Chapter 26: Beer, meetings, and crazed scriptures

A bit after Eyepatch had been declared a SSS class, Marude and Shinohara went to a simple Japanese bar together. After getting a table, a few drinking snacks, and of course some drinks, the two began to chat. The talk went among a few simple things before Shinohara asked a question that had been bothering him for a while now. "Marude. Why did you push for Eyepatch to be ranked SSS class? There has to be more to it than just Mado's death. Correct?"

Honestly Shinohara had been against the rank up. There was no reason to raise it. To him, Eyepatch seemed too passive to require such a rank and antagonizing him could possibly cause the aggressive behavior that they feared in the first place. He felt that SS class was good enough and unnecessarily raising the level would only lead to panic among the public. However, in the end he had been outvoted, including the deciding vote by Arima, for the rank up. Marude chugged his current mug and signaled for a refill before answering.

"Call it hedging my bets. Look, you may be right and for now Eyepatch isn't that much of a threat. But we both know that could change; easily. This ghoul has the potential to easily turn into another owl and I'll be damned if I let that happen. We have to strike now before he starts moving. And with him at SSS class, we have more capability and resources that can be allotted to take him down."

Shinohara sighed. His colleague was right. They could easily get more supplies and funding for anything that involved him now. A SSS class rating would also allow them greater liberties in their investigation. It wasn't a big secret that those in the government and CCG finance divisions were not too fond of massive CCG operations. Especially when they put civilians at risk of being in the crossfire or included a mandatory evacuation order for the locals. But still he didn't think it was necessary. "You do realize that he only survived his fight with Arima by sheer luck and falling into a nearby canal right?" he asked; half as a joke and half serious. But Marude quickly answered back, "And during that same fight, even if it was also by luck, he did chip Arima's quinque and knick our ace under the eye. If nothing else we can't leave a monster who can so easily break our blades alone. That's just asking for a tragedy." With that the discussion was over and after a bit more of small talk, the two soon left to return home.

At last, the final bell of the day rang. Shiro happily stretched before reclining onto her desk in an exhausted heap. She heard her sister doing the same next to her. The last two days had been exhausting for the two half-ghouls. The first crucible was Yoriko's cooking. It had taken all of their acting skills to eat it and not vomit while happily chatting with the clueless girl. It had been enough for both of them to be bed ridden for half of the next day. However that wasn't the last of their challenges.

In the evening, after the two of them and Ken were mostly recovering, Yomo barged into the house and dragged the two off for more training. When they tried to tell him that they were sick his only answer was, "You must always be ready for a fight. No matter what your condition is." He didn't go easy on them either. Shiro could still feel where he'd cracked her lower spine in one counter. Yomo was truly a frightening ghoul. He didn't even show any exhaustion from the hours they put in despite his Ukaku heritage. Still, both girls had to admit that they did feel stronger afterwards. Shiro started to think back to the events of just a couple weeks prior. She remembered the pain of being impaled, the fear of losing her precious people to the doves once again, the frustration of not being of any help at all, and her new found determination. She had sworn that night, that she would overcome her fears of these murders and become strong. Strong enough to protect her loved ones and stop anyone who'd mean them harm. And that was why she and her sister Kuro would train no matter how hard it was. For in the world of ghouls, there were only the victorious and the dead.

After a couple minutes both girls got up and left to head home. However they didn't get far as a peculiar sight met them at the front gate. A gaggle of students, mostly girls had crowded at the entrance. Kuro was the first to realize what it was as a familiar scent reached her. Both girls pushed through the group and found their older brother now currently talking to some of the school athletes as he also showed off some of his muscles to them; much to the excitement to many in the crowd. To be frank, Shiro and Kuro felt quite embarrassed by their brother showing off his body to their classmates. Having enough, Kuro approached her brother from behind and slapped him upside the head.

