My head was forced around.
My vision wobbled. A brief dizziness. The taste of iron spreading through my mouth.
Simple pain.
Not the kind from a decisive Kagune strike or overwhelming brute force, just the pain of a crude fist.
It was unfamiliar pain, too.
I had never taken a clumsy hit like this—not when I was counterattacked while hunting a Ghoul, nor when I fought the children from the same orphanage as me.
More than surprise, a strange irritation rose within me.
"Wow. It actually worked?"
Especially since the one who had thrown the punch looked the most surprised of all.
"...What the hell have you been doing?"
"What am I doing? I'm doing the thing where I beat you and make you fold. Haven't you ever been in a scrap?"
Takaki Koma grinned at me.
He was clearly older than Arima, but perhaps because of his baby face, he looked like nothing more than a big kid in that moment.
Whoosh!
Arima's arm drove through the air, swinging toward Koma with heavy precision.
In his grip was the hilt of a long Quinque.
He didn't need to aim for anything else. A single strike to the temple would be enough to neutralize this loudmouthed man in an instant.
It was a movement that surpassed human reaction speed. Koma had no way to respond.
...Except for one other person.
Thwack!!
It was a kick.
A kick from Koma's side slammed into the body of the Quinque.
It was Eto. Thanks to her, the attack's trajectory shifted.
Arima twisted his wrist as if refusing to let the opportunity slip. He shifted his grip from the hilt to the blade, relentlessly targeting Koma.
Reading the motion, Eto yanked Koma's upper body back, pulling him out of Arima's range.
Only the broken tip of the blade grazed Koma's scalp. A few strands of hair were sliced away as the blade passed.
Only then did Koma realize he had been attacked.
Seeing the scattered hair, Koma shouted in fury.
"You bastard! You were trying to give me a bald spot!"
"You deserve it, you piece of shit!"
Ignoring Katsura's curse from behind, Koma charged at Arima.
But he was slow.
Compared to the opponents Arima had fought until now, he was painfully slow. If he couldn't subdue a human at this level, he might as well hand back his Ghoul Investigator badge on the spot.
But things did not go as planned.
It was because Eto reached Arima before Koma did.
Clang!!
Arima parried the powerful incoming kick with his Quinque.
Eto did not press forward; she retreated instead, and as if in a choreographed switch, Koma arrived in front of Arima.
Eto's fighting style had changed.
She no longer pushed too far into Arima's range. Instead, she devoted all her strength to supporting Koma and protecting him.
That, in turn, became troublesome for Arima.
If an opponent entered his range, he was confident he could butcher them in an instant. But Eto refused to enter that range.
Instead, the man who should have been the weakest of them all came barreling in like a bulldozer.
Annoying.
This was clearly supposed to be a fight between him and Eto. Yet some outsider who had no business being here was forcing his way in and muddying the waters.
It was pure chaos.
Arima's answer to such chaos was simple: knock this man down, and the problem would be solved.
Koma threw another punch, this time aiming for Arima's torso.
Arima's eyes tracked the movement with perfect clarity, as if in slow motion.
With a slight twist of his body, he slipped past the fist with ease.
The moment he threw a punch to deliver a counter—
A chill ran through him.
Killing intent brushed against him from the rear left.
Eto, who had retreated to switch places with Koma, had circled outside Arima's range and moved to his back.
Even though the intent was sharp enough to feel like a blade carving into his skin, Arima's expression did not change.
If her goal had truly been to attack from behind, she should have hidden that killing intent.
This was merely a feint. Rather than actually targeting Arima, her purpose was likely to draw his attention away from Koma.
He could not afford to be distracted.
Once Koma was neutralized, 0.2 seconds would be enough to deal with Eto.
Yes. If he could just neutralize him.
"...!"
Did Arima himself notice that his expression had stiffened at that moment?
Pow!!
As if paying back the earlier blow, Arima's fist snapped Koma's head to the side.
If it had landed cleanly, it would have been enough to shatter his jaw. But again, the hit was shallow.
