There was a hitch in breath from one– a ragged panting from another as silence settled once more. Adrenaline was humming in waves in their ears, the constant throb at their skulls–a cry for urgency.
Yet, time seemed to have slowed into a drag– the atmosphere quicksilver, in contrast.
Their bodies betrayed them, locked in place by something unseen—something unnatural. Kaneki hadn't issued a threat, hadn't drawn a weapon, yet the air itself had shifted around him, pressing against their skin like an invisible noose.
The gang leader's breath came in sharp, uneven bursts. He wanted to move. To act. To do something—but against this, against him…?
Kaneki exhaled slowly, the sound almost content. He rolled his shoulders, stretching as if waking from a pleasant nap, then flicked his fingers, sending stray droplets of blood pattering against the pavement.
His gaze swept over them—not in caution, not in wariness, but in amusement.
As if he had already won.
The leader swallowed hard. "L-Look, man… we—we didn't know she was yours—"
Kaneki's head tilted. A slow, deliberate motion. Then, softly—too softly—he spoke.
"The girl isn't mine."
The words slithered into the gang's ears, seeping into their bones like ice water.
Then why…?
The unspoken question never left their lips.
Because Kaneki moved.
Not a step. Not a lunge.
Just a shift in posture.
And suddenly—he was there.
Too close.
Too fast.
Too wrong.
The leader's body locked up, his breath catching in his throat. His mind screamed at him to recoil, but his limbs refused to obey.
Kaneki's fingers brushed against his cheek, light as a whisper. His touch was neither rough nor cruel. It was gentle. Loving, one could even say. Then he pressed.
A sickening crack resounded across the tranquil alleyway.
The leader never had time to scream. His head lolled unnaturally to the side, and his body crumpled to the ground, like a marionette with its strings severed.
And just like that—
The spell broke.
The remaining thugs—no, ghouls—moved.
Fight or flight.
Their instincts, dulled by arrogance, roared to life at the sight of their leader's lifeless body. They had numbers. They had strength. They had to try.
He was just a lone person!
One lunged—white getting corrupted into an ink black as glowing scarlet replaced a dull brown. His lips were pulled back into a snarl, madness frothing at the edges. His strength skyrocketed, his ferocity bordering that of beasts as –right under the illumination of the silk moon, his shoulders began to broaden—correction, shoulder. As beneath his black leather coat, there was movement and an appendage ruptured from his back, under his right shoulder.
It was violent and maroon. It extended to twice his arm's length then spiraled into a twist of hardness—a shell, a coil—curved over his shoulder.
Then he vanished.
No, not vanished per se. Kaneki caught him.
With one hand.
A single, lazy grip wrapped around the ghoul's skull. The air groaned, warping around Kaneki's fingertips. Flesh paving way to the vice grip as his nails met bone. The ghoul was erratic, flailing about in desperation for freedom–his kagune unwrapping and extending to pierce his assaulter, to no avail
Then—
Crunch.
The ghoul's body seized. Twitched. Stilled.
Kaneki released his grip, letting the ruined corpse slump to the alley floor.
Blood trickled from his palm, warm, fresh, glistening in the dim light. He stared at it for a moment—tilted his head—then slowly, absently, licked the stray droplets from his fingertips. His expression became pensive as he mulled over the different taste.
The remaining ghouls broke.
One bolted—sprinting for the alley's exit, for the dim promise of safety. He didn't make it.
Kaneki wasn't there—
Then he was.
His arm swept out in a lazy arc. Not a punch. Not a strike. Just a passing motion—
And the ghoul came apart, blooming like fireworks let loose.
Limbs hit the pavement. A head rolled. The ground. The walls. The trash. The girl. All got doused in fresh paint of scarlet, warm and beautiful.
Kaneki barely spared the mess a glance. He turned his attention to other escapees. And with excitement of a sport, he indulged himself in an artistic spree. Discarding the colours of the alley for a more monotone theme of eerie—Red.
The last one—he barely looked older than a teenager—staggered back, his breath ragged, his kagune–a long, dark magenta limb extending from his lower back, longer than he was tall and ending in a scarlet bladed tip– unfurling in desperation.
Kaneki sighed.
A soft, disappointed thing.
Then he stepped forward—his shadow swallowing the boy whole.
The ghoul tried to fight. He really did.
It didn't matter.
