"Hello? This is Touka. Yeah, I need some help. What? Look, I can't understand a word you're saying so I'll just talk. I've got a dove sniffing around me. Huh? No, I mean he's sitting here drinking coffee and listening to me talk to you…I don't know his name but he's got edgy undercut hair and two moles under his left eye. Does that sound familiar? He doesn't seem like the type I could sweet talk into leaving, so could you work your magic? Thanks. And…whatever you're up to, take care of yourself."

She hung up and shook her head, then went back to wiping down the counters.

Urie knew she might be calling in another ghoul for backup, but nothing about her words or attitude seemed outright threatening. He was almost curious to see where her play would lead.

"Did you call for some of your ghoul friends to stop by and ambush me?"

"That's a great idea, but no. I told you you're safe here as long as you play fair."

Within two minutes of silently sipping on his coffee, Urie's phone rang. He snapped it out of his pocket and answered. "Hello?"

"Hello? Is this Kuki Urie?" The gruff voice on the other end sounded almost like…He checked the caller ID. Marude. How was that even possible? Was he even in Urie's chain of command?

"Yes. Urie here."

"Good! I've just received word that you're doing some sort of solo investigation. Stop it. That's an order."

He stared at the ghoul behind the counter, serenely putting away sugar and milk. "But sir…"

"This is coming straight from the top, kid. You're stepping on some extremely delicate operations that are so far above your pay grade, we shouldn't even be having this conversation. Go home. Forget whatever it is that you've found out tonight. I don't ever want to hear about you chasing this lead again."

The call abruptly ended. Urie was left staring at his phone while Touka walked towards him with a broom.

"Could you go sit at the bar while I sweep up?"

"How did you do that?"

She shrugged. "It's a long story. The short version is that if you save enough people's lives, you start racking up favors, and I just collected on one."

Urie was stunned, unable to look away from his phone. "I can't believe it…a ghoul outmaneuvered me in three minutes flat without spilling a drop of blood…"

"Yeah, that sucks. I'm sure you'll get over it somehow. Hey, let me tell you the story of this place." She leaned on her broom for a moment. "I grew up working at a café like this, going to school, living a pretty normal life even by human standards. A couple of years ago, I lost everything. I lost my job, my home, my shot at going to college, most of my friends—human and ghoul—and what was left of my family. The man who took me in after I was orphaned died, and Aogiri Tree got their hooks into Ayato and Hinami—I mean, my brother and this sweet little girl, another orphan, that was kind of an adopted sister to me—I even lost my stupid pet bird that I hated."

Touka resumed sweeping with a bit of a smile. "There was this idiot half-ghoul guy I knew back then, who I maybe liked a lot more than I let on at the time. I lost him too. By the way, I'll kill you in cold blood if you ever repeat that, to anyone, anywhere."

Urie narrowed his eyes, not sure if that was supposed to be a joke or not.

"I kind of opened this café because everyone I cared about got separated so suddenly and I wanted to make sure they had a place to come home to. And because I feel like I'm doing something important by building this place where ghouls and humans and investigators can all come to get a warm drink and take a little break from their lives. I'm not sure if that'll lead anywhere, but here we are."

She sent another bright smile his way. "And now you know that this place really is just an honest coffee shop that happens to be run by a ghoul, so you don't have to feel bad about leaving us alone. I'll let you walk out of here, safely, with no bad blood between us, as long as you give me the same courtesy. We can be civilized with each other."

"You'll let me leave?"

"Yeah, I'll let you leave," she said with a breezy confidence that made Urie wonder if she actually was the formidable adversary she claimed to be.

She moved around the café's furniture, sweeping with the kind of well-practiced choreography of someone who'd done this a hundred times before. For some strange reason, he was reminded of watching Sasaki clean the kitchen at the Chateau after cooking a big meal for everyone but himself. Maybe not strange at all if the two of them used to know each other—and apparently worked together?

"Ok, I've given you another little peek behind the curtain. Your turn to answer a burning question of mine. If it was possible, I think I would turn human in a heartbeat. But what could possibly possess someone to willingly become half-ghoul?"

The way she phrased it made him wince. "It wasn't billed as becoming half-ghoul. They advertised it as an experimental procedure to give us built-in quinques. And if the original quinques were a game-changing weapon for the CCG, I wanted in on the next generation of weaponry. I thought it would be a huge leg-up in my career."

"Well, from where I'm standing you sure look like a half-ghoul. Someone somewhere died at the hands of the CCG for you to get that kakuhou. Maybe they left behind people who are still wondering why they never came home. It seems unfair, doesn't it? You sign up to get a kagune and you're a hero, I was born with one against my will and I'm a villain."

Urie glared at her. "You're right. What you're trying to do right now is psyops."

"So you're not quite ready to have that conversation, fair enough."

She stared at him for a long moment. Urie didn't like the feeling of a ghoul sizing him up, but this wasn't the look of an enemy combatant searching for weak points. Her face was almost…sad.

Finally she shook her head. "Sorry, there's just something about you that reminds me of my brother. I can't put my finger on it. I'm a few minutes away from locking up, so hurry up and finish that cup."

