Chapter 1 Docile neighborhood

Thursday, 15th November, 2009

Night over Tokyo was unusually starry that evening. The woman standing on the platform lowered her Japanese coursebook and allowed herself to look up. The stars were so many, they eventually started blending into each other abovehead and she felt a bit unsteady then, shifting on her feet to regain her balance. One headphone kept stubbornly falling out of her ear and she would put it back with irritation.

She stood transfixed all the same, one hand absentmindedly pulling the bulky backpack's strap down and her head craned upwards. Despite tense and achy muslces after a whole day of classes, Lotte enjoyed how dazzling the stars looked, strewn over the sky that every other night would turn dull violet but now looked clear, deep green and navy in colour. Standing underneath all its extravagant recesses could make you feel rather tiny. Lotte's nose felt runny then; she tried to wipe it with the rim of her scarf discreetly.

More people were arriving at the station and her wait wouldn't be long now, but the woman hardly paid any attention. She let out a small cloud form with each released breath, in tact with the impatient tapping of her foot against the concrete. Dry chill coloured her cheeks red and Lotte made a mental note to switch her leather jacket for a proper winter coat next time. The cold spells she was getting have grown more frequent and lasted longer recently; better not to mess with her health then, as gentle as early winter in Tokyo was.

Somebody brushed against her and the woman startled. She saw how many people were around her - and their voices resurfaced as well. Lotte busied herself with deciphering what the indicator board was saying then, to try and resist the unpleasant feeling of coming out of the water that she got, and felt proud that she could recognize more signs now. At the same time her face fell - the train would be delayed.

Frustrated, Lotte shifted on her foot and segued into daydreaming; sound and sights of people around her got snuggly muted and the woman once again felt comfortable. Her eyes became vacant - her awareness melting into the surroundings, dissolving. It was the easiest thing to do at the moment really.

Bits of conversations from all around would reach her from time to time however - for example just now somebody to her left had giggled shrilly, nervously. Lotte snapped and followed the direction of the sound with her eyes, but they soon fell on the newspaper the woman to her left held open instead.

She could make out a headline pointing to the recent spike in ghoul attacks all over Tokyo's special wards. Even with her current level of Japanese, Lotte had no problems noticing how often these alarming announcements had been cropping up all over the news-stands. Under no pretences these were scary circumstances to live in. In wards further from the core it wasn't unusual to see CCG' and forensics' activity on a fairly routine basis.

As for her, she had yet to meet a ghoul head to head. D had mentioned their flesh could be beneficial for her current state, but Lotte kept telling herself she had other means to feed well. She's been going out to eat with her girls sometimes, for example.

More and more people surrounded her now, and the woman hastened to once again hide her lower face in the voluminous scarf around her neck. A bevy of highschoolers nearby emitted a deliciously fresh scent that promised to her an unspoiled meal, and the woman quickly retracted her gaze; she felt guilty now. Meat of lesser animals was said to hardly satiate one's hunger but the woman couldn't bring herself to go into the forbidden territory all the same.

Incoming train was signalled eventually and people started queueing to get into the wagons. The jam-packed commute, though full of temptations, lent itself well for blending in, very beneficial for someone like her. And perhaps that other guy. Sandwiched in-between the rush hour crowd, Lotte felt some fluttering sensation in her stomach then and visibly perked up. She let out a deep breath, a pleasant surge of excitement pulsating in her belly. Now that was something she was eagerly waiting for, even if she'd been feeling a bit blocked from her surroundings recently.

She was anxious to get into one of the last wagons, where he would usually sit, commuting from Shinjuku onwards. Impatiently slicing through the evening crowd to reach it, the tall woman provoked some stares here and there as she attempted to make her way with some difficulty. Eventually she settled into the proper queue and took her backpack off; the books inside made it a very heavy load for her back. She could spend her time on the commute more productively and actually read some of them, but prefered to ogle the handsome stranger discreetly over mobile games instead.

It wasn't like there was too much to look at anyway, she thought with some exasperation. If Lotte concealed her face to avoid unwanted attention, he seemed to just follow some odd style pattern of his. It was hard to even get a good look at his face, since his eyes were at all times hidden behind thick black glasses, even at night. He more than made up for it with that killer bone structure though.

