I was weak.
I knew that fact with a pain that went all the way to the bone.
Come to think of it, I had always been tormented by those stronger than me. The only reason I ever beat them was through a combination of effort, quick thinking, ruthlessness, guts, and, most of all, luck.
That truth stung so badly that I even tried training.
One hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, one hundred squats, and a ten-kilometer run every day. I repeated the routine religiously, but I never turned into some superhuman like in a comic.
I did build enough strength to handle a street pickpocket without breaking a sweat, but even then, I was still just an ordinary little nobody trying to survive day to day.
My physical abilities could never catch up to a Ghoul's, and my reflexes and combat sense could never match those of a Ghoul Investigator who dealt with such monsters on a daily basis.
Still, I had believed that if I were only given a weapon, I could at least be as competent as a rookie investigator.
But that belief was shattered today.
A boy who wasn't even of age was not only a Ghoul Investigator, but could casually carve apart every Ghoul that came at him, no matter how many there were.
What the hell kind of freak was this? And he was only a low-ranking First Class Investigator? If a Third Class Investigator was this strong, was the CCG nothing more than a collection of living weapons? I was suddenly very worried about my friend's standing.
And even more worrying than that was the situation of the Ghouls, whose lives were hanging by a thread, and my own position, which was one step away from being over.
Step.
Arima Kishou took a step forward.
He had just ruined the Ghouls' perfect opening by crushing their coordinated attack into a mess, and now he was walking toward us as if nothing had happened.
His goal was likely to secure me and recover the Quinque in my hands.
I could see the tangled mass of Ghouls behind Arima twitching and writhing.
There were Ghouls who had suffered fatal injuries from being pierced through the body by a Kagune, but overall the damage was light. In particular, Nomiya had only taken a kick to the back of the head.
"Who the hell do you think you're looking down on!"
Apparently, Arima's complete disregard for them had really gotten under their skin.
Nomiya, who had quickly gotten back up, charged at Arima's back as he walked away.
This time, he didn't deploy his Kagune. He had already been made a fool of after using it once, so he must have decided that a straight-up brawl using only Ghoul physical strength would give him a chance.
His arm, muscles swelling to twice their size, aimed for Arima's head.
No matter how monstrous his combat ability was, his durability was still that of a normal human.
If that hit Arima, everything above the neck would be gone.
Whoosh!
But Nomiya's arm never reached Arima; it sliced only through empty air. Arima simply ducked under the horizontal swing.
His movement didn't stop there.
As Nomiya's arm swept past over his head, Arima caught the little finger with his own hand.
At the same time, he lifted a foot and kicked out at Nomiya's elbow.
The Ghoul's brute strength was enough to send a head flying, but Arima's hand put the brakes on it, while the kick drove the arm harder in the opposite direction.
The collision of those three forces in one direction created an impact strong enough to severely damage a Ghoul's body.
Crack!!
"Ghk... ?!"
Nomiya's arm bent in a direction it was never meant to bend.
But Nomiya didn't care and followed up with another attack.
Ignoring the broken arm, he snapped up one leg. It was a perfect move: if Arima dodged, the leg would be shattered; if he didn't, his ribs would be crushed.
Arima's response was neither.
He used the foot that had broken the elbow as a pivot, stamped down on the rising leg, then used the force of the kick and his own leg strength to launch himself upward and whip out his other leg like lightning.
Smack!!
"...!?"
This time, Nomiya couldn't even groan.
His jaw twisted, and his face bent at a ninety-degree angle.
A Ghoul's body is identical to a human body except for specific organs. Which means its physical weak points are the same, too.
The impact that started at the jaw spread through his entire head and rattled Nomiya's brain.
Thud!
Nomiya collapsed, and Arima kept walking as if nothing had happened.
I could only be stunned by that endless, self-contained pace of his.
Other Ghouls, who had regained their senses after seeing him counterattack so smoothly no matter what came at him, also seemed shaken.
...Huh?
Again, I felt that distortion.
