The CCG's Ghoul extermination was nearly at its end.
Most of the Ghouls had been eliminated, and they were now searching the area for any that might still be hiding.
On the CCG side, there were almost no casualties, and most of the resident Ghouls in the 7th Ward had been wiped out.
By that measure alone, the operation was a success. A half-success, since the big prey had slipped away.
Hitokawa dragged his blood-soaked body toward the command post.
The sight of him was so eerie that people passing by recoiled in alarm and gave him a wide berth.
Between the back-to-back battles in the extermination, the melee with Maen, Kuroinu, and the mysterious Kakuja Ghoul, and then the breakout fight he'd been forced into while escaping the cavern because more Ghouls kept pouring in, he was in no shape to look decent.
Still, he opened the command post door without any sign of stopping to treat his injuries.
Special Class Ghoul Investigator Tanaka Hishiro.
The man in charge of this extermination, its commander, had returned to the command post after confirming the operation was nearly finished.
He wiped blood from his own face with a wet towel, his expression no less soaked than Hitokawa's, then looked up at him as he came through the door.
"Special Class Hitokawa. What is it?"
"Who is that guy?"
Hitokawa got straight to the point.
Tanaka's scarred eye twitched, but he said nothing. He looked as though he had already expected Hitokawa to bring this up.
He set a towel over the top of his head, where the scar tissue covered more of his scalp than his hair did, and sank back into his chair.
He was a veteran who had exterminated countless vicious Ghouls, but lately even he seemed unable to hide his age, letting out a tired sigh as he spoke.
"You mean Arima Kishou?"
"Yeah. That kid you planted on my team, Special Class."
"Did he cause some kind of trouble?"
"Not 'did.' He's causing trouble right now. He ignored my orders and went after the Ghouls on his own. We still haven't found even a trace of him."
"Oh dear..."
As if the expected had happened, Tanaka Special Class pressed a hand to his forehead.
After rubbing the crease between his brows for a moment, he asked Hitokawa in return, "What did you think of him? Arima Kishou, that boy."
"Well, at first I thought the higher-ups had lost their minds, sending a kid who hadn't even taken off his school uniform out on a mission."
"Your tongue is as sharp as ever. I like that. If I weren't already on the verge of retirement, I'd have turned the place upside down."
"I only say as much as I can get away with to someone who can take it. Anyway, back to the point. You've already been briefed on the appearance of the Kakuja Ghoul, right?"
Tanaka Special Class picked up the report on the desk. It contained a detailed account of the Kakuja Ghoul Hitokawa's group had encountered.
"Yes. We nearly had a disaster on our hands. I never expected a monster like that to appear without warning down in the 7th Ward's underground. If things had gone slightly differently, the extermination force could have suffered serious losses."
"That one was hunted down by him."
"..."
"Alone."
An uncomfortable silence settled over the command post.
With all his years of experience, Tanaka Special Class knew better than anyone how dangerous a Kakuja Ghoul was.
"Of course, there are a few monsters in the CCG who could take on a Kakuja Ghoul alone. But those people earned that strength by crossing the line of death countless times. Arima is different. He already has this alien combat ability, as if he were complete from the very beginning. Who exactly is that kid?"
"..."
Tanaka Special Class silently reached under the desk and pulled out a bottle of liquor.
Hitokawa watched nervously as he tipped the liquor into his mouth, as if steeling himself before saying something important.
Then, with the haze of alcohol settling over his eyes, he spoke.
"I don't know."
"Hey, you old bastard. Then why were you acting so damn impressive just now?"
Hitokawa, expecting some shocking revelation and getting blindsided instead, couldn't hold back and threw his rank aside.
It was insubordination from a subordinate to a superior, but Tanaka Special Class didn't seem to care as he kept drinking.
For a man on the verge of retirement, Hitokawa's protest was no different from a dog barking somewhere in the distance.
"The higher-ups made me take him on, so I had no choice."
"What kind of nonsense is that? You're the Special Class in charge of Countermeasure Section One right now..."
As he spoke, Hitokawa suddenly realized this wasn't a drunken joke and widened his eyes.
"...Don't tell me it was the Director?"
At that, Tanaka Special Class shook his head and said, "Higher than that."
"You mean the Chairman?"
Washuu Tsuneyoshi.
The highest authority leading the CCG.
He was old now, but in his youth he had been such an extraordinary Ghoul Investigator that he was practically a living legend. Even now, though he had stepped back from the front lines, the CCG's major decisions were made under his approval.
And that kind of person had personally handpicked Arima?
"At first I thought the same as you. Even if the Chairman personally selected him, he was far too young to be a Ghoul Investigator. So I challenged him to a spar under the pretense of checking his skill. I meant to beat him down hard and argue that he wasn't fit to be an investigator."
Tanaka Special Class drained the bottle, and Hitokawa urged him to continue.
"So, what happened?"
"It was a disaster."
Bang!
The liquor bottle slammed down hard on the desk.
Whether the bottle cracked from the impact of the fall or from the strength of Tanaka Special Class's grip was impossible to tell.
"I was beaten to a pulp. It felt like my entire life as an investigator had been denied."
