15. A puppy

*Ding*

The soft ring of the Anteiku's doorbell echoed as it was opened by a thin man in his thirties with straight black hair behind him was a brown-haired woman of the same age and holding her sleeve was a small ten years old girl with the same but shorter hair and a headband with pink sakura flower. All in all a happy family.

'Huh… an entire family of ghouls and the girl look familiar.', Kaede internally remarked as she sipped her chocolate appreciating the taste and how warm it was. It was worth it to get here just for that.

The gaze of the pink-haired girl didn't go unnoticed as the other girl in question looked behind and froze while her parents continued on, she didn't freeze out of fear or anything but surprise then she sniffed the air and kept her eyes widened.

'Strange… Hypersensitivity or does she think she is a dog?', Kaede thought waving at the girl, Arima next to her looked down in curiosity but didn't say anything.

This action had a reaction but not the one Kaede expected, it was more along the line of panic born out of shyness and so the diclonius decided to approach.

"Hello there, my name is Kaede and what might be yours?", Kaede enthusiastically said, an amiable smile on her face to the brown-haired girl having moved the short distance in seconds. Immediately Kaede noticed she was smaller than her by a few centimeters to her annoyance as both were of similar age and she did a discreet surface-level scan as well.

Privacy was but a suggestion to Kaede, the only limit was her morals which she was one of the few aspects she found herself lacking in.

Good thing she was too young for now to suffer the wrath of estrogens but she couldn't lie to herself as she knew it would be soon considering she will soon be 11 years old, and she didn't know what her species had in store for puberty. The only constant was that there would be blood.

'Two kagunes double ukaku and bikaku, two types of RC cell… Very high RC factor… A chimera. Incredible. It's her… I vaguely remember.', the diclonius thought, this confirmed this was a character from the anime-manga and quite an important one at that but that last part she didn't care about.

A chimera is the offspring of two ghouls in possession of two distinct RC types and in possession of both. Something excessively rare, in fact, the only reason it wasn't the rarest was that the natural condition for a human and a ghoul to procreate was nigh impossible, and as such natural one-eyed ghouls were miracles.

Powerful and mentally unstable miracles but miracles nonetheless not that much different from her on those points the only major difference was that she was born from a pure-blooded human couple, both with a low RC factor.

In any case, ghouls were a species born out of humans to prey on them, her being born with a natural inclination and instincts to kill both with humans at the forefront was probably saying something.

She wasn't superstitious but souls or an equivalent existed as well as a higher being if her presence wasn't enough proof but by all means, she couldn't give less of a fuck. With one exception being grateful she was reincarnated but that was all, if there was any intervention from such hypothetical beings in the first place.

"AAH! MynameisHinamiFueguchiImFineandhowareyou!", the newly named Hianima spoke faster than her mouth could keep up in a burst of nervousness that earned a snicker from Kaede.

"I'm sorry if I scared you. Nice to meet you Hinami.", the pink-haired girl excused herself with a cute tilt of the head.

"No, that's fine… and nice to meet you as well. Why do you smell strange?", the chimera said shyly but at the same bluntly to Kaede who looked at her in visible confusion.

"Huh? As in bad?", Kaede asked but it was more playing around than anything. This remark wasn't new but it was interesting that the ghoul girl noticed it from such a distance.

She knew she didn't exactly smell human, if at all besides the one from home, not because she could tell the difference but because it was told numerous times to her face when she played with her toys, ghouls.

And how animals wild or not acted around her, the last being quite funny to her as it made it seem like she was some kind of utterly psychotic Disney 'princess' and also that her kill count was way smaller than some of them.

It makes sense as the nose of ghoul is very keen, almost on par with dogs, a very apt comparison for most even if it insults dogs, and since they were prone to a lot of mutations with the higher RC factor in their body a unique case like Hinami with an enhanced sense made sense.

Doing a quick scan one more time Kaede indeed notes the greater concentration of olfactory nerve compared to regular ghoul. It was greater by a factor of five, the girl likely had a better sense of smell than some of the best bloodhounds out there. Kaede didn't know if it was both a curse or a blessing.

"Nononono! You smell good! No, I didn't mean that but! Arg! No-it's just completely different to anyone or anything else!", she half blurted and half mumbled out, panic clear in her every action, feature, and voice.

'Socializing may be a necessity but not like I would be much better off with my old life. Though she is adorable like a puppy face planting on a pillow.', the diclonius self remarked, she wasn't a social butterfly either her homeschooling not having fixed that but that didn't stop her from acting like one.

"Nah it isn't a problem, I understand. I'm pretty unique after all, and thanks for the compliment if quite a unique one to say to someone you've just met. Let's talk again sometime in the future.", Kaede said with a smile tugging her lips.

She moved her hand and with s flick of her fingers by some sort of unknown magic a folded piece of paper that wasn't there before appeared and she gave it to the fumbling Hinami.

"Hmm. I must go or my teacher is going to complain again. See ya~!", the pink-haired girl said her goodbye in a singsong tone hoping away back toward Arima. Doing magic tricks with literal magic hands was as easy as breathing.

Hinami, left utterly confused and baffled by what happened, looked down at the light blue paper in her left hand for some time before unfolding. She read, even if the handwriting left to be desired she could still tell it was an email and a phone number with a little message at the end.

'Keep this a secret between us, okay? If you don't it doesn't matter but I trust you on that.'