[15th Ward — East Market Row | Night, March 2008]
Rain had rinsed the market and left it smelling of rust and old oil. Neon jittered in puddles. A curtain of plastic strips flapped at a shuttered stall, slapping a slow rhythm that made the rest of the street feel empty.
Hayato drifted through the ribs of bent awnings, the cracked seam of his half-mask catching little slices of light. He didn't hurry. The trail was strong—RC thick on the air, a wire pulled taut from his nose straight down the alley between a grocer's loading bay and a stack of broken pallets.
He crouched beside the pallet stack, touched two fingers to a dark smear, and lifted them to his face. Not human. Warm still.
A boot scuffed deeper in the alley. Too loud. Too sudden.
"Out," he said—quiet, even.
A Bikaku tail came first, scaled and braced like a cudgel. Then its owner stepped into view: thin coat, thinner face, the look of someone who had been hungry long enough to forget what full felt like. His eyes locked on the mask and widened, but his mouth tried for bravado.
"Wrong corner tonight," he said. His tail twitched. "You're small."
Hayato didn't answer. The kagune rose from his shoulder like a bad memory: plates laddering down his right arm in jagged crimson, heavier than last winter, the edges dull-shining like wet tile. Behind him, thin fragments hovered—Ukaku knives that clicked faintly when the wind pushed them together.
The tail whipped, hard and fast. He slid past it; the impact cratered the brick where his head had been. His plated arm came down like a hammer. Scales cracked. The rogue hissed and backed up. Hayato followed with short, mean steps—no show, no sweeping arcs—chopping, jabbing, using the weight of the plating to bully the tail to the ground. Three shards flicked from his back and stitched the man's thigh and hip shallow, cutting tendons instead of arteries. The rogue dropped to a knee with a strangled breath. His tail thrashed; Hayato caught it on his forearm and twisted, then buried a plated knuckle in his chest. Air fled. The body folded.
End it, drag proof, go.
He stood over the gasping chest, listened to the wet rattle, and smelled the blood steaming up off skin. That smell never whispered anymore—it shouted. Iron thick as pennies in the mouth. Marrow like hot broth. The back of his throat prickled. The cracked seam at his jaw itched.
Finish him. Don't feed. Finish and leave.
The rogue groped weakly at Hayato's shin, found nothing to hold, and stared up in terror. "Please—"
Hayato grabbed the forearm and bit.
Skin gave. The first tear always felt like breaking a seal: a snap and a slide, then the flood. It wasn't food; it was battery metal and stale fat. His body recoiled while his blood surged; heat ran up his spine like someone had poured boiling water into his veins. The shards behind him flared and painted the alley red.
The rogue screamed. The tail fired blind and caught Hayato across the ribs. He staggered; the mouthful ripped away ragged. The man jerked free with a wet sound and bolted, limping, bouncing off a dumpster, leaving a stripe of dark behind him.
Hayato wiped his mouth on the back of his wrist. The taste clung like glue. He pulled a breath to chase—
White light burned the alley flat.
"CCG! Don't move!"
He turned. A patrol car sat crosswise at the mouth of the row, headlights boxing the scene. An investigator stepped out, coat flaring, a Bikaku-type quinque unfolded from his grip like a chopping blade. Rank patch—Third Class. Young, jaw tight, but his hands didn't shake.
The blade stayed low for half a second while the investigator processed what he saw: the mask with the crooked jaw seam; the boy-sized frame; the crimson plating; the splatter across the tiles. His throat bobbed.
"…Could be Black Dragon," he muttered. Not a shout—just the rumor surfacing in a mind that had read too many briefings.
Heat crawled along Hayato's ribs where the tail had landed. His chest felt heavy, breath shallow, a pressure settling in like wet sand. In the glare, the quinque's edge looked too familiar—angles that belonged to the night a courtyard filled with floodlights, and Bastion's armor had broken under a rain of arcs like that.
