"They got away?!"
The Ghoul Investigators crowded around the hole, staring down into the darkness with the bitter expressions of dogs that had chased a chicken right to the edge of a cliff. It was far too deep and dark to simply jump in after them blindly.
The eldest investigator among them asked, "Does anyone know what's down there?"
"Th-that... According to the schematics, there's a drainage reservoir tank!"
"So it's a dead end. Did they give up? Either way, it's fine. Hold this position until backup arrives—!!"
Rumble
A deafening sound, like a clap of thunder, surged up from beneath the hole.
Sensing something had happened, the investigators began to stir.
"What's going on?!"
"We just got confirmation! The heavy rain that started around Ward 12 at 12:25 has spread across the entire city, including Ward 7! It looks like the water rose to a critical level and the floodgates opened!"
"Floodgates? Those Ghoul bastards planned their escape through there!"
"What do we do? Should we pursue them?"
The answer to the investigator's question came from above.
"Don't bother chasing the ones who already got away! More importantly, maintain battle formation!"
It was Hitokawa, shouting as he dropped from the air. Behind him, the Kakuja monster bore down with terrifying momentum.
"KRAAAAH!!"
BOOOOM
Hitokawa hit the ground first, dodging aside just as the monster crashed down like a falling shell, shaking the concrete.
Its eyes still burned with a hideous madness, but its body was a shadow of its former self.
One eye had been pierced by a Quinque and one arm had been severed; its regeneration was incomplete, leaving its form distorted.
It had endured a battle with Eto, a series of clashes with the alliance of En and the Black Doberman, and most recently, a chaotic melee involving Hitokawa and Arima. Even with its horrifying regenerative powers, it had finally reached its limit.
However, while its regeneration had weakened, the Kakuja's overwhelming destructive power remained.
The investigators raised their Quinques, their expressions tense. None of them were certain they could handle the Kakuja monster alone.
Then, a swift shadow flashed past, and someone snatched the Quinques right out of the investigators' hands.
"I'll borrow these for a moment."
"What?!"
"Hey, what are you doing?!"
The figure was Arima. With an array of weapons—spears, blunt instruments, whips, and swords—clipped to his side, he sprinted toward the monster's flank.
The monster's vicious eyes tracked Arima's movement.
It was acting on instinct alone, devoid of reason, but the repeated battles had carved the danger Arima represented deep into those instincts.
"KRAAAAH!!!"
"If you interfere with my mission, I will eliminate you."
Arima leaned his upper body back, narrowly dodging an arm swing that would have turned him into minced meat.
Then, like a carp leaping up a waterfall, a spear-shaped Quinque surged upward beneath the monster's arm and pierced through its armpit.
Thud
"Krrk?!"
The Quinque burst through the shoulder and drove straight into the monster's neck. That was only the beginning.
Sliding down toward the calf, Arima drove sword- and awl-shaped Quinques into the knee joints. The impact forced the monster down onto one knee, and the tips of the weapons punched through the legs and stabbed deep into the concrete floor.
The monster thrashed, swinging its partially regenerated arm in a desperate struggle.
Arima lashed out with a whip-shaped Quinque, wrapping it around the limb and wrenching it behind the monster's neck. With the arm pinned behind the shoulder, Arima drove the whip's blade-like handle between the monster's ribs.
"KRAAAAK!!!"
The monster writhed and rampaged in resistance.
But with every movement, the number of Quinques embedded in its body increased exponentially. It was like a spider wrapping its prey in webbing, systematically stealing away its freedom.
Once Quinques had been driven into its abdomen, solar plexus, collarbone, liver, spine, and heart, the monster's struggles began to fade. The light in its eyes dimmed slowly, like a candle burning out.
Thud!!
For the finishing blow, Arima stepped onto the monster's shoulder and brought a long sword crashing down onto the crown of its head.
The Kakuja armor had become so thin it was practically nonexistent; it offered no resistance. The blade bored into the skull and did not stop until it punched through the jaw.
