Author's Note: from now on, I Will be referring to Nile only as Kaneki for simplicity.
The alleyway was a claustrophobic throat of brick and shadow, slick with the grime of a thousand forgotten nights. The air hung heavy with the copper tang of fresh blood and the damp rot of overflowing dumpsters. Kaneki looked up, his vision blurring as he focused on the girl standing at the mouth of the narrow passage.
Touka Kirishima stood with an icy, predatory grace. She was still clad in her Kiyomi High School uniform—a pristine white button-down blouse and a dark navy blazer that seemed out of place in such a filthy setting. A signature red ribbon was knotted sharply at her collar, mirroring the intensity of the gaze she leveled at them.
Her matching navy pleated skirt fluttered slightly in the cold draft, while her dark knee-high socks disappeared into classic black loafers. Her characteristic bobbed, purple hair swept across her face, obscuring her right eye and leaving only one cold, piercing orb to judge the scene.
Kaneki managed a weak, trembling smile. "I honestly wasn't expecting to—"
The air whistled. Before he could finish, Nishiki's Bikaku—a thick, muscular limb of predatory flesh—erupted from his lower back like a whip made of sinew. It caught Kaneki square in the jaw with the force of a speeding car. The impact sent him hurtling backward, his body slamming into the soot-stained bricks with a bone-jarring thud that filled the alley with the sound of cracking mortar.
Nishiki spat on the ground, his face twisted in a cynical snarl as he adjusted his glasses. "This dipshit reeks of the CCG, you little brat! He's a damn dove, and you're jumping me for taking out the trash?" he barked, his voice dripping with street-level vitriol. "Mind your own business before I tear that uniform off your corpse."
Touka didn't flinch. She stepped forward, her heels clicking rhythmically against the wet pavement, her presence growing more suffocating with every inch. "Shut your mouth, Nishiki," she said, her voice a low, authoritative blade. "You're encroaching on territory that doesn't belong to a bottom-feeder like you. This is Rize's feeding ground. You're poaching, and you know what happens to scavengers who get greedy."
Nishiki's Bikaku coiled defensively around his torso, the tip twitching like a cobra. He cracked a knuckle, a sharp pop echoing in the tense silence. "Rize? Don't make me laugh. That gluttonous bitch hasn't been seen in weeks. She's long gone—probably turned into a pile of scrap by now. Don't come at me with that 'territory' shit just because you want a snack for yourself."
Touka's gaze shifted momentarily to the dying woman bleeding out on the asphalt, then back to the jagged hole in the wall where Kaneki lay buried under debris.
Inside the wreckage, Kaneki's lungs burned. A digital interface flickered in his mind, glowing with a cold, blue light as his symbiote struggled to knit his shattered jaw back together. He was currently staring at a system mission infront of him.
[Mission Options: The Rabbit's Judgment]
Option 1: Fake a "Ghoul" SignatureForce the symbiote to mimic RC-cells. Confuse her long enough to retreat.Reward: 50 Fusion Points.
Option 2: Negotiate for the VictimPrioritize the dying woman's life over your own safety. Establish a "truce" with Anteiku.Reward: 150 Fusion Points.
Option 3: Strike FirstTest your 'Surface Hardening' against a high-speed Ukaku. (Warning: 90% chance of severe limb loss).Reward: 500 Fusion Points.
"The only thing keeping me in one piece is this mask," Kaneki coughed, tasting iron as he hauled himself out of the brickwork.. "Five hundred fusion points… it is definitely tempting but, im not trying to kill myself today."
'An A-class and an S-class ghoul fighting over a dinner plate,' he thought, his pulse hammering against his eardrums. 'I'm asking for my life support to be unplugged if I interfere.' He wiped a smear of blood from his lip and smirked.
"Hey ladies!" Kaneki clapped his hands, the sound sharp enough to draw both ghouls' eyes. "Listen, there's someone dying right here while you two argue over the menu. If you'd just give me a second—"
Nishiki didn't wait for the punchline. His Bikaku lunged again, a blur of red and purple muscle aimed straight for Kaneki's throat. But this time, Kaneki's world slowed down. His heightened senses screamed a warning, every nerve ending firing in unison. With a burst of speed that surprised even himself, he vaulted into the air. He didn't just dodge; he landed a perfect, mocking handstand on the very limb intended to kill him. With a fluid twist, he propelled himself off the quivering muscle and landed softly in front of the victim.
"That's a bit aggressive, don't you think, Nishiki?" Kaneki noted, his tone sharpening as the symbiote mask crept further across his face.
Kaneki looked at Touka pleadingly, his voice echoing with a metallic resonance from behind the half-formed mask. "Look... we don't need to do this. I'm not your enemy. Nishiki is just losing his head over a lapse in judgment."
Nishiki didn't offer a verbal rebuttal. Instead, his Bikaku lashed out with a thunderous crack, aiming for Kaneki's midsection. Kaneki tried to pivot, but the limb was too fast, catching him squarely in the liver. The symbiote rippled, hardening into a carbon-fiber-like plate just before impact, but the sheer kinetic energy sent him skidding five feet backward, his boots smoking against the wet asphalt. He doubled over, hacking up a glob of dark, viscous blood. "Well, that hurts," he wheezed.
"You're too slow, you pathetic amateur," Nishiki sneered, the muscular tail coiling behind him like a spring. "Dove or not, you're just target practice." With a sudden twist of his hips, he redirected the Bikaku mid-air, slapping Kaneki like a ragdoll toward Touka.
Touka didn't catch him. She swerved to the right with predatory fluidity, letting Kaneki crash into a stack of empty crates. She was a blur of motion before the wood even hit the ground. "Go to sleep, you waste of space," she said, her voice a cold whisper that seemed to precede her. She closed the distance to Nishiki in a heartbeat, her hand reaching for his throat.
Nishiki scrambled to bring his Bikaku back, panic finally flickering behind his glasses. "I was just trying to eat! Did you forget about the damn dove!" He tried to retreat, but Touka's speed was overwhelming. A series of surgical strikes—shattering kicks and palm thrusts—rained down on him. Cuts appeared across his arms and chest as her movements grew jagged and lethal.