That's what was awesome about Tokyo, people could look however they wanted and no one would show that they gave a damn. „Seriously though, glasses on, all the time", Lotte found herself grumbling, as it turned out, aloud, drawing some unwanted attraction complete with raised brows from few bleary-eyed salarymen around where she entered. They must've felt she had lost her mind and the woman felt weak at the knees for a second. She didn't like being looked at.

Her cheeks still burned from shame when Lotte managed to find a vacant seat. Not in a mood for games, she opened a copy of Tokyo Baedeker she had with her at all times and took to memorizing the rough outline of her new city and its main hallmarks; the woman still lost her way more often than not.

She didn't look up until the sounds of ever busy Shinjuku Station had broken her somewhat focused state. Realizing that the music must've stopped playing somewhere between the stations, Lotte tried to fish her player from the overflowing backpack; it was turned off, squished between the books. Fumbling with her fingers to turn the damn device on, she stole a closer look at the people who were taking seats nearby just now. Dare she say she had some hopes-

He wasn't there, Lotte realized with defeat. A coughing fit seized her then in all its wet and painful glory and she heaved as if wanting to retch, doubling down over her knees. Just vanish, the woman thought with chagrin. Teary-faced and distressed, she dearly wished for one of the surgical masks that were popular here, as the nearby commuters shot delicately disapproving looks at her; their attention never became outright rude however and she was thankful for this.

Lotte spent the rest of her journey painfully aware of the rapidly developing cold and counting minutes before she could chug an entire bottle of medicine before attempting to study for tommorow's seminar. To add to this, there was something decidedly sharp starting to bloom inside of her throat all the way up to the oesophagus, she felt. Alarmed, the woman thought with horror of another coughing fit.

Her gums started to hurt again as well.


Voices from the bars around him reverberated loudly in the narrow alley. Half torn leaflets littered the ground and sun-bleached posters on the walls advertised things long gone. The person weaving their way through the labyrinthine Golden Gai' back-alleys hardly paid them any mind however. Music on, his steps were taking him straight to the nearest metro station.

Coming onto the main street, the ghoul stopped abruptly – even among tourists, his height distinguished him. He caught a glimpse of unusually clear night above the teeming lights and got lost a bit in contemplating it. Some people passed him with displeased stares for blocking the way; he ignored them too in favour of the stars. Uta was in no hurry tonight.

When he moved, he had no problems blending in among the crowds; the mobbed main street offered privacy far greater than any quieter detour he might have chosen. It served his purpose of moving around as unnoticed as possible quite well. Kabukicho's lonelier and darker streets were also an excellent place to stalk one's prey when it came to feeding - the high rate of crime made it very convenient. Surprisingly he no longer had to rely on his own kind for satiating his ever present hnger, what an upside compared to his younger days.

These days Uta was fully satiated. With home in mind, he effortlessly navigated through crowds, observing people around him detachedly. All those hollow faced men - vaguely embarrassed for craving something as natural as physical gratification they couldn't get any other way - made him eye them with a mixture of pity and subtle disgust.

Ghouls were much less apologetic when it came to mating, and such things as repressed guilt from their trysts were a rarity. That didn't mean they were unheard of, he thought and immediately chose to cut these musings short as they began to take him to places he'd rather not visit tonight. Or never, as it was.

Adjusting his scarf, his eyes fell back again on the pavement, taking him through the well known streets all the way to the metro station. It was half past eight and the usual train he took to reach his new home would have left half an hour before. Tonight he chose to work on his newest design a bit longer instead of taking it with him. An extra concentrated effort certainly paid off, and now a finished design rested in its case, ready for tomorrow. The mask was of sleek design, something he was quite proud to have made.

It was a casual stroll from the metro exit onwards, headphones on his ears and mind wandering in all places that held some interest for him. He was supposed to meet with Yomo at Itori's tomorrow night, just a casual night of socializing with friends. A mask to make till the end of the week, and for the first human customer to come to his shop in a long time at that and-

An unruly ghoul to find and eliminate, the sooner the better, as he was urged. His main reason for temporary move to Yoyogi, Uta had Itori to thank for enlisting his reluctant help in this matter and for his current living situation.

