Infinity, progressing from Arasaka

Akira Mado naturally understood the inter-ghoul behavior that Vera was referring to in her words.

Food stalls.

Many ghouls establish their own ghoul territories based on their strength; if other ghouls trespass into their territory to hunt, conflict and slaughter will ensue. Ward 20 is a ghoul territories managed by a certain ghoul organization in the shadows, beyond the reach of humans.

"We don't need to take any risks for now; completely eradicating the Bronze Tree is our top priority."

Vera smiled, her eyes sparkling with pleasure.

She could sense that they were observing from a great distance, probably using binoculars, and the faint feeling of being spied on had disappeared.

They didn't dare to make a move after all.

Very good, you've passed the test for now.

"The rain has stopped."

...

Meanwhile, at the "antique" café.

Bang!

A loud thud as the door was pushed open.

"Welcome back, Touka, Kaneki... Yomo... It seems the situation is worse than I thought?" an aged male voice said.

“Yes, shopkeeper. That female dove used a special new type of living quinque armor, using Kirishima's new kagune. She killed Jason and Naki from District 13, the Bottle Brothers from District 11, Nick from the 'Joker' organization, and…” A heavy pause, “…Ayato.”

"..."

silence.

"Ugh."

After a long while, a sigh from an old man was heard.

"Take action against the white doves, which means being prepared to take full responsibility. This was the way of life that Ayato chose when he left the antique business. From hunting white doves to being killed by them, it was all the path he chose."

"Touka, please accept my condolences. We... cannot intervene... including you. You are the only remaining heir..."

...

a week later.

boom!

Zone 1, CCG Countermeasures Headquarters, Quinque Manufacturing Workshop.

Vera tossed a failed S-class fusion kagune onto the "New Proto" black armor unfolding on the workbench. With a thud, it reacted to the smell of blood, and the dark red veins on the surface of the armor wriggled. The kagune was devoured and absorbed by the living quinque, just like ice cream melting.

"You said that author Takatsuki Sen is going to postpone my meeting and interview?" Vera raised her eyebrows as she looked up from the Quinque production station and glanced at Mado Akira, who was holding a folder by the door.

"Yes... Ms. Takatsuki Izumi said that it seems something happened at a friend's house."

Ha, it must be a friend or a subordinate who died.

Vera tapped her fingers rhythmically on the workbench in a wave-like motion.

The One-Eyed King has shrunk.

There's also Ward 11. After finishing the ghoul-eliminating mission in Ward 20, she went to the branch in Ward 11 to oversee things for five days. As a result, she didn't see many ghouls, let alone attack the CCG branch.

Is he playing hide-and-seek with her?

------

P.S.: The timeline of Tokyo Ghoul is completely unrevealed or depicted in the original work, so this article starts from the time the first season of the Tokyo Ghoul anime aired, i.e., 2014.

The next chapter concludes the first part of Ghoul.

Chapter 084 I will bring Quinque technology to Arasaka (4.8K)

Two weeks later, the street battle between investigators and ghouls in the 20th ward half a month ago had become a thing of the past. With post-war reconstruction and disaster relief and compensation on track, yesterday's hot topic had been submerged by today's trivialities.

After all, Tokyo has the most ghoul attacks in the world.

When similar public events occur multiple times in a short period of time, people tend to forget, except for those who experienced them firsthand and those who felt the pain deeply…

"Jason-Black Abyss IV".

Click. At the CCG Quinque Workshop, Vera raised her hand, holding the black and red spear high, weighing it in her hand—long handle, sharpened at both ends, and the spearhead was in a crisscross spiral shape.

He swung the gun in a few beautiful flourishes.

It's very easy to use and perfectly fits her body shape, arm length, and fighting habits.

Mastering key technologies is a good thing.

Immediately, Vera stepped forward, her shoe sole making a dull thud on the workshop deck, and with a twist of her waist, she hurled "Black Abyss IV" out.

Clang!

Amidst the sharp, piercing sound of air being torn apart, a clang! A tooth-grinding metallic scraping sound, powerful and resounding, more than twenty meters away, sparks flew from the quinque steel targets specially designed for testing hardness. The heavy steel targets shattered in response, sending a long string of dark metal fragments flying.

Vera stopped and looked around carefully.

The entire 2mm x 2mm quinque steel target was pierced by that black and red long gun, which then stuck into the second steel target, penetrating one-third of the way in, creating a hole the size of a basin at the entrance.

"not bad."

Vera estimated that, compared to the unmodified "Black Abyss III", under the same conditions, the III could only penetrate two-thirds of the first steel target.

"Aaaaaah! My Quinque Steel!"

The moment Dr. A and B, who had just stepped into the personal workshop assigned to Vera by CCG, covered his head and let out a sharp explosion.

"Vera Adelheid, First Class Officer!"

Rubbing his dark green mushroom-shaped head, Dr. Di Xingjia looked at the shattered Quinque steel target on the ground with great heartache.

"The 'Black Abyss IV' is already an SS+ grade hybrid quinque. My lab doesn't have the steel targets and forged steel ingots to test its extreme performance!"

