A group fight

One night:

"I smelled Daddy again." One night, Hinami suddenly widened her eyes and spoke to Ryouko Fueguchi.

"Hinami..." Ryouko Fueguchi froze, then gritted her teeth and hugged Hinami. "Promise me you won't run outside again. We can't keep troubling Mr. Louis and the others."

"Okay..." Hinami looked haggard. Days of keeping everything bottled up had left her deeply depressed.

In another room, Kaneki, Touka, and Louis were holding a meeting of their own.

"The White Doves came to the café today." Touka's expression darkened as she recalled what had happened that evening. "They were carrying two packages. They were probably ghoul remains."

The two briefcase carriers, Yu Fura and Shizuri, seemed to have stopped by for coffee after work. Besides the cases concealing their Quinques, they each carried a package. Judging by their size, the packages clearly couldn't hold an entire ghoul.

"It was Hinami's father's scent," Louis added. He had fought Kureo Mado while rescuing Ryouko Fueguchi, and the smell was very close to that of the Quinque in Mado's hand.

His sense of smell was admittedly inferior to a ghoul's, but he could still quickly identify a scent from within a meter.

"Those bastards!" Touka slammed her fist onto the table, her face filled with fury.

"..." Kaneki and Louis both fell silent. Hinami's sense of smell was no worse than theirs, and she knew her father's scent better. How could she possibly have missed it?

Hinami had been getting worse over the past few days, and the dark circles beneath her eyes had steadily deepened. It was obvious how much this was hurting her.

A few nights earlier, before anyone else had noticed the smell, Hinami had knocked on Louis's door and told him she could smell her father.

But Louis, knowing full well that this was a trap set by the Ghoul Investigators, could only tell her not to go outside. By the time the White Doves arrived with their packages today, Hinami had only dared to hide in bed with the covers over her head.

No one could endure endlessly suppressing their feelings and putting up with this.

"I'm going to kill them..." Touka clenched her fists and looked at Louis.

Why are you looking at me...?

Louis did his best to avoid Touka's gaze.

This was obviously a trap set by the Ghoul Investigators. If they rushed in so recklessly and something went wrong...

They just had to endure it a little longer, and everything would return to normal.

[Ding! A main-story battle is about to begin! Host, please prepare! Participants: Hinami Fueguchi (S-rated), Yu Fura (Associate Special-Class Ghoul Investigator), Koutarou Amon (First-Class Ghoul Investigator), Shizuri (First-Class Ghoul Investigator), Kureo Mado (Associate Special-Class Ghoul Investigator)]

That little brat!

Louis immediately realized what had happened. Hinami had clearly sneaked out on her own.

Just then, the living room door suddenly opened, and Ryouko Fueguchi rushed in, panicking.

"Hinami... is gone..."

The manager and the others weren't at the café, so everyone who remained rushed out.

They split up to search, while Louis ran straight toward the battle site marked by the system.

"That little brat... all our efforts were wasted!" Louis formed the Ice Mask and ran through the shadows along the roadside, heading straight for his destination.

Now, not only had their efforts gone to waste, but there was an even bigger headache: the enemy had two additional Ghoul Investigators, one Associate Special-Class and one First-Class. Louis could hold off only one of them at most.

The manager and his companions couldn't intervene. This time, they could only rely on the younger ghouls.

"We don't have enough people..." Louis vaulted down from a large bridge and suddenly thought of someone who might be useful.

Meanwhile, Nishiki Nishio was at home kissing his girlfriend when his phone suddenly rang.

"Hello? Who is this?" Nishiki Nishio was thoroughly annoyed with whoever had interrupted his fun.

"Come out. We've got a group fight." Louis held his flip phone, his voice urgent.

"Huh?" Nishiki Nishio froze. Although he recognized the voice, he didn't understand what Louis meant.

"Hinami's in trouble. Ghoul Investigators."

"Uh..." Nishiki Nishio frowned, his expression immediately turning serious. To ghouls, Ghoul Investigators were a source of both hatred and fear.

But after a moment's hesitation, his voice grew firm again. "Where?"

"Got it..."

After saying that, Nishiki Nishio gritted his teeth with an irritated expression. He released Kimi from his arms and stood up to change. "Sorry, Kimi. I have to go out."

"Is it dangerous?" Kimi had noticed the gravity of Nishiki Nishio's expression, too.

"Yeah..." Nishio paused as he changed and gave Kimi a long look. "I have to repay what I owe them."

Ghoul Investigators were the opponents ghouls least wanted to face. Being caught by them was practically a death sentence.

The river rushed along, reflecting distorted streetlights and two figures, one tall and one short.

"Daddy..." Hinami was already on the verge of a breakdown as she stared at the package held by the white-coated man before her.

"Daddy?" Amon glanced at the package in his hand and frowned. He suddenly understood why Mado had never spelled it out in front of him.

A cruel but effective tactic.

The teachings drilled into Amon at the Ghoul Investigator academy compelled him to show ghouls no sympathy. He pressed the switch on his case, and a long-handled blunt Quinque appeared in his hand. Rather than attack immediately, he surveyed his surroundings warily.

"Stay where you are," Amon warned. Following the instructions he had just received from Mado, he held off on attacking.

Ghoul No. 745 was merely bait. Their real targets were Rabbit, Ice Mask, and even the Devil Ape.

Hinami sat on her knees, her pupils trembling as she stared at the package that had fallen to the ground. She reached out to pick it up.

Bang!

Amon smashed his Quinque into the concrete, shattering it and forcing her hand back.

"Daddy..." Hinami trembled uncontrollably. As though she had reached some limit, her eyes instantly turned blood-red.

Once a ghoul revealed their kakugan or kagune in public, any means of attack that did not endanger others was permitted.

Amon gritted his teeth and stepped forward, ready to charge. But suddenly, four enormous kagune erupted from the petite girl's back and hurtled toward him with astonishing speed.

"Four kagune!" It was Amon's first time seeing a ghoul with so many. Shocked, he hurriedly raised his Quinque in front of himself.

The four kagune slammed into Amon's Quinque, sending him flying with a bang.

"So heavy..." Amon stumbled back several steps before regaining his balance. The force of the collision had numbed the webbing between his thumb and forefinger, and his weapon had nearly slipped out of his hands. He had never imagined that the petite ghoul before him could possess such strength. A single blow had almost knocked his weapon away.

Just as he prepared for another attack, he realized that the little girl's four kagune weren't pursuing him. Instead, they picked up the bag from the ground and slowly drew it back toward her.

"Dad... dy..." Hinami sat on her knees and withdrew her kagune into her body. Tears streamed down her face as she looked at the package before her. She reached out to open it, only for a large hand to stop her.

"Don't look..."