The small sense of wrongness I had occasionally felt while watching Arima's behavior.
This time, it was clear and strong.
I turned my head and checked the surroundings one by one.
Beside me, Katsura lay collapsed with his neck pierced. He had pulled out the Quinque, but the wound still hadn't regenerated.
I could see the four Ghouls who had rushed in from the other side.
Arima had injured them in various ways, but none of them had died. Still, after witnessing Arima's skill, they were hesitating to attack recklessly.
In front of them was Nomiya, who had just been knocked down by that last blow. He looked like he couldn't move because of the shock, but he would recover soon enough.
And behind them, I looked at Arima as he came toward me.
I understood the source of the distortion.
"...What are you?"
I asked in a voice that couldn't hide my disbelief.
Arima had once slaughtered the Ghouls who had attacked him in the previous round in an instant. Back then, he had even gone around stabbing the fallen Ghouls to make sure they were dead.
Now he had fought Maen and the members of Kuroinu. They'd been injured, but no one had died yet.
That wasn't because Arima was showing mercy.
It was because killing a Ghoul without a Quinque was difficult, so he was planning to recover the Quinque first and deal with them afterward. That would be more efficient.
Yes. Efficiency.
That was all there was.
Everything Arima had shown in this whole sequence was efficient and thorough. It was almost mechanical.
He was so indifferent to everything that he might as well have been a machine.
There wasn't a trace of will in him.
Was that even possible?
A Ghoul Investigator is a profession where you risk your life to fight Ghouls. Because the danger is so high, everyone who enters that world has their own reason.
It could be simple hatred for Ghouls. It could be a sense of duty to protect people from them.
It could be money, even if that smelled a little mercenary. Maybe some people really did this because they simply enjoyed killing Ghouls. There were apparently a few investigators like that, even if they were rare.
Maybe they were just interested in Ghouls, or maybe they had followed a friend into the work and joined in.
But this boy named Arima had none of that.
None of the emotions that should have underpinned everything he had done so far were visible.
He searched for Ghouls because it was his job, and he killed them because it was his job. Even that killing intent was so quiet it made me wonder whether he really meant to kill at all.
People eat because they're hungry, learn because they want to know, and work hard because they want to achieve something. But Arima didn't seem to have any of that natural human drive.
He was just emptiness.
He was like someone whose skin had been peeled back, only to reveal not blood and flesh underneath, but nothing but fog. The fact that something like that existed so naturally was absurd beyond belief.
"Damn it! What the hell are you, anyway?!"
At that, Arima stopped walking.
"Let's see..."
Then, as if thinking hard about something, he tilted his head and continued.
"What am I?"
It didn't sound like he was trying to mock me.
His eyes really did seem to sink as if he had encountered a problem with no solution.
"Someone made me, so I was born. I was told to grow strong, so I grew strong. I was told to kill efficiently, so I learned how to kill efficiently. ...Where am I in all that?"
Arima wasn't answering me; he was muttering to himself. Then he turned his gaze back to me and resumed his steps.
"Until today, I was someone who moved according to another person's will. But for the first time, I've found something I want to do myself. To do that, I have to meet that child."
That child again. He was talking about Eto.
I didn't know what exactly had drawn him to her, but for the first time, there was a tiny trace of will in the boy who had always felt so empty whenever Eto was mentioned.
Then all the more reason I couldn't let them meet.
Will can be medicine or poison depending on where it's directed.
Besides, it was far too dangerous to let someone with this much combat power face Eto.
Shing.
I gripped the long Quinque I had pulled from Katsura with both hands and aimed it at Arima.
Arima tilted his head again.
"Are you resisting?"
"The way I see it, you're going to use me to drag that child out somehow. I can't just stand by and let that happen."
"You'll regret it."
The moment he said that, Arima lowered his stance and charged at me.
"I've been regretting this ever since I came in here!"
I clenched my teeth, rushed straight at him, and swung the long blade.
I had to land at least a small wound, somehow, and slow his movement.
