Chapter 33: scents and new faces

Late night in the twentieth ward, a young woman was surprised by an uninvited guest who entered her apartment. A rather good looking man sat on her window seal though she lived on an upper story. Not to mention the look in his eyes scared her. Like playful cat that had cornered a poor frightened mouse. "What the?! Where did you come from? I… I'm going to call the police!" she blustered trying to frighten the man off. But her hope was in vain as the man simply replied, "Sorry to barge in so rudely. Please calm down Karube-san." He ignored her next question as he continued speaking. "I don't really want to have to act violently. If you call the police then someone will turn up dead. Karube Misano who works at the café in front of the station."

Frightened to her core, karube could only ask, "Are you insane?" The man smiled. "If I said that that didn't make me feel good. Then I'd be lying." He jumped down and started to approach the poor woman. She felt her blood freeze in fear as he walked casually over. "Your eyes are sepia." He reached towards her face. "They have a lovely gradation." Then Karube felt sheer pain as he started to pull her eyes out but with care not to damage them. Later that night the CCG and medical units were called in to aid a woman without eyes stumbling around the ward. Even the hardened investigators who arrived were disturbed. They had to stop this ghoul and fast.

Four people were currently in the training room below Anteiku. The twins were taking part in their scheduled training. Right now, without Yomo, the two of them were to spare with one another. Kuro trying to work on her distance kagune fighting while Shiro on her close range fighting. Stopping just short of hurting each other though. Both of them were just beginning however and were still doing their pre-spar stretches. Meanwhile the other two who had gotten here earlier, continued their own training.

Ken and Touka had decided to train together. Earlier, before the twins had arrived, the two of them had done some martial arts training. Now they were playing a game with a bet on it. Touka unleashed her Kagune's long range attack to work on her aim by trying to hit Ken who couldn't let a single shard touch him and couldn't use his kagune to block. Loser had to go out with Yoriko to some restaurant she wanted to go to. She was afraid to go alone, thanks to the increased ghoul activity after the CCG retreated and had asked Touka to go with her. Though if she won, Ken would have to go after telling Yoriko that Touka got sick and was sending him in as a replacement.

While they both played, Kuro began to become engrossed in watching them. Too engrossed so that she didn't notice, while doing pair stretches with her sister, that she had pulled to far; causing her sister pain as she was overstretched her back and could only flail around on top of Kuro's back. As this happened, Yomo came out from Anteiku's entrance to the mass of underground tunnels the ghouls controlled. He looked over to Ken and Touka, judging their training approvingly. He then turned to the sisters. Kuro noticed him and said hello but Shiro was too occupied right now, trying to keep her spine from snapping a second time. He asked them "What you two playing?" "We're not playing its training." "Kuro, stop. Stop! I'm gonna fall!" Yomo placed his bag down as Kuro finally threw down her sister. He decided to address them both on their progress. "Both of you are showing improvement more or less. But you're still lacking in several areas. Kuro you're still rushing head first into the fight too often. You need to slow down and not fall for easy feints and you still are behind on your long range combat training." "Hai," she sadly acknowledged. "And Shiro. You're still having just the opposite problem. You stay to far back too often and don't jump into to openings as fast as you should. You're trying analyze too much." The other girl's head lowered.

Deciding he had talked down to them too much, Yomo decided to change focus and called over both Touka and Ken to fight him at the same time. Both of them smirked confidently. There was no way the other ghoul could take them both on at the same time. So they both took the offensive and charged at Yomo. Who expertly dodged and blocked their strikes. Though Ken did notice that he was having a harder time than in previous bouts with the ghoul. But he couldn't figure out why. They both went for the strike trying to get him into a pincer attack but Yomo just ducked; causing Ken to punch Touka and Touka to kick Ken. Before they could recover, he jumped up and knocked both of them away. The two began to bicker on whose fault it was till he pointed out their big mistake. "Touka, and especially you Ken, need to work on your cooperative combat. Unlike your sisters, you've been by yourself and as such, are a pretty devastating opponent in single combat. But your lack of cooperation led to both of you becoming hindrances for each other when you should have had the advantage." He then looked at Touka and told her, "Also, Touka, don't eat unnecessary things before a fight." He picked up his bag and walked off ignoring the two as they started to bicker again. "Oi, Touka. You better not use being sick on human food as an excuse to invalidate the results of our game. I won so I'm safe." "Can it Bakineki. You don't even deserve to spend time with Yoriko anyways."

After a bit more training, the quartet of young ones came back up into the café. The three girls all had a shift while Ken, after a drink, planned to go back to the thirteenth to continue to the clean-up from their last escapade as well as his mission for Yoshimura. They watched the news on the current attack most likely done by the gourmet. Ken recognized it as a name from one of the wanted posters and one he'd heard around the ward a bit but not much else. But Touka and Irimi both didn't seem pleased as Touka stated, "That guy. Has been pretty active since Rize died." "Hasn't he?" Irimi acknowledged.

Their thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of the bell at the entrance. Touka welcomed the guest before she could see who it was. "Hmmm, what a nice smell," the figure said. "As I thought, this place has really calmed me down." While the other two's moods went down with the new customer's entrance, the Kanekis just smiled at the man. "Welcome," both Kuro and Shiro told the handsome man. Ken simply thought that while the man looked like a model, his fashion sense was terrible. 'That is one of the ugliest sweaters I have ever seen.' The man waved at the group and said, "Long time, no see. Irimi. Kirishima." But Touka answered his warm greeting with a cold, "Why are you here?"

