Time rewinds a little.
I was being escorted as a Ghoul associate by a school-uniformed boy who called himself a Ghoul Investigator.
"Escorted" was putting it generously. There were no restraints, no threats. If the boy named Arima walked ahead, I followed behind him. That was all.
Even when I showed signs of slipping off onto another path, or deliberately wandered away to do something else, he didn't bother stopping me. This wasn't even encouragement to run.
Don't ask me whether this really counted as an escort. The weird one was him.
Or maybe he was frighteningly sharp instead.
He knew I had no combat ability, and that I couldn't possibly wander around this place alone with all the insane Ghouls lurking here.
He said he'd take me to the exit, but the problem was that he'd gotten lost.
My map? Are you insane? If I left with this guy now, prison was guaranteed. Why would I hand over directions?
Besides, if my map ended up in his hands, it would be like letting a human weapon roam freely through the sewers. Just imagining it was a disaster.
So ignore me and you people just—
"What are you doing?"
I flinched at the voice from behind and barely forced my body to stay still.
It was Arima's voice.
For the first time, the boy who had been leaving me alone as if I were barely there, only speaking when I addressed him, had spoken to me first.
Did he smell something? I didn't know yet, so I kept my expression as calm as possible and said, "No, I was just admiring how thoroughly you chopped it up."
What I had been bending over to inspect behind Arima was none other than the freshly made corpse of a Ghoul.
Ghouls were hardy creatures, so you couldn't carelessly approach a corpse. Some of the tougher ones could still move and attack even after suffering wounds that should have been instantly fatal.
But in this Ghoul's case, there was no chance of that.
Its body had already been split into thirty-six pieces and scattered.
This Ghoul had attacked viciously even after Arima's body was cut open, and Arima had neutralized it by butchering it in an instant, calling it a tough one.
It had seemed like a pretty strong Ghoul from the atmosphere, but it had gone to the grave like a nobody in the blink of an eye.
It was such a miserable state that even a serial killer would have to nod in respect. If it could still move after that, then it wasn't even a living thing anymore.
As I examined the Ghoul's corpse like I was sightseeing, Arima replied without much reaction, "It was nothing special."
Nothing special? Was that the same thing that had been rampaging hard enough to smash through a wall with only its neck and right arm left? What exactly did this guy consider troublesome?
I glanced sideways at Arima.
As if my question was the only one that mattered, Arima lost interest in me again and looked at the damage in the wall. It was a mark left by a Kakuhou.
Once I confirmed his attention had drifted, I moved my hand again.
Using the corpse as a screen so he wouldn't notice, I wrote on the floor with the blood on my hand.
I continued the message that had been cut off a moment ago.
[So ignore me and you guys find Eto, then escape. I'll get out somehow when I see my chance too.]
"Huu..."
I stretched and stood up.
Just then, Arima also tore his gaze away from the Kakuhou marks on the wall and started moving, so I followed after him.
The message on the floor would soon be found by Enji and Kaya's group, who were following at a distance just far enough not to notice.
It was the communication method they had come up with to avoid Arima's vigilance.
Before long, I saw blood-written graffiti on the walls and floor of the corridor. It was left behind by their subordinates, who had gone ahead along the route we were taking.
[blood blood blood blood meat]
[when the sun rises and ◎▶ is ▼＃♤ so I◆ trick the dying ※★☆ into]
[gone, we, I, stained on red hands]
[Kakitatakokurato-tsutema]
Just graffiti that made you question the writer's sanity. Some of it was so chaotic you couldn't even tell what it was supposed to say.
This was intentional. They were trying to make it look like it had been left by insane Ghouls.
When I first found these, I thought the same thing. But after discovering one particular scrawl, I realized it had been staged by Enji and Kaya's group.
[Eto. Father. I leave words here.]
The handwriting was different, probably written by another Ghoul, but it was clustered conspicuously in one place, so I could tell it was meant for me.
Eto. Arima didn't know it, but it was a name known only to me and them. It was there to signal that the message had come from them.
