In Kanou Laboratory, ghouls fled rapidly in every direction. Despite it being daytime, the Ghoul Investigators who came as reinforcements managed to intercept only a handful of ghouls, capturing large numbers of test subjects instead.
"My God..." Takizawa held his small Quinque as he surveyed the devastation in the central laboratory. It was hard to imagine what a terrifying battle had taken place here. The floors had cracked, the walls had collapsed, and even Special-Class Investigator Shinohara, one of their strongest fighters, lay unconscious with severe injuries.
The SS-Rank [Oniyamada No. 1] and [Arata] were almost completely destroyed. No ordinary ghoul could have done this.
Elsewhere, a relatively narrow space had been reduced to an unrecognizable ruin, littered with collapsed rubble and kagune fragments. Particularly conspicuous among them was a muscular octopus that looked as though it had been violently torn in half.
"Was there a fully developed kakuja here...?"
"And it was utterly defeated..."
The bright, tidy room contained only the simplest furnishings: a bed, a sofa, a few chairs, and a coffee table. It was a spare room.
A woman in black, covered in blood and grime, gently wiped the skin of the person lying on the bed with a towel, removing the dark red stains little by little to reveal pale, delicate skin.
Once the stains were washed away, the enormous wound that had stretched from shoulder to abdomen was now only a faint scar. The woman in black reached out with slender fingers, stroking it with slightly trembling fingertips as the scene of blood spraying from the wound when it was inflicted kept flashing through her mind.
The bandaged girl's words kept echoing in her ears.
For the sake of a false familial bond, she had nearly lost someone who truly mattered.
As though sensing