Doves kill. That's the job they took. And we run, or we die, or we kill them first.
He didn't say it. He watched the investigator's feet and the angle of the blade.
"On your knees," the Dove said, voice tightening. "Hands behind your head."
Hayato lowered his plate a few centimeters to open his lungs. "You'll kill me if I kneel."
"Don't test me." The blade rose.
His shards twitched without his say. Three misfired and chewed chalk out of the wall; one kissed a headlight and popped it. The investigator flinched, recovered, widened his stance like the academy taught.
The radio at his collar spat: "Unit Six, status?"
"Contact," he said, eyes never leaving Hayato. "Single. Possible Black Dragon. East Market Row. Send two."
Two meant a second car. Three to five minutes if they were close. Floodlights if someone upstairs smelled a story.
Hayato shifted half a step to angle his shoulder toward a stack of milk crates and the rise of a wall. The blade tracked him.
"Stay put," the Dove said.
Hayato moved.
He didn't go through the man. He went past him—plate smashing down into the crates so hard they exploded into slats and fog. Dust and splinters filled the cone of light. The quinque's arc cut air; by the time the blade reset, Hayato had run two strides up the dumpster, toes scraping metal, and vaulted.
"Rooftop!" the Dove coughed, already on the radio. "He's on the roof—move, move!"
Shingles slid under Hayato's boots. His lungs burned. He jumped the first gap short, caught a gutter with his plated forearm, and swung up. Lights swept, searching. RC detectors in the cars began their rising whine. A bolt from down-street scraped his shoulder; the plating fractured and sent a spray of hot shards into the dark. He didn't look back.
Another gap. Another. He went where the roofs were close, where clotheslines made shadows, where the angles he'd been memorizing for two years stacked in his favor. His shards flickered along his spine and died again, nerves misfiring under fever.
Someone got clever and cut off a lane with the car itself. He switched directions, dropped low, crossed a narrow alley on a rusted pipe that groaned under him, then slid down the far wall and hit hard. Sirens bounced between buildings now, directionless.
If they pin you in the light, you're done. Don't let them make you stand where he stood.
He took a left into a boneyard of pallets and plastic wrap, doubled back through a slit in fencing, and burst out beside the back entrance of a closed liquor shop. The sensor whine dipped—bleed from the fish market two blocks over muddied the RC trace. He cut toward it, breathing through his teeth.
A flashlight combed the alley to his right. He stone-stepped his way across a line of air conditioners to keep his feet out of the puddles and slid down into a drainage trench. Rotten greens and cold grease from the market swamped the smell of his own blood. He crawled under a grated bridge, curled himself small, and went still.
Footsteps thudded above. Two sets. The beam raked the grate and moved on. Radio voices layered and peeled away. After a count of sixty, the sirens began to stretch out again toward the square.
He waited for his heartbeat to fall out of his ears. He was shaking, but not from cold. The heat under his ribs pulsed like a second heart. He tasted iron and something sour stuck behind his teeth. When he finally slid out from the trench and stood, his legs wobbled once and held.
The market lights were dimmer here. He tugged the mask down to breathe air that didn't smell like the inside of a butcher's bucket and spat onto the stones. The taste didn't leave.
Target gone. Dove breathing. Proof? None.
He pressed his plated fist into the wall until the brick dented and the pain lined up his thoughts. There would be questions at the estate. The elders didn't care about the CCG; they cared about results. Vernon wouldn't be waiting in a roofline shadow to say anything simple and bitter to make this make sense. Vernon didn't come anymore.
He straightened. The fever eased enough to let him move. He walked, keeping to gutters and blind corners until the ward thinned behind him and the rain found him again.
[CCG Headquarters — Records Annex | Morning]
The printed report was still damp from the machine, edges warm, the red stamp leaving a faint halo on the paper.
