Days pass quickly and in one week it will be time for Saya and Rei to finally return to school after winter break.
When they move up to the next grade level, which will be in approximately a few months, it will also be the time when Mrs. Yuriko will officially enroll me in the same school that the two of them attend.
However, I'm not too worried about that now. I have too many more important things to take care of.
Since New Year's I've been constantly going out at night to hunt. I've killed some parasites scattered around the city, and in fact before they died I devoured them alive just as I planned.
But it seems that wasn't a very good decision after all.
It's true they gave me a huge amount of additional strength. At the same time it made me grow several more centimeters and gain considerably more weight in muscle and body mass.
However, the damn murmurs returned. And this time very strong. It's so intense I think they'll drive me crazy.
By consuming the parasites alive, my ability to sense emotional frequencies increased exponentially. Now I can say without being wrong what kind of emotions a person has. I can sense parasites from incredibly long distances. And I discovered something new.
I'm able to slightly influence the emotional frequencies of other people, making them follow what I want them to do.
It's like a limited form of mind control that Mrs. Kiriko has.
But at the same time when I hear those incomprehensible murmurs in my head, I start to see things that shouldn't be seen.
Elongated and distorted silhouettes with huge and wide smiles full of sharp teeth. Sometimes while I'm with Saya or Rei talking, I suddenly see a human figure slowly shuffling toward me. Its head rotates one hundred eighty degrees backward and then dislocates grotesquely, leaving its chin pointing upward and its long hair hanging down.
It seems I'm seeing a creature taken from a paranormal horror movie.
But since ghouls, parasites and vampires exist in this world, honestly I don't care much about seeing strange things.
Except for one very specific detail that disturbs me.
That distorted figure looks too much like me.
It has my height, my build and my facial features.
Would it be like seeing one's own version of oneself as a monstrous reflection? That's how I feel.
On this night I leave the Takagi mansion and arrive at a private place. Well, it's the area where in the past I lived in that abandoned building. I know there's no one here at night, so it's the perfect place to do what I want to experiment with.
I decide to seriously experiment with my Ghoul Vision.
It's always seemed annoying and inefficient to me that I must obligatorily enter my Ghoul Mode to use that special vision.
It's my best tool for detecting supernatural threats from afar. But because my sclera turns black and my iris crimson when I transform, it means it's very showy and eye-catching. So I definitely can't use it when there are normal people around.
And since my kagune finally fully awakened, now not only do my eyes transform when I enter Ghoul Mode. My dark tentacles also appear coming out of my back. Which eliminates any possibility of using my Ghoul Vision discreetly in front of my friends or where there are other people watching.
So I've been thinking for a long time about training this aspect.
But almost every night I've gone out to hunt monsters. Sometimes I take Touka with me, although very few times do we actually find wild ghouls in this residential area. We find many more scattered parasites.
I stand in the middle of two abandoned buildings.
Instead of activating Ghoul Mode, I focus only on my eyes.
I try to force only that partial transformation.
The next moment, my eyes throb with pain. I feel something hot slowly sliding down my cheeks. At first I think confused that it's normal tears.
But when I touch my cheeks my fingers are stained red.
It's thick blood coming out from the corners of my eyes.
"Shit..."
I feel like my eyes will explode from the inside because the pressure is unbearable.
A few seconds later my entire body involuntarily enters Ghoul Mode.
—Splash!
The tentacles emerge from my back.
"Ugh..."
I stop training for that day feeling frustrated.
The next night I come back to the same abandoned place to train. Another night and another night more.
After several torturous days of training until my eyes bleed each night, I finally manage to maintain the partial transformation for several seconds without my eye bleeding and without transforming the rest of my body involuntarily.
It's slow progress but I must say it's also satisfying.
Then one day I manage to activate only the special vision where the world turns black and white. It was only for approximately two or three seconds before it deactivated again.
But those two seconds of that ability active are more than enough to scan my surroundings without drawing so much attention from normal people.
With this achieved, the following days are intense days of physical and mental training.
At night I visit Touka and she takes me to abandoned areas with no nearby houses. There we train together controlling our kagune.
When I'm alone I try to understand the incomprehensible murmurs that constantly sound in my head, trying to distinguish words or patterns.
Days pass like this. And not just days but entire weeks.
During that time Rei and Saya had also already returned to their respective schools, resuming their normal routines.
"I must find that ghoul."
I tell myself as I jump between rooftops.
The ghoul I saw on the news some time ago.
I still remember that ghoul who hunts in the shopping district. Rei generally passes through that area walking to her school every morning.
It would be bad if she became this monster's target.
That's why when she leaves her house early in the morning to go to school, I follow her secretly. I jump and run agilely through dark alleys while dodging where I know there are security cameras so as not to be detected by any surveillance system.
I'm not as worried in the afternoon when she returns, since her father Tadashi picks her up in his car and brings her back. Speaking of Tadashi and Rei, Mrs. Kiriko has already returned abroad, which is to be expected knowing she works for Hellsing.
As for Saya, Mrs. Yuriko herself clears up a bit of her tight schedule to personally take her daughter and bring her back each day.
So my main concern is during the mornings when Rei is walking alone to school.
During the following days I find absolutely nothing. Which is normal considering ghouls don't hunt every day. A single human is enough food to sustain them for several days. If they hunted too frequently it would be too easy for CCG investigators to track them down and eliminate them.
Then on this day while using my Ghoul Vision without my eyes transforming or my kagune coming out of my back, I manage to see my target.
My face turns cold.
He's standing near Rei, scolding her.
He's already marked Rei as his next prey.
×××
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