"You guess~"
Yoshimura Eto slightly raised the corner of her mouth, seemingly wanting to deliberately tease Ihei Byakuya.
"I'm not guessing. If you're not saying it, then forget it."
Ihei Byakuya said.
Actually, he felt that he had already more or less guessed it. Yoshimura Eto's purpose in doing this was to continuously keep him under control.
Then of course he was unwilling to just sit there and wait for things to happen.
And the best way to respond was to raise his own strength as quickly as possible, because strength was the real king.
"Can you accompany me to read tonight?"
At this time, Yoshimura Eto asked.
"Mm... not yet, because a ghoul has appeared at the school. Tonight I need to go to there and lie in wait for that ghoul."
Ihei Byakuya answered honestly.
"Alright..."
Yoshimura Eto slightly puffed out her cheeks, seeming a bit dissatisfied, but she was not willful enough to insist that Byakuya stay.
Immediately after that, Eto suddenly asked coldly, "Are you going together with that [Pumpkin Head]?"
"...Yes."
Ihei Byakuya was immediately a bit startled.
He had not mentioned [Pumpkin Head] at all just now, yet Yoshimura Eto had guessed that he would be acting together with [Pumpkin Head] tonight.
And she had guessed it out of thin air. This could probably only be explained as "intuition".
She was clearly just a twelve year old little brat, yet Eto's intuition was actually this terrifying.
"Oh? Are you really lying in wait for a ghoul? And not secretly going on a date at the school?"
Yoshimura Eto asked with a subtle look in her eyes.
"Of course it's real. I am not in the kind of relationship you are thinking of with [Pumpkin Head]. She is my investigation target."
Ihei Byakuya retorted.
"It'd better be true."
Yoshimura Eto looked half convinced and half doubtful.
"It's fine. I will try to come back earlier."
Ihei Byakuya comforted her.
"If you're not back before I fall asleep, I won't forgive you..."
Yoshimura Eto's tone turned slightly cold, and her expression also became a bit frightening.
As if if Byakuya did not agree, she would instantly blacken and turn hostile in the next second.
"I'll hurry back by then."
On the surface, Ihei Byakuya laughed it off, but inside his heart immediately felt uneasy.
Of course, those were things for the night. He still had to wait until after dinner before heading out.
Before that, he could also accompany Yoshimura Eto to read.
"By the way... earlier I saw on a television program that ghouls must periodically prey on humans. That [Pumpkin Head] shouldn't have gone out to hunt again since the day she was injured by you, right? Are they really still fine up to now?"
As Yoshimura Eto sat on Ihei Byakuya's lap preparing to read, she suddenly mentioned [Pumpkin Head] again.
Hearing this, Ihei Byakuya's pupils trembled slightly, but his expression and tone remained calm. "Seems so, but it's not that ghouls must prey on humans in order to survive. Every day there are always people who commit suicide or encounter accidents.
Those people's corpses can also be used as food for ghouls. It just depends on whether they are willing to look for them.
This kind of thing seems more troublesome than directly preying on humans, because there will definitely be other ghouls also searching for human corpses, and it is also easy to intrude into other ghouls' 'feeding grounds'."
Conditions like those in the 20th Ward could be said to be something one could only hope to encounter by chance. There was only that one in all of Tokyo.
Yoshimura Kuzen possessed absolute strength and was able to establish those kinds of rules in the 20th Ward. However, he now basically would not use force to make other ghouls submit.
Just like later, when Kamishiro Rize hunted humans in large numbers in the 20th Ward and drew the attention of the CCG, he did not forcibly drive Rize away.
This was not because he was overly Buddhist in mindset, but because his daughter Eto was his first priority.
Perhaps at that time he already knew that the Aogiri Tree led by Eto was going to capture Kamishiro Rize, which was why he tolerated Rize's wanton slaughter of humans in the 20th Ward.
"Is that so...?"
