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Ghoul King: Hail the King!

Discussion in 'Creative Writing' started by Trafford, Jan 3, 2023.

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  1. Threadmarks: Chapter 31 – Date
    Trafford

    Trafford I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Trafford
    During this one month of waiting, nothing serious happened. Lucien spent most of his time training in Rinkaku Martial Arts; sometimes, he would train in kenjutsu. As there was nobody to train with, be it kenjutsu or sparring with kagune, Lucien was forced to train always alone.

    His progress in Rinkaku Martial Arts was very good. While he wasn't any kind of prodigy in martial arts, his learning speed was very fast.

    Good progress couldn't be said about his kenjutsu as he was again stuck.

    Because nobody was around to spar with him, he was only doing shadow sparring, which wasn't so effective. Even during fights, when he would go hunt for some ghouls for refinement, he used only his kagune. To his hunts, Lucien even had battle attire; it was basically something like an oriental version of Archer Emiya.

    He wore a long red coat, ornamented from inside with Japanese symbols; underneath the coat was a thin layer of black armor created from a special flexible material so that it won't hinder him in fighting, and on his legs were high boots with protectors too. He looked like some modern samurai in this attire, but in combination with the Hollow mask he usually wore, some ghouls nicknamed him "Hollow".

    Hollow because he was like an incarnation of evil in that mask and because he killed everything alive he saw. The only exception was Ghoul Investigators, whose Lucien was avoiding because he didn't want to attract the attention of the Washuu Clan.

    They had decided not to attack him, so he won't be provoking them until everything was ready.

    Currently, Lucien was in his typical white noble attire sitting with Itori at Helter Skelter Bar. After this whole month, they were much closer to each other than before.

    Itori being a very friendly person; she even called him by his name without any prefix after the name, so he did the same thing.

    But today was no ordinary day as something miraculous happened. Lucien took all the courage he had and asked Itori for a date. He was not afraid of fighting to the death with an enemy stronger than him, but this almost killed him.

    While waiting for her answer, every second was like a year in the deepest layer of hell.

    "I would be glad, Lucien-san."

    Blushed a little, Itori, as she said these words, and Lucien sighed in relief. It was a huge relief for him. This was the first time he was asking a woman for a date in his whole life. He even carefully planned everything.

    Firstly they would go to see a movie and to the cinema.

    Itori would choose the movie. Secondly, it would be dinner but not something ordinary but rather the meat of a demon. Because Lucien was giving Itori blood essences, and some of them had inside a bit of his blood.

    Hence, her body was very slowly transforming.

    It wasn't some huge transformation, only that she would be able to digest certain creatures, and she won't lose sanity eating other ghouls and using kakuja.

    This all, of course, happened without her knowing. She only knew that these little blood-red pearls were very good for increasing her RC Level, so she was delighted to be given one. And Lucien always gave her one when he finished hunting for some ghouls in underground areas.

    "We could go. I have everything planned."

    Said Lucien with a smile as both of them exited Helter Skelter Bar and went to the cinema. As they were walking through the streets, he noticed something disturbing. He was being watched, and they were not someone unknown.

    Ghoul Investigators, Doves, have shown up.

    Wearing their characteristic gray long coats and holding cases with their quinques. Lucien counted several of them around, but he couldn't recognize any one of them. What was weird was that why would they come after him even if agents of V couldn't even scratch him.

    This probably wasn't ordered from Washuu Clan but rather some over-motivated director in the bureau.

    "Itori, you have noticed?"

    She nodded her head in approval because she, too, noticed doves around. But she didn't particularly care about them because they were just a bunch of unknown weaklings. Real powers of the Commission of Counter Ghoul won't show in the street tailing two ghouls.

    "Good, we would resume our date, and after the movie, we would go to some back alley to dispose of them if they are still following us."

    Said Lucien with a severe tone. Even if he killed these people, he knew that Washuu Clan wouldn't be mad at it. Truth be told, they would be mad at the person who ordered this and not at him.