The light in the monster's eyes vanished completely. Arima pulled the Quinque free from the head, stepped back onto the floor, and let out a quiet breath.
The investigators could only stare at Arima and the carcass in disbelief.
All of this had happened in the span of a few blinks.
In that short window, the Kakuja had been rendered helpless in a one-sided slaughter. How could they not be stunned?
Hitokawa, who had personally collided with the monster and felt its terrifying strength, was especially dumbfounded.
At this rate, if he had simply provided Arima with enough weapons and stayed out of the way, Arima likely could have finished the job alone.
Hitokawa approached the dead monster, his head still spinning, and examined the Quinques embedded in its body.
He pierced every spot where a kakuhou would likely be.
The kakuhou was one of a Ghoul's most vital organs.
Identifying the location of a kakuhou was basic Ghoul-hunting knowledge. Hitokawa himself had narrowed down a few suspicious spots while observing the monster.
But identifying them and striking them with absolute precision were two very different things.
To pierce every kakuhou with a single Quinque each, without a single wasted motion, was almost miraculous—especially against a Kakuja.
This isn't just genius. He's beyond the human category.
Unable to hide his bewilderment, Hitokawa turned to look at Arima.
He saw only Arima's back as the man walked toward the hole without the slightest hesitation.
"Hey! What are you doing?!"
"I will pursue the escaping Ghouls."
Whoosh
Before anyone could tell him it was futile, Arima threw himself down into the hole—straight into the raging current of the ongoing drainage.
Hitokawa and the other investigators rushed to the edge in confusion.
Arima had already vanished into the darkness. Below them, only the roar of water draining at high speed remained.
"W-what do we do? Should we go after him too?"
"If you're confident you can survive that flood, go ahead and jump."
When Hoshino asked, Hitokawa rubbed his forehead, feeling too exhausted to think.
From the sound alone, it was impossible to gauge the scale of the drainage. Pursuit was impossible.
It was a route Ghouls could use because they were far tougher than humans. Even they would struggle to emerge unscathed, but their odds of survival were high.
On the other hand, even those capable of hunting Ghouls were still human.
Only two kinds of humans would jump into a place like that: fools who believed they were immortal, or fools who had already resolved to die.
Arima was a fool who believed he wouldn't die.
At the very least, he had the ability to back it up. He was another kind of monster—one who had dismantled a Kakuja single-handedly.
To leap into the water after him, one would have to be a fool prepared for death, and fortunately, there were no such fools in this group.
If there were, I'd love to see their faces.
After muttering that inwardly, Hitokawa turned to the investigators. "For now, we wait until the water drains and backup arrives. No matter how weird that bastard is, we can't just leave him to it."
The other investigators nodded in agreement.
Watching them disperse to regroup, Hitokawa sighed and looked down into the abyss.
"I've been assigned an annoying one, in more ways than one."
I opened my eyes.
I met the gaze of two round eyes staring steadily into my face.
"...Eto?"
"Yes."
"...This isn't heaven, is it?"
"If heaven were this filthy, damp, and smelly, I'd want to escape immediately."
Listening to her, I remembered what had happened before I lost consciousness.
I had tried to swim against the raging current, but after being slammed into a wall with violent force, my memory went blank.
I had sensed death in that moment, but since I was talking to Eto now, I suppose I had survived.
"Are you hurt anywhere?"
"Hmm... Looks like I'm fine."
My body was scraped, bruised, and battered, but nothing seemed broken. Still, the risk of infection was high; I'd need antibiotics once we got back.
At my words, Eto nodded in relief.
Then, she raised a tightly clenched fist as if showing it off.
"Then brace yourself."
"...Huh?"
By the time I realized something was wrong, Eto's fist was already buried in my abdomen.
Thud!!
"Cough!!"
My stomach was crushed, my diaphragm forced upward by the pressure, and I reflexively coughed up breath that tasted of stomach acid.