Whoosh!
Then Arima vanished from my sight. But even in that instant, I could clearly feel his presence closing in on me.
My instincts screamed that I was about to be subdued in the next moment.
Of course I was! What was I supposed to do against a guy even my Ghoul-enhanced eyesight couldn't track?
But...!
Arima had slaughtered and subdued countless Ghouls already, too many to bother counting.
And I had watched him do it from right nearby. I was sick of seeing this inhuman way he moved!
Just once. If it was only once, even someone ordinary like me could respond!
Fwoosh!
The instant Arima disappeared from view, I slammed on the brakes with my toes and hurled my body backward.
As my field of vision widened for a split second, Arima, who had vanished from sight, reappeared.
For some reason, he was charging in from a stance so low that his upper body was almost touching the ground.
Without hesitation, I brought the long blade down on him.
It was a sharp real blade, but I had already seen enough to know it wouldn't do a damn thing unless I went at him with everything I had.
The Quinque long blade fell precisely over Arima's head.
Then—
Tap.
The next instant, he had stepped onto my wrists, which were still gripping the blade. It was such a grotesquely unnatural transition, like two completely different films spliced together.
When had the blade that had been falling toward his head moved under his feet? Right before the clash, it looked like Arima had brushed the ground with his hand.
Then he twisted his body, slipped the blade aside, and used the rotation to step down on the back of the sword? Was it even possible for a human to move like that?
"I warned you."
With those words, the foot that had pinned the blade was followed by the other foot expanding into my field of vision.
Arima's kick was coming straight for my face.
The force of it was no joke. It felt exactly like the kind of blow that wouldn't just break my nose, but send me straight to the grave. Even for a split second, every hair on my body stood on end.
And that momentum was swallowed up by an even greater force that cut in from the side.
KWAANG!!
A rough hand cut in and dropped between Arima and me. The one thrown back by the spray of stone fragments was none other than Katsura, who had been knocked down earlier.
With the wound in his neck still not fully healed, he moved while bleeding.
Thanks to him, I escaped having my face smashed and only got sent rolling across the floor by the impact, while Arima also fell back and widened the distance.
Katsura turned his head toward me.
Because he was wearing a monkey mask, I couldn't tell for sure, but the blood streaming from beneath it made it clear he had coughed up blood.
"Run...!"
"What!?"
"Don't... forget... your place... You are our benefactors...! Only the boss, the two leaders over there, you, and that kid on the other side have to escape for us to win...! Even if countless of us die here...!!"
The voice, mixed with the sound of blood boiling up in his throat, urged me on as I stood frozen, my legs locked from not knowing what to do.
"Go now...!!"
Katsura shouted that and glared at Arima.
The reason Arima wasn't attacking immediately wasn't because he was watching the tearful farewell of two men.
He was waiting for the thing that had been knocked up near the ceiling by the impact to fall back down.
Snatch!
Arima caught the long blade, which had been spinning as it fell, above his head.
Then he swung the blade straight behind him.
Slash!!
Blood burst from the bodies of the subordinate Ghouls who had charged in, apparently fired up by Katsura's words. Leaving them behind, Arima charged straight ahead. Katsura took the blow.
Clang!
"...!"
Arima looked surprised as he recovered the Quinque that had bounced away.
Katsura, who had been expected to counterattack, had instead stood motionless, holding up his Koukaku like a shield.
"From the way you attack... you always targeted the opening created by your own attack like a ghost..."
I had thought he'd lost consciousness after having his neck pierced, but he must have been watching Arima's fighting clearly.
So Katsura gave up on attacking. Instead, he chose a method that might not win, but could definitely buy time.
"..."
Arima stared for a moment at the wall of one man standing firmly in front of him.
Then, having made up his mind, he began swinging the Quinque like lightning.
Kagagagagagagak!!!
The Quinque hammered the Koukaku shield without pause.
It was a fierce assault, but the Koukaku was stronger. This was nothing but egg against rock. If anything, it was the Quinque that should have been worrying about durability.
