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Chapter 2: Siren

"When you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody."

-J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951)

Loud, unintelligible shouting erupted from somewhere outside of Eto's room, and roused her from sleep. She opened her eyes to a thick darkness that seemed to smother her mouth and nose, leaving her breath constricted. Her confusion settled as soon as she lifted the book covering her face and tossed it away on to the bed, then rubbed her eyes slowly to clean the film off of them. With her vision cleared, she stared up at her room's ceiling, and frowned at the strips of paint that had peeled off and now hung down. The room was devoid of light, and in the darkness the hanging strips looked like the misshapen tongues of some demonic horde.

Just another day in paradise, Eto thought with bitter sarcasm.

The yelling continued on, growing angrier and frantic, and more irksome. As Eto removed herself from bed, she saw the faintly glowing slits in her weathered curtains, and glanced at the cracked digital clock sitting by her bed. 5:22 AM. Far too early for her to be up, and once awake she did not easily fall asleep again. Eto fumed as she walked over to her door and threw it open. Through the cracked, filth-encrusted windows of the apartment hallway, she first saw a dark-blue brightening sky over a blinking lit city.

The offenders were easily identified as a trio of ghouls standing by the stairwell down the hall. There were two younger ghouls, a chubby one with a shaved head and a thin one sporting bright green hair. With them was a tall older ghoul with shaggy hair and a lit cigarette in his mouth. Eto recognized them respectively as Dango, Eiji, and Ikeda; each was a member of her ragtag crew. The eldest ghoul, who Eto traced the vast majority of shouting to, held Eiji by the neck up against the wall as Dango ineffectively pleaded him to let go.

It was clear that Ikeda was accosting the younger ghouls for something that Eto guessed was completely unimportant to her. Now it was time to shut them up.

"Hello, boys," Eto said with mock cheer as she walked over to them, looking pointedly at Ikeda; as one of the gang's more powerful ghouls, Ikeda usually acted haughty and proud around the rest of the group, even those that outranked him in strength and influence. True, he was of great help when meat ran low, but with that helpfulness came a flippant attitude and mood swings, which placed him at constant odds with everyone else.

In fact, Eto really did not like him. It rather pained her to admit that keeping him around was necessary.

Upon noticing her, Ikeda rolled his eyes and shrugged, then released Eiji from his grip. On the other hand, the sight of the tiny leader's sleepy eyes and tangled hair instantly paralyzed the other two ghouls with fear. As soon as he was free, Eiji muttered a quick and unintelligible apology in Eto's direction, and then slipped off down the stairwell. Dango dismissed himself just as quickly, leaving Ikeda and Eto alone.

Ikeda watched his victims flee with a lazy smirk, then trotted over towards Eto. Smiling hideously back at one of her least favorite ghouls in the world, Eto noted his odd gait and glanced down at his cheap leather boots; to appear taller and more dominant than her, he stood up on his toes, despite the fact that he already dwarfed her by a foot. Pathetic.

"Morning, Eto," Ikeda greeted. "Sorry 'bout that. Stupid kids stole a pack of my cigarettes, so I-"

"Don't really care," Eto interrupted, still smiling from ear to ear.

"Yep, I thought so." Ikeda put an arm against the cracked wall beside her. As he breathed out, the scent of tobacco accentuated the foulness of his breath.

"Still, you don't have to be so cranky, boss," Ikeda practically spat the last word, as if it tasted foul on his tongue. "Just telling you how it is. You know, I could have just ran off like the others."

"Back up a bit, will you?" Eto asked, ignoring the advice. "Your breath is disgusting."

Ikeda said nothing as he obeyed. Now he wore a frown, which Eto knew belied the swiftly rising temperature of his fiery mood. Then, she recalled that Ikeda was dimmer and more temperamental than the average ghoul, and it wouldn't take much effort for her to have some fun at his expense.

"Now that I can breathe again," Eto continued. "I can express my appreciation. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to explain why you were so ungraciously disturbing everyone's rest. If there's nothing else, you may leave."

She gestured towards the stairs with a wave.

"So, run along now."

Theatrical and overzealous, but it did its job; the hunter was insulted by what he perceived to be belittling talk.

"Hey, kid," Ikeda said, his voice rising, "do you think using smart words like that makes you better than me, or something?"

Eto said nothing. She merely crossed her arms, and smirked knowingly as his tantrum ran its course. She expected that the ensuing fireworks would be very entertaining.

So it came as a bit of a surprise to her when Ikeda advanced, and his filthy nails dug into her shoulders. "Stop smiling like that. I'm talking to you-"

Eto reached up and trapped his bulky wrists in her petite hands. At the same time she aimed a firm kick at his knee, bringing him down so that his face was level with hers.

"What the hell?" Ikeda hollered.

