Escape

"Here you are! I hope you won't disappoint me!" Kureo Mado watched the man in the Ice Mask block his attack. "From despair to hope, then back to despair... what a lovely feeling..."

The crystal coating his right fist cracked under the impact, and thin trails of blood slowly seeped through the fissures.

Ryouko Fueguchi stared in shock at the man who had suddenly appeared before her. She sniffed and immediately knew who he was. "You shouldn't have come..."

Louis said nothing. He cautiously watched the two Ghoul Investigators in front of him and the two plainclothes men behind him. Bullets still posed a threat to him.

It was said that Kureo Mado had long possessed the strength of a Special-Class Ghoul Investigator. He had only remained an Associate Special-Class because he did not care about his rank.

And a Special-Class Ghoul Investigator was capable of killing an S-Rank Ghoul.

"Ghouls have feelings too." That was all Louis said to them. Kureo Mado's hatred of ghouls ran bone-deep; a few words from Louis could never change it.

"It's so cold... what's going on..." One of the plainclothes men behind him shivered. The temperature around them had been dropping for a while now.

"Wait... look at the ground..." The other plainclothes man's pupils contracted. The rainwater on the ground was freezing at a rate visible to the naked eye.

[Freeze!]

A towering Ice Wall rose from the ground, shutting the plainclothes men out. On Mado and Amon's side, enormous Ice Spikes thrust upward at forty-five-degree angles toward the two Ghoul Investigators, forcing them back.

The thick Ice Wall behind Louis blocked the bullets, while a mass of Ice Spikes continued spreading ahead of him, even crawling over the walls on both sides and completely blocking the Ghoul Investigators' view of the center.

"What kind of ability is this?" Amon frowned as he kept retreating. They had never seen such a bizarre ability before.

Suddenly, a gust of frigid wind swept past, freezing everything below Amon's knees and binding him in place.

"Damn it!" With no time to break free, Koutarou Amon gripped his Quinque and smashed it into the Ice Spikes spreading toward him.

Crash!

His panicked attack proved more effective than he had expected. The seemingly hard Ice Spikes shattered outright.

"They're so brittle!" Amon immediately realized that these were less like kagune and more like ordinary chunks of ice.

"Mr. Mado!" Realizing at once that the ice posed no threat to them, Amon turned to look behind him, only to find Kureo Mado standing several meters farther back.

"Thirty meters..." Kureo Mado roughly gauged the distance. The crystals at his feet stopped there, unable to spread any farther. "Amon, this ghoul can release ice crystals and cold air. His maximum range is roughly thirty meters."

Kureo Mado knew that some ghouls could produce steam or even high-temperature flames, so a ghoul capable of releasing ice crystals did not surprise him.

"Then... let's have some fun with them!" A savage smile spread across Kureo Mado's face. The bone segments of the Quinque in his hand rapidly extended, shooting toward the area hidden behind the mass of Ice Spikes.

Thirty meters was still within this Quinque's attack range.

"Can you still stand?" Louis quickly crouched to examine Ryouko Fueguchi's injuries. He knew all too well that these ordinary ice crystals would not hold the Ghoul Investigators off for long.

She had blunt-force injuries all over her body. Both lower legs were twisted, their bones likely broken, and showed no signs of healing.

A ghoul's immediate ability to heal depended on two things: the energy stored in their body and their will to recover.

If they gave up on themselves, their wounds would not heal.

"Mr. Louis, you're human... they'll kill you as a ghoul... you shouldn't have come..." Ryouko Fueguchi shook her head through her tears. Ever since learning of her husband's death, she had been filled with despair.

"Well, I'm here now..." Louis reached out to pull her up, but the sound of a large mass of ice shattering behind him made his heart lurch.

"Oh no!"

Louis spun around, but before the Ice Blade in his hand could finish forming, an enormous bone blade broke through the ice crystals and plunged into his left shoulder. The tremendous force sent him flying into the thick Ice Wall.

"Mr. Louis!"

"Associate Special-Class Mado! Are you all right?" On the other side of the Ice Wall, the two armed plainclothes men stared at its cracked surface. Unsure what had happened beyond it, they hurriedly shouted.

Kureo Mado's mocking voice came from the other side of the Ice Wall. "Everything's fine. The show has only just begun..."

Pinned to the Ice Wall, Louis endured the agonizing pain in his left shoulder and tugged hard at the bone blade embedded there, but it would not budge.

That bone blade could extend this far... I let my guard down...

Louis looked ahead at where Kureo Mado stood. His opponent had seen through the maximum range of his crystallization ability in a single exchange.

What a terrifying opponent...

Creating ice without water and manipulating cold air were abilities Louis frequently used. Besides forming crystals on different parts of his body, he could also use cold air as a medium to form them at a distance.

But the farther away they were, the less efficiently he could form them.

"Freeze..." Ignoring the agony in his body, Louis's eyes began glowing a faint blue-white, and the temperature within several meters of him dropped further.

The falling raindrops hung in the air and froze. In just a few seconds, a dense swarm of ice needles hovered over the alley.

He could not control crystals beyond thirty meters, but their existing momentum would not disappear.

Faced with a flexible rinkaku that possessed powerful attacks and wide coverage, Louis's first thought was to counterattack. He would strike directly at the Ghoul Investigator wielding the Quinque and force him to defend himself.

"What a marvelous ability!" Seeing this, Kureo Mado decided to strike first. He sharply pulled down the hand holding his Quinque, intending to sever Louis's entire left arm.

"In your dreams!" The Ice Wall behind Louis shattered at his shout. He gripped the bone blade and shoved hard, moving his body backward until he finally pushed the blade out of his shoulder.

At the same time, the dense swarm of ice needles shot toward Mado and Amon like a volley of countless arrows, leaving them no room to dodge.

Kureo Mado retracted his Quinque and formed a Z-shaped defensive barrier in front of them.

I only have one chance...

Louis turned and swept his right arm outward. A biting cold wind froze the two armed men behind him into ice sculptures. Looking in that direction, he saw that two police cars were blocking the alley's exit.

"Let's go!" Louis pulled Ryouko Fueguchi up and hoisted her onto his back. Ice pillars of varying heights rose from the alley floor.

Using them as footholds, Louis leaped several times and vaulted onto the rooftop.

"They got away?" Kureo Mado lowered the barrier made from kagune. A flicker of displeasure crossed his eyes as he watched Louis leap onto the roof.

The ice needles filling the air had little offensive power, but they had still held them up.

"He pulled one over on us..." Kureo Mado narrowed his eyes, though his expression soon returned to normal.

"But that speed won't be enough... Amon, let's go after them."

"Mr. Mado... those two..." Amon's voice carried a note of guilt as he stared grimly at the two men frozen into ice sculptures in the distance.

"Amon, rather than blaming yourself here, turn those feelings into motivation..."

"Let's avenge them." Kureo Mado did not seem particularly concerned. After patting Amon on the shoulder, he took out his phone, preparing to call for people to surround and capture the fugitives.

Suddenly, the sound of shattering ice came from the distance...

"Achoo!"

Both men immediately turned to look. The two men frozen into ice sculptures had actually come back to life and were hugging themselves, shivering...

"He... held back?"