KWA-GA-GA-CRACK!!
This was because Arima's body was being shoved upward along with the shattered concrete ground beneath him.
The culprit was obvious.
Eto had driven her Kagune into the floor to create a fissure, then slammed it down with all her strength, launching Arima on the opposite side like a seesaw.
"Kuh...!"
Koma's body wavered, but he quickly recovered his stance. Once again, the blow had failed to land decisively.
The lifted ground settled back down, and Arima dropped with it.
The instant Arima was momentarily airborne, Eto and Koma rushed in from both sides.
One was a Ghoul who had even manifested a Kakuja. The other was a human with nothing but his bare fists.
Anyone could see which one was more dangerous.
Just before Arima's toes touched the ground, he twisted his waist and thrust out the Quinque, now reduced to less than half its original length.
He aimed it directly at Takaki Koma.
Even broken, it was still a vicious weapon used to hunt Ghouls.
Even if it hadn't been a Quinque, no one would remain calm with a blade suddenly flying at their face. Normally, one would flinch, shrink back, or try to dodge.
But Koma did none of those things.
He slammed his forehead straight into the incoming blade.
Crunch!!
Skin was ground away against metal.
His forehead split open and blood sprayed. Even so, Koma did not stop.
Arima's brow twitched at that absurd, brute-force move.
Koma hurled himself past the Quinque that had torn through his forehead and charged at Arima's waist, intending to tackle him and break his stance.
But Arima was faster.
The Quinque that had brushed past Koma swung around, and the hilt hooked the back of his neck like a claw. Pulling Koma's head toward him, Arima drove a knee upward.
Bang!!!
"Ghk...!!"
Arima's knee slammed precisely between Koma's brow and the bridge of his nose.
The repeated impacts to his head made his vision swim and nausea rise. Blood vessels burst inside his nose, making it hard to breathe.
In the end, Koma could only collapse in his charging posture, his face twisted in frustration.
But Arima's expression was no better.
The moment his knee buried itself in Koma's face, he whipped the Quinque behind him like lightning.
Eto, flying in like a bird of prey, swung her Kagune.
The distance was a hair's breadth. There was nowhere to evade.
Ka-gaaang!!!
Arima's movement, knocking aside every unavoidable Kagune, was so astonishing it could almost be called divine. But it was not perfect.
He had wasted too much time dealing with Koma.
Even Arima, who had always handled impossible situations with complete composure, was no longer in a position to respond in time.
Snap!
"...!"
Eto's hand thrust through the rain of Kagune.
One of her pinky fingers barely touched Arima's left shoulder.
A dull impact rang through his left collarbone. Either the bone had slipped out of place, or it had broken.
BOOOOM!!
The late swing of the Quinque and Eto's claws sparked against each other with a burst of noise.
Arima grabbed his injured shoulder and stepped back, while Eto, now missing three fingers from the earlier impact, pulled away while holding Koma.
Refusing to let them escape, Arima ignored the injury and charged.
But then he flinched and stopped, as if a wall had suddenly appeared in front of him.
And in front of Arima stood Koma, blocking Eto's path.
"Man... that really stings."
Koma wiped the blood running from his split forehead and nose. He did not look especially intimidating.
His legs were visibly shaking, as if he might collapse at any second.
And yet his eyes were still alive, fixed on Arima.
Arima could not get past that gaze.
It was strange.
No matter how many Ghouls had stood in his way, Arima had always stepped forward without hesitation and slaughtered them. And now he was being blocked by a single human.
"You've probably noticed by now, haven't you? Your fatal flaw."
"..."
Clench.
Arima said nothing and tightened his grip on the Quinque.
***
"What the hell... What is happening?"
Enji could not understand what was unfolding in front of him at all.
All that had happened was that they had joined the fight between Eto and Arima, with Koma added into the mix.
And yet the flow had begun to change. Arima's ironclad defense was starting to wobble, and effective hits were landing.
Right now, Arima was exposing far more openings than before.
Why?
As Enji wondered, Kaya, who was nearby, spoke up.