    Lucien and Itori went to the cinema, leaving doves to watch them freely. Itori then took the initiative to hold hands with Lucien, seeing that he won't make the first move. Even though this was their first date to her as well, she was much older than him; maybe it came from their temperaments.

    Itori chose some romantic movie, and truth be told, Lucien liked it even though most of the men hated this kind of film. What Lucien somewhat enjoyed and Itori made angry were gazes from all women around.

    They saw Lucien as extremely handsome, and even those who were walking with their husbands or boyfriends couldn't help stealing a glance at him. Even several men shot glances at him.

    Itori was already unconsciously releasing a little bit of so-called killing intent to scare all women away from her "trophy man". The doves were still tirelessly following them as they walked beside the river and held hands.

    "Did you enjoy the film?"

    Asked Itori. She knew that most men didn't like these kinds of movies. Even though Itori was a sometimes cruel and sadistic person when she fought, she was still a woman, and she still carved for romance. Like any other maiden, she wanted her prince, and by chance, one suitable one was walking beside her and holding her hand.

    "Truthfully, yes. It wasn't so bad. Come, they are already following us for an entire day; I will do something about them."

    Lucien stated as he went to the nearest back alley.

    Itori disappeared and hid immediately after they went to the alley, and Lucien changed his clothes in lightning speed to that of his battle attire and wore his Hollow Mask.

    Because doves were much slower than them, Lucien was fully prepared to fight when they arrived.

    What surprised him was the fact that there were now five ghoul investigators, all with suitcases. Because the lowest required rank for an investigator to have quinque was Rank 2 Ghoul Investigator, it meant that all of them were at least Rank 2 Ghoul Investigators.

    When they saw Lucien in his clothes and mask, all of them took some kind of battle stance with their suitcase as they were prepared to unleash their quinque at any time. What rather stunned them was that Lucien suddenly bowed and greeted them in his natural way.

    "Welcome, gentlemen."

    ***

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  2. Threadmarks: Chapter 32 – Doves are meant to be killed…
    Trafford

    Trafford I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    This kind of thing was rather unusual. That ghoul was greeting them in such a manner. To Lucien, this was, however, his tradition and manners. After he performed his greeting, all five ghoul investigators were looking at him with wary eyes, but none of them was taking the first move.

    "Nobody? So forgive my rudeness."

    Lucien apologized for his act of bullying "children" and started.

    Firstly his kakugan turned on, and two bright red irises and dark black sclera were shining through the holes on the mask.

    Secondly, his kagune tails materialized and started attacking; this was just a probing attack because he wasn't sure if some really strong ghoul investigator wasn't present.

    This world was different from the main timeline so there existed the possibility that the Commission of Counter Ghoul kept some of the strong Ghoul Investigators in secret. As his attack was nearing them, almost all of them had already unleashed their quinques and started to defend somehow.

    Only one of them was very unlucky as he was sliced into two by one of Lucien's tails. When Lucien saw that, he knew that this was just a bunch of amateurs, probably some Rank 2 or Rank 1 Ghoul Investigators without real combat experience.

    Only two of them still kept their calm and composure. They were probably First-Class Ghoul Investigators, from what Lucien saw. They could dodge his attacks and block them with quinque, but both of them were injured.

    Lucien focused his attack only on them because others were weaker than ants.

    Both of them were middle-aged men and were holding some serial quinque. That quinque looked like a medieval sword, but not Japanese katana but a rather European one-handed sword. It was clearly bikaku quinque.

    Lucien shot another attack at one of the investigators with his tail. The other two low-ranked investigators hid behind their backs because they couldn't do anything besides run away or get killed.

    As kagune tail came to direct contact with the quinque, that quinque shattered into tiny pieces, and that ghoul investigator had a look of shock on his face. It was rather rare for quinque to be destroyed. More to say to be destroyed after two exchanges.

    As he was wondering and spacing out about what happened, another red tail already appeared before him, and his life was taken away. The second middle-aged Ghoul Investigator looked at this with a face full of horror, knowing that this day was his last one, but he still held his pride as Ghoul Investigator and gripped and quinque tightly and rushed at Lucien with madness clearly written on his face.