Yoshimura Eto's gaze suddenly sharpened, and her tone dropped a few degrees. "Speaking of which, do you know about ghouls who are extremely strong but unwilling to harm humans?"
It was likely that Byakuya's words just now had triggered some memories in Eto.
When her adoptive father Noroi was still alive, it would have been impossible for him not to have told Eto about Kuzen.
Including the diary left behind by her mother Ukina, it should also have mentioned that after Kuzen fell in love with Ukina, he was unwilling to harm humans anymore.
It was even possible that she knew Kuzen helped other weak ghouls outside, which was why Eto suddenly asked Byakuya about such a topic.
Extremely strong and unwilling to harm humans. The only one that almost perfectly fit this condition in Ihei Byakuya's mind was Yoshimura Kuzen.
"I don't know. There probably wouldn't be that kind of strange ghoul, right?"
Ihei Byakuya immediately started playing dumb.
Up until now, Ihei Byakuya had not told Eto about the fact that he had sent [Pumpkin Head] to the Anteiku coffee shop in the 20th Ward that night.
The key point was that the relationship between the Anteiku coffee shop's manager, Yoshimura Kuzen, and his daughter Yoshimura Eto was extremely complicated.
After all, Eto had been entrusted to his old friend Noroi by Yoshimura Kuzen when she was still an infant, and afterward Eto had never met Kuzen even once.
Even though Yoshimura Eto knew about the Washuu Clan and also knew Kuzen's predicament, and her rational side told her that Kuzen had been forced into it.
But a person could not have only rationality without any emotional side. From an emotional perspective, Eto felt that she had been abandoned by her biological father.
Twelve years had passed and he had never come to look for her. Even after her adoptive father Noroi was killed, he still did not come to look for her.
Although from Yoshimura Kuzen's perspective, it was impossible for him to know in time when Noroi was killed by the V Organization, and he absolutely did not dare approach the 24th Ward.
Once he did, it would be tantamount to telling the Washuu Clan that his child was right there.
All he could do was conceal his child's existence as much as possible and not provide the Washuu Clan with any information about his child.
Yoshimura Eto of course understood this point, but in the end she was only a twelve year old little girl. At that age, which girl would not want her father's affection, who would not want to act spoiled toward her father?
And aside from being abandoned by her father, there was another thorn in Yoshimura Eto's heart that could never be erased, and that was her mother Ukina's death.
She knew that her mother Ukina had been killed by Kuzen's own hands, and she also knew that it was the V Organization that had forced Kuzen to do it.
But no matter how unavoidable it was, in Yoshimura Eto's eyes, Kuzen's actions were still a display of weakness and retreat.
As said before, Eto was just a little girl whose mind was more mature than her peers.
At present, she did not even have a concrete understanding of how powerful the Washuu Clan truly was.
Otherwise, she would not have, two years later, single-handedly attacked the CCG and ended up failing and suffering a fatal injury.
If not for Yoshimura Kuzen charging through the CCG alone and diverting the Washuu family's attention at that time, Eto would probably have already been captured by the Washuu Clan.
In short, this father and daughter's relationship was far too complicated, and their views were completely different.
Therefore, Ihei Byakuya did not dare let them meet so soon, nor did he dare mention Yoshimura Kuzen to Eto for the time being, lest the situation slip out of the range he could control.
"That's true. That kind of ridiculous guy probably doesn't exist under normal circumstances."
Not hearing the answer she wanted from Byakuya, Yoshimura Eto smiled as if nothing had happened.
"..."
Ihei Byakuya felt that Eto's word "ridiculous" was absolutely sincere. One could hear just how deep Eto's resentment toward Kuzen was.
What happened today also made him a bit more clear-headed. Yoshimura Eto wasn't some cute twelve year old little sister, but the ruthless [One-Eyed Owl].
He had to remember this at all times.
And today's Eto inexplicably gave him a strong sense of a "yandere" vibe.