It was not that puzzling why this particular place would be frequented by his target, Uta kept musing as he was walking the stairs down from the station. After all, the area where he moved into was almost uninhabited, surrounded by older housing projects the local council had planned to raze to the ground; when he moved in, there were only two inhabitants in there. It was a really good base for hunting trips, he reckoned.

At the same time people of all sorts frequented the place, the probable reason why his culprit didn't move in here permanently. Most buildings didn't have well protected entrances and have seen many rebellious teenagers doing all kinds of teenage stuff in there, ones he didn't have patience to even roll his eyes at, much less to react to in any way. Some more shady activity has been going on in there as well. An easy temptation here, Uta thought with delicate grin. Who knew how many secrets those abandoned buildings have been hiding.

Soon the ghoul left the well-lit streets lined with single-family houses and cut into the older residential area, a longer route than the usual one he would take in order to avoid meeting his now-sole neighbor that would sometimes take the same commute. The way she would sometimes shot looks at him, her forehead creased as if in anger, told him she probably wasn't interested in making acquaintance anyway.

There was something in the air that made him think about that right then. A lingering scent he'd picked up on the last lane leading to a beaten pathway wounding all the way to where he was living. Uta knew this blend of fever and jasmine from their commutes. His neighbor was not far before him.

Displease crooked his lips and he wondered why she'd been here later than usual. Didn't she know the area was dangerous? A Westerner, she probably wasn't reading much of the local press. A mistake. It was as unsafe for her to live here now as for the teens and drug addicts to visit the nearby buildings. If only they knew...

The events of last month didn't escape his notice. Itori shared her info as soon as she'd learned of the forensics report detailing the visceral details behind the case. No ghoul in their ward was known to do things of the sort that's been described in there. Sure, the area was hard to live in, by some standards uninhabitable nowadays. It has certainly changed ever since his days as a peacemaker, came to Uta's mind then and he allowed himself to feel a bit nostalgic. The change meant something entirely different for humans and ghouls altogether, he thought. While making it safer for humans now, the renewed activity on CCG's part had shrinked ghouls' feeding possibilities dramatically, reducing them to cannibalism even. Watching their efforts was quite inspiring, beleaguered as they were in their plight.

CCG's eyes were squarely trained on their ward now and had the usually dormant 4th Ward's Branch Office scrambling for outside support. If continued, the fragile balance enabled by the continued effort of the more level-head ghouls of the region would be broken, and some heads would fly in the process. It was almost tempting to tip the scale-

As the ghoul kept thinking, his steps were fading until they stopped altogether, and Uta mulled now what he should do about his neighbor, not that far ahead of him. Should he wait? What if she spotted him – that could be problematic indeed. He wasn't in the mood for much social posturing that evening. Nonetheless curiosity invited him to try and get a glimpse on his one remaining neraby resident, even if just a bit.

Preoccupied with possible choices, Uta stroked his chin a bit obliviously. He didn't really want to get involved in this area's matters more than he should – and yet just observing was tempting in itself. He wondered, briefly, how she looked when scared.

Maybe he could catch her tail after all, if he actually moved.


Lotte was still recovering from her attack on the way home; she had to stop several times to catch her breath – she was quickly developing a relly nasty cold. Even after she had left the station, coughing fits would still seize her and the woman felt her head swimming. The road ahead got a bit blurry on the edges, too.

She was tired now – waiting for the train and the commute itself made her sleepy and she had to do without her usual entertainment to keep her spirits up; the guy wasn't there and her limited Japanese made the phone game more difficult as she progressed into more advanced levels. To boot, the player had to die just then. Her backpack was really straining her back too. Home then would be the place where she could finally cocoon herself besides her dog and feel somewhat safe, if not entirely stable.

As her wobbly legs were taking her along the well memorized path towards where she lived, she heard a brief, distant shuffle – as if somebody had stepped on a pile of crunchy leaves. It seemed someone else was nearby, ostensibly keeping to the shadows that the area, replete with derelict housing projects, provided generously here.

No sounds were coming to her now, save the delicate rustling of some dried up leaves moved about by the wind; leftovers that were yet to be swept up by the communal services. If anybody asked Lotte what the matter was all of the sudden, they would probably laugh at her mentioning the general aura of the place aside of the previous sounds. But something was there; the air was crisp, and she smelled something clean in there as well, like soap on freshly showered skin. It made the delicate flesh on her nostrils flare a bit.