Even as I clutched my abdomen and curled onto my side in pain, I could feel Eto's cold stare pinned to me.
"E-Eto...?"
"...."
Eto clamped her mouth shut and began alternating her fists in a steady rhythm.
The motion might have looked like a dutiful shoulder massage from a child to a parent, but the force behind it was unmistakably filial abuse.
Thump! Thump! Thud! Thump!
"Ghk?! E-Eto, wait! Cough! You hit bone! You hit bone! Aaaagh!!"
I screamed and tried to resist, but Eto didn't stop, her tone remaining infuriatingly calm.
"Oh? How strange. Didn't Dad like pain like this?"
"Who would like this kind of thing! I'm not a masochist! And even if I were, getting hit by my daughter for pleasure would put me at a level where society needs to lock me away!"
"Would someone like that do something this reckless?"
"...."
I had no answer for Eto's sharp jab.
I averted my eyes and muttered, "M-my body's tough, okay...?"
"How tough could it possibly be compared to a Ghoul's? You collided eight times with other Ghouls being swept along by the current, fourteen times with concrete fragments and trash, and twenty-one times with walls and floors at tremendous speed. If I hadn't wrapped Dad in my Kagune, one of your limbs would have been torn off regardless of how lucky you were."
"...."
I had wondered why I'd emerged from that current miraculously intact. Eto had protected me.
But if I admitted that my reckless behavior had been justified, I feared the barrage of fists would resume. I scrambled for an excuse.
"I-I trusted my daughter! Do you really think I planned a move like this without thinking?"
"I'm almost moved by my father's genius. Just how smart were you to calculate the exact timing of when I'd regain consciousness? When I came to, you were already in the middle of jumping into the hole. If I hadn't sensed your killing intent toward yourself, I would have stayed unconscious until the moment I was swept away. Did you even calculate that you'd become the target? My admiration is blooming for my father, whose schemes are worthy of Zhuge Liang."
"Th-tha..."
I was done for. I had tried to talk my way out of a corner, only to dig it deeper.
As if to signal that the argument was over, Eto raised her fist again.
With no other choice, I decided to simply endure the beating until her anger subsided, curling up as much as possible to protect myself.
But no matter how long I waited, the feared blow never came. Instead, a warm droplet fell onto the back of the hand covering my head.
I cautiously lifted my head and looked at Eto.
Transparent streams were running down her cheeks.
"Why do you always... do such reckless things?"
Eto was crying.
She didn't look angry at my stupidity so much as overwhelmed by the fear and grief of nearly losing someone precious to her.
"There were... other ways... At least if it had just been Dad... there was definitely a way to survive..."
"...I'm sorry."
I pulled Eto into my arms and apologized.
There had definitely been another way: surrendering to the Ghoul Investigators.
If I revealed that I was human, I wouldn't have avoided punishment for aiding Ghouls, but I wouldn't have died. It was a far better option than risking my life in a raging current.
"...But that would have been a way for only me to survive. If I'd done that, I would have regretted it forever."
That would have guaranteed my own safety, but Eto and the others would have been left vulnerable. In the worst case, they'd be exterminated on the spot; in the best, they'd end up in Cochlea.
Hitokawa was there, but as an investigator, he couldn't openly help us. Defending us could have jeopardized his own position.
So I gambled, sacrificing my own survival rate to raise everyone else's.
I had no idea how badly my legs were shaking as I carried out that plan. When the current first dragged me under, I even prayed to a god I usually ignored.
In the end, the gamble paid off. I survived and managed to shake the investigators. But regardless of the outcome, Eto could never have approved.
One tiny mistake, and I would have crossed a river from which there was no return.
For Eto, that must have been more terrifying than the attack of the Kakuja monster.
"Hic... uuu..."
Eto sniffled in my arms, still hitting me intermittently. But it didn't hurt like before, so I stayed quiet, letting her vent while I soothed her.