"Don't touch me, punk," Eto said. While Ikeda squirmed and panicked, she was the very image of merriment; the violence was refreshing, and filled her young wild heart with joy. Her vise-like grip tightened a bit more as her quarry tried in vain to free itself, and she relished in the popping noises that went off as tendons threatened to snap beneath her grip. The hunter's moans of pain grew louder.

"You know," Eto said, "you're very lucky that we still need you to hunt, because otherwise, I'd have killed you a dozen times over by now, you disrespectful piece of trash."

It was not clear if Ikeda heard her over the sound of his strained grunts. Meanwhile, his hands had turned an unhealthy shade of purple. His failed efforts to free himself had tired him out.

"What is it?" Eto tilted her head and grimaced with mock sympathy. "Can't pull yourself out of a teenage girl's grip? How very sad."

With that, she tossed him forcefully, and he landed hard on his back.

"Screw off, kid," Eto sneered, as Ikeda clumsily got back on his feet. "If I see your ugly face again today, I'll tear it off and eat it in front of you."

She was not joking. Ikeda knew this, but pushed his luck anyway.

"You one-eyed bitch! You're crazy!" Ikeda yelled. His kakugan flashed in his fury.

With a giggle, Eto manifested her own kakugan. The single menacing eye leered at Ikeda from beneath her green brow.

"You're totally right. I'm crazy." Eto took a single step forward. "Why don't we find out how crazy?"

Without another word, Ikeda turned and fled. Eto chuckled at the hilarious way he waddled down the stairs while cradling his flopping wrists against his stomach.

With the matter settled, Eto turned and walked back to her room as she wondered when the next time she would have to keep the peace would be. As always, she hoped it was never; mothering so many brats and man-children at once was tiring work. So tiring, in fact, that she had stopped bothering to remember most of the gang's names some time ago. She wasn't even sure if the names she gave the two younger ghouls just now were their actual names. Either way, they were probably close enough.

She sighed as she reached her door. The heated darkness hit her in the face once she walked in and then wrapped her body into its infuriating hug as she closed the door behind her.

At the moment, her tiny room seemed even more disgusting than usual; she had neglected to open a window before falling asleep the previous night, so her dingy room had become oppressively warm. Eto grimaced as she realized that her mattress was drenched, and her room reeked of sweat.

Shaking her head, she walked over and pulled open one of the grimy windows. A necklace of cool morning air rushed in and soothed her neck and chest, and it was so relieving that it almost made the cracked roads and trashed wilderness outside a welcome sight.

The sun was quickly rising, and now enough of its light filtered through to illuminate most of the small room. With her woes momentarily forgotten, Eto looked with admiration at the misshapen column of books on her bedside table; it stood tall and silent like an austere watchtower. The books were primarily Western fiction, since she found the foreign writing styles interesting, and the concepts amusingly dark.

These beloved novels had all been obtained from the bookstores that Eto had visited in the past. Some of the books had been shoplifted, and others had been purchased with hard-earned (still purloined) money. However, to her the books were far more than mere possessions; they were more like magical relics. When she read a good book, she imagined herself as a privileged girl who could behold nameless sea monsters with Lovecraft, or meet with mysterious and deadly strangers with Poe. Yet H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe were only two of her hosts, for she had a whole crew of authors that each offered their own unique pleasures.

Additionally, when Eto became this other girl, she lived under a different name too: Sen Takatsuki. And, while it seemed nigh impossible at this point, Sen Takatsuki hoped to show the world her own literary work one day. Her manuscript lay beneath her bed, hidden beside the old diary left to her by her mother. She had drafted and outlined most of her story in a fit of passion one night, when she had read the last word of one of Franz Kafka's works and shut the book with a resounding thud. She could not remember which one, however; was it The Trial? Or was it The Metamorphosis?

Either way, she was busier these days and had put her writing aside to focus more on voracious reading. Just last night, she indulged in the dystopian fruits of George Orwell's 1984. How she enjoyed it! The novel was especially charming in its bleakness; the oppressive government depicted in the text reminded her of the secretive authority that subjugated her kind, and the rebellion that the protagonist hoped to join was oh so reminiscent of the gunpowder keg that she and her new acquaintance hoped to ignite.

Which reminded her that at last, the day of their second meeting had arrived. Her pride had not yet recovered from his thorough whipping (Eto did not know if it ever would), but Kishou Arima and his ideas were fascinating, and encountering him had undeniably brought a spark into the boring life she currently led. Though a staunch pessimist, Eto could not help but wonder if her fight against the oppression of ghouls would finally bear fruit.

Either way, she had too much time on her hands at this moment. With a dozen hours still left until her appointment with the investigator, Eto plopped herself back on to bed and pondered what she would read to kill time.

