๐๐ข-๐ฃ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฎ!!! ๐๐ณ๐ข๐ด๐ฉ!!
A cacophony of violence erupted from aboveโsounds so seismic and visceral that no ordinary human could possibly fathom the nature of the struggle. I didn't know exactly what was happening on the floor above me, but the sheer intensity of the impacts made one thing clear: the battle was catastrophic.
"Since when had I been so deludedโฆ?"
I had convinced myself she was a being that needed constant protection. I had believed it was my sole duty to shield her. In doing so, I had completely overlooked her "growth."
'I was wrong, Mr. Kuzen. She's more than you, more than meโฆ and perhaps even more than Ms. Ukinaโฆ.'
"โฆEto is strong."
It wasn't hard to guess where she had gone when she left the house. Her brief foray into the outside world must have left jagged, vivid scars on her heart. But Eto was different from me. Unlike me, who sat festering in my own wounds, she didn't collapse under the weight of her trauma. She had sublimated that pain into raw strength.
"Good grief, I'm a pathetic mess, aren't Iโฆ?"
A child like her could grow with such ferocity, yet here I was. It was embarrassing. I pulled the pill bottle from my pocket. It was smallโsmall enough to be hidden in the palm of my hand. I realized then how small and miserable the thing I had been clinging to truly was.
I stared at the hand gripping the bottle... and then I saw the rotting hands of the dead latching onto it.
"...!"
The loathsome hallucinations were back, more persistent than ever. A man whose flesh was so putrid his bones were visible gripped my arm; an old man with thinning hair and a dangling, oozing eyeball hovered near my face; a young man with a face discolored into a sickly cyanotic hue from strangulation reached for my throat; and that woman from the other day, her eyes filled with nothing but the void of death. They crawled from the floor, the ceiling, and the windows, a swarm of decay clinging to my skin.
This was a horde, more intense than any I had faced before. Butโฆ
"โฆI'm not running anymore."
I used the pillar to haul myself up. The weight of the corpses felt physical, dragging at my limbs. โฆNo, that was a lie. My body was simply heavy with exhaustion, and my fractured mind was projecting that fatigue into this grotesque hallucination.
I had to move. But the weight was unbearable. Finally reaching my breaking point, the veins on my forehead throbbed as I glared at the apparitions.
"Back off, you bastards. My daughter is fighting up there. I have to go."
โใ...!! ...!!ใ
The phantoms let out a silent, piercing shriek, merging together into a tidal wave of rot as they prepared to consume me. These things wouldn't vanish easily. To make them go away, I had to take the medicine. I tightened my grip on the bottle.
"I said, BACK OFF!!!!"
Instead of bringing the pills to my lips, I hurled the entire bottle at the center of the wave. That was all it took.
โใ...โฆ!!!ใ
From the point where the bottle struck, the phantoms began to shriek in agony, crumbling into ash. Noโit was my "weakness" that was crumbling. Only after the corpses vanished did my body feel light. The hollow void in my chest seemed to clear, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, I could draw a proper breath.
"Alright. Thenโฆ"
I stretched my stiff limbs, fixed my gaze on the ceiling where the sounds of battle continued, and whispered to the empty room.
"Shall we go crush the bastard who's bothering my family?"
๐๐ข-๐ฃ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฎ!!
"Tch!"
The Ghoul clicked his tongue as his latest strike met nothing but air. He had followed Koma and Eto into this derelict building; sensing movement on the floor below, he had smashed through the floorboards only to be met by a nightmare.
It was the brat. The mongrel who had torn into his calf earlier. But she was different now. A single, crimson wing of light had sprouted from her back.
One of the four Kagune types: an ๐๐ฌ๐ข๐ฌ๐ถ. A type specialized for high-speed combat and long-range projectiles.
A Ghoul's combat potential is defined by their Kagune. Its strength is the Ghoul's strength. However, it was exceedingly rare for a child of her age to manifest one, let alone use it with such proficiency.
'Andโฆ between my combat experience and the biological advantage of my ๐๐ฐ๐ถ๐ฌ๐ข๐ฌ๐ถ, I should be the one winning!'
The Ukaku excels at speed but lacks weight; it is usually unable to pierce the heavy, defensive wall of a Koukaku. Furthermore, she was a child, not even a quarter of his age. She shouldn't have any combat experience.
So why?
Even with a newly manifested Ukaku, her movements were fluid and uncanny. She darted through the space with such agility that he couldn't keep track of her. One moment she was attacking from the front, and the next, she had circled behind him. When he turned to guard his rear, a searing impact would strike his flank. And these were no mere grazes. Every time her Ukaku lashed out, it tore away a chunk of his flesh.
'This is impossible! The density of this mongrel's ๐๐ข๐จ๐ถ๐ฏ๐ฆ is too high! This is a fresh manifestation? Am I really being pushed back by a crossbreed of Ghoul and humanโฆ? A hybrid?'
A term surfaced in the back of his mind.
ใ๐๐ฆ๐ต๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฐ๐ด๐ช๐ด.ใ
Hybrid Vigor. It was a term often used in urban legends to describe the terrifying strength of a "One-Eyed Ghoul." The phenomenon where an offspring of distantly related lineages possesses superior traits than either of the parents. To a pure-blooded Ghoul, it sounded like a fairy tale, but it was the only thing that explained the monster in front of him.
'No! Beyond the hybrid vigor, her fighting style is insane! I can't read her patterns!'