There was at least one last inkling he wanted to address before he left. "How exactly do you know Hinami Fueguchi?"

Urie watched her out of the corner of his eyes. She paused her sweeping and seemed to slouch a bit. "Why? What has she gotten herself into now?"

"She was remanded into Sasaki's custody, but he's stopped visiting her in Cochlea since the Rose operation. I took over interrogating her. She's another one who seems to have some sort of history with Sasaki."

Touka started sweeping again silently for a moment, but had to set the broom down and tear off her apron in frustration.

"So she is in Cochlea. I hoped that was just a rumor. Oh, I could just smack her!" She went behind the counter and angrily poured herself a cup of coffee from what was left in the pot she'd just brewed for Urie.

Sipping on the beverage to calm her nerves, Touka looked at Urie. "How is she?"

Urie stared at her. "Lonely."

"Oh, Hinami. She's such a sweet girl. She was too gentle for Aogiri but they wanted to use her anyways and look where it got her." She slammed the cup back down, sloshing it everywhere.

"Gentle? She's an SS-rated ghoul."

Grabbing a rag and wiping up her mess, Touka mused, "This world isn't kind to people like Hinami. She was born powerful, and she doesn't have a mean bone in her body. She was always going to get taken advantage of, from the moment she left. How did she get taken into custody, anyways?"

Urie looked down at the dregs of his coffee. "She was caught while defending Sasaki from another Aogiri ghoul. She gave herself up without a fight."

"And do you catch many SS-rated ghouls like that, giving themselves up peacefully so they can save an investigator's life?" She settled on a stool at the bar, a safe distance away from Urie.

"…No. None, in fact."

Touka propped her head up on her hand and glanced out the window. The street was dark and quiet, with only a rare pedestrian heading home. She looked back at him, eyes misting over a bit. "Like I said, Hinami's a sweet girl. Her life has been nothing but tragedy and she's still such a good person. Even Aogiri couldn't break her of that goodness. I hope you're not a jerk to her, at least, when you talk to her."

Urie scowled at her, feeling…shame, was it? The young ghoul had always been soft-spoken and polite. In return, he had been distant and manipulative when it suited him. He knew she was just a ghoul and he didn't need to feel guilty over it, but guilt was creeping in nonetheless. How strange. What kind of elite investigator felt guilty over a ghoul?

"I'm not a jerk, no. What is her connection to Sasaki?"

Touka smiled, remembering happier times. "He's the one that really nurtured her love of reading when she was younger. Taught her a lot of kanji, gave her books, that kind of thing. I'm not a big reader myself, but those book nerds always seem to have some sacred bond."

Something about that struck Urie like a knife in the chest. He recalled his early days at the Chateau—how excited Investigator Sasaki was to see Urie avidly reading the newspaper. How many conversations about favorite books and authors he tried to start, only for Urie to shut him down. Reading the news was a purely utilitarian pursuit, that's all the was to it. It was for information, never entertainment.

He understood that Sasaki sharing his love of books was his way of reaching out to people. It was a childish power play of Urie's to reject that olive branch. At the time, he gained a certain perverse pleasure from leaving books gifted from Sasaki in the trash for everyone to see. Now that he was older and wiser, he saw how small, how immature he'd been. And what a tragedy—that version of friendly, book-sharing Sasaki seemed like he was gone forever, for him and for Hinami.

He made a split-second decision. Part guilt for how he'd treated the young ghoul, part atonement for the bully he'd been so recently, part desire to throw a wrench in the CCG's plans for interfering this evening...he couldn't say precisely what alchemy of emotion came over him.

"She's scheduled for disposal. Two weeks from now. But you didn't hear it from me."

Touka couldn't help it, she spat out her coffee all over the counter. "Shit! I just cleaned that. But you're serious? Why…would you tell me that?"

Urie pushed away his empty cup and stood to don his jacket. "I'm feeling magnanimous. Consider it a gift."

"If…I wanted to try and save her, I'd just be walking into an ambush, wouldn't I?"

Urie paused with his hand on the door. "I won't be there to ambush you—the CCG's launching a huge operation to clear Aogiri's last hideout the day before. Most of us will be on that mission."

Touka understood what he was saying instantly. "I…thank you. I can't thank you enough."

Urie nodded and stepped out the door, disappearing into the night.

He quietly walked out of view of the café's front windows, then raced around the block as fast as he could. Both to ensure that he wasn't being followed, and because the potential consequences of his little disclosure started to weigh heavier and heavier on him with each step. He might have just tanked his whole career in a moment of lashing out.

He silently approached the front of the café from the opposite side he left from, and strained his ears. He was just out of sight of the front window, and the night was very quiet, so he could hear the quiet speech coming from inside the building.

"—that's great and all but where the hell are you, Nishiki? You were supposed to help me close."

Urie guessed she was talking to someone on her phone. Why did that name ring a bell?

"Yeah, well, maybe it's for the best. A dove stopped in at closing time and I have a sneaking suspicion he would have recognized you…Yeah...Edgy undercut, two moles under his left eye?"