    Lucien just chuckled seeing this and jumped into the air, appearing right behind the Ghoul Investigator, and his kagune tails had already ripped his entire body to shreds. Only what remained here were two five quinques. Three killed ghoul investigators, and the other two were left here by those two low-ranked ghoul investigators who ran away.

    Lucien looked at them, running away in the distance, and let them go. Then he stored everything here at his Cross Crest. Quinques could be used as a material for some advanced weaponry that ghouls in the Blood Island could build.

    Itori then appeared from the shadows and looked at Lucien with the expression of fan girl. It was an expression of admiration for strong. She already knew that Lucien had something like dimensional storage, but she didn't ask much.

    She told him that she was a member of Clown for exchange. They exchanged information and secrets about each other to build trust.

    Of course, this was at the start.

    "You have finished it quickly, and I wanted to play too."

    Itori pouted a little as she pointed in the way where two Ghoul Investigators escaped. She was a little dissatisfied that she couldn't play too with little doves.

    Ghoul Investigators under Associate Special Class were only toys to strong ghouls. Maybe some strong First-Class investigators with strong quinque could fight those stronger times, but they only stall for time, that's all.

    "Yes, If I have prolonged, maybe even more and stronger doves would fly here."

    Stated Lucien this fact. Most ghouls in any country would try to finish the fight as soon as possible because long fights could lure many enemies over. Be it local forces of organs meant to deal with ghouls or some other ghouls.

    "Now we could continue our date. Where are we going to dine?"

    Asked Itori with a curious expression. When she heard for the first time that she would eat with him, she was rather confused because Lucien mentioned something that always remained in her head when she asked him where he was getting food from.

    To this, he only said: " Why would I eat those inferior species? We of the Aeon House eat something which could benefit us, not human meat."

    "We are going to 21st Ward, where is my estate, but don't worry; my mercenaries will pick us up."

    Lucien already sent a message to the Darkwalker to arrange a convoy to pick them up. He wanted to make a good impression, so he ordered him to bring additional bodyguards. Only for info now, Lucien had over thirty bodyguards guarding his place.

    It was because the estate was rather big, and he wanted to have covered the entire place with mercenaries and not with the use of cameras.

    Itori already knew that he hired an entire bunch of ghoul mercenaries to protect his estate from potential attacks from Washuu Clan and their dogs. It wasn't so weird, considering other things and mysteries about him.

    Soon convoy of three cars appeared before them. All of them were black Hummers. Two Hummers H3 and one Hummer limousine. Because the meeting place was one abandoned factory, there weren't many people around who would be watching.

    Several bodyguards had already greeted Lucien and Itori as both of them went inside the limousine and then to the estate.

    ***

    1st Ward, Commission of Counter Ghoul Main Office

    In the office of the chairman was a meeting of three people. One of them was naturally Washuu Tsuneyoshi, sitting behind his wooden table and looking at two other men. One of them was his son Washuu Yoshitoki, and the last one was his grandson Washuu Matsuri.

    Washuu Matsuri had short black hair and wore a pair of glasses. In his nature, he was more close to his grandfather than his father. Extremely logical and cold nature prioritized successful results over the potential cost.

    "Who gave that order?"

    When both Yoshitoki and Matsuri heard that, chill spun their backs, they clearly had ordered not to engage that person from Aeon House, but somebody had already ordered to investigate him. Chairman Oni Tsune was furious about this fact.

    He didn't tolerate any kind of disobedience.

    "We don't know. It's highly possible that First-Class Investigators Hasada's acted on their own. But we managed to gain description about battle attire and mask of that Aeon from those Rank 2 Investigators who escaped."

    Said Yoshitoki with a grim expression. Matsuri was listening to this and analyzing every detail. After short thought, Matsuri came up with some questions and classifications.

    They needed to rate Aeon and gave him some nickname to be "famous" among Investigators. When a ghoul has a good nickname, it's easier to memorize him.