Katsura, convinced he could hold, tightened his body.
Thud!!
And then, as if to mock that confidence, the Quinque blade stabbed into Katsura's left chest.
Katsura's eyes flew wide in shock.
"N... no...!?"
The once-solid Koukaku had cracked somewhere along the way. Not everywhere, just at one point.
Arima had been shaving down the Koukaku shield by obsessively attacking the exact same point.
It had been a solid shield, but once a crack appeared, the dam broke and the opening widened, letting slashes pour in.
Katsura tried desperately to block it, but the wounds carved into his body kept increasing. This was already a one-sided mauling.
KWAANG!!
In the end, the Koukaku shattered to pieces, and Arima's Quinque pierced through the area near Katsura's heart.
At that point, my patience hit its limit.
When I came to my senses, I was charging Arima and throwing a punch. Of course, he dodged lightly with the Quinque still in hand.
"Could you stop already, you bastard...!!"
Even I was surprised by how heated my voice sounded. Arima asked, as if he couldn't understand it.
"That's unexpected. You're protecting a Ghoul? Were you bribed with money or something else? Or did you develop sympathy for monsters that eat humans?"
"Shut up, asshole. Human, Ghoul, monster, alien, bastard, cow bastard, I don't care! Guys are dying while risking their lives to save me, so how the hell am I supposed to just stand there and not get pissed off!"
While I was yelling at Arima, Katsura's scolding voice came from behind me.
"You son of a...! You didn't even run after risking your life, and now you're saying that...!"
"Shut it! Even if I escaped, my face is already burned into memory, so I'd just be starting a life on the run anyway! I have to settle this with this bastard here and now!"
I clenched both fists and took a fighting stance.
My opponent was a guy with a long weapon, stronger than a Ghoul, but right now I had no choice but to do something.
"Taah!"
"...Haa."
Arima watched me rush in with a battle cry and let out a sigh. Then he spun the Quinque in his hand.
Thud!!
"...!!!"
The punch I threw was easily avoided by Arima with a tilt of his head, and the Quinque hilt slammed into my side almost at the same time.
Wasn't this guy supposed to be protecting the rights of a criminal or whatever? He was showing way too little mercy.
The sensation of my ribs crunching and twisting was so vivid it was downright horrifying. Cold sweat poured out all over me like I'd been wrung out like a rag.
Even through the pain that made my mind feel like it was flying away, I swung my fist toward Arima's head.
What came back, as expected, was another merciless kick.
Thud!!
The impact from below snapped my head upward.
The shock reached the roots of my teeth, my molars shook, and my jaw felt like torn flesh was hanging loose. My upper body was about to topple backward.
"..."
And then, at that moment, I saw something familiar.
My brain wasn't working properly because of the blow just now, so I couldn't immediately identify what it was.
But instinct told me this was bad.
Clinging to the last thread of consciousness, I reached out. I managed to grab his collar.
Then I yanked Arima toward me and swung my head, which had been thrown back.
Smack!!
Thud!
With a sound that seemed to ring even in my skull, I collapsed onto the floor.
I had failed at the final strike, too.
Just before my forehead and Arima's face collided, the Quinque hilt flew in again and smashed into my head like a club.
"Damn... it..."
My head rang, and my consciousness kept flickering between clear and blurred.
I spat out an insult with half-lost awareness.
"This is... so damn embarrassing..."
I moved only my eyes and looked upward.
Arima was looking down at my collapsed form with complete calm.
"Getting beaten up by a kid who hasn't even taken off his school uniform... and not even able to land a hit..."
I really felt like biting my tongue and dying from the humiliation.
No one likes showing other people how helplessly they're getting beaten down.
"...Especially in front of my daughter."
The moment I said that, Arima's expression froze for the first time.
He reflexively swung the Quinque overhead, and—
"Haaah!!!!!"
A One-Eyed Owl, shouting in rage, dropped from above.
KWAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!!!!!!!
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...