A large number of Ghouls were running in perfect coordination.
Some moved ahead to check for danger, some kept to the outer edges of the group to guard against a possible ambush, and some kept glancing down at a map to confirm their current position and the route ahead.
Two different factions had mixed together, but they moved with surprising fluidity, as if they were used to working in sync. Maybe they knew each other well enough from having been enemies for so long.
Or maybe they had silently united in the face of a common, overwhelming foe.
Even while carrying out their own roles, the Ghouls kept sneaking glances at one spot.
At the very back of their formation was Eto.
That much was not a problem. The real problem was the human her [Kakune] had wrapped around like a tail and was dragging along.
The human hung limp in her [Kakune], like a doll whose batteries had died, or a dead fish tied to a fishing line.
Both arms were broken or dislocated, and they dangled every time Eto ran.
He was a strangely listless human. Anyone looking at him would think he was a corpse.
But he was no corpse.
He was a human with a level of brute strength even Ghouls could not easily understand.
Enji, who was running ahead while carrying Koma on his back, glanced back toward Eto.
Seeing her silently following along with Arima hanging from her, he recalled the conversation from a little earlier.
Just a moment ago, Arima had made a proposal while Koma was suffering from a high fever.
His request was simple. He would provide a place and means to treat Koma without being seen by a third party, and in return, he wanted one more chance to speak with him.
The moment Eto heard that, she spoke without the slightest hesitation.
"Fine. I'll take that offer."
"...!?"
"Wait, wait, wait!!"
Of course, Enji and Kaya reacted like lightning, grabbing Eto and dragging her backward.
After putting some distance between themselves and Arima, the two leaned in close to Eto and fired off their words in a rush.
"At a time like this, shouldn't you at least think it over? What if that guy's words are a trap?"
"Exactly. How can we be sure there aren't enemies lying in wait at the place he mentioned? Why are you just swallowing his words whole like that?"
"It's a little different from trusting him, though... If anything, it's closer to understanding him."
"...Understanding?"
Their faces made it clear they had no idea what she meant.
Eto pushed between the two of them and strode up to Arima, who was still lying on the ground.
"Something my dad noticed first, and I noticed later."
Then she pointed at Arima with the tip of her finger.
"This guy is just an idiot."
"......."
Being pointed at out of nowhere and called an idiot probably did not feel very good, because a faint crack appeared in Arima's otherwise expressionless face.
Whether he liked it or not, Eto kept going.
"He's terrifying when it comes to fighting, but everything else about him is stupid. He can't hold a proper conversation, he can't express himself, and he doesn't even know how to be flexible. Did you see how, just now, he didn't even know how to give up on a fight and ended up running straight at me so I could hit him? Even a bold kindergarten kid would have better communication skills than this guy."
"No matter how you put it, a kindergarten kid is a bit..."
"Shut up if you're the one who got beaten by me and Dad because you couldn't use that flexibility of yours."
Eto crushed Arima's calm attempt at an objection before it could even form.
Arima seemed to want to say more, but no words came out. Absurdly enough, his own behavior was now proving Eto right.
"There's one very awkward existence here right now, for both Ghouls and Investigators."
Having silenced Arima, Eto now pointed toward the other side. At the end of her finger was Koma.
"A dad raising a Ghoul child, a temporary ally and accomplice who moved to save a Ghoul group, a criminal from an Investigator's point of view, a human who should normally be left to the law instead of being punished directly, and a civilian who should ordinarily be protected from Ghouls. He even pays his taxes properly in everyday life."
Every word was aimed at Koma.
Hearing it laid out like that, he really was an awkward existence.
He felt even more caught between Ghoul and human than Eto, who was a half-breed herself.
"This inflexible idiot probably made that deal based on a judgment like this: 'Continuing the fight any further is impossible. Prioritize the Investigator's own survival and the protection of the civilian.' He's the type who tries to follow the rules to the very end."
Eto shrugged and looked back at Arima as if to say, Isn't that right?
Arima answered by turning his head away in silence.
"And what's really in there is probably... the wish that my dad doesn't die."
"...What basis do you have for saying that?"
"You and he are basically the same."
What did that mean?
Did she mean they were both beings born between Ghoul and human? Or that, like she had told Eto, they were the kind of people who suffered terribly from loneliness? Maybe it meant they were comrades who had both been thoroughly chewed out by Koma before.
Silent looks passed between Eto and Arima.
The meaning of those looks was surely something only they could understand.
"If I were you, I would never let Dad die. Would I really let the light I finally found in the darkness die just because I'd lost my mind?"
"So you're agreeing to the deal?"
"For now, I'm taking you along tightly bound as insurance. We need to prepare for any possible situation, and you have your own conditions too."