INCIDENT REPORT — 15th WARD (EAST MARKET ROW)
Filed by: Third-Class Investigator T. Morita
Date/Time: 2008-03-14 / 23:41–00:12
Summary: Patrol responded to disturbance near East Market Row. Encountered single ghoul matching descriptors circulated under alias "Black Dragon." (Est. height 145–152 cm; slight build; half-mask with right jaw seam cracked; hybrid kagune indicators present.) Scene showed evidence of ghoul-on-ghoul conflict. Secondary subject (Bikaku) fled with severe forearm injury consistent with bite.
Observations:
— Primary subject manifested Kōkaku-type plating along right arm (dense, layered) with intermittent Ukaku projection.
— Projection was inconsistent (erratic, clustered discharge).
— Subject exhibited signs of distress during engagement (labored breathing, temporary loss of coordination).
— Subject did not attempt lethal assault on investigator; prioritized escape to rooftop terrain.
Outcome: Primary subject evaded capture via rooftops. Units pursued; lost contact at fish market perimeter. No civilian casualties. One patrol headlight damaged by shard impact.
Recommendations:
— Maintain classification: A- (confirmed hybrid)
— Expand surveillance grid (15th Ward) with RC sweepers positioned at East Market Row and Tamagawa underpass.
— Continue BOLO to hospitals for adolescent male with Rinkaku impact bruising and lacerations (non-fatal).
— Capture priority: High; note apparent instability and possible cannibal activity.
Shimizu slid the file across the table. "He fed before patrol arrived," she said. "Morita saw the wound. If the Bikaku lives, hospital staff will call it in."
Hoshino skimmed once, then again slower, thumb tapping the margin where A- (confirmed hybrid) was underlined. His gaze hung on did not attempt lethal assault. He knew that line didn't mean mercy. It meant calculation, or weakness, or both.
"He lost the rogue," he said.
"And he ran from a Third Class," Shimizu added. "He's strong, but he's not fearless."
"He shouldn't be," Hoshino said. He closed the folder and let his palm rest on the stamped name. The half-mask flickered across memory; so did floodlights and a boy in the corner of his eye turning back when told to run. "This one's not a story we chase for glory. We'll do it slow."
Shimizu nodded. "Grid goes up tonight. Two cars, rotating. Nobody plays hero."
He grunted assent. Through the glass of the annex door, the ward map waited with its pins and tape. Red clustered in the Fifteenth like a rash.
"Morita?" he asked.
"Shaken," Shimizu said. "Not stupid. He asked for two units. He did it right."
"Good." Hoshino picked up the report and tucked it under his arm. "Keep the BOLO narrow. We don't spook him into a different ward."
They left the room. Somewhere in the building a radio crackled, then quieted. Outside, morning rain ticked against the windows like someone tapping a fingernail on glass.
[15th Ward — Rooftop Ledge | Noon]
Clouds dragged low across the city. Hayato sat with his back against a sun-warmed vent, mask in his lap, the cracked jaw seam catching a line of weak light. He rinsed the inside with rainwater cupped from a dip in the concrete and watched the pink swirl away down a clogged drain.
He should have finished the rogue. He should have vanished before the headlights turned the alley into a stage. He should have kept the shards tight, his breath steady, his body under his hand.
His ribs ached where the tail had landed. The mark would bloom dark by evening. He pressed his palm there anyway, counting his own heartbeat until the edge of the fever evened out.
The market below yawned and creaked back to life. Men shouted over crates. A shutter rattled open. Somewhere, a radio played tinny pop too loud for the hour.
He slid the mask back on and stood. The wind cut under his shirt and dried the sweat along his spine. He looked toward the river, then back at the run of roofs he had crossed in the dark.
The net would be tighter tonight. The lights would find him faster. If he wanted to keep breathing, he had to be faster still—and cleaner. No slips. No half-measures. No kneeling.
He stepped off the ledge and dropped lightly to the next roof, the city's breath moving under him as if the ward itself were waiting to see which way he would run when the lights came again.