic boom, smashing straight toward Takatsuki Sen.
"So fast !"
Her pupils shrank violently.
She raised her right arm in a flash.
Ash-gray kagune erupted, instantly wrapping her entire arm as she countered with a punch of her own.
BOOM!
A violent shockwave exploded outward from the point of impact.
Crack crack crack!
Within a radius of over ten meters, the ground beneath their feet shattered into dense spiderweb-like fissures.
The next moment
Takatsuki Sen's body drifted backward like a willow leaf, floating lightly through the air before landing more than twenty meters away.
"This guy… what monstrous strength."
Her face was filled with disbelief.
That exchange might've looked casual but in truth, she had already entered a partial kakuja state, reinforcing her entire arm with kagune.
The power she unleashed had reached half of her full strength.
And yet
She had still been forced back.
That was absurd.
Even among SS-rated ghouls, only a handful could withstand half her power.
Meanwhile, Kyo stared at her uninjured figure, his brows furrowing slightly his expression grave.
"So this is Takatsuki Sen…"
"No wonder she's one of the top combat ceilings in the Tokyo Ghoul world."
"That punch just now was my full power and I only barely pushed her back."
"And judging by how relaxed she looks… she clearly didn't go all out."
This was how true experts fought.
Just a single exchange was enough to roughly gauge each other's strength.
"Looks like eating her kagune tonight won't be easy."
"But it's not impossible."
"After all humans were never meant to compete with ghouls in raw strength."
"What I truly excel at…"
"…is the sword."
Kyo's gaze sharpened.
"Did you kill Yamori?"
"And was the Ghoul Restaurant massacre your doing?"
Takatsuki Sen's eyes turned ice-cold.
After encountering Kyo during the day, she had mobilized Aogiri Tree's intelligence network to investigate him.
The results were disturbing.
Yamori had gone looking for him.
Later, Yamori died, his kagune extracted.
Tsukiyama Shuu had even used his family's influence to get the police involved in arresting Kyo.
And then
The Tsukiyama family's Ghoul Restaurant was annihilated.
Over a hundred ghouls slaughtered.
All kagune gone.
Tsukiyama himself missing, presumed dead.
Every thread pointed to the man standing before her.
And with the strength he'd just displayed
Pulling this off would've been effortless.
"Does it matter whether it was me?"
Kyo smiled faintly.
"Isn't the important thing right now… tasting good food?"
"Leave your kagune behind."
His eyes burned hotter and hotter as a violent battle intent slowly awakened within him.
He clenched his right hand in empty air
And the Katana, manifested directly into his left hand.
He stepped back with his left leg, lowered his center of gravity, and assumed a poised, elegant iaijutsu stance.
A terrifying aura slowly spilled out from his body.
The night air grew heavy.
Dangerously so.
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