His screams barely lasted seconds. The moon bore witness to the merciless execution in tranquility—as did the girl.
Then—silence.
Kaneki exhaled, rolling his shoulders once more, his posture easing back into that lazy, unbothered stance.
A final, idle glance at the bodies.
And finally—
The girl.
She was still there.
Still watching.
Kaneki's gaze lingered on her for a beat—assessing, calculating—before he let out a quiet hum.
Then, as if she were nothing more than an afterthought—
He turned away.
And walked out of the alley.
The girl watched with battered breath as his figure receded into the darkness. Her body was drenched in blood—so much so that if not for her wide, grey eyes, she would have been indistinguishable from the filth-strewn alley.
She realized she was trembling.
Her mind was numb, sluggish, as her gaze flicked around, trying to comprehend the annihilation surrounding her. Torn limbs, pools of viscera, the lingering warmth of bodies that had once been alive—until he arrived.
She was alive.
The realization took a moment to sink in, sluggish and distant, before slamming into her with the force of a tidal wave. Her breath hitched. A sound clawed its way up her throat—raw, broken, an emotion she couldn't name.
Then, she collapsed into herself, knees drawn up as silent sobs wracked her body.
Survival.
It should have been a relief, but it wasn't.
When she finally lifted her head, her vision swam, distorted by the sheen of unshed tears. Through the blur, she saw him—still walking, his exit a quiet contrast to the carnage he had wrought.
His stride was composed, almost noble. Not a man fleeing a crime scene, but a thing moving with unshaken purpose.
Then, he stopped.
Her stomach plummeted.
He turned his head, just slightly—just enough for their gazes to cross.
Her breath caught.
But he wasn't looking at her.
Something unseen, something wrong, stirred in the air between them. The alley, already steeped in death, felt as though it had been plunged into a deeper void. The moonlight dimmed—not by clouds, nor by distance, but as if the very light recoiled from him.
As if something devoured it.
She shuddered, an involuntary response to the presence pressing against her skin—suffocating, watching, judging.
Then, just as quickly as it had come, the sensation dissipated.
The night breathed again.
And he was gone.
So were the corpses.
Only the blood remained.
*** ***
The Commission of Counter Ghoul—or C.C.G. for practicality—was an organization founded solely to obliterate—pardon, suppress—the oppression of ghouls within the country. To maintain public order. To quell ghoul terrorism against civilians.
And they were everywhere.
Stationed across multiple wards, with the First Ward serving as their headquarters, their reach was vast. Their structure was simple but effective:
The Office.
The Research Staff.
The Field Agents.
It was the Field Agents—the ones with silver briefcases and white coats—that mattered the most. To the world, they were Investigators. But to ghouls? They were the Doves.
And Doves were feared.
Armed with Quinques—weapons crafted from the very bodies of the creatures they hunted—they had been trained to fight monsters with monstrous efficiency. They worked with a strive, a hatred, a disgust, an arousal, a sadistic excitement. Whatever the reason, it didn't matter. What mattered was that when a Dove arrived, ghouls died.
Which is why ghouls kept their distance.
And yet, here they were.
Three men. Two women. Draped in their pristine overcoats, silver suitcases gripped at their sides, they had arrived to eliminate— I mean, apprehend a rogue ghoul reported the night before.
They had come with the intent to do their job.
Now, they just wanted to go home.
"What the hell is this?"
The words burst out before she could stop them. Reina, a sharp-eyed brunette with her hair pulled into a tight ponytail, instinctively took a step back. Her pulse kicked up. The air reeked.
The rest of the team wasn't faring much better.
A tall, stern-faced man with slicked-back hair was already pulling out his phone, snapping photos and calling it in. Another investigator exhaled sharply, muttering something under his breath. No one moved forward.
Reina swallowed.
'''What the hell actually happened here?'''
It was a bloody mess.
The scent was thick. Overpowering. Clawing into their sinuses. It wasn't just blood—it was old blood, mixed with something more putrid, more rancid. Flesh had been shredded, not eaten, but destroyed.
The walls and ground bore marks of resistance. Deep gouges. Something had fought back.
And lost.
The deeper they looked, the worse it became.
This… this wasn't a simple rogue ghoul case.
Something else had been here. Something that didn't just kill, but demolished.
And the worst part?
It wasn't here anymore.
But something told them it was still watching.