The moon hung like a frozen sentinel above the 20th Ward.
Eiríkur slipped out of Anteiku's back entrance, his breath barely disturbing the stillness. No words for Kaneki, no glance for Touka. Only a folded note on the counter.
"If I don't come back, don't follow."
He moved across the rooftops like a thought not yet spoken — slow breath, soundless steps, heartbeat suspended by Veil-Frost. The wyrd inside him twisted with agitation. Not fear. Something else.
Something off.
The air smelled wrong.
He found Akira waiting in the shadowed mouth of an alley near the abandoned market district. Her coat was unzipped in the late summer heat, hood half-pulled back. The moonlight caught the edge of her cheek. For the first time in weeks, she looked like a person — not a weapon.
But her voice still carried steel.
"We don't have much time."
He stepped into the alley without a word.
"The CCG is prepping a surgical strike.Officially, it's reconnaissance.Unofficially, it's a trap."
Eiríkur's jaw tightened. "They think you led them to me."
Akira shook her head. "No. They think I've been compromised. You're just the bait."
His hand curled. The frost-kagune flickered beneath his coat, responding to tension like a pulse.
"I can leave."
"They'll come anyway."
He looked at her then — not with suspicion, but with clarity.
"You're risking everything being here."
Her response came without delay. Steady. Certain.
"You're worth the risk."
The words were quiet. Immediate. Unflinching.
He stepped forward, breath fogging between them. "Why?"
Akira hesitated.
Then her voice dropped, softer than he'd ever heard it.
"Because you make me want to believe in monsters who choose not to be."
They stood without speaking.
Then she stepped forward, resting her forehead gently against his chest. Cold skin touched colder skin — but for one fleeting moment, it felt like warmth.
"I won't let them kill you."
"You might have to."
Neither of them denied it.
And both knew it was true.
Beneath Anteiku:
Before the sun could rise, Eiríkur returned.
Yoshimura was already there — seated at the bar, two cups of coffee gently steaming.
He didn't look surprised.
"I knew you'd go," he said. "I hoped you'd return."
Eiríkur said nothing.
Yoshimura stood and moved to the storeroom. Behind the shelf of old beans and preserves, he opened a hidden latch and pulled back a panel of wood.
A trapdoor.
Stone stairs led down — deeper than they had any right to go.
"This place was once a temple," Yoshimura said as they descended."Before it became a shop.Before Tokyo had a name.Before ghouls were spoken of as science."
Frost clung to the walls as they went lower. The wyrd surged.
The past was close here.
They entered a chamber carved from ancient rock — lit by blue-glass lanterns that hummed softly with eldritch energy. The air was still. Cold. Sacred.
Runes spiraled across the walls — mirrored symbols echoing those etched into Eiríkur's arm.
At the center: a coffin of black ice, bound in faint iron chains, half-buried in the stone itself.
Inside, frozen in perfect stasis, lay a warrior.
A wolf-pelt cloak draped his body. An iron skeletal mask covered his face. His skin was pale, his frame gaunt but strong — preserved by forces older than the CCG could ever categorize.
Yoshimura spoke in reverent tones.
"They called him Hjalgrím the Bound.A Draugr who sealed himself rather than spread what he had become."
Eiríkur stepped closer, frost rising with each breath.
"He looks like me," he whispered.
"He was you. Or close enough. I believe your blood echoes his.His wyrd never ended. It just… waited."
Eiríkur reached out.
The surface of the coffin didn't melt.
It glowed — softly. Like recognition.
Yoshimura's voice was low, steady.
"You have a choice.Take what remains. Let him guide you.Or seal it again. And remain who you are."
Eiríkur didn't speak.
He just stared — into the ice, into the face of something he might become. Or already had.
Unseen by either of them, a figure stood quietly on the staircase.
Kaneki.
He had followed without being asked.
And he had heard enough.
He didn't move. Didn't speak.
He only watched — eyes unreadable, expression caught between fear, understanding… and sorrow.