It was nearly four in the afternoon when Eto set out. After the early morning, the sky had turned a foreboding shade of grey, so she threw on her raincoat in preparation for showers. Once a bright, nearly pink shade of red, repeated use had worn down the color of the coat and turned it dull, though Eto found that the darker red was less obnoxious.

Earlier, as she reviewed select excerpts from random novels, Eto made the sudden decision to bring her mother's diary along. Normally, she did not dare to carry it for fear of losing it, but this was a special occasion, and there was a good chance that Arima would be able to tell her more about her mother's research. At the very least, she figured, it would make for an interesting conversation piece. The book was zipped securely in one of her coat pockets.

She set out from the ugly tenement she lived in without saying a word of goodbye to the others, in part because she hadn't seen anyone while leaving. Eto guessed that by now, everybody had heard Ikeda rant about how hostile she had been in the morning, and while the smarter ghouls probably brushed him off, the others took the news to heart, and had decided to avoid her just to be sure that no one incurred her wrath.

It hardly mattered to her. Actually, Eto liked being feared.

The surrounding area was a wasteland of overgrown farmland and garbage dumps. While the life offered by this place was far from luxurious, Eto and the band of starry-eyed young ghouls that followed her could not do better. Though filthy and in ruins, the abandoned building that they found at least offered a roof over their heads, and the nooks and crannies of the wasteland offered plenty of hiding spots for those who wanted to stay hidden.

Which meant that this place was an attractive hideout for other ghouls as well. The lack of human meat out here meant that ghouls were forced to consume each other to avoid starvation. So, to an extent, the way of life here reminded Eto of her childhood in the 24th ward.

The girl kept a close eye on the yellowing patches of grass around her as she walked along, tracing the route to the woods which held the forgotten shrine. Though watchful, the Owl was in relatively good spirits, and whistled to herself as she trotted along. Now and then, she cast a quick look over her shoulder to make certain that nobody was following her.

Long minutes passed into an hour. Eto grew bored, and began to hope that something or someone would come out of hiding so that she could kill it for sport. Sadly, the walk continued to be uneventful, and the gloomy overcast sky did not help to make things less dull. Then the clouded grey sky turned dark, and a crack of thunder sounded from overhead. Glassy beads of rain began to fall from the sky, and roll off the drapes of Eto's patchy coat.

The faint pitter patter and the gentle lather of rain on her sweat-matted hair distracted her from how tedious the journey was. Eto decided not to pull her hood up.

At last, she saw the way that would take her directly to the shrine; it was a path that veered off the asphalt roads and into the woods. Once neatly paved with cut stone, time and nature had taken its toll on the path and left it in ruins. Now, two weathered stone lanterns clearly marked what was once the first step of the passage. Thunder roared again as Eto walked over to the path, and she sighed with relief at the fact that she was finally close to the end of her trip.

How did I have the patience to walk this far in the first place? Eto wondered. She left the main road and headed towards the forest.

Another sudden clap of thunder, but this one sounded different, and did not seem to come from the sky. The noise was higher in pitch, and the image of a thousand crying swallows, all rushing towards a single mark at once, was brought to Eto's mind.

And while the wind and rain muddled it, the metallic odor of blood that now filled the air was unmistakable. Curious, Eto glanced warily around as her pace turned brisk. The iron smell grew more tantalizing as she neared the border of trees. Now, she recognized the very particular notes in the scent: it was ghoul blood, and it was quite fresh. From the thick sweetness that saturated the air, she could tell that it was more than a few ghouls being killed, too.

"Oh, Hell yes!" Eto chirped, and she picked up her pace, intent on seeing some of the bloodshed firsthand.

Once beneath the trees, she quickly found the source of the stench. Streaks of blood— as if spattered from slash wounds—colored the ancient stone steps, and Eto spotted corpses scattered about. The body of an aged, bearded ghoul sat propped against a nearby tree, and Eto knelt down to examine what she guessed was the killing wound: he had been cleanly sliced open from neck to navel. Eto glanced at the other two corpses that lay nearby. Each ghoul had been expertly slaughtered with thin, precise cuts.

On the other hand, several of the surrounding trees bore uneven gouges and ugly notches, and the base of one leaning tree had been reduced to mere pulp, as if a great hammer had smashed it. If the scene of this massacre had been illustrated on a canvas, Eto mused, then the wounds on the corpses and the damage on the trees would have been painted by two separate artists.

Just then she heard a yell, followed by a storm of galloping footsteps from up ahead. Eto hopped off the marked trail and silently stalked into the bushes like a cat. Peering through the vegetation, Eto found the commotion at last.

In the clearing before her, she saw Arima. He was a white shape caught in a red hurricane of cruel gnashing blades. A small pack of wild ghouls were upon him like rabid dogs, and by the looks of them, they were practically feral with starvation already. The beasts taunted and howled as they struck again and again with a ruthless effort that would have easily overwhelmed most investigators.