The rhythmic tapping of shoes against the concrete pavement slowed down and finnally ceased altogether as the girl finally stopped and turned around fully, taking in the whole surrounding area. She kept sniffing discreetly. She didn't know yet if the smell would bring danger along. Coiled up inside and discretely readying herself for eventual attack, Lotte nevertheless felt weirdly titillated at the same time.

Could this be a ghoul at last?, she thought and remembered that she had yet to eat anything that evening. Tired and not a bit dizzy, she probably wouldn't be able to defend herself effectively. Resisting the pull to just confront whoever had just been following her, Lotte decided on walking then. She treaded cautiously from then on, above all trying to calm her erratic heartbeat; its constant pitter-patter against her ribcage felt deconcentrating now. We'll see, I guess, she thought. No need to get ahead of the situation at hand.


When alarmed, his neighbor would stand silent, watchful, her eyes betraying growing unease. It was amusing to watch her search for the noise he purposefuly alerted her too; how fun she had noticed it at all.

Keeping to the shadows, Uta decided to just observe her for a while and then take a detour through oteher byways he knew. Nothing in her careful behaviour warranted any extensive interest after al, until she straight out sniffed around. Her eyes meandered briefly to where he was standing and he felt his heartbeat quicken. That was somewhat novel for a human.

Whatever her peculiar mannerisms, Uta truly couldn't spare any more time that he already had. He wanted rest and needed to have a clear head when going to sleep. Hopefully there would be no occasions for the confrontation tonight.

Taking several steps backwards, Uta eyed the rooftops then as possible shortcut home. Scaling the wall effortlessly and disappearing high above the woman's head, he tried to make as little sound as possible. Jumping aboveground, he could reach home before her. The ghoul felt a rush of exhilaration as the air slapped his face then; running high up the ground would never get old. The moon looked to be that much closer from there – sometimes at night he would sit perched high up above the ground, just to look at buildings and people or ghouls alike growing small and insignificant.

Coming to a halt on his own roof eventually, Uta jumped down, landing graciously with a muffled thud. He'd forgotten to leave the window open and had to actually use the door keys this time. He would have to be quick, doubting his neighbor could remain stupefied for much longer now. Having never used the rooms that faced hers, the ghoul was fairly sure she didn't know anybody actually lived in front of her own building and Uta would prefer if it stayed that way.

He finally approached his doors, heavy boots scrunching on the pretty pebbles the spacious courtyard between their buildings was strewn with ever since she had moved in; As much as it was possible with their old factory complex, the guy she came with spared no effort to make her feel at home, arranging a freaking landscaping company to accommodate the scenery to her liking.

Pity he didn't know that the building next to her was, in fact, inhabited, and by a ghoul no less. Maybe he wouldn't leave then.

But what difference would it make, if he had it in him to make her his new meal?


What the fuck-, Lotte thought, glancing around and finding nothing in the immediate vicinity; there was no one there. Blinking owlishly, Lotte tried to strain her senses, chasing the possible source of the sounds she was sure she'd heard a while before. For a second the woman thought she pinpointed the direction of both the sounds and that elusive, clean-ish smell that had enticed just as much as scared her. But then it was gone and Lotte was left sniffing frantically to check if there was any danger around.

The streets around her were virtually deserted now, and where the broken lampshade cast a shadow in front of her, Lotte could discern two bright points fixated on her – clearly, a pair of cat's eyes. Allowing her excitation to die away, the woman kept at straining her hearing anyway, but it was silent everywhere now, except for maybe the usual sounds of any sleepy neighbourhood in a big city. What had been there before, now seemed to have vanished.

Looking for any suspicious activity for the rest of her walk home, Lotte reasoned to herself that her charged reaction from before was a testament to her earlier days, when a scent of danger carried also the inevitable pleasure of the full stomach and calmness of mind that came with it. Back in the beginning, she was very eager to test her newly-acquired abilities. Not to mention, her sense of smell was no small pride of hers.

And Lotte was sure she had smelled something there - a faint, coppery residue beneath the sheen of soapy cleanliness, that was no longer as potent as when fresh – like rust. Recognizing what that scent had been, she became suddenly and painfully aware of her own hunger and started walking faster. The woman was prepared for a sudden attack now, but also didn't want to engage anyone, should their intentions weren't outright hostile. After all, she knew better - her skills became somewhat rusty during her period of inactivity in Tokyo.