    ***


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  3. Threadmarks: Chapter 33 – SS-Rate Hollow
    Trafford

    Trafford I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    "How should we rate him? And what about his nickname?"

    Matsuri came forward and asked this question. This situation was already out, so the entire event must be categorized. Hearing this, Oni Tsune looked at Matsuri with deep thought before speaking.

    "Rate him at least as SS. The nickname is already created. Hollow, that is what ghouls call him. Inform all First-Classes and above to be very careful and not to engage in close combat and just observe."

    Ordered Oni Tsune to Yoshitoki and Matsuri. Then he closed both of his eyes, and the meeting was ended; both Washuu's then lightly bowed and left the chairman's office.

    ***

    Lucien and Itori were currently sitting in the dining room, which was a rather huge room. As in most mansions for rich people and nobles, there was a too huge and long wooden table capable of easily accommodating over twenty people.

    But as Lucien knew that such a huge table was impractical, they soon moved to the living room to dine. There was a fireplace and piano music playing, so it was more romantic.

    "Do you believe that demons exist?"

    This question took Itori by surprise. Because demons were always things of fantasy and folklore, she didn't even give them serious thought. From a certain perspective, even ghouls could be classified as demons, especially in the eyes of ordinary humans in this world.

    "I don't know. Who knows what is out there."

    Lucien smiled at her answer and took a little book from his Cross Crest. It was the so-call Demon Guide. A little book was written by some members of the Vampire Clan several decades ago.

    He then presented it to the patriarch of the Aeon House at that time, and since then, this book has become a basic guide, containing most of the demons who appeared.

    Itori took the book and started flipping through the pages and looking at various illustrations inside the book. At first, she thought that this was some fantasy book, but soon she saw that mark on the last page of the book. It was the same as the golden coin which Lucien gifted her, the huge words "AEON".

    "They are real?"

    Asked Itori with a little-shaken voice. Information about demons being real was a rather huge shock to her. It would be a huge shock to every modern person who considered these creatures like nothing more than fairy-tail, but the reality could sometimes be crueler than anything else.

    "Yes, they are. They are living in my homeland, The Blood Island, and we are fighting them for centuries. If not for this, do you think that Washuu's could be so brazen in everything they are doing?"

    Explained about a situation with demons. It was true that if the threat of demons and that spatial rift didn't exist, the Washuu Clan would be already massacred a long time ago for their treason against the race.

    "Flesh of demons is more useful than those of humans. If the ghoul practices cannibalism on other ghouls, his RC Level would increase very quickly. But when you eat human flesh, you will barely gain any increase in your RC Level. But by eating the flesh of demons, you will increase your RC Level more quickly. This is because demons are innately stronger than humans and have more powerful bodies."

    Itori blinked her eyes a few times before thing about everything Lucien had said to her. All new information was carefully premeditated. She knew that he was placing enormous trust in her by telling her all these things.

    "Thank you, Lucien."

    Lucien smiled lightly as he understood the meaning of her words.

    ***

    Lucien sat together with Itori on the sofa in the living room. They watched the fire burning in the fireplace as she gently leaned over his arm. In the background, music was playing; it was Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata. A pretty romantic atmosphere filled the room, and it was very enjoyable for both of them.

    Everything was perfect until Darkwalker walked into the room and whispered something to Lucien's ear. Itori woke up to this because he created a rather big noise as he was opening and closing the door.

    "What it is?"

    She wondered what had happened because for the subordinate to interrupt such an important event as a date was simply unforgivable for Lucien. But when she saw that he wasn't angry or something, she found out that it must be something serious.

    "You will see, in TV News."

    Said Lucien and turned on the TV. On the news channel, there was already a program running. With flashy letters written: BREAKING NEWS! Moderator was a slightly younger woman, around her thirties, with a pretty face and long black hair.

