[Factory District — Midnight]
The rogue wasn't much. Hayato could smell that before he saw him: hungry, desperate, the kind of ghoul who scavenged too long in the ward without a banner to hide under. His kagune was thin, ragged Bikaku, the tail heavy but poorly controlled.
Easy. That was what it should have been.
The Jacks fanned through the factory floor with practiced silence. Hayato walked point, plating already crawling down his arm, shards prickling at his back. His chest still burned from last night's training, but his body knew the rhythm now: press, strike, finish.
The rogue hissed when they came out of shadow. His tail snapped wide. He tried to bolt.
Bone-mask laughed, low and sharp. "He runs like a rat."
Hayato moved to cut him off. His plated fist raised—
—and the skylight shattered.
Steel cables whipped down like snakes, tipped with hooks. Three slammed into the rogue's shoulders and thighs. He screamed, lifted off the ground, thrashing.
Hayato's eyes snapped up.
Figures dropped from the roof beams — six, maybe seven. Their masks weren't Seno. Bone-white lacquer painted with vertical streaks, jaws sharpened into fangs. Rival clan.
Iron-mask's voice came like iron itself. "Tear the rogue down."
The Jacks surged forward, but the strangers were already moving. One yanked the cables taut, dragging the rogue's body toward the shadows. Another lunged with a rinkaku, tendrils snapping out at the floor. Shards sparked as they struck stone.
Hayato roared and slammed his plating into the tendrils, sparks lighting the dark. His shards burst wild, clipping one of the cable-wielders in the arm. Blood sprayed. The rival snarled, twisting, and yanked the rogue out of reach.
Bone-mask howled with laughter, spinning on a koukaku user in fang-mask who tried to bar the way. "You think you take what's ours?"
The clash filled the factory. Kagune slammed against kagune, sparks and shards biting the air. Iron-mask carved through a cable with his wedge-like koukaku, forcing the rival wielder back. Eyelash fought quiet and precise, his movements so efficient they looked like sketches come to life.
Hayato had no room to think. The rogue screamed as the cables pulled him toward the door. Hayato lunged, plated arm catching the ground to vault himself forward. His hand almost closed on the rogue's leg—
A rival bikaku slammed him sideways into the wall. The impact cracked stone. Pain lit his ribs. His shards fired on reflex, stitching the enemy's cheek. Blood hissed on the air, sharp, sweet. Hunger hit like a drumbeat.
Bastion's voice growled in his skull. Bite. Now.
Hayato's jaw ached. His plating ground. He drove his fist into the rival's jaw instead, snapping bone under mask.
But the moment was gone. The cables yanked, and the rogue's body vanished into the night, dragged out through the broken skylight by shadows moving too fast to follow.
The factory went still except for the echoes of breathing, blood dripping onto concrete. Two clans stared each other down across broken crates and pooling crimson.
Bone-mask's laugh came first, harsh and bright. "They stole our meat."
Iron-mask's koukaku gleamed, raised. "Not meat. Message."
The rival fangs shifted, ready. Their leader tilted his mask. "This ward doesn't belong to you anymore."
Hayato's shards lit in a wild flare, answering before his voice could.
And then the walls outside boomed with floodlights.
[Factory Exterior — Minutes Later]
Engines. Sirens. RC detectors screaming into the night.
The Jacks and their rivals broke apart instantly, both clans scattering for rooflines. Hayato barely kept his footing as Iron-mask shoved him toward the eaves, barked, "Move!" The last thing Hayato saw before he vaulted into the rain was the fang-masked rivals melting into shadow with the rogue still dangling between them.
[CCG Tokyo Headquarters — Records Annex | Dawn]
The report hit the table still wet from the machine.
Shimizu tapped the margin where an investigator had scrawled: two distinct ghoul groups sighted, multiple kagune types, fighting over captive subject. Possible clan warfare. Subject presumed dead.
She looked at Hoshino. "They're not hunting alone anymore."
