Keeping His Distance

"Ahem... Miss Irimi, please stop teasing me."

Touka Kirishima blushed faintly. Clearly, Kaya Irimi had hit the mark.

"You're so easy to read, little Touka."

Kaya Irimi chuckled softly.

"Honestly."

Touka Kirishima sounded a little exasperated.

If Miss Irimi hadn't suddenly brought up the subject, she wouldn't even have thought about romance.

To be honest, she wasn't quite sure what sort of boy she would like...

At that thought, Touka Kirishima patted her cheeks.

Now wasn't the time to think about that. There were customers to serve!

The next day.

Amahane Byakuya took the subway early to the Ghoul Investigator Training School in the 1st Ward.

He actually had no class first thing that morning, but there was no harm in arriving early.

Since he still had time, Amahane Byakuya wandered around the school.

When he entered a small grove, he happened to spot something that caught his attention.

He could faintly make out two figures nearby. He recognized the short-haired girl with delicate features and tan skin as Tooru Mutsuki.

Although Tooru Mutsuki had deliberately cut her hair short and worn a chest binding, making her classmates think she was a boy, she was actually a girl.

Tooru Mutsuki was crouching there, apparently fiddling with something in her hands.

The other figure beside her was Hidemasa Togakage.

He was a nearly bald, middle-aged man with a huge scar running down the left side of his face from forehead to chin. The injury had also distorted his features somewhat, and he had Yamori to thank for it.

But if Hidemasa Togakage hadn't brutally tortured Yamori every day back then, Yamori wouldn't have disfigured him.

Unless something unexpected happened, this should have been the incident where Hidemasa Togakage discovered Tooru Mutsuki torturing and killing a kitten.

Amahane Byakuya deliberately took a closer look and saw that Tooru Mutsuki had indeed just killed a kitten and cut out its tongue. She had a habit of collecting cats' tongues.

"Hey... what are you doing over there?"

Hidemasa Togakage questioned Tooru Mutsuki.

"..."

Tooru Mutsuki didn't answer, instead concentrating on cutting out the kitten's tongue.

"You..."

Hidemasa Togakage approached and saw what Tooru Mutsuki was doing. His expression immediately changed.

As a combat instructor, Hidemasa Togakage should, by rights, have reprimanded Tooru Mutsuki for doing something like this.

Yet a moment later, instead of lecturing Tooru Mutsuki, Hidemasa Togakage began giving her pointers. "You... need to take good care of your knife, or the grease will corrode it easily. Come to think of it, I never knew cats' tongues were this greasy."

Hidemasa Togakage seemed to turn a blind eye to Tooru Mutsuki killing the kitten.

"...!"

Even Tooru Mutsuki was surprised by Hidemasa Togakage's reaction.

Although she didn't care in the slightest that the combat instructor had discovered what she was doing, not being scolded left her a little bewildered.

[Ding! The host has activated a mission. God-tier choice initiated!]

[Option 1: Turn a blind eye and leave before Tooru Mutsuki and Hidemasa Togakage notice you. Reward: 1 fusion point!]

[Option 2: Go deeper into the grove and make it clear to Tooru Mutsuki and Hidemasa Togakage that a third person has discovered this incident. Reward: 10 fusion points!]

[Option 3: Approach them directly, condemn Tooru Mutsuki's behavior, and declare that you will report her to the principal. Reward: 20 fusion points!]

Looking at the choices that had suddenly appeared, Amahane Byakuya barely hesitated before decisively picking the first option.

Before Tooru Mutsuki and Hidemasa Togakage noticed him, he quickly turned away, pretending he hadn't seen anything.

The third option might have offered plenty of fusion points, but he also had to consider what would happen afterward.

Neither Tooru Mutsuki nor Hidemasa Togakage was quite right in the head.

Hidemasa Togakage went without saying. His torture had driven even Yakumo Oomori, otherwise known as Yamori, over to the dark side.

And judging by Tooru Mutsuki's actions in the original story, she was downright terrifying too.

Although Tooru Mutsuki had become so disturbed because of the abuse and torment her parents inflicted on her during childhood, Amahane Byakuya still chose to keep his distance.

Her habit of collecting cats' tongues was a minor issue in comparison. Later, her love for Ken Kaneki-or, more precisely, Haise Sasaki-had reached the point of madness, and she had done plenty of things only a true yandere would do.

So Amahane Byakuya would rather forgo those twenty fusion points than get involved with these two. With his strength, he certainly had no reason to fear them, but it was best to avoid unnecessary trouble.

[Ding! The host has completed Option 1 and received the reward: 1 fusion point!]

Still...

If things continued along this path, Juuzou Suzuya would probably be falsely accused next.

Hidemasa Togakage had not only praised Tooru Mutsuki's behavior but also given her his own knife. He had even covered for her, pinning the blame for the deaths of numerous cats on Juuzou Suzuya.

Juuzou Suzuya was already extremely unsociable and almost always kept to himself. He also routinely harmed himself, so no one doubted that he might have such violent tendencies.

According to that day's schedule.

There was a practical Quinque class in the morning and a light combat training class in the afternoon.

Quinques were Amahane Byakuya's main reason for coming here.

At the practical training grounds, the Quinques needed for the class had already been prepared.

All the Quinques were packed into a single box.

At first, Amahane Byakuya wondered whether one box could really hold so many Quinques.

A moment later, he discovered that all the Quinques were dagger-shaped, and every dagger looked exactly the same.

Just then, the combat instructor spoke. "Each of these Quinques is called 'Hiruko 1/76,' and they're rated B-class. The name means there are seventy-six identical daggers made from the same kagune. In this class, you'll start your training with dagger-shaped Quinques."

Since daggers were relatively small and simple to make, they could easily be mass-produced.

Large Quinques, such as scythes, spears, or even those capable of freely switching between sword and shield forms, were much harder to mass-produce. In most cases, a single kagune was made into a single Quinque.

It was the same combat instructor who had taught the previous firearms training class, so he immediately handed one of the Hiruko 1/76 daggers to Amahane Byakuya. "Amahane, you try it first."

He was paying particular attention to Amahane Byakuya now and wanted to see how much talent he had for using Quinques.