"Oi, Kuro what was that for?!" he asked while rubbing the back of his head. "For being a dumbass!" she stated back at him. "Why are you here anyway?" Ken smiled back at the two girls. "Why to pick you up. Is there something wrong with that?" Both girls just stared at him incredulously. "However, we are not heading home for now." His face turned grimly serious. Shiro gulped. Something told her that whatever was happening, was not good. "So…where are we going?" she asked. "We have some unfinished business back in the old ward. Nothing too major," he half-lied, "just a few things I left undone before we moved." Understanding that here was not the place to question, both girls simply shook their heads in understanding, said goodbye to a few in the crowd, and followed their brother to the closest train station. They got on a train; heading for the thirteenth ward.

They soon arrived at Shibuya station. All three of them couldn't help but take a deep breath and enjoy the familiar scents. Despite enjoying their time in the twentieth, the Kaneki's couldn't completely forget the thirteenth ward. After all it had been their home for years. Even if with it being a pretty bloody ward. In fact, if not for Rize, there might have been a high chance for Ken to become the head this ward one day. He was actually well liked and respected by many ghouls in the ward despite his relation to his trouble maker of an aunt. But with the fallout of the nightclub attack, the ward had now become more like the civil war in Syria to the local ghoul population. The CCG tried to keep control the ward with tough crackdowns on the ghouls here and there had even been some rough treatment of suspects or even normal humans by their agents. Meanwhile from the eleventh ward, a massive force had encroached on the ward with a hardline viewpoint on fighting the CCG. This force already controlled a good chunk of the ward while fending off both the CCG and subjugating the local ghouls.

The rest of the ward was broken apart by many ghoul groups who joined together or fought with each other or with the other two forces in uneasy alliances and with varying objectives and beliefs. It was these ghouls that they would be meeting with. Using Itori as a go-between, Ken had been able to set up a meeting with some of major players in this power struggle in an effort to solve who was using his name in the ward in these attacks. They soon left the station but as they walked out of the building, they spotted a familiar face. Napping outside the building near where some street vendors, such as a young woman selling cross necklaces and glass dove figurines, was an old monk. Shiro was thankful that the old badger was asleep. He was usually around this area and had been here since they first moved in. He was always preaching either on how ghouls were a punishment from the gods for the sins of this materialistic and ungrateful generation or how all ghouls were evil and would suffer in hell for their evils. Both girls and even their brother at times found themselves being badmouth by him during either of his tirades. She heard Kuro giggle at the memory of the prank they pulled on him once. Granted placing an eyeball in his collection plate had led to an annoying CCG investigation but it was worth it to all three of them to hear his panic screams when he discovered it.

After a bit of walking, they arrived at the spot in a back alley where they would be meet by their guides to the actual meeting. All three of them now had their masks on; not trusting the other party with their identity. After about five minutes two other figures appeared. "It's been a long time Eyepatch," the lead one began. Ken smiled at the ghoul as they both shook hands. He wore simple but colorful clothing. His mask was just a domino mask designed after an American superhero of some sort with a bandanna over his lower face. "It sure has Robin," Ken replied. Both of the twins waved at Robin. He waved back as well. "It's good to see you two as well. Yin. Yang." Ken looked over to Robin's partner. His entire head in a red full mask. "Hey Red. As unsociable as always huh?" he asked. Red's answer was to flip off the male half-ghoul. "Up yours. Asshole." Ken just shook his head amusedly at the other's hostile greeting.

They then headed for the place where the actual talks on how to hunt and deal with the false eyepatch would be held. They went through back alleys for the most part though occasionally jumped across rooftops to get around large groups of humans. They soon arrived at a half finished construction site for a high-rise condominium. They went to a room near the top of the uncompleted structure where the outer walls and roof were not built yet. The stars provided light as there were no lights set up in the building. A nice wooden meeting table had been set up here and sitting around it were four other ghouls and standing around them or sitting on stacks of construction supplies were several others. Underlings and followers of the four at the table or of Robin.

Both Robin and Ken took a seat at the table while Kuro and Shiro took places behind their brother. They looked at the other ghouls around the table. On the left of the table were Santa Muerte and 2chan bear ghoul.