"..."
"I'd spent thirty years fighting monsters that weren't human until I was sick of it, but... Arima Kishou. That kid isn't even a monster. He's something beyond that."
He pushed aside the bottle, now leaking liquor through a crack, and took out a fresh one.
"I'll assign a separate team to search for him. In the meantime, don't worry about anything and get some rest while you recover. Well, it's ridiculous to worry about a kid who'd probably survive just fine even if a horde of Ghouls came crashing down on him..."
There was certainty in Tanaka Special Class's voice, but also a strange trace of fear.
Even if he was at the age where retirement was expected, the reason he had stubbornly remained on the front lines until now, only recently showing signs of finally deciding to step back, was surely tied in part to the appearance of that prodigy.
Hitokawa gave his farewell and left the command post without another word.
As the man had said, Arima's survival was probably not the issue.
Rather, they should feel sorry for the unlucky Ghouls who had crossed paths with him.
Though he was still only a rank-and-file Ghoul Investigator, Hitokawa had a feeling Arima would rise through the ranks terrifyingly fast.
"A seriously dangerous person has just appeared. I should warn Koma and the others to be careful, just in case."
As he moved to have his injuries treated, he suddenly stopped and snapped his head toward the sewer direction.
Thinking about Koma's group brought back the two suspicious Ghouls he had spotted in the cavern, and they flashed through his mind all at once.
"...No way, right?"
A strange unease settled over him.
"Wahahahaha! How's that, human! Pretty clean work, pulling you out of that monster's grip! When you tell my big brother about this later, make sure you say Katsura Akihiko's contribution was huge!"
The man in the monkey mask, who claimed to be Enji's right hand, shouted as he ran with me slung over his broad shoulders.
Beside him, the man in the dog mask ran along and said, his eyes gleaming behind the mask, "That barbarian's words aren't worth hearing, human. Compared to my feat—moving silently right up to that Ghoul Investigator's feet and judging the timing of the attack—it was nothing. So be sure to report Nomiya Seiichi's accomplishments in detail to my older sister."
The man who claimed to be Kaya's right hand said that.
Listening to them while they ran, it seemed the real culprits who had brought their subordinates into the 7th Ward out of excessive loyalty were these two.
I had chosen to get involved in this mess of my own free will, but seeing the source of all this trouble right in front of me made me want to smack the back of someone's head.
Still, I decided against it. This was not the time to vent my anger on them.
I felt that from the figure chasing us from behind.
"He's coming after us!"
"Tch!"
"I was hoping he'd go somewhere else."
At my words, the two Ghouls stiffened and clicked their tongues.
To throw Arima off, the Ghouls had deliberately scattered in all directions. But even after all that, Arima moved immediately.
He went after a human fleeing with two low-ranking Ghouls, not after a big-name Ghoul like Enji or Kaya.
It was enough to make the efforts of Enji and Kaya, who had deliberately run off in different directions hoping Arima would chase them, feel wasted.
"Looks like he doesn't want to lose the bait yet."
"Bait?"
"There's such a thing. Anyway, what now?"
At my question, Katsura said as if there was nothing to think about, "We keep running."
"No matter how strong he is, he's still human in the end. In terms of physical ability, we're ahead."
At Nomiya's words, I nodded, deciding that was the sensible call.
If the enemy was absurdly strong, then the answer was simply not to fight him. Even Arima, who had been carving up Ghouls, seemed to run at roughly human speed.
Our victory condition wasn't to defeat Arima. It was to get out of here as safely as possible.
If we could shake Arima and escape with Eto, that would count as our win.
I'd be starting a life on the run with my face exposed, sure, but that was better than the result of having every Ghoul, Eto included, wiped out. It wasn't as if I could just decide to murder everyone and bury the evidence, either.
"We already set a rendezvous point in advance, but we can't go there with that tail on us. Speed up and shake him off!"
When Nomiya said that, Katsura, who was carrying me, twisted his face inside the mask.
"Don't order me around! I know that already without you saying it..."
Squelch!
None of us, not me or the two Ghouls, could react to the change that happened in that instant.
A dark red blade burst out, spraying blood. It was a Quinque.
The long sword-shaped Quinque Arima had been carrying pierced through Katsura's throat and came out the other side while he was still speaking.
"Keh...!!"
Katsura stared in horror at the grotesque blade that had gone through his neck. He reflexively grabbed at it, but the shock left by the blade was too great to pull it out immediately.
The boy whose very existence felt like cheating had not somehow surpassed even the physical speed of a Ghoul to close the distance.
Arima was still far away. His hand, the one that had held the sword, was stretched out toward us.
'He threw it...?!'
The moment I understood what had happened, Katsura's body lurched violently.
His breathing was ragged, and blood loss from the severed vessels tangled his feet. Maybe the blade had even reached his nervous system.
Katsura, still carrying me as he ran, pitched forward, and my own body was hurled roughly across the ground with him.
Crash!
"Kgh!"
Once the force of momentum had turned into a blunt weapon battering my body, I pushed myself up at once.
My whole body hurt, but I checked Katsura first.
He was still alive. But he was thrashing around, unable to pull the blade from his throat.