These steel targets are for mass-produced quinque testing of Class B and Class A, and are sufficient for a long time. The damage caused by Class S quinque testing is also barely acceptable. However, it is wrong of you to use the new hybrid quinque test of Class SS+.

CCG is very wealthy, but even a rich family can't afford to spend like this.

"If you really want to test its limits, you'll need an S-class ghoul for field missions... no, not enough, it'll have to be SS-class, hiss... if it were that SSS-class 'One-Eyed Owl'... 'Black Abyss IV' would be at risk of damage... but, I haven't even handled an SSS-class kagune yet..."

Muttering to themselves, Earthwalker A and B began discussing the possibility of expelling SSS-class ghouls... a common trait of old scholars.

He really, really craved the body of an SSS-rank ghoul.

Vera chuckled, shook her head, then took a few steps forward and beckoned.

With a whoosh, the "Black Abyss IV" gun, embedded in the steel target, trembled violently. The next moment, with a hiss, the second steel ingot was torn apart from the inside in a flash.

Clusters of scarlet light flickered; those were the kagune thorns that made up the spiral spearhead of "Black Abyss IV." Like molten iron, they suddenly bent and stretched, forming a sharp arc.

The scythe-like blade shifted the center of gravity, spinning and whooshing! The blade returned precisely to Vera's palm, pointing outwards.

"This is..."

Beneath his mushroom-shaped bangs, Earthwalker Jia Yi's eyes, previously hidden, suddenly flashed with a sharp light.

"Similar to the autonomous detached deformation capability of the Quinque 'IXA' possessed by officials such as Matt."

His tone was very certain.

Vera nodded.

"SS-rank, the kagune of 'Transvestite' Nick; its healing abilities have been a significant help to my research..."

Don't be fooled by their ugly and strange appearance; their inner qualities are incredibly useful. Useful in every sense of the word.

Putting everything else aside, thanks to Nick's close-range entanglement and continuous treatment of Jason the Gecko before his death, Jason, who was already ranked S+ on the CCG's wanted list, had more of Nick's Rc cells and some remnants of the healed kagune in his body after he became a half-Kakuja.

Jason was already very close to SS-class. As a half-Kakuna, Vera dissected his body and found several Kagura bags that were well preserved and active, from Rinkaku, Ookaku to Kokaku that was forming, but no Ukaku.

All of them have been used, and along with that S-class armored kukri named Naki, they were incorporated into "Black Abyss IV" by Vera.

With Nick's healing-type kagune by her side, her creation process was quite relaxed. If she made a mistake, she didn't have to rush. She could fix it and try again. It was thanks to such a powerful tool that she was able to complete the upgrade of "Black Abyss IV".

Harder and tougher is the foundation, sharper is an addition, the key is that it retains some characteristics of healing kagune, giving the IV model weak self-healing ability, as well as the coordination and balance enhancement brought by the integration of a whole set of tail kagune and rinka produced by the same ghoul. In addition to supporting moderate deformation, it can also achieve autonomous separation and autonomous reset.

"But it's still not a living quinque... What are you sending signals to 'it'?"

"I knew I couldn't hide it from you, Doctor."

With a whoosh, Vera stored the "Black Abyss IV," which had transformed back into its spear form, into a black gold box next to her workbench.

The use of Black Gold Boxes is not explicitly stipulated in the CCG, but because Arima Kishou uses Black Gold Boxes, they have been given an aura of rarity and power, a view now held by the ghoul community.

Then, she took off her sterile gloves.

"what?"

In a flash, Earthwalker A and B stepped forward, staring intently at Vera's raised right hand, examining it as if they were microscopically scrutinizing the metallic grooves on it. It was exquisite, like some kind of tattoo, yet not quite, a quinque ornament.

"Not 'Gun III'..."

“The ‘Gun III’ is over there.” Vera pointed to a silver-white box on another table not far away. “It’s a quinque structure extracted from ‘Black Abyss IV.’ According to the predetermined implantation settings for the memory metal, ‘it’ is the main body.”

It can be understood as some kind of unconventional kagune signal generator. Although it doesn't even have a level as a quinque, it can still serve as a 'coordinate' to allow "Black Abyss IV" to reset autonomously.

Earthly A and B stroked their chins and scratched their heads.

"And the distance?" he asked.

"It's about seven or eight meters long. It's quite difficult to control, and if the blade isn't properly positioned when resetting, it can easily injure the user."

"The barrier to entry is too high, so it's not very valuable for widespread adoption. Only high-ranking investigators like you with a penchant for martial arts could use it. But your... minimally invasive surgery-like technique?"

"More or less. Just something I was thinking about."

Vera didn't elaborate on this topic; she couldn't very well say that she referenced cyber implant technology from another world.

Just as she will bring quinque-related technology to Ara-saka, far away in the heavens...

Stretching, she took off her lab coat and tidied up the workshop, then asked thoughtfully, "Doctor, shouldn't you be in the workshop at this hour? Why are you suddenly calling me... have you run out of herrtle material?"

The 'Eliminate the Ghoul' operation yielded not only the few named ghouls that Vera took, but also more than fifty intact ghoul corpses and kagune.

While most of them are B- or A-class ghouls, the CCG also has a large number of junior investigators.