"His rhythm is breaking."
"What?"
"You've experienced it too. That investigator's swordsmanship is terrifyingly precise. The moment you enter his range, your body is dismantled along the most optimal line of attack. It's so exact it almost feels artistic."
"What are you trying to say?"
"His strikes, which had been flowing without a single error, are starting to wobble. Like he's hesitating."
It was like a single discordant note suddenly thrown into perfect harmony, ruining the whole piece.
The reason Arima's combat was frightening was that, with monstrous reflexes and physical ability, he would strike at unexpected vital points without the slightest hesitation.
But now Kaya was saying that Arima seemed to be hesitating.
"Hesitating? That monster of a man?"
Enji answered with a look of disbelief.
Having experienced firsthand how emotionlessly Arima had butchered them, he could not easily believe it.
After a moment of thought, Kaya spoke again.
"Monkey. When did you first kill a person?"
"Why are you asking that all of a sudden?"
"Do you still remember it?"
"Of course. Even if I'm used to it now, back when I was still a rookie, taking someone's life wasn't something ordinary."
"Same for me. I had to go days starving and be driven into a corner before I could finally kill a human walking down the street at night. After that, I could move a little more boldly. The first time is always the hardest. ...Yeah. Crossing that line is like that."
As if she had reached some understanding, Kaya nodded and looked at Arima.
"Maybe that guy... has never actually killed a human before."
"...What, you idiot?"
It was only natural that such a ridiculous response would follow.
Arima was the kind of man who seemed to have stacked up a three-digit number of Ghoul corpses.
And yet he had never killed a human even once?
Did that make any sense?
Enji and the other Ghouls listening to this all turned skeptical eyes toward him.
"One thing is certain..."
Whether they believed it or not, Kaya's gaze shifted to Koma, who was standing against Arima.
"A human who was basically an outsider has become the wild card holding the key to reversal."
***
The first time I felt something was off was when Arima knocked me down for the first time.
He struck three places to subdue me: my side, my jaw, and my head. If Eto hadn't shown up then, I would have been finished right there.
But as time passed, I started to feel something strange.
The problem was that he had used three hits just to subdue me.
That was Arima—the same guy who could casually put down Ghouls whether he was armed or empty-handed.
And yet he needed more than one strike to deal with me? Me, a weakling who could die if he got hit in the wrong place?
Of course, it could have been my imagination.
Maybe my reckless behavior had piled up enough irritation that he was being rougher than usual.
But what made even less sense was what happened next.
He did not notice Eto's approach until right before I mentioned her. The proof was the shocked look on his face when he countered her falling strike.
Did that make any sense?
The same monster who could detect a Ghoul hiding behind a wall like a ghost somehow failed to react to a single intruder dropping in from above. And not just any intruder, but a kid who had gone half-crazy because of what he had done to me.
That led me to one conclusion.
This guy was focusing far more attention on me than I had thought.
Enough for a flaw to appear in someone who had none.
Why?
Because I actually had some hidden potential beyond a monster like him? A stray dog would laugh at that.
Then it had to be the opposite.
Because I was too weak.
Unlike a Ghoul, who could regenerate even if their body was cut apart, I was a frail human who could die from one mistake.
He knew how to deal with Ghouls. He knew exactly where and how to cut and break them to kill them.
But humans were different.
Arima had no idea how much damage he could inflict without killing me.
As if he had never even had a small fight with another human, not even in his childhood.
As if he were dealing with a living thing he had never seen before. Every move was careful, full of hesitation.
Swish.
I wiped away the blood still running down my face and looked ahead.
I was dizzy. Breathing was difficult. I wanted to collapse right then and there.
But my eyes were still fixed on Arima.
I didn't know what this guy was. I didn't know where he came from.
But one thing I could guess well enough.
I could imagine how he had lived.
A boy who was clumsy at killing humans, yet could execute Ghouls in an instant.
So when I looked at him, what lingered in my eyes was not hostility, but pity.
"You're pathetic."
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