The backpack even heavier burden on her left arm, she made for a quick sprint without looking back then, and stopped only when she found herself in front of home. She pried the door open after brief fumbling with keys and covered seveal flights of stairs in haste; better hide herself where it was safe.

At home, the first thing that came to Lotte's mind after she undressed was to check the fax for the message from her organization's mentor, sponsoring her stay there. Only then, as she immediately busied herself with preparing the food for her dog, had Lotte some time to try and calm down. Try as she might, aside from being bone-weary, she had some tough time accepting the fact that she might have just been stalked by possibly sinister presence, this close to home.

Lotte wished she had ways of contacting her mentor real quick. It wasn't like fax could reach him wherever he was at the moment. Her mobile data plan barely covered her occasional need for an email as well. She was effectively left with the fax it seemed, if she needed any advice. And she needed many but was less and less sure he would ever answer her enquiries. The bills were paid on time always but nothing came to her otherwise and Lotte felt increasingly frustrated – the chicken carcass she was dividing cracked with a wet sound then.

The woman portioned the meat with quivering hands, tips of her fingers a little uncooperative and cold. She felt a migraine rapidly approaching and reached for the bottle of Panadol with her hands still covered in grease, chugging it all in few gulps. The prospect of studying before going to bed flew out of the window then.

She had no time to sulk, Lotte reminded herself sternly. There waited a comfy pair of sweatpants to wear, sneakers to slip into and a dog, immensely eager for a walk. Berg had been going in circles now, her eyes following Lotte's every movement now and she jumped at the food as if she'd been without it for days. Her bowl scratched on the concrete floor as the dog ate, wandering around the kitchen wherever her nose pushed it.

Lotte was feeling slightly more composed again, now that her head had cooled off a bit with the medicine. Grabbing the leash and realizing that the keys were still probably in the door lock, she headed into the dark stairwell just outside her immediate living quarters, headphones on and the soft padding of her shoes the only sound in the building.


The air outside was bit colder now, and the woman standing on the playground near the abandoned school sniffed dejectedly– she felt her teeth clattering. Her stomach growled and Lotte wished she'd eaten anything before going out; she tried to warm herself up, jumping from one feet onto another.

Berg was roaming around the rickety benches, her nose firmly on the ground, scattering layers of litter that had accumulated over years. Bored, her owner started walking in circles then, her feet shuffling a bit; she would jump over patches of wilted grass sometimes too, wherever it was sticking through the cracked asphalt.

She still felt uneasy and held to her keys extra hard; attached to them were a rape whistle and something that looked like a syringe strapped to a keychain – nothing more helpful than her own teeth and nails. Her cold was making her a bit dizzy too, and ever more concentrated on just going back home. And what with that vibe all over the place, so many deserted streets, whole buildings... She couldn't help but think about the recent bloody happenings in the ward and that earlier scare –

Loud ringtone made Lotte jump then, her heart kicking into panicked overdrive. The woman frantically searched for her phone then, patting on her sweats with shaking palms. She had forgotten she took it with her and now had problems with keeping a firm grip on the chunky model. „Misaki", the screen read as Lotte tried to still her heart. She always had the best timing, this one.

„I've been trying to reach you for ages!", the girl whined over the line; Lotte could hear 8bit music in the background – was she working on a new game? Misaki worked as a gamedev as a part-time job. Lotte and their friend Michiru were usually the lucky guinea pigs used for testing.

„Sorry, I probably turned the sound off", Lotte's voice sounded apologetic. Now that she thought about it, she hadn't talked to her friends much that day – she had to stay for Japanese classes and missed their weekly cafe outing. She'd been missing them over last month a bit, unfortunately.

„So listen, Sachiko can acually go out tomorrow-„, Misaki started to a pronouned 'Ooooooo' from her friend. Future pharmacologist, it was something of a rarity to spot the girl out in the wild outside. „- so how about we go to that new karaoke place and scream our lungs off?" Lotte barked out a laugh and had to spit the bile accumulated in her throat - gross. It was hilarious, since Misaki actually specialized in really dainty, girly croons. Lotte said yes immedietaly though – she really needed a distraction from all the creepiness that day.