Santa Muerte was a member of the ghoul elite in the thirteenth. She was a lot like the big madam except much nicer to others. She had wealth and connections that had allowed her to both be a powerful figure in the ward and keep off the CCG's radar. She ran a couple ghoul clubs and cafes in the area as well as the lucrative meat market. She would get meat from several sources including the local yakuza, hospital medical waste, and local homeless selling their own blood or a kidney. There were even rumors that she had some connections with suppliers in on the continent who could ship her some undocumented migrants. She used this meat in her clubs and sold the rest around the local wards. She was also quite knowledgeable and had helped Ken more than once before in return for a little bit of work or help around her clubs. Her masked was designed like a skull decorated for the Mexican holiday Día de Muertos.

2chan bear was obviously not the ghoul's real CCG title but a well deserved nickname given to him by other ghouls. His mask looked like it was designed by someone well-versed with that site. Ken half expected the eyes to actually be gigantic google eyes. As for personality, this ghoul was the cliché Japanese otaku-neet. However he did show a remarkable ability in computers such as once hacking into the local CCG server and deleting several terabytes of data on many key investigations.

On the other side were the SS ranked Alice and Armani. Alice was the leader of the Wonderland gang; a powerful and vicious ghoul gang that loved to play with their food and all had personas based on the Alice in wonderland story. Ken honestly disliked this girl and had gotten into more than one fight with her and her gang members. She wore a blue and white, blood stained goth-lolita outfit and a silver opera mask. And judging from the smell, the blood on her dress was real and somewhat fresh.

Armani was named after the fact that he always seemed to wear expensive suits. He was a big and physically intimidating ghoul who was built like a tank. His black iron half-mask was stylized like the fang filled mouth of an oni. Armani was also well connected as an executive of a local yakuza group made up of both ghouls and humans and worked quite a lot with Santa Muerte.

All four of these ghouls would act as the representatives for the ghoul forces not aligned with those of the eleventh ward during this hunt. Santa Muerte passed around some glasses and a bottle of high quality AB negative fermented blood. Ken took a sip of his before deciding to begin the meeting proper. "So, what all do you guys have on our mischievous little ghoul?" he asked. Almost immediately things started to fall apart. "Hah?! And who said you could take charge here?" Alice challenged him. Ken didn't look at her, but swirled his cup of blood around as he answered. "No one. But you did call me here so I'd at least like a bit of an explanation of what to expect." "Keh. Don't misunderstand. I was against inviting you from the start. But the cowards here said that we should call in some more muscle or that it would be good to have a third party lead this. If I had my way we would…" "Shut up bitch JK!" 2chan bear ghoul shouted out of nowhere. "I'm in college!" She shot back only for the twins now to giggle. "College you say?" Shiro asked and Kuro added, "And you still act like that? How immature."

Alice growled angrily and crushed her drink in her hands but before it could escalate more, Armani slammed his fist onto the table. "Enough!" he roared. "We didn't come here bicker and pick petty fights. We came here to solve this problem." Robin cleared his throat. "Armani is right. This is a problem for all of us. The presence of this trouble-maker is allowing the invaders to gain more power and recruits and leading the local CCG to become more aggressive due to the fear of it being the real Eyepatch. We need to solve this quickly if we are going to keep standing. There's already been ten cases since last night. As for why we invited you three here. We felt that it would help to have someone not currently involved in the power struggle here to handle this. Especially one as powerful as you are should be able freely move through most of the ward. Besides this does involve you somewhat as well." All three of them affirmed Robin.

Next Santa Muerte and 2chan bear ghoul passed Ken, Shiro, and Kuro some documents. "This is all the relevant information we could compile for you. It includes information about the case and the victims as well as about the current situation of the ward and who controls what," said the female ghoul while the neet bragged, "I got the victims' files from the CCG itself with my god-like mad hacker skills." Ken replied, "These will be useful. Thanks." Afterwards the parties present tried to discuss the details of the plan till Alice got tired of it all and left. Leaving the rest to decide to just keep guard in their territory for now and wait for Ken to locate the errant ghoul. Ken and the girls soon found a decent hotel and bought a two bed room for their stay here while they dealt with this mystery.