The man smiled. "Oh come on, I just came to see your faces. You're cold as always Kirishima. But that is what's appealing about you." Touka's face showed even more disgust as she answered, "You're so creepy. You smug bastard." But his focus soon changed as he noticed the three Kanekis. "Oh so you're the three I've heard about. The three new members of Anteiku who even helped repel the investigators for us." "Ah, Hello. We're the Kaneki's," Kuro answered; a little uncomfortable at the new attention. The man walked over to her and began to circle her. Making both her siblings a little uncomfortable. "Hmmm. You're a lot more delicate then I was expecting." But the last straw was when he sniffed her ears. Causing her to let out a squeak in surprise. "What a mysterious scent." "Oi!" Touka was thankful that no human customers were present now. It would be hard to explain how Ken had moved so fast. He hadn't wasted a second when he shot across the café to behind the man who he now felt was a threat to his sister. Right now he was gripping the other's shoulder rather strongly with Shiro also giving a powerful death stare. "What do you think you're doing to my sister?" The man simply laughed and answered, "Pardon. Pardon. I didn't mean to upset you and the two belles filles. Just trying to be friendly is all."

Having enough of him and worried about what he could lead Ken to do Touka began to motion for him to leave. "You're getting in the way and you're creepy so just hurry up and go. Shoo! Shoo!" Her subject of ire just sighed. "You're so inelegant Kirishima. Still I have things to do so I'll take my leave but next time I'll come to drink some coffee leisurely. Hopefully when Yoshimura is around too. See you, mes nouveaux amis. Let's meet again." He then left. Much to everyone's relief. "Who the hell was that?" Kuro asked. "A nuisance to the twentieth ward," Touka ansered. "You shouldn't get involved with him. He's troublesome." But he was soon forgotten as the shop became busy and Ken left to attend to his work in the thirteenth ward.

And a busy day it was. Everyone except Yomo and Ken were on hand. Shiro worked with Koma at the counter while Kuro, Irimi, and Touka rushed around the tables to take orders and Yoshimura watched over them all; giving help whenever needed. Even Hide found himself lost in the crowd as none of the staff could spare any time for his usual antics.

While Kuro was running raged serving customers, she came across one that got her notice. She looked like a young college age girl to Kuro. Probably no older than her big bro. She seemed a bit rebellious in her choice of clothing but nothing too far out of the norm. Her smell though, that Kuro smelt as she walked by or when she took the woman's order, seemed oddly familiar to the younger half ghoul. And for some reason put her on edge. But what really caught Kuro's attention was the handmade plushies on the girl's bag. In the form of chibi famous ghouls to be exact. Including a couple of her brother and herself with her sister. She found that weird. Even though ghouls were pretty big in pop culture it still struck her as odd to see someone carrying a stuff toy of yourself. The customer also took a black coffee; forcing Kuro to double check her scent to make sure she was human. She was.

She returned soon with the coffee but overheard the customer talking to someone on her phone. It wasn't that hard with the conversation being so animated. She was apparently shouting at her mother across the irked the orphan waitress. Especially when the woman said she didn't want to talk to her mother ever again. Upset, Kuro slammed the cup on the table hard enough to cause it to spill some on the customer's papers before walking off in a huff. Barely noticing when Hide came over to the table for some reason.

At a gated, Victorian looking building, the man from earlier, now wearing his moon shaped mask, walked causally to the front door. He was met by another masked man dressed as a butler who bowed before him. "I have been waiting for your visit, dear customer," the butler said as he bowed. The moon masked man pulled out a package and gave it to the butler telling him, "Tell the chef to "sauté this"." "Understood."

Now in the ghoul restaurant. One Shuu Tsukiyama, the gourmet ghoul, now partook of his meal. "What a nice color," he observed. As he took a bite though, his thoughts changed to what had just taken his interests just this morning. "The Kanekis of Anteiku huh? What an interesting scent they all have."

Hide saw when Kuro slammed the coffee down on the table and walked off in a huff. He rushed over quickly to play damage control; taking a seat across from the woman and apologizing for the waitress. "Sorry about that. Kuro can get kind of emotional at times. She probably heard you yelling at your mom and that set her off," he explained hoping that this would stop her from confronting his friend's little sister or filing some complaint. The other customer asked, "Why would she be so upset over what I said to my own mother?" Hide hesitated for a second as he was unsure if he had the right to share this. But he decided to tell her, "Kuro and her siblings are orphans. She lost her parents when she was pretty young too apparently. Though I don't really know the details that well. So she probably felt upset that you were willing to yell at your mother when she lost hers." The other looked shocked as she realized what had happened. "I'm so sorry. I didn't realize that I could offend someone that way. And to be honest, I wasn't really that serious with what I told my mom. I do love her and it would break my heart if she really did cease all contact with me. It's just… that whenever we try to talk it usually turns into an argument."

"Oh and why is that?" Hide asked now interested. The girl laughed. "Really, she's just worried about me. You see, I'm what some people have teasingly called a ghoul fanatic. She's afraid I'll do something stupid and end up being attacked by some ghoul." Hide looked over at her plushies. "I see. Well to be honest I'm pretty interested in them as well. I've been investigating Eyepatch recently. Apparently a little too much. Even people in some of the chatrooms I've gone to have been telling me to chill." He laughed a bit at himself. "To be honest, I'm half worried I'll get in trouble with the CCG or the police at times for being too nosy." The girl laughed as well. "Don't worry, I can assure you that they are fine with that as long as you don't try to sneak into crime scenes or hack classified data. In fact, they love it when civilians get progressive in hunting ghouls." Hide held out his hands. "Sounds like you have some insider knowledge yourself. The name's Hideyoshi Nagachika. But you can just call me Hide." She shook his hand confidently. "You could say that. And the name is Maria. Maria Takahashi."