Urie held his breath. If she was just going to declare open season on him to all her ghoul friends, better to kill her now and deal with the fallout from Marude later, right? Who could she possibly be on the phone with? Some ghoul he'd met before, apparently. But the list of ghouls who'd escaped him after a confrontation was pretty short.

"No—Jeez, no, calm down. We're not going after him. I'm calling to ask about your Aogiri-hunting project. How's that going, have you figured out where their main base is?"

A ghoul he'd met who hunted Aogiri—it had to be Orochi. So he was a closer at a café when he wasn't killing investigators. Strange.

"Rushima, huh. Well, I have a hot tip that you should move up your raid of their lab. It sounds like they're going to be hit by the CCG in two weeks. Is there anyone other than your human that we should be rescuing from Aogiri?"

"Yeah, I think we have a real shot of finding her this time. You get together a small group, hijack a boat or get ahold of one of Tsukiyama's yachts or something—I don't know and I don't want to know—and try to find her using the raid for cover. Bring our newest stray. I'll text you the details on how to get ahold of him. I think he'll have a bone to pick with Dr. Kano, and he might know more about who you'll encounter in the lab."

Ghouls rescuing people from Aogiri Tree. Bizarre. Urie thought back to the undercover mission—how surprised he was at the complexity of ghoul politics, how the different factions supported or undermined each other. And how letting a few ghouls live to kill another day was weighed against getting info that could save many more lives.

Well, if more ghouls were going to find their way onto Rushima Island, that just meant more targets for him. And even better if they were there to attack Dr. Kano, who appeared to be a mutual target. Maybe the café ghoul team could do a bit of the heavy lifting for the CCG and take out some of Aogiri's guards.

Another pause. "No, I think Yomo and I will be going on our own mission. To get Hinami."

Pause. "Eavesdropping, you jackass. Don't worry about it. Just stay away for a while because I get the feeling the doves hanging around might not be too happy to see you for some weird reason. Yeah, tell it to someone else. And be careful. Bye."

She went outside to fetch the sign propped open on the sidewalk, but glanced over to exactly where Urie was standing. It was as if her eyes could pierce the shadows.

"My senses are better than yours, you know. I guess you heard most of that call?"

"I did. You were talking to Orochi, I presume?"

"Damn. I knew I should have waited until the coast was clear, but…I got overeager. That's what you guys are calling him, though? It's funny how spot-on it is."

She folded up the sign and leaned it against the building.

"I told Orochi to leave you alone, so don't you go hunting him down either. I think that's a fair trade for tonight. For the record, I think he's a dumbass, but he's also an adult who makes his own decisions." She sighed and put her hands on her hips. "He's in love with a human woman—we think she was taken by Dr. Kano. He stopped preying on humans years ago for her. He might be killing investigators left and right, but he's more of a friend to humans than most ghouls."

Urie's face must have looked comically surprised. The idea of a human and a ghoul in a relationship together had literally never occurred to him. Or even the idea that a ghoul who was such a huge danger to investigators could be so…nonthreatening to the general population. "Maybe…I should go. The more I discover here…"

Touka smiled knowingly. "The more you find out stuff that complicates doing your job tomorrow while following your orders to forget about tonight?"

Urie nodded. "Almost like I wandered into some sort of psyops setup."

"Was that a joke? Not bad, but keep working on it." Touka chuckled. "It's true though—under the circumstances, getting too chummy gets complicated, fast. But for now, I won't see you at Cochlea and you won't see me at Rushima. Let's leave it at that."

"And if I run into Orochi there?" She had to be aware of that possibility.

"I'd be sad if you killed him. And not just because I'd have to hire someone new. Maybe I'd even be sad if he killed you. It would be pretty funny if you kicked his ass, though. Tell him it's a present from his manager, for never being on time." Touka shrugged. "I don't do these psyops things too often, but I guess we just…part ways and go on with our lives."

Her words hung in the air. Impossible as it felt, that was the only out for both of them. For a moment, the only sound was wind drifting down the dark street.

Finally, Touka straightened up and put her hands on her hips, giving her storefront a once-over to make sure she hadn't forgotten any part of her closing routine. "Well, I have a magazine at my apartment that won't flip through itself. You don't have to go home but you can't stay here. And…I think it would be best for both of us if you just stay away from the café from now on."

Urie adjusted his coat. "I'll stay away from here and I'll forget everything we said. If I ever see you again, though, I'll kill you. I might be under orders to leave you alone tonight, but from now on we're enemies."

Touka grinned in a way that made her seem more predatory than she had all night. "Don't expect me to go down without a fight, buddy. I'm not nice like Hinami. I don't know where we'll all stand when the dust settles…but thanks for not being an enemy tonight."

At her earnest gratitude, his glower finally ran out of steam. He broke eye contact with her and looked down at his feet.

Maybe...that was that. He'd let important information slip, and it was no one's fault but his own. All he could do was let whatever happened next unfold. Just white-knuckle his way through and hope it didn't get traced back to him. Urie had a lot of regrets and disappointments he was learning to live with, what was one more in the grand scheme of things?

As Urie put his earbuds in and crossed the street, he called back over his shoulder, "That was good coffee, by the way."

"Thanks. Hey—Would you mind supporting a small business owner and leaving a nice online review? It really helps us out."