"What exactly... am I doing..."
Somewhere within the underground labyrinth of Ward 24, Yoshimura Eto sat leaning against a wall, lost in long contemplation.
There were quite a few ghoul corpses around her. They had basically come looking for trouble with Eto, only to be counter-killed and have their kakuhou devoured.
At this moment, Yoshimura Eto's emotions were extremely complicated. She knew this state was very wrong, but she could not adjust herself for the time being.
"I finally found you. You really made me search."
At this moment, she heard a familiar voice.
It was a voice Yoshimura Eto did not want to hear.
"Get lost on your own. I do not want to see you right now."
Eto's tone was cold and merciless.
"Do not be like this. If I wanted to harm you, I would have done it long ago. I am here to take you home."
Ihei Byakuya extended his hand toward Eto and approached her step by step.
Hearing the words take you home, Eto's heart wavered slightly, but her face remained as cold as if facing an enemy.
"Come. Let's go home."
Ihei Byakuya spoke again.
"..."
Yoshimura Eto was silent for a moment. "If you can defeat me, I will go back with you. Otherwise, I will kill you..."
From her serious and icy tone, Yoshimura Eto truly seemed as if she intended to kill Byakuya.
At this point, she did not want to dwell on this troubling matter anymore. She would decide everything through the most direct method, battle.
If she lost, then regardless of what Byakuya's true intentions were, she would let him do as he pleased.
Moreover, if she could not even deal with this guy, how could she talk about overthrowing the entire Washuu Clan?
In any case, Kuzen would surely shrink back again at that time. She had to rely on herself...
At this period, Yoshimura Eto had not yet thought about founding Aogiri Tree. It was only after she suffered her first near-fatal injury later that she began to change her lone-wolf way of thinking.
"Alright. It seems it has to come to this..."
Ihei Byakuya felt slightly helpless.
He actually did not want to fight Eto, but judging from the current situation, this battle was unavoidable.
Eto had probably developed a crisis of trust toward him. Instead of trying to persuade her, it was better to defeat her directly.
Yoshimura Eto stopped wasting words with Byakuya. Kagune began to spread from her body, extending over her entire form.
Until they completely wrapped around her, her originally petite body transformed into a towering kakuja monster.
As Ihei Byakuya expected, at this period Yoshimura Eto's kakuja form was exactly the same as Yoshimura Kuzen's Non-Killing Owl.
To be precise, Yoshimura Kuzen's Non-Killing Owl form had been deliberately altered to match Eto's exactly.
A sufficiently powerful kakuja could freely change its kakuja form.
The Non-Killing Owl had originally not existed. In the original work, the human investigators of the CCG did not know there were two Owls until the Anteiku Extermination Operation. In their understanding, there was only one Owl, the One-Eyed Owl, which was Yoshimura Eto.
Kuzen had deliberately modified his kakuja form in order to divert the Washuu Clan's attention.
That extremely familiar single-eyed kagune mask, the gray cloak enveloping the massive body, and those ukaku arms shaped like long blades.
This was Eto's current kakuja form. Its physique was much smaller than it would be more than a decade later. At least now it still retained a humanoid shape. Later, it would become increasingly monstrous.
At this time, Eto's strength was actually still inferior to Yoshimura Kuzen's.
Under the same circumstance of single-handedly charging into the CCG, at least no human investigator had been able to do anything to Kuzen.
In the end, it was only when the half-human Arima Kishou took action that he was driven back.
"Then there is no other way..."
Ihei Byakuya murmured.
At this moment, Yoshimura Eto took the initiative to attack Byakuya.
Despite her enormous kakuja body, her movements were extremely agile.
She suddenly closed in on Byakuya. With ordinary human eyesight, it was almost impossible to clearly see Eto's movements.
"You're serious..."
Seeing that Eto had no intention of holding back at all, Ihei Byakuya also became serious.
"Agreed. If I win against you, you'll obediently come home with me."
Even at this critical moment, Byakuya did not forget to emphasize this.
"..."
Yoshimura Eto did not utter a word.
At this point, she would not lightly believe this guy's words, nor would she relax because of them.
Without hesitation, she charged at Byakuya.
Ihei Byakuya carried a quinque with him. It was the S-rated koukaku quinque made from the Ice Ghoul he had previously exterminated. This koukaku quinque was in the shape of a greatsword, and he had named it Ice Blade.
Koukaku happened to restrain ukaku. Although Yoshimura Eto's kakuhou were certainly not limited to ukaku, a ghoul born with ukaku would ultimately rely primarily on ukaku.
Moreover, Eto's strength had already reached the standard of an SSS-rated ghoul. A quinque below S-rating would have difficulty inflicting effective damage on her.
Byakuya fiercely swung his sword, releasing a blade-like shockwave that contained the power of the Gura Gura no Mi.
Eto did not know what it was and only intended to casually knock it aside.
At the moment of contact, she instantly felt a sense of foreboding, but it was already too late.