Eto crouched down and looked down at Arima.
A strange light gleamed in her [Kakugan].
"There's no way that would happen, but... if this is a trap meant to drag us in while putting my dad's life second, I will absolutely not sit still."
"..."
At that moment, neither Arima nor Enji and Kaya could argue any further.
A strange atmosphere hung around Eto, one that even a Ghoul hardened by every hardship, or an Investigator who had surpassed the human realm, could not carelessly approach.
As if gunpowder had been spread thick through the air, so dense that breathing itself had become difficult.
As if, if anything happened to Koma, it would become the trigger that set everything off at once...
"Anyway, I've given you my answer. This time, it's your turn."
"..."
By then, Eto had returned to her usual tone as she spoke to Arima.
After seeming to think for a moment, Arima finally opened his mouth.
"If you have a map, then head to the address I tell you from here. 8 Ward, 239-46-1..."
And so the Ghoul group was making its way toward the address Arima had given them.
The width of the sewer gradually narrowed. It was proof that they were getting closer to the surface.
A Ghoul studying the map stopped at one point and shouted, "Here it is! The address is right above this manhole cover!"
"Good. Get out of the way."
Enji, who had been carrying Koma, handed him off to Kaya for the moment and stepped forward.
With his exceptional leg strength, he jumped in place and drove a fist straight into the manhole cover, sending it flying.
Clang!
The thick cover shot into the air like a crushed bottle cap, and Enji quickly landed on the surface and checked his surroundings.
"If that Investigator bastard was telling the truth, then there should be a doctor living here who can treat Koma..."
It was still night, before dawn had broken, so he thought it would not be easy to find.
But unexpectedly, they found one almost immediately.
Right nearby was an elderly man in a white doctor's coat, holding bandages and a box of medicine, looking exactly like someone who would say, I'm a doctor.
The old doctor, with his wrinkled face and unkempt white hair, stared at Enji in surprise as he burst out of the sewer.
That much was fine.
The problem was the patient he seemed to be treating.
First of all, it was very furry. Its body was about the size of a small child.
It was holding out its right foot, apparently to have a wound treated, and that foot was furry too.
The patient frowned as if wary of Enji, who had appeared out of nowhere, and then a loud bark burst from its open mouth.
"Woof! Woof!"
The patient barked.
That's right. It was a dog.
The old doctor was treating an injured dog.
After staring at the scene for a moment, Enji shoved his face into the open sewer hole and let out his fury.
"You're a veterinarian, you bastardddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Hearing Enji's voice, half fury and half disbelief, Eto narrowed her eyes and glared at Arima, who was bound in her [Kakune].
"Should I really kill this guy?"
"Would you at least hear my explanation before deciding?"
Arima said calmly, while Eto considered whether she should tighten the [Kakune] right then and there and show him hell.
I heard a rustling sound in the darkness.
Under normal circumstances, it would have been a tiny noise I could ignore and move past.
But maybe because I had been in an extreme state of tension right before I passed out.
I reflexively opened my eyes and forced my heavy body up, as if it were soaked cotton.
"Oh, shit! You startled me! Don't sneak up on me like that, you punk!"
"...Huh?"
What I saw was an old doctor.
His hair stuck out in every direction, and his white coat, stained in spots all over, looked a long way from hygienic.
Not to mention the way he was casually lighting and smoking a cigarette even with someone right beside him.
I looked around.
Beds lined up at regular intervals and curtains between them made the place look like a hospital ward. Hygiene aside.
"Is this a hospital?"
"A 'unlicensed' hospital."
The old doctor exhaled a stream of smoke as he spoke.
"You know what? Religious people talk as if the human body were a masterpiece made by God, but it's actually full of defects. If this is the kind of masterpiece that god made, then that god is a pretty lousy one."
"...?"
What was this old man suddenly talking about?
Still, I decided to listen quietly for now.
"A classic example is when germs invade our bodies. To kill them, the body raises its temperature. When you catch a cold, the fever is exactly that. So far, so good. But the problem is what happens when raising the temperature still doesn't kill the germs. There are plenty of germs that can withstand high heat. And yet the body keeps raising the temperature. Human cells start melting and dying once the temperature goes above 40 degrees, but it doesn't stop. What, is it trying to die together with the germs? How stupid is that? Don't you think?"
The old doctor looked at me as if he wanted agreement.
I nodded along, not really knowing what else to do.
"Y-yes... I guess so."
"And you knew that, and still――――?!!!?!"
Crash!
The old doctor suddenly flew into a rage and kicked over the chair beside him.
The abrupt outburst made a curse jump out of me reflexively.
"What the hell! What is your problem?!"