Father. That was the kanji referring to me. I was the intended recipient.
I leave words here. It meant they wanted to communicate through the words left behind.
And near the real message they conveyed, they always left obvious traces of Kakuhou as a decoy. A kind of misdirection.
Arima stopping to inspect those marks gave me time to find the message and leave a reply.
"They're pretty clever about this. Enji looks like the physical type, so I doubt he'd come up with something like this. Kaya, maybe?"
By exchanging information about each other's situations, we could understand what was going on.
Enji and Kaya's group hadn't escaped yet because they were trying to save us, Eto hadn't joined them for some reason, and I was currently stuck.
By now, they'd probably found the message telling them to find Eto and go first, and left a reply. I looked around carefully to find it.
[My right hand's black dragon roars!]
Who wrote that? That's not Ghoul madness, that's middle-schooler syndrome.
Maybe they'd reached the limit of pretending to be crazy, because the graffiti on the walls was starting to feel more and more monotonous. I wondered if they'd get exposed like this.
Then, once again, a conspicuous Kakuhou mark appeared in one corner. But for some reason, Arima ignored it and passed right by this time.
While following him, I hurriedly searched for their message somewhere nearby.
[Attention. Draw it.]
"Draw attention?"
Probably meaning to draw Arima's attention, but what were they thinking?
I couldn't tell what their intent was, but they were still the ones responsible for leading a group.
Assuming they wouldn't do anything reckless, I thought about a way to get Arima's attention.
"Grrraaaah!!"
"...?"
I clutched my stomach and collapsed.
Yep. This seemed like the most effective method.
Even Arima, who hadn't been paying much attention to me, couldn't ignore this and turned around.
"M-my stomach suddenly...!! Gahhh!!"
"Are you all right?"
Feigning stomach pain, I pressed my abdomen and rolled around on the floor. It felt a little awkward, like I was tricking a little kid.
Anyway, I'd drawn his attention, so what now? Were they planning to pass by near us without being noticed?
As I thought that, I stopped rolling and looked straight ahead. I could see Arima approaching and looking down at me.
...And beyond him, figures of Ghouls wearing monkey and dog masks leaping down from the ceiling.
Without a doubt. Enji and Kaya.
I shouted in alarm, "You idiots, stop!!"
"...Tch!"
At my shout, the two Ghouls shoved off each other and changed direction in midair.
At the same time, Arima's Kakuhou whipped out like lightning and sliced through the space where the two had been.
The monkey- and dog-masked Ghouls landed on the floor after evading the strike, and the one in the monkey mask, Enji, shouted at me as if blaming me.
"Why did you make a sound! You blew the chance!"
"You little—after I went out of my way to save you, you're getting angry? If you'd dropped just now, you'd be dead! He had already noticed your attack!"
That was right. The moment the two Ghouls jumped, I saw it.
Arima lowering his body with the tendons in his arm drawn tight, ready to swing his Quinque overhead.
I thought I'd drawn enough attention, but this guy had sensed the ambush like a ghost. What, did he have a radar implanted in his body or something?
Arima looked down at me. It wasn't the gaze he'd use on a scheming enemy. It was more like he'd found a tiny point of interest in some ordinary object lying around anywhere.
"You seem to be quite close with those Ghouls."
"...Well, we've shared a cup of coffee or two. But where did you catch on?"
"Among the graffiti on the walls, there were letters arranged in a strangely consistent way. Almost like replies in a conversation with someone. So I had already been preparing."
He'd picked out the real message from all those decoy scrawls? Unless he'd memorized every single one and compared them, that should have been impossible.
The more I looked at him, the more fear I felt from this guy who seemed to operate beyond human limits.
Tap. Tap.
Then, from the ceiling, around a corner, and from the flowing sewer water to the side, the figures of masked Ghouls emerged.
I couldn't tell exactly how many, but it looked like all of Enji and Kaya's forces had gathered. The corridor we were in was fairly wide, but with this many people in it, it felt cramped.
The irritation I felt wasn't just from the discomfort of having so many bodies packed into a limited space.
"I told you to go first and I'd escape on my own! You came in here to save your subordinates, and now you're planning to get everyone killed!?"
I still clearly remembered the sight of dozens of Ghouls being unilaterally slaughtered just moments ago. It was violence so unreal I had to wonder if it was actually happening.
No matter how elite their Ghoul group was, this was too dangerous. Their opponent was a human with combat power even more monstrous than a Ghoul's.
Enji and Kaya, who had fought him directly, couldn't possibly not know that, and yet they had shown up here anyway.
At my rebuke, the two of them turned their heads away as if they were children being scolded, then said, "We did come to save our subordinates. I didn't like the idea of my own limbs getting killed off by some other bastard without permission. Now that they're saved, I'll put them back to work like usual."
"They're loyal underlings who already entrusted their lives to me anyway. How I use them is up to their master."
At their words, the subordinates chimed in.
"That's right! The boss's benefactor is our benefactor! Leaving him behind would be dishonorable!"
"We're Ghouls who live and die by loyalty!"
"To be able to die for the lady! That's practically a reward!"
"Exactly! Exactly!"
Were all these guys' subordinates idiots?
Especially Kaya's people. They reeked of serious masochism.
As I pitied the two of them for having to lead people like this, Arima was examining the Ghouls one by one.
Even with masks on, they couldn't hide their hair or builds.
And when he realized none of them matched the physique he remembered, he let out a small sigh.
"It seems that Ghoul isn't here."
"...!"
I immediately knew which Ghoul Arima meant.
'This guy is still after Eto?'
Come to think of it, he had also played along with my act at the beginning just to draw Eto out.
What was this strange fixation he had on Eto? When had he even seen her, and why was he chasing her this relentlessly?
As I stared at Arima with those suspicions, he adjusted his glasses and continued, "I'll proceed by killing everyone, then."
He declared extermination in front of nearly forty people, with complete confidence.
Because he had already done it once before, it felt even more threatening.
Then Kaya pointed at me and said, "Confidence is nice and all, but that thing is annoying, so how about you get rid of it first?"
What she was talking about was obviously me.
Sure, I was just a normal human caught in the middle of a fight between a Ghoul group and a one-man army of an Investigator. I'd be annoying too.
But Arima answered as if it were no problem at all.
"I can't let a criminal go, so this is a suitable handicap."
Who are you calling a handicap, you bastard.
Just let me crouch in a corner. That would be a lot safer than lying in the middle of the battlefield.
"Maybe it doesn't matter to you, but that handicap is pretty damn annoying to us!"
With those words, Enji stomped his foot and shook the ground.
Thud
At the same time, Arima seemed to sense something and stepped back from my side, and immediately after that, Kakuhou burst up through the floor around me.
KWA-GA-GA-GA-CRACK
"!!! What the hell is this!"
The erupting Kakuhou blew the floor apart and sent my body falling.
And the ones who caught me were the two Ghouls who had lent masks to me and Eto before.
"Got him, boss!"
"Lady! We pulled him out for sure!"
The two Ghouls gathered their arms around me, caught me, and immediately took off running with me on their backs.
Then Enji and Kaya shouted as if they had been waiting for it.
"Good!"
"Everyone, retreat!"
At that, the Ghouls who had swarmed in began pouring back out in a rush.
Forty people fleeing as if afraid of a boy who hadn't even fully become an adult would have been funny, but in reality it was the best possible judgment.
They might not have known their opponent at first, but while tracking me with Arima, they had fully grasped how dangerous he was.
They fought to survive. They didn't throw themselves into a hopeless battle for pride. So they decided to retreat without hesitation.
"I'm not exactly skilled at chasing fleeing Ghouls..."
Watching the retreating Ghouls, Arima narrowed his eyes as if thinking for a moment.
"But for today, it can't be helped."
Then he gripped his Quinque tightly and sprinted after the Ghouls.
As I was carried away like a baton, a new tagger began the hunt.
"The Second Wing Takes Flight"