"I'll help!"
I quickly moved behind the fallen Katsura, grabbed the Quinque's hilt, and pulled. It wouldn't come free easily, as if it had lodged against bone.
Ignoring Katsura's pained groans, I worked the Quinque out as carefully as I could so the wound wouldn't tear wider. All the while, I kept one eye on Arima.
With us pinned down, Arima stopped running and began walking toward us at a slow pace.
It almost felt like he had thrown the Quinque because he couldn't be bothered to keep running.
'No matter how confident you are, you'd just throw away the one weapon that can actually hurt a Ghoul? Are you insane, that guy?!'
Because he had thrown the Quinque, Arima was now empty-handed.
A Quinque was absolutely necessary to injure a Ghoul. Without it, any wound would regenerate in no time.
No matter how I looked at it, Arima's behavior seemed like the act of someone who had ripped out his own teeth.
Nomiya, standing beside me, seemed to feel the same and took up a stance. He was in combat mode.
"What are you planning to do?"
"...My sister told me to avoid fighting that guy, but he just threw away his own weapon. This might be the one chance we'll ever get to take him out."
"Stop! Thinking like that might be exactly the trap he wants you to fall into! He could have some hidden weapon!"
"I can tell by smell! Aside from the Quinque he just threw, that guy has nothing on him right now! He's bare-handed!"
Nomiya had already made up his mind to fight.
Rather than fleeing blindly, removing the source of the danger could certainly be more efficient.
But an unknown sense of foreboding wrapped around my body.
Arima's calm expression as he approached without a shred of fear, despite having no weapon, felt like a huge predator that didn't care about a few mice.
"Don't worry. I'm not planning to rush in blindly either."
Saying that, Nomiya charged at Arima before I could say another word.
He pulled a metallic Kagune from near his scapula and wrapped it around both arms.
Charging forward with the sharp tip of the Kagune aimed straight ahead, he looked like an enraged bull.
Arima stopped walking and watched Nomiya charge.
Then the ceiling above his head exploded.
KWA-GA-GA-GA-BOOOOM!
Along with falling chunks of stone, four more Ghouls wearing dog and monkey masks appeared.
They were the subordinates left behind to follow Arima in case he went after me instead of Enji or Kaya.
What Nomiya had meant by not rushing in blindly was these guys. They dropped from the ceiling and attacked Arima with their own Kagune.
Nomiya charging from the front like a bull. The Ghouls dropping from above and from the sides of both shoulders to strike Arima.
It all happened in an instant, but Arima quickly scanned their movements with his eyes.
Then he moved.
Taking one step to the left, Arima let the Kagune aimed at his side slide harmlessly past his ribs.
It was a Rinkaku-type Kagune divided into segments like an insect's joints. Its destructive power was strong, but its durability—especially the cohesion at the sides—was weak.
Arima drove up a knee and brought down an elbow at the same time, striking precisely between the Rinkaku's joints.
CRACK!
The middle of the Rinkaku snapped apart as if it had been chewed by a beast's teeth.
Arima seized the broken end of the Rinkaku and thrust it into the head of the Ghoul dropping from the upper right.
"...?!"
The Ghoul, descending while swinging its Koukaku like a greatsword, tried to dodge in shock as the Rinkaku flew back up against its own Kagune.
But in midair, all it could do was twist its head aside.
CRUNCH!
Part of the Ghoul's face, including its right eye, was shredded by the Rinkaku. Losing its target from the impact, the Koukaku flailed through the air, and Arima caught it.
He swung it downward like a pendulum and hurled it at the Bikaku Ghoul attacking from the right.
"...?!"
The Bikaku, which had clearly been advancing toward Arima, was distorted by the Koukaku that cut in from the side.
Then the Koukaku, now near the Bikaku Ghoul's chest, suddenly surged upward with tremendous force and crushed the Ghoul's jaw all the way up to its nose. Arima had kicked the Koukaku upward with his foot.
At the same time he smashed the Bikaku Ghoul's face, he pulled the Koukaku Ghoul's body toward him and used it to take the Ukaku bullets falling from the upper left into the Ghoul's back.
There was no time to even be shocked that a comrade's body had become a shield. Arima's hand flashed out beside the Koukaku Ghoul, seized the Ukaku Ghoul by the collar, and swung it around.
In the direction he swung it, Nomiya was charging in with two Koukaku horns raised like a bull's.
The Ukaku Ghoul's body blocked Nomiya's view. The moment Nomiya tried to stop in surprise, his body instead surged farther forward.
Arima had thrown the Ukaku Ghoul to block Nomiya's line of sight, then vaulted over the heads of the two Ghouls as if performing an aerial stunt and struck Nomiya in the back of the head.
Thud!
The Koukaku horns that should have pierced Arima instead went through the body of the Ghoul blocking the way, and Nomiya, whose attack had been turned against him, ended up tangled with the first Rinkaku Ghoul and rolling dramatically across the floor.
"Hoo..."
And Arima, having done all of that in a single instant, landed lightly on the ground and let out a small breath.
Watching the whole scene, I could no longer tell who the Ghoul was and who the human was.