    "We are bringing you the breaking news. Today in the afternoon, there was a fight between CCG and one ghoul in 14th Ward, Nakano Ward. CCG suffered heavy losses as two First-Class Ghoul Investigators were killed in action, and one Rank 1 Ghoul Investigator was also killed. Chairman of the CCG, Washuu Tsuneyoshi, personally gave order and rating to the ghoul, who killed investigators since it was a new ghoul who had just recently come to Tokyo, to the results of the investigations. Ghoul, nicknamed 'Hollow' was rated as extremely dangerous and deathly with a Rating of SS. He wears a white-red skeletal mask over his face and is clothed like a samurai with the exception of the long red coat he always wears."

    ***


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  4. Threadmarks: Chapter 34 – Month
    Trafford

    Trafford I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Trafford
    When Lucien heard that, he was somewhat surprised at such a fast response from the Washuu Clan. He thought they would actually try to hide that matter, but surprisingly they announced it to the news.

    "You see? I am already famous!"

    Laughed Lucien at this breaking news. He was in a good mood and that he rated him so high was very good for his ego. His nickname was also good; he didn't want to have some creepy or weird moniker. His nickname 'Hollow' was dominating, scary, and powerful sounding.

    Iori was too happy for him and did something that Lucien didn't wait for. She gently kissed his lips which completely took him by surprise. This was his first kiss, it lasted for a short time, but a memory of this moment would be eternal.

    Lucien was still in a state of shock, and Itori was looking at the fireplace with slightly red cheeks. None of them was talking, and silence overtook the room.

    "Congratulations on being famous, Hollow."

    She actually congratulated him, and then she closed her eyes and leaned over his arm, probably trying to sleep. Lucien didn't know what to do, so he too closed his eyes and tried to sleep. Because everything was new to him, he never had been in or relationship; even this kiss was the first in both of his lives.

    After some time, both of them actually fell asleep and spent the entire night together, sleeping on the sofa while holding hands.

    ***

    The following day when Lucien woke up, he thought Itori would have left, but to his surprise, she was right beside him. As he didn't want to wake her up but wanted to leave, he was caught in a dilemma on what to do now. Finally, he just decided to wait for several minutes for her to wake up. Fortunately, this plan worked, and after ten minutes or so, Itori woke up.

    "Good morning, Itori."

    Greeted Lucien at the same time as she woke up. She looked at him, embarrassed a little that she stayed at his home overnight, even though nothing had happened between them. She just kissed him, and that was all.

    "Good morning, Lucien."

    She said with a low voice. It was apparent that she was a little shy about this. Similar to Lucien, she was too new to things like romantic relationships or dates, but in her nature, she was much bolder than Lucien. This showed up to its maximum when she kissed him yesterday on her own initiative.

    "Came coffee would be ready."

    Both of them stood up and went to the garden. In the garden was a smaller arbor, where Lucien always drank morning coffee as he watched all that beauty in the garden. Both of them drank coffee and talked about some things.

    Then Lucien ordered some of his bodyguards to drive Itori to Helter Skelter Bar.

    When she was already ready to leave, she was grabbed by Lucien from behind, and this time it was he who took the initiative to kiss her lips. At first, she was taken by surprise, but she returned his kiss with even more passion as their tongues met. Compared to yesterday, today's it was more passionate.

    After one minute or more, they parted.

    "I will be waiting for you at the bar."

    Said Itori as she literary ran away from the place.

    ***

    A month has already passed, and Eto should be already at the 24th Ward. Now Lucien needed to go to the 20th Ward and then through Route V14 to arrive at the 24th Ward. Route V14 is an underground passage leading to the 24th Ward, which is located below the 20th Ward.

    Actually, 24th Ward encompassed the deepest parts of the large labyrinth that the ghouls dug in the underground of Tokyo in the past.

    The 24th Ward could be described only as a huge underground place. It could easily house thousands of people, but now only ruins remained there.

    When Lucien returned to his estate, he quickly found Darkwalker, who was now lecturing new mercenaries, and almost the entire mercenary band was here as he was obsessed with tight security.

    All of them were loyal to the Aeon House because it could be said that the Aeon House helped this concrete mercenary band a lot during their early stages.

    When all the people there saw Lucien, they immediately saluted him.