No matter how powerful the Kagune, he was a veteran, and she was a brat raised by a human. His combat skill should have been superior, yet it meant nothing. She saw through his feints with a supernatural clarity. When she lunged, she found openings he didn't even know he had, accumulating damage with every strike.
It wasn't the refined movement of a trained Ghoul. It was the primal, emotional charge of a child. But when that child possessed a razor-sharp intuition and the physical control to act on it, the result was lethal.
๐๐ณ๐ข๐ด๐ฉ!!
His heavy Koukaku swung for Eto again, but only succeeded in pulverizing another section of the wall. In that opening, Eto's Ukaku lashed out toward his exposed chest.
๐๐ฉ๐ธ๐ข๐ค๐ฌ!!!
"๐๐ข๐ข๐ข๐จ๐ฉ!!!"
A scream of pure rage escaped him. He was furious at himselfโfurious that he couldn't end this brat. Seizing the moment of his distraction, Eto extended her claws and lunged for his eyes. He barely managed to snap his Koukaku into a defensive shield.
๐๐ญ๐ข๐ฏ๐จ!
"...!"
He had expected the strike to break through, but he had managed to block it. It was then that he noticed the fire in Eto's movements was starting to flicker.
"I see. Hybrid or not, you're still just a child. Your stamina can't keep up."
"๐๐ข๐ฉ! ๐๐ข๐ฉ! ๐๐ข๐ฉ!"
The fight hadn't lasted long, but Eto was already gasping for air, her entire body drenched in sweat as if she had been caught in a downpour. It was the fatal flaw of the Ukaku. While it allowed for high-speed combat, it consumed RC cells at a massive rate. It was a sprint, not a marathon.
Her movements, which had been a blur, were now visibly slowing. She had reached her limit. Feeling the desperation of her fading energy, she increased the frequency of her attacks, but she couldn't penetrate the solid defense of his Koukaku. The occasional strikes that bypassed his shield were no longer deep enough to be a threat.
The tide had turned. Eto had failed to finish him in the opening act. As the Ghoul's lips curled into a triumphant smirk, a voice rang out.
"Eto!!"
"!"
A human lunged into the arena. It was Koma. The Ghoul scowled, surprised to see the man he thought was buried under concrete, but he didn't let it distract him. Koma was just a broken human. He couldn't afford to give Eto a opening by worrying about a fly.
That was his fatal error.
Eto was looking directly at Koma. In the split second the Ghoul's focus shifted, she saw the "sign" Koma made with his hands.
๐๐ฐ๐ฅ.
Reading his intent, Eto lunged at the Ghoul with a final, desperate ferocity. She became a whirlwind of strikes, attacking from every angle as if putting everything into this final gambit.
"Hah! Your final struggle?!"
The Ghoul shouted with confidence, certain of his victory. At that moment, he felt a small, annoying impact from a direction completely unrelated to Eto's attack. It wasn't painful, but it was irritating.
He stole a glance and saw Koma hurling a chunk of concrete at him. When the Ghoul glared, Koma simply gave him the middle finger, his expression asking, 'What are you gonna do about it?'
The Ghoul vowed to tear the man apart after he finished the brat, but in that momentary lapse, Eto found her opening.
๐๐ธ๐ช๐ด๐ฉ!!
Eto's kick grazed his waist. It seemed like another miss, an ineffective strike that failed to dig deep. To the Ghoul, it looked like the perfect chance to counter.
๐๐ฉ๐ธ๐ข๐ค๐ฌ!!!
"๐๐บ๐ข๐ข๐ข๐ข๐ข๐จ๐ฉ!!"
The heavy Koukaku slammed into Eto's back, tearing through her flesh. She screamed as she was sent flying, crashing into the grey concrete wall. As the Ghoul raised his Kagune like a spear to deliver the finishing blow, he froze.
๐๐ธ๐ช๐ต๐ค๐ฉ.
A faint, chilling breeze of intuition brushed past him. What was that? In the world of Ghoulsโwhere the law of the jungle was absoluteโhis survival instincts were not to be ignored. Something was wrong.
The hybrid brat? No, she was pinned against the wall, too damaged to move. The human? Could a mere human threaten him?
Skeptical, he turned back to where Koma had been standing. Koma was gone. Instead, he heard the sound of someone sprinting toward his rear. He whipped around and saw Koma diving toward the floor in a sliding motion. He was reaching for something...
"...?!!"
The Ghoul reflexively reached for his waist.
It was gone.
Eto's "missed" kick... it hadn't missed. She had struck with surgical precision. She had read Koma's signalโthe hand shaped like a gunโand she had kicked the holster right off the Ghoul's belt!
"You bastard!!!"
The Ghoul lunged for Koma, but it was too late. Koma had already snatched the holster and drawn the weapon.
"If you were actually doing your job as a cop, then this gun should have 'those' inside, right?"
As the son of a Ghoul Investigator, Koma knew things the general public did not. One of them was this:
Police officers, who are the most likely to encounter a Ghoul after the CCG, are issued a mandatory supply of special "ammunition" for self-defense. Bullets made with the same technology as a Quinque.
"The ใ๐ ๐๐ถ๐ญ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ตใ."
The pistol, which had never fulfilled its purpose in the hands of a monster wearing a policeman's skin, was finally ready. Koma chambered a round and aimed the barrel at the most deserving target it had ever faced.
He pulled the trigger.
๐๐-๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐โโโโ!!!!