One week after their brutal encounter beneath the ruined shrine, Akira Mado returned.
She arrived without preamble — her pale trench coat dusted with the grime of the 15th Ward, her eyes glinting like blades under the wan moonlight. Eiríkur waited at the edge of the Aokigahara forest, his breath curling in the cold air like silver threads of frost.
"I found something," she said, unfolding a weathered map onto the hood of a rusted car. "A hidden Kanou lab. Deep in the sewers under the 15th Ward. Abandoned, but not empty. The tech… it matches the RC signature that changed you."
Eiríkur crossed his arms, shadows sliding across the lines of his pale jaw. A thin film of frost spread from his boots over the gravel. "And you want me to help you infiltrate it?"
"You're quiet. Strong. Resistant to RC sensors. And…" She hesitated, her words carefully chosen. "You understand Kanou's methods in a way no investigator can."
For a long time, Eiríkur said nothing. Only the faint whisper of wind moved between them.
Later that night, Skorvald gave his warning.
"She will break you," the old draugr said, his voice like cracking ice. "Humans are soft flesh, but their hearts have teeth sharper than any kagune. You are neither now. Neither man nor ghoul. Do not let her make you forget which grave you crawled from."
Eiríkur didn't respond.
But the warning sank deep — cold as his bones.
Before the mission, Skorvald demanded a rite.
"The deeper you tread into death, the more you must become one with it,"he said. "Otherwise, you will be torn apart between the living and the dead."
They ventured into the heart of Aokigahara, the sea of trees where lost souls wandered. There, under a moon strangled by branches, Skorvald led Eiríkur to a forgotten burial mound — a resting place for Norse mercenaries who had vanished centuries ago, their memory swallowed by both history and myth.
The ritual was cruel. It was meant to be.
Eiríkur knelt on frozen soil as Skorvald handed him a bowl — a dark mixture of blood and powdered bone, ground from the remains of a powerful ghoul slain in the 1st Ward.
"Drink. Remember who you are not."
The taste was iron and ash. The pain was fire and ice, a storm tearing through every vein. He fell onto the frozen ground, screaming as visions drowned him:
Ships burning on icy fjords. Gods hanging on world-trees. Corpses whispering secrets beneath oceans black as ink.
When he awoke, his right eye burned with a frost-blue flame, and faint veins traced his shoulder, glowing with runes like carved ice.
New power hummed through him, waiting to be tested.
Hel's Glare — a burst of freezing energy from his right eye that slowed ghoul regeneration to a crawl.
Runesteel Armor — frost-forged plates of kagune layered over his vital organs, absorbing even quinque strikes.
Blood-Frost Pulse — the ability to freeze his own blood mid-air, turning every wound into jagged shards of ice.
The Lab Infiltration
The night they infiltrated the sewers, Tokyo was asleep — but the world beneath it stirred.
Akira dressed lightly, her pale trench coat blending into the shadows. Eiríkur followed, his face half-hidden beneath a dark scarf, frost whispering against his breath. Together, they slipped into the blackened arteries of Kanou's abandoned research maze.
The lab was a graveyard.
Shattered RC tanks lined the walls like coffins. Notes scribbled in frantic kanji were smeared with dried blood. Some chambers still held things — flesh suspended in semi-frozen fluids, half-formed kagunes twitching as if remembering pain.
In one cracked tank, they found a ghoul lying limp — its chest opened, its kagune harvested. And yet… it still drew faint, ragged breaths.
"They were trying to make something," Akira whispered, her voice trembling with both rage and fascination. "Not just ghouls. Hybrids. Like you."
Eiríkur's jaw clenched.
Then the alarms came.
From the darkness, a mutant weapon emerged — a ghoul twisted beyond recognition, sprouting six jagged kagunes that moved with animal chaos. It lunged, mindless, a howl tearing from its throat.
The battle was vicious.
Akira darted in with her quinque, cutting arcs of steel. But the creature was too fast. One strike sent her flying against a wall — her ribs cracked audibly.
Eiríkur roared.
Hel's Glare exploded from his right eye, the freezing pulse halting the mutant's regeneration mid-swing. He drove a spear of frost through its throat, the black ichor freezing solid before the beast collapsed like shattered glass.
When it was over, Akira slumped against him, clutching her side.
"You… should've left me," she rasped.
"I couldn't."
For a moment, her eyes softened. Not just calculation. Not just fear. Something else flickered — warm, fleeting, and then gone, buried beneath her cold resolve.
The Interruption
Three nights later, Eiríkur met Akira again on a rooftop above the 20th Ward to share their findings.
But they weren't alone.
Kaneki and Touka arrived. Both tense. Both wary.
Touka's eyes were sharp enough to cut. "You're working with her now?" Her voice dripped with disbelief and anger.
Eiríkur stepped between them, his breath curling like mist. "It's not what you think."
Kaneki's voice was quieter, but heavy. "Eiríkur… the CCG is the enemy. You know what they've done to me. Why risk trusting her?"
Akira didn't speak. She simply placed a hand near her coat, ready but calm.
Eiríkur turned to them both. "Because I'm not just a ghoul. And this — all of this — goes deeper than humans versus ghouls. The virus that made me… there might be more of it. Maybe even more like me."
Kaneki's eyes darkened, shaken. Touka looked almost betrayed.
They didn't understand.
Not yet.
That night, Eiríkur returned to Anteiku for the first time in weeks.
Yoshimura greeted him with his usual quiet grace, but his gaze lingered — as though reading the frost that clung to Eiríkur's aura.
"You've walked into deep waters, haven't you?" Yoshimura asked softly.
Eiríkur nodded, sitting down. "I need answers."
Yoshimura poured coffee — dark and slow, as though preparing for a confession.
"Then it's time you know," he said. "Anteiku was not created just to give ghouls peace. It was built to prepare for something… darker. Draugar — the undead of old ghoul legends — we believed them to be myths."
He slid a sealed envelope across the table.
"Your bloodline may go back further than Tokyo. Further than even the oldest ghouls here. And you're not the only one, Eiríkur. Others are awakening."