Hoshino grunted, eyes narrowing at the word clan. His jaw tightened once. "Good. Let them get noisy. It makes them easier to net."
[CCG Headquarters — Records Annex | Dawn]
The room smelled of toner and burnt coffee. A dozen reports lay in stacks, edges curled from the machine's heat. Senior Investigator Hoshino sat hunched over the table, one sleeve rolled, eyes bloodshot but sharp. Across from him, Shimizu sorted photographs into columns, her pencil scratching shorthand.
The newest file sat between them, its cover stamped red: INCIDENT — 15TH WARD (FACTORY DISTRICT).
Hoshino flipped the page. Grainy night photos, floodlights bleaching the scene into stark whites and shadows. Figures caught mid-motion, masks gleaming, kagune flaring. Too many types for strays.
Shimizu tapped one photo where three silhouettes clashed around a rogue strung up in cables. "That isn't chaos. Look at the spacing. Look at the way they shielded the carrier."
"Clan," Hoshino said flatly.
She nodded. "Seno?"
"Fifteenth to Nineteenth is their lattice," Hoshino muttered. He leaned back, jaw tightening. "They don't parade, but when you see organization like this—trained masks, coordinated grabs—it smells of them."
He thumbed another photo. A smaller figure blurred across the frame, plating down one arm, shards caught mid-flare like broken glass frozen in the beam. The cracked jaw of his mask just visible in reflection.
Hoshino's jaw worked. "…And him."
Shimizu wrote a line in her notebook: Alias: Black Dragon — sighted with possible clan unit.
"They'll say it's coincidence," she said. "Stray drawn to a fight. But the angle—he wasn't being hunted. He was in formation. He stood with them."
"Not a stray," Hoshino said. His eyes never left the photo. "A number."
She frowned. "Meaning?"
"Meaning someone's already made him theirs."
The words sat between them, heavy.
Shimizu flipped a page. "Morita's team logged at least three kagune signatures in proximity. Kōkaku wedge, rinkaku sweep, bikaku support. Then the hybrid—the shards. All coordinated around the rogue before the floodlights hit." She paused. "That isn't a meal. That's a net."
Hoshino grunted. His thumb traced the underlined word in the report: multiple distinct kagune types observed.
"They took the rogue," Shimizu added. "Dragged him out before patrol got close. Morita says he heard chains."
"Harvest," Hoshino muttered. "Or recruitment."
The silence stretched.
Shimizu finally said it. "…If it is the Seno clan, then the boy—the Black Dragon—isn't just a ward ghost anymore. He's an asset. One they're sharpening."
Hoshino shut the file and squared it against the table. His voice came low, final. "Then we don't hunt a boy. We hunt a family."
[Operations Bullpen — Mid-Morning]
The ward map bled red where pins marked 15th and 19th. Shimizu wrote CLAN ACTIVITY SUSPECTED in the corner of the board. Beneath it: Black Dragon — confirmed sighting, group engagement.
A junior investigator squinted at the blurred silhouette pinned beside it. "Sir, if he's with them… does that change classification?"
Hoshino uncapped a marker and circled the Fifteenth with a hard stroke. "No change. Still A-candidate. Clan or not, he bleeds. But it changes how we move. No single patrol. No heroics. Every shadow could be ten."
Shimizu added quietly, "And if the clan is feeding him—letting him fight, letting him feed—his growth curve won't look like a stray's. He'll accelerate."
Hoshino clicked the marker cap back on. "Then we accelerate the net."
[Records Annex — Later]
The last photograph sat in the light. Hayato's plating, shards flaring raggedly, the cracked seam of his mask glinting like a smile. The background blurred with other masks, other kagune. Not alone. Not anymore.
Shimizu murmured, almost to herself, "Black Dragon runs with fangs."
Hoshino didn't correct her. He just filed the photo under CLAN THREAT and shut the drawer with a heavy hand.