Yamori completely ignored Touka's question.
"Come to think of it, I've never tried torturing a mother and daughter at the same time before. Should be quite an experience."
His tone was casual.
He'd stated his intentions right from the start.
He was utterly confident in his own strength. This mother-daughter pair had no hope of escape. He'd drag them back by force if necessary.
"Don't you dare hurt my daughter..."
Ryouko stepped forward, her expression darkening.
She was afraid too, but she absolutely wouldn't let Hinami come to harm.
But then Touka raised an arm to stop Ryouko. "Ryouko-san, take Hinami and go."
She could sense that this ghoul wasn't ordinary.
Her own strength wasn't lacking either. She wanted to stay and buy time for them to escape.
"Go! Now!"
Seeing Ryouko hesitate, Touka urged her again.
After much internal conflict, Ryouko decided to get Hinami to safety first, then come back to help Touka fight Yamori.
She grabbed Hinami's hand and ran.
"Hmph. Think you can escape?"
Yamori snorted coldly and shot after them at incredible speed.
Touka moved to intercept, immediately releasing her kagune.
A single wing-like ukaku emerged from her left side.
It was a maple-red color with hints of purple, like a burning flame—beautiful in its own unique way.
Touka's ukaku should have been a symmetrical pair of wings, but her right wing was incomplete. Only her left could function normally, significantly reducing her overall power.
This was likely because Touka hadn't eaten fresh human flesh in too long. Since joining Anteiku, she'd been subsisting solely on human carrion like Yoshimura.
Carrion was completely different from fresh human flesh. The RC cells in decaying meat lost their vitality over time.
If a ghoul didn't regularly consume fresh human flesh, they couldn't maintain their RC cell levels. Touka and Yoshimura would only grow weaker as time passed.
Yet neither of them was willing to hunt and harm innocent humans.
Touka fired her ukaku shards at Yamori—a barrage of purple-red blades.
Yamori smirked contemptuously and blocked them with his own kagune.
While rinkaku was typically more fragile, his RC cell count vastly exceeded Touka's. A kagune's strength fluctuated with its user's RC levels.
Even though Touka's ukaku was fast and accurate, it couldn't inflict any meaningful damage.
While blocking her attacks, Yamori closed the distance in an instant. A casual sweep of his kagune sent Touka flying.
And she flew directly toward Ryouko and Hinami.
"Touka!"
Ryouko couldn't ignore this. She released Hinami's hand to catch Touka.
"Ryouko-san, you have to run!"
Touka's voice was urgent.
That single exchange had shown her just how powerful this man was. She couldn't even stall for time.
"Stop dreaming. All of you are staying."
Yamori was too fast. The moment Touka managed to steady herself, he was already in front of her again.
He intended to incapacitate all three, then take them back for a leisurely session of torture.
His massive fist slammed into Touka. She stumbled back several steps, her ukaku—wrapped protectively around herself—throbbing with numbness and pain from absorbing the blow.
In both raw power and kagune strength, Yamori utterly overwhelmed her.
Then Yamori turned toward Ryouko and Hinami. Hinami trembled with fear while Ryouko instinctively released her kagune to protect her daughter.
Her kagune was a koukaku—a massive moth-wing shape, almost like butterfly wings.
Her eyes transformed into crimson kakugan, her expression shifting from fearful to fierce and furious.
But Ryouko's strength couldn't possibly match a half-kakuja like Yamori.
He pierced through her koukaku with trivial ease. The defensive kagune type—known for its hardness—seemed fragile as paper before him.
Whoosh—
Just as Yamori crushed Ryouko's defense and reached for Hinami, something struck the back of his head.
It only left a shallow mark. Didn't even break his skin.
Clang.
Metal clattered against the ground. Yamori paused and glanced back to find an ordinary dagger.
Not even a Quinque. It could barely tickle him.
Still, he wanted to see who had the audacity to attack him.
When he looked up, a figure had appeared behind him.
All he saw was a white mask with a strange pattern—and a pair of crimson eyes that resembled kakugan.
"You—"
Before Yamori could finish, a fist crashed into his face.
The punch shattered his nose.
Byakuya felt his own fist go slightly numb. This guy's bones were seriously tough.
He hadn't brought his Quinque. The dagger he'd thrown was just a common one he'd picked up somewhere.
Even if he'd brought Thorn, he wouldn't have used it. Kureo Mado and Koutarou Amon might be in Ward 20 right now. If Mado witnessed what happened here, it would cause no end of trouble.
So he'd donned the White Mask—gaining a 10% enhancement to all abilities—and fought Yamori using a combat style completely unknown to the CCG.
The suddenness of everything left Touka and Ryouko momentarily stunned. They had no idea who had appeared to help them.
The mask suggested he was a ghoul like them.
In this world, most ghouls wore masks during combat to prevent humans—especially CCG investigators—from seeing their faces. Otherwise, continuing to live in human society would become extremely difficult.
Hinami, however, noticed something else about the mysterious masked man. His clothes looked similar to what that young man at the café always wore...