    "Welcome, Lord Aeon!"

    Hearing mass-salute from more than ten people sounded very dominating and gave a feeling of power. After saluting to him, all of them returned to training and practice.

    "Darkwalker, I am leaving for the 24th Ward. Be aware of CCG or V. Though I don't think that somebody would actually come here but still better be safe than sorry. Especially be aware of those little messy doves. Yesterday I killed some of them so they would be on high alert. It could be some trouble if they found out that this mansion is full of A-Rated and some S-Rated ghouls."

    After that, Lucien went to the 20th Ward to have his long-awaited meeting with Eto. If they could forge some kind of cooperation. In that case, he could use Aogiri Tree as bait for the Washuu Clan, and Aogiri could become his shield and sword to kill his targets.

    ***


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  5. Threadmarks: Chapter 35 – His Majesty, The King
    Trafford

    Trafford I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Deep inside 24th Ward

    Lucien finally arrived at the 24th Ward and was looking at the ruins of the Ward. Destroyed buildings everywhere and remains of behemoth-sized kakuja of Underground King the Naagaraji.

    This person was actually a fascinating one. He was a member of the Washuu Clan, but he bore strong hatred for his own family and turned against them.

    In some parts of his life, he even initiated an uprising against humanity. Most of these are just legends because this happened around a hundred years ago, but the fact remains that he was forced to flee to the underground, where he waited till ghouls could rise again and battle humanity.

    Underground King wasn't a pure-blood ghoul but rather a One-eyed Ghoul who had his kakugan in his right eye.

    As Lucien was admiring the beauty of forgotten times, he noticed the person standing not far from him. It was a man clothed in typical Aogiri red robes and wore a white mask featuring huge black lips, a huge mouth with equally massive teeth, and tiny slits for nostrils; his long black hair was tied up in a ponytail.

    Noro, the second direct subordinate of the One-Eyed King.

    Lucien looked at him, and Noro then turned around and walked somewhere. Lucien knew that this meant he should follow him. Noro only communicated through his actions, not words. They went through the long tunnel on whose end was a simple iron door.

    Lucien opened the door and entered inside.

    There was another small corridor and a wooden door on its end. Lucien entered the room and saw a very beautiful and luxuriously decorated chamber. Many books were on bookshelves, and there was one huge leather sofa in the room. Opposite the sofa were three leather armchairs with golden ornaments stationed around the oval wooden table.

    Everything here looked so beautiful and old. Just as Lucien was looking at the furniture, he heard a gentle voice behind his back.

    "Hi, there."

    He turned around to see a beautiful young woman with a child-like appearance. She had long green hair, which was somewhat messy and uncombed; however, she radiated extraordinary charm.

    "Hi, Lucien Etras di Aeon. It is a pleasure to meet you, beautiful lady."

    Bowed Lucien as he introduced himself. Eto noted that he had very good manners and his name sounded very familiar.

    Not from these times, but she heard it from Arima Kishou; he once mentioned that there exist ghouls with the surname Aeon, who is extremely powerful.

    "Yoshimura Eto."

    What surprised Lucien was that she wasn't wearing bandages to cover her identity or anything like that. This Lucien finds rather confusing, but this was probably just a way of showing sincerity during this meeting.

    Eto was jumping around and examining Lucien from all sides, like scientists researching about the meteorite.

    "We still need to wait for someone."

    Eto said as she sat at one of the armchairs around the table. Lucien then sat down too, cause he didn't want to stand the whole time. When they were both sitting, Eto was intensively staring at Lucien without any pause for several minutes, thus creating a somewhat awkward atmosphere.

    "Are you curious about something?"

    Asked Lucien, when he already couldn't bear that staring.

    "Hmmm, you look rather handsome."

    She said out of nowhere. Lucien was caught up by surprise, but he still kept his composure. He then decided to say something to her too.

    "That time, so that no one (not even Father) would notice, I secretly rewrote the summary. What cannot change can only be broken. This is so to me, who left behind everything necessary inside the womb."

    Quoted Lucien one line from her book.

