Watching Ken Kaneki's slightly hurried figure fade around the corner, the gentle smile on Rize Kamishiro's face slowly drained away.
In its place came something cold and ravenous.
Her eyes were no longer clear and tender—they brimmed with unabashed hunger, locked on the direction Kaneki had gone.
It wasn't lust.
It was something more primal, more brutal—hunger.
She could practically "smell" the human scent radiating off Kaneki, pure and enticing. It was like the finest spice, constantly teasing her palate and stoking her appetite.
The boy's innocence and awkwardness were, to her, nothing more than garnish—little touches to heighten the flavor of a delicacy.
Only when Kaneki's footsteps vanished completely into the night did Rize slowly pull back her gaze.
She flicked out her tongue and lightly licked her lips, as if savoring an aftertaste.
Her palm smoothed over her flat stomach.
A strange, satisfied smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, and in a voice only she could hear, she chuckled:
"My, my… before the main course, I should have a little appetizer first~"
With that, she turned and slipped into the apartment block's shadows.
Her figure vanished quickly, as if she'd never been there at all.
…
Night fell in full.
The city sank into darkness.
Neon spilled prismatic reflections across the wet pavement, yet could not push back the gloom pooling in the corners.
Deep in a narrow, out-of-the-way alley—
"Ahhhh—!!!"
A shrill, ragged scream tore through the quiet.
It cut off at once.
"Tch tch tch…"
Then came a sickening sound of feeding—like some beast worrying flesh from bone, the crisp crack of splintering skeleton mixed in.
The uncanny noise echoed through the still alley, raising gooseflesh.
Farther in, the light was dim.
A crouched shape could just be made out, back to the alley mouth.
She moved with broad, deliberate motions.
Each time her head dipped, a dull chewing thud followed.
Just then—
Tap!
A clear footstep sounded at the mouth of the alley, breaking the gruesome rhythm.
The feeding stopped dead.
Silence fell.
The coppery reek of blood thickened in the air.
The next second—
Whoosh!
Something hissed through the dark: a sharp, blood-red, scale-plated tendril—like a viper—lanced out from the depths of the alley.
It howled through the air, driving straight for the newcomer at the entrance.
At the instant it was about to strike—
Shff!
A fan of iridescent spikes blossomed from behind the newcomer's back, flower-like yet hard as a shield.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The blood-red tendril smashed into the prismatic spikes and was knocked aside, arcing away to slam into the wall with a heavy thud.
"Oh? Kid, didn't anyone tell you it's taboo to interrupt a fellow ghoul while she's eating?"
The voice that floated up from the alley's depths was sour and arrogant.
The crouched figure rose and turned.
In the thin light from the alley mouth, her face came clear—Rize Kamishiro.
But the gentle, refined woman from the café was gone.
Her glasses had vanished at some point, revealing a pair of murderous, blood-red kakugan. Her pupils had narrowed into vertical slits that glinted with danger.
Blood smeared her mouth and cheeks.
It dripped from her chin, leaving vivid trails down her neck.
Behind her, four blood-red, scale-armored tendrils—her kagune—writhed faintly, radiating a predatory chill.
At her feet lay a human corpse, gnawed to a mangled ruin.
The scene was brutally, viscerally grotesque.
At the alley mouth stood a woman in a rabbit mask.
She was slender.
A pair of iridescent, wing-like ukaku fanned out behind her—butterfly-beautiful and blade-edged.
"Heh…"
At Rize's words, the woman gave a cold, mirthless scoff beneath the mask. Her voice came through the filter with an icy distortion.
"I'm with Anteiku."
Rize's swaying kagune stilled for a beat.
Her blood-red eyes narrowed at the intruder.
"Anteiku?"
"The manager sent me to warn you," the rabbit-masked woman went on, ignoring the reaction, her tone flat and unyielding. "Don't hunt so brazenly in the 20th Ward. Otherwise, you'll make yourself the enemy of every ghoul here."
Calm words, but the warning brooked no argument.
Rize's gaze deepened.
She stared hard at the woman in the rabbit mask, a flicker of killing intent passing through her eyes.
But in the end, she didn't move.
Anteiku's standing in the 20th Ward was… particular. She wasn't afraid of them, but there was no point making enemies for nothing—especially when she had a more important "target."
The rabbit-masked woman clearly didn't want to drag this out either.
Seeing Rize hold her tongue, she shot her a final, frosty glance and left one last line:
"You've been warned."
Her iridescent ukaku gave a light beat, and her figure slid back like a wraith, melting into the night in an instant.
Back in the alley's depths, Rize stood where she was.
Her kakugan still glimmered with peril.
She lifted her chin toward the direction the rabbit had vanished, and a cold, cruel smile curved her lips.
"Anteiku, huh…"
She murmured, disdain thick in her voice.
"Meddlesome."
She turned back to the ruined body.
She licked the blood lingering at the corner of her mouth, hunger flaring in her eyes again.
Her meal, rudely interrupted, clearly hadn't satisfied her.
The hideous sounds of feeding crept back into the dark, swallowed by a night that was somehow both noisy and silent in this city.
…
Across town, in another corner of the city—
Ken Kaneki had just gotten home. Sitting at his desk, he replayed every little moment he'd shared with Rize that day, a shy, sweet smile on his face—utterly unaware he'd already become a "delicacy" in the eyes of a beast.