They talked a bit as Lotte called Berg to her and it actually made the walk back home way more bearable – she listened to Misaki describing the plot and intricacies behind her newest project's script, using words like „assembly" and others that Lotte only shallowly understood. She still looked at her creative work in awe regardless.

„I've been meaning to ask you something", her friend interjected after a while, a different note colouring her voice; Lotte was just trying to clean after Berg's poop and had to actually put the phone on the ground as she looked for nearest garbage can – communal services remembered about this place from time to time. Not really best circumstances for serious talk but she would adapt.

„Do you feel safe in there?", Misaki continued and Lotte stopped in her tracks, poop bag hovering over the garbage can precariously. Should she be concerning her friends with what had happened that evening? At night and surrounded by such immense silence, it would seem like courting ill luck. The woman let off the bag and cheerfully informed Misaki that she'd only met some teens around and these were pretty easy to scare off anyway.

But as she lifted the phone from the ground and sped off home, Lotte couldn't shake the fear that clung to her the whole evening like a sticky layer of summer sweat; one couldn't forget about the ghouls after all.

Fourth ward with its proximity to the first one was said to have remained a safe, even docile, one. Still, incidents happened - like that one from the last month. The rumour - whispered to her over some fresh cabbage case on the vegetable stall - had it that the body of a janitor from a school nearby had been found on its premises, torn and shredded to pieces, literally.

She had actually stepped on a local daily littering the ground that day and the title caught her attention, so Lotte learned some new details from there. Local authorities suspected some passing stray ghoul, venturing outside his or her own turf. Such thing happening in one of the safest wards was unnerving, especially since the alleged ghoul hunted on school premises. Naturally, concerns about schoolchildren arose, and the local Board of Education had been literally flooded with complaints by concerned parents, questioning the ability of officials to effectively deal with this ghoul problem.

The vegetable seller she had had spoken to earlier, whose wrinkled face didn't manage to hide her tinkling eyes, seemed to be more excited than genuinely scared though, happy to be able to pass on this piece of juicy story with all its gory details, and in some curious way bond over it with her new client, their own shaky understanding of Japanese notwithstanding.

And as she was making her way back home that day, armed with bags of fresh produce and knowledge about recent morbid happenings in the ward, Lotte remembered feeling rather jittery herself. After all, back then ghouls meant everything but scary to her; all the stranger that she actually was afraid now to the point of carrying those idiotic gadgets with her keys, however doubtful she felt about them. Remembering all of it now made the woman jog last few hundred meters till she reached the reassuring pool of light around her doors.

It was silent around her house now; no teenagers to be found trying to get inside the building, as had happened a few times before - they usually had her feeling more exasperated than scared, and she feared for their safety above all else; nowadays, most people were urged to stay home after dark.

The doors to her place creaked loudly when she stepped in, a wave of stolid air hitting Lotte's face immediately. Once again forgoing any attempts at lighting the huge lamps left after the previous establishment, a factory of sorts, the woman entered a vast space of concrete wasteland. Littered with rubble and debris of various sort, it showed that absolutely no attempts at making it habitable besides rudimentary had been made.

First two floors were just like that, empty, sans few sculptures left in random places and ostensibly neglected. An odd rug or two complemented the image of a job undone.

Long streaks of moonlight filtered through the seemingly endless row of high windows, highlighting the thick layer of dust that had settled on the ground ever since Lotte moved in, and was never properly removed. The woman threaded along a well beaten path now, Berg following carefully behind – she would look with distaste whenever her paws got sticky with the dirt.

Going up the stairs, Lotte felt she had spent all the energy she had that day. She paid no mind to her own artworks nor to the sadly dirty rugs. All that was in her mind was her bed, floating in front of her eyes as the woman dragged herself up the stairs, coughing from time to time.

On third floor, a new pair of doors was erected, its solid structure betraying their main function. The dark corridor behind them led to the only place that was somewhat furnished, and besides the comfy rooftop, the only one ever used.

In her bedroom, Lotte just flung herself straight onto bed, curling herself around the aged, overheated laptop (one of these days it would definitely burn). She had no strength left to turn the light on or put the pyjamas on or to properly turn the laptop off, so she just yanked the charger from the wall and called it a day.

Maybe motivation to get her shit together would hit her the next day.