But this dove was not like most investigators. Almost lazily, he directed the blade of his quinque into the directions of their strikes, and leapt and rolled around attacks that he could not deflect in time. He parried, dodged, and parried on into a gracefully fluid dance. Now and then, Arima redirected the momentum of a blocked hit into a riposte that warded off another swing aimed for him, leaving the attacker reeling from the force of the defense.

All the while, the investigator held his head down in concentration.

Eto watched in delighted amazement. This performance was entertaining enough that she wished she had some popcorn to go with it. The rush of quickened breathing, the thudding of rapid footsteps, and the dull chime of kagune blades crossing quinque steel went on for a few moments. Then, one by one, the ghouls started to drop like flies.

A tall muscular ghoul was the first to fall; his massive koukaku was too slow to block the cut to his neck, which nearly beheaded him. Following shortly was a young girl—likely not much older than Eto herself—who received a blow to the temple and rolled in to the dirt with a carved skull. Then a hooded ghoul, who had screamed with rage at the girl's death and tried to strike Arima with his ukaku's talons, plummeted from mid-air in two halves.

In that short moment, Arima turned the drove of predators into his prey. Startled, the remaining two ghouls began to retreat, but Arima glided after them without pause. He swatted away a panicked bikaku swing, then sidestepped and severed the rinkaku tentacles that tried to entrap him. Without a moment's delay, Narukami's blade split open, and Arima fired a bolt of lightning into the rinkaku ghoul's face.

Once her last comrade fell, the other ghoul wasted no time fleeing. As the odor of burnt meat filled the clearing, Arima took aim at his final opponent and fired another powerful bolt towards her. To Eto's astonishment, Arima missed; instead, the projectile hit low-hanging branches that the ghoul ducked under while sprinting off. Wood smoldered and splinters flew, but the ghoul was not injured and managed to escape deeper into the forest.

An uneasy silence settled over the battlefield. By now, enough blood had run into the forest floor to stain the earth a dark crimson. Eto watched as Arima lowered his quinque, and it reassembled into a full blade. For a moment, Arima stood still and tilted his head, as if he were listening for something.

Then, he turned and walked over to the body of the tall ghoul, who Eto then realized was not actually dead yet; though his neck was mostly destroyed, he continued to feebly claw at it, as if hoping to mend the wound by pulling the flesh together.

Without hesitation, Arima buried the flat tip of his quinque down into the ghoul's right eye. There was a faint cough and a very brief convulsion, and then the ghoul went still.

Eto decided that it was not a fight that she just witnessed; it was art. She had faced him herself a week ago, but being able to see all of his movements from the perspective of a bystander made for a very different, and very entertaining experience. As the gratified audience, she gave Arima a standing ovation. Arima tensed and whirled to face her.

"That was very, very cool," Eto said with enthusiasm as she stepped out of the bush. She ended her applause with a final, resounding clap. "A bit quick, but it was nice and brutal, so that's okay."

She returned his distant, unreadable stare with a carefree smirk.

"I have never seen a dove fight like that before," Eto said. "You really are something else, aren't you?"

Arima said nothing. He walked over to his suitcase, which sat at the base of a tree, and placed Narukami back into it. Then he looked back at Eto.

"You were not responsible for that ambush," Arima said.

"I was not," Eto confirmed. She figured that Arima either did not know how to properly acknowledge compliments, or just didn't care to. "I don't know any of these ghouls. And besides, only weaklings or cowards let others do all the fighting for them."

She stepped up close to the investigator so that they stood only a few inches apart, as if she were sizing him up before a duel. She was barely tall enough to reach his chest.

"In other words, investigator," she continued, confidently glaring up at him, "If I did order those pathetic ghouls to ambush you, I would have led the attack myself, and you would have been in way more trouble."

Arima raised his brow. "I somehow doubt that."

"Doubt what? That I would have fought you?"

"No, that I would have been in more trouble if you had been leading them."

Eto bit her lip and blushed indignantly. An arsenal of retorts and challenges sprang to the tip of her tongue, but she managed to hold it. She knew that arguing with somebody as socially detached as Arima would be a waste of time. That, and Eto had to admit that he was right.

Instead, she huffed quietly. Meanwhile, Arima started on the rest of the old trail. The stone steps gradually rose as they followed the sloping earth, and eventually led up to a small hill that bore the shrine.

"We should leave," Arima said, "before the blood draws more of them here."

Eto was delayed for a moment, then rushed after him. Arima glanced at her as she caught up, and blinked at the sight of the limp, bloody arm in her hands.

"What?" Eto asked, as she nibbled happily on the fresh meat. "I'm hungry."

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