    Yoshimura Eto, known in human society as Takatsuki Sen, is a famous Japanese novelist. She wrote many novels and was a very famous author, all of her works have deep meanings, and many of them are more philosophical works.

    "Oya, you have read my books?"

    Exclaimed Eto with surprise. Even though she was rather a famous author, she was famous mainly in Japan.

    Lucien was clearly a foreigner, so she didn't expect from him that he had read her books.

    This concrete quote came from her debut work "Dear Kafka".

    It launched her career as Takatsuki Sen with 500,000 copies sold.

    The title of this book is a reference to author Franz Kafka, who was a German-speaking Bohemian Jewish novelist and short story writer. His works, which fuse elements of realism and fantasy, typically feature isolated protagonists faced with bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible social-bureaucratic powers and have been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, guilt, and absurdity. His most famous works include "The Metamorphosis", "The Trial" and "The Castle".

    "Yes, all of your work under your name Takatsuki Sen. I liked them very much. Not many novelists are writing such interesting themes."

    Lucien quite liked her novels. She chose bizarre settings for her work, and many of them varied based on her experience and life; this is one of the reasons why Lucien liked her novels.

    "That's good to hear. Not many of our kind like literature and especially that with deeper meaning."

    Stated Eto. It was rather true that most ghouls are very only obsessed with hunting for prey or escaping from CCG. Very few of them were interested in the noble art of literature.

    The next hour they spent talking about various things like literature, books, and even fighting. Even though Eto was rated as S-Rate ghoul in her base form and SSS-Rate in her form as Owl she was just using brute force.

    So Lucien explained her usage of some techniques.

    Eto quickly became interested cause she heard that he provided something similar to Tatara, whose combat prowess rose to a higher level after one month of training.

    Amidst their talking long-awaited third person finally arrived. Lucien saw a familiar man with snow-white hair and gray eyes.

    Wearing a pair of thin-framed glasses and a pure white coat. Arima Kishou, White Reaper, Undefeated Ghoul Investigator, and the real One-Eyed King.

    "I apologize for being late."

    Siad Arima with composed posture and indifferent expression. He was always a very calm person who rarely showed anything other.

    "It's an honor to meet you, White Reaper, One-Eyed King Arima Kishou."

    Bowed Lucien. He knew that Arima was the One-Eyed King from his previous life. Arima wasn't caught by surprise and still had his calm and composed expression. In contrast, Eto had a face full of shock; she was wondering how he could know that Arima Kishou was, in reality, a One-Eyed King.

    "It could be said the same about you, Lucien Etras di Aeon, of the Aeon House of Ghouls."

    Said Arima in his typical stoic voice as he bowed to greet Lucien in a similar matter. Arima as a member of the Arima Clan, one of the branches of the Washuu Clan, and himself being the son of Washuu Tsuneyoshi, knew many confidential pieces of information.

    For example existence of Aeon House, mortal enemies of the Washuu Clan, and he knew even that they couldn't leave that Island of theirs.

    Over and above this, he was also rather a high-ranking member of Vasuki and the most powerful person of the Commission of Counter Ghoul. He knew that cooperation with someone from Aeon House could be very beneficial to them.

    At least he could keep Washuu Clan and Vasuki in check when Aogiri would be bothering with CCG.

    ***


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  6. Threadmarks: Chapter 36 – Cooperation
    Trafford

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    "Sooo, who would like to start?"

    Questioned Lucien with a little mischievous voice; he knew that both Eto and Arima had any questions regarding all of this. Especially Eto, because she was the only leader of Aogiri Tree and didn't have access to confidential pieces of information like Arima Kishou.

    "What has forced the Aeon House to send only heir to deal with Washuu Clan?"

    One must say that Arima was a really straightforward person.

    "Several years ago, Washuu Clan, several agents of Vasuki, sneak into our Island. Unfortunately for them, soon they were found by some of the guards of our House, and they fought a battle to the death. When they almost lost, they exploded a bomb that destroyed something precious. Thenceforth our House has been thinking about the method of how to deal with them, and in the end, they sent me here because other stronger members of House and race can't leave the island due to special reasons.