The false eyepatch stood on a roof looking down at a couple doves as they looked over the body of her last prey; a gambler who was also quite cruel and showed little care for his fellow man. She could hear the men below her as they called the one who did this a beast and other insults. But they must not be very experience as neither of them took the time to simply look up and discover her. Deciding that this was the perfect chance, the criminal she-ghoul leapt down and impaled one of them before they could react. "Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools," she preached as she tossed the now dead investigator aside. His partner screamed in rage and tried to shot the ghoul with his quinque gun but she dodge every shot before grabbing ahold of the man. Holding him painful she leaned into his ear and whispered, "But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca, ' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell," before biting into his neck and drinking the sweet ambrosia that flowed from it.

"Your certain that this is genuine?" inquired Setsuko. "Yes ma'am," the CCG officer answered who brought her a picture. "It was taken by one of the residents of a neighboring building. We checked the place in the picture out and did a check on all of those in the picture and everything appears to true." Setsuko looked at the picture one last time. It was of the meeting that Ken had just gone through last night. It crinkled a little in her tightening fingers. She turned to the man and ordered, "I want you to get a team of investigators set up, I don't care who as long as they are good and willing to die if need be, that can be sent out within five minutes of even so much as a whisper of Eyepatch. Understood?" "Ye..yes," he answered. Satisfied, the associate special class investigator headed to her office to call this in to HQ. As she walked, she looked down at her prosthetic arm and remembered her past failure. It was her fault that Eyepatch had escaped all those years ago. All the investigators he'd killed, including Mado. All of their blood was on her hands. 'This time I won't fail. I will end you, Eyepatch.'

Omake: for guest

It was now nighttime and Anteiku was closed. But not empty. For within it the entire staff and Hinami had gathered in the staff room for a bit of fun. It wasn't a party per say, but a lot of different ghoul friendly drinks and water were provided as everyone got ready for the main event. For reasons unknown to everyone else, the manager and Yomo came in one day with an old karaoke machine. With a little prodding he had been able to get everyone to agree to join in a singing contest.

Yomo finally signaled that it was done and the others could now select what song they wanted from it. Surprisingly there were a lot of songs on the device. Including many from other countries. Everyone looked through the list excitedly and picked what they wanted to sing. After that and the order was selected, Koma turned off the lights and the games began.

First up was Yoshimura who sang Ue o Muite Arukō. It was an older song that most here had not heard but it was song that spoke to them all. Making them think of past loved ones lost and how they had had to move on despite the pain. He did quite well, earning a score of 89. Next was Koma who, as expected, sung an enka ballad titled Jinsei kakurenbo. He put a lot of heart and soul into it but only got a 53. While Hinami tried to cheer him up, Irima started her turn. She proved to be quite good at it singing Awanaitsumorino, Genkidene; earing an 83 and placing in second so far. Next was Hinami who sang a cute song called candy candy that she had heard once when walking by an anime store with her mom a few months before Mado killed her. Everyone clapped for her and complimented her singing despite only getting a 42. Next was the twins who teamed up to sing Hitohira No Hanabira by Stereopony together. They did quite well but apparently the system didn't like that it changed to a duet since they only got a 51. Still Ken whistled and clapped for them till Touka smacked the back of his head to get him to calm down. Next up was Yomo. He surprisingly choose to sing an American song; monster by Skillet. What was even more surprising was that he was actually good at it. Really good. Even doing the growl in one part of it and still scoring a 93. Second to last was Touka. She really wasn't much of a singer so she had picked a song at random. Turns out Clock Strikes by ONE OK ROCK was not a good choice as she only scored a 31. She growled at the amused smirk Ken gave her as he took the mike from her. The male half-ghoul didn't say anything though.

Finally his turn, Ken turned to the group before announcing, "I sing this song in recognition to you Touka." All at once, everyone internally groaned. Knowing that whatever was going on, this couldn't be good. And so Ken sang the song Callin' All The Monsters. Proving like Yomo to be exceptionally talented at singing in English; earning a 91. As everyone else expected, Touka shouted and jumped at the boy; even releasing her kagune. But it only cut the microphone in half as Ken had already zoomed out of the room while laughing manically. "Get back here you asshole!" she yelled as she chased after him for the rest of the night. Yoshimura turned to Yomo and told him, "Remind me to set some rules next time." Yomo nodded and thus ended another peaceful day at Anteiku.