-4: Education-

Even with that dark thought, the city still stole my breath away.

I found a café about a block away—small place, but not tiny—and ordered a cup of coffee to stave off sleep for a few hours. I had sworn off coffee after what could only be called a finals-induced studying binge almost led to sleeping through the actual exam. Plus, the flavor had never been too appealing. Still, so long as I kept to sane amounts, something like that was easily avoidable. I took a sip and winced. Still tasted like burnt paper.

This could've been any college café in the states; students buried in books, idly chatting over snacks, making doe eyes at one another. Except, it was all so far away from what I knew. Conversations went fast enough that I only caught half of them, reading a college level textbook here would be impossible for me and everything was just a little bit…different.

For a moment, this whole trip could've been a dream—but it wasn't—it was just as real as every wire I had cut or the shoes on my feet. I think everybody has had that feeling; where the world around you changes just subtly enough and it suddenly feels unnatural.

There was one thing similar, I noted wryly as the news came on the TV, every country styled their news the same way; jingle, telecaster at desk, little box with an image. The British probably started that one. I watched the news as best I could, trying to keep up with the newscaster and make sense of the language. Weather was easy, but the rest went mostly over my head.

Politics, science, local events, all oh-so-similar to how the news went back home. The last story on I only got bits and pieces of: a follow-up—I think—about a missing doctor and a scandal. Well, that was what I understood for sure.

After that story, I understood progressively less and less. It was all right though; I had time enough to get better at the language. Six months, actually, so long as relations didn't go bad. Well, that wasn't too much of a worry, and I could only think of a few things outside a declaration of war that would do that. Paying, I left the café and went back into the crowd, my mind suddenly on home and wondering how much dust there would be when I got back home. On the bright side, I wouldn't have to deal with nosy neighbors until I got back.

The coffee wore off more quickly than I expected, and I was sleepy to the point of almost fumbling my keycard when I got to the elevator. My room was just as I had left it, lightly illuminated by the electric constellation through my window. I put away my clothes as neatly as my half-asleep brain allowed, remembered to shut the curtains and flopped into bed. At eight pm. Nothing like early bedtime to make one feel old.

The next morning was a rerun with me appearing on the sidewalk as Shinohara's car pulled up. What was different was that now I craved a cup of coffee—or any morning stimulant—to ward away the morning blahs.

"Any plans for today?"

"Not really," Shin shrugged, "more paperwork to work through on the Binge Eater, then probably back on the beat tomorrow or late in the afternoon."

It was only then I remembered that he had mentioned going to the eleventh ward.

"Would I perhaps be able to look at some older case files?" I tried to keep the request as polite as I could.

"Yeah, I'll have somebody bring up a few carbon copies from the archives."

Juuzou met us at the offices, looking like a child promised a trip to an amusement park only to arrive at the dentist office.

Shin and I had different views on the word 'some'. That, or I had used the wrong word, because the pile of paperwork I was presented to look through was in the range of several reams of paper. But, it was a lot of cases, enough to see a few patterns. Legwork and informal interviews were a part of every case, not really unexpected, but each set of notes for said interviews were present in the file as well.

The origin points of the investigations were mostly the same as well; typically starting with a partially consumed corpse. Again, not surprising; the…appetite…of Ghouls was the same regardless of where one went. Most of my cases had started in the same manner. Though, one of the clearer separators between my experience and their files were the actual feeding grounds.

Evidence of Ghoul feedings were difficult, but not impossible to hide, which made the locations where the kill was found to be all the more unusual. Alleyways, construction sites, rooftops, parks…to me, it felt as if most of the Ghouls involved in these incidents simply didn't care about being subtle. Back at the BGA, the majority of the remains we found were in dumpsters or sewers. Either the Ghouls here didn't care about hiding their kills, or they were doing it as a challenge-slash-threat.

The final similarity between most of the case files was—ominously—death. The Ghoul always died, sometimes taking a member or two of the CCG in the process, but the Ghoul always died. Was this just a trend in the files I had? Maybe. Were the Ghouls in Tokyo rabidly violent? Possibly. Were the members of the CCG rabidly violent? I snuck a look over at Shin and Juuzou—they had been friendly thus far. Possibly.

Around midday, I was interrupted from a case involving a harpoon by Shinohara.

"Sorry to interrupt, but It looks like you won't be doing much fieldwork with us after all," he looked apologetic; "you're being reassigned to a different pair of Investigators."

"Well, it was an honor to meet you and Juuzou." I bowed to both of them. "If we don't have the occasion to meet again, I wish you both good luck in your work."

And now I'll never get to read how that case ended.

Juuzou nodded earnestly and smiled unsettlingly.

"I'm Junior Investigator Hasuko." The new person stepped forward and bowed. "I'll drive you over to twentieth ward and introduce you to your new assignment."

"After you."