"That's my line, you damn bastard!! What kind of idiot are you, rolling around in sewer water crawling with germs!? Are germs a joke to you!? Should I tell you how many people have died in human history because of poor sanitation!? Humanity's natural enemy isn't Ghouls, it's those invisible germs!!"
The old doctor shouted, thrusting the burning end of his cigarette toward me.
I had no idea what was going on, but it felt unfair to just sit there and take it, so I shot back.
"Hey! Your hospital's hygiene doesn't look much better either!"
"My hospital may look like this, but it's perfectly clean!! I dry it in the sunlight every morning to disinfect it!"
"Don't be ridiculous!! There are stains on the curtains that look like somebody pissed all over them!!"
"Then complain to the lunatic who came back drunk a week ago and pissed on the curtains! No matter how much I wash them, the stains won't come out!!"
"So those really were piss stains!? Then replace the curtains!"
"I DON'T HAVE THE MONEY!!! YOU PAY FOR IT, THEN!!! The treatment fee is twenty million yen!!"
"What kind of rip-off is that, you old geezer!!"
While we were shouting at each other, I suddenly felt the world spin and grabbed my forehead.
Noticing my condition, the old doctor clicked his tongue. Then he righted the fallen chair and sat down.
"Lie back down a little longer. The antibiotics and fever reducer only brought you back to consciousness for a moment. Your body is still a mess."
"...Where are the others? There's no way I crawled all the way here alone..."
Creak.
Before I could finish, the hospital room door opened.
Was it Eto? Or the other Ghouls?
But it was neither of them.
"...A dog?"
It was a dog, probably a large breed, though I couldn't tell exactly what kind.
A strange dog with a bandage wrapped around one ankle pushed the door open with its body and came inside. Then it trotted over to the old doctor and licked him, showing its friendliness.
"Damn it! If you've been treated, go home already! I'm not in the mood to play with you!"
"...Old man, were you a veterinarian?"
"I'm not a veterinarian!!"
I asked in shock, wondering if I'd been treated by a veterinarian after all, and fortunately the old doctor denied it.
He pushed away the dog rubbing its head against him with a whine, then took another drag on his cigarette and continued.
"As you can see, I'm a quack doctor. Just an old fool working in an alley nobody visits, in a building nobody even thinks of as a hospital. The only unusual thing about me is that I don't discriminate between patients."
"You don't discriminate between patients?"
At my question, the old man inhaled cigarette smoke once more and said, "I cure patients as far as my strength allows. Whether they're human, Ghoul, or some mutt eating garbage in the back alleys, it doesn't matter. Anyone who wants to live can come to me. In the face of death, everyone is just an ant, and struggling to resist it in order to live is a right given to everyone."
Hoo...
The cigarette smoke left a small lingering trace, and his gaze turned toward me.
"Do I look like a freak to you too?"
"...No."
What right did I have to call this old man a freak?
I was the same kind of freak, living with Ghouls and wanting to save both Ghouls and humans.
Even if I knew it was little more than a futile struggle, doing nothing was still more painful.
It felt like I'd met someone strangely like-minded.
After a while of saying nothing and just watching the dog's tail wag furiously back and forth, I remembered what I had meant to ask earlier.
"Oh, right. Where are the others?"
"They looked exhausted from whatever they'd been doing, so I tossed them some human flesh and let them rest in the next room."
"...You have human flesh too?"
"As a quack, corpses with no one claiming them come in here pretty often. If it's a body with no identity and nowhere to bury it, I just keep it in the fridge. Isn't it better for it to become food for someone than to rot away meaninglessly where no one knows?"
I'd felt it when he brought up Ghouls earlier too, but this man seemed perfectly willing to help them.
Rather, if he had corpses on hand, then for Ghouls their regeneration would handle most of it anyway, so from his perspective wouldn't they be the easier patients?
"By the way, I was shocked too at first. I never expected Arima Kishou to bring Ghouls here. I'll have to keep a close eye on the sky today in case the sun rises in the west."
"What? Arima Kishou?"
Come to think of it, that bastard had been a problem.
After I passed out, I had expected him to stubbornly keep fighting until he collapsed, but everything after that was outside my knowledge.
From what I was hearing, it seemed like he was the one who brought me and the Ghouls here, but what changed his mind?
"Where is he now?"
"Some girl dragged him out to the yard saying she had something to talk about."
"Eto?"
My eyes turned toward the window the old doctor was pointing at. Was that the yard?
I moved my legs, which still didn't have much strength in them, and got down from the bed. The old doctor hurled a string of curses at me and told me to stay lying down, but I ignored him.
When I leaned against the window and looked outside, I really could see Eto and Arima.
"What are they talking about?"
I was curious what they were doing, but unfortunately the distance was too great for me to hear their conversation.
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