    Even Eto now listened attentively to Lucien's talk. It appeared that Washuu Clan had made powerful enemies. However, the enemy couldn't do anything to them because of some unmentioned reasons.

    "What kind of cooperation could Aeon House provide?"

    Asked Arima with a straight face. He was rather curious about what he would heir as the Aeon House proposes. Lucien smiled at this as the long-awaited question.

    "Only a simple thing. I could provide you with this."

    Lucien answered to him as he took out a small red ball.

    It was blood essence; it was much smaller compared to those Lucien ate or those which he gave to Itori or Uta. It was because this one was refined from only one B-Rated ghoul, so its effect is much weaker.

    However, it is still precious in the eyes of ordinary ghouls because it could increase their RC Level without the need to cannibalize.

    "You sure know how to negotiate."

    Sighed Arima when he saw this. He was aware of blood essences and their effects. In truth, Washuu Clan produced them too, but it was top-secret, and only a small amount of them were released to some of the outstanding members of the main clan.

    Arima only knew that Washuu Clan had blood essences and some methods of how to make them, but sadly he didn't have any means to obtain even them. Washuu Clan guarded them extremely heavily, constantly being under the watch of several elders of the clan.

    Eto blinked her eyes, seemingly not understanding what those little beads represented. But seeing that even Arima was heavily tempted to obtain them, she knew that they must be very valuable.

    "Hey, hey, what is that thing?"

    Asked Eto both Lucien and Arima. This time it was Arima who took charge of explaining things, to which Lucien was somewhat grateful. He wasn't very interested in explaining every one thing to her cause she lacked common knowledge in certain areas.

    "That thing you called it is called blood essence. It's capable of improving the RC Level of ghoul, the material required to refine that is the body of other ghouls. Washuu Clan has them too, but not in large numbers."

    Lucien smiled at this explanation, not saying anything.

    "So what do you want in exchange for Blood-Essences?"

    Asked Arima in a calm voice. He knew that these little beads were crucial for the smooth progress of their plan because they could nurture some ghouls into stronger existences and maybe overwhelm CCG and become rivals for Vasuki.

    "This will be long-term cooperation. You will provide me only with two things. One is the bodies of ghouls and ghoul investigators. The second thing is that I want all the quinques that you manage to obtain. I will provide you with several blood essences, capable of increasing RC Level even by a hundred if I have enough materials."

    Presented Lucien his terms. He only hoped that Arima would know nothing about the extraction process of Blood-Essences and the creation of the Blood-Essence Extractor.

    Assume he could obtain a massive amount of quinques and bodies of ghouls. In that case, he could refine many blood essences and increase his own RC Level to achieve 5th-Star as soon as possible.

    Arima and Eto were both discussing this proposal by themselves. It was true that quinques were of no use to a ghoul who had kagune, and bodies of dead ghouls were useless because most ghouls who cannibalized would go insane.

    Only a very few of them could keep their mind clean, so only minimum bodies of the ghoul are required for certain individuals in Aogiri Tree.

    After ten minutes, Eto and Arima came to a conclusion and agreed with Lucien's proposal. But Eto added one more thing because she had the feeling that Lucien was just using them for his own good.

    This wasn't false because he was genuinely using them.

    He only planned to hand them a minority of the blood essences he extracted and keep the rest of them for himself, Itori, Uta, and some of his minions. He thought if he could groom all those twenty or thirty minions to the higher star of the RC Star Evolution Method.

    "I request you to help us in fights when the situation turns dire."

    Even though he wasn't surprised by this request, he knew that it wasn't so bad to fight occasionally.

    He knew that he couldn't be the promised one, but he could still help in some way; his enemies were hiding in the dark and not dancing in the light.

    "Okay, but only when the situation gets very serious. Otherwise, I am the only bystander. My priority is to fight with Washuu Clan and not their puppets."

    ...


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  7. Threadmarks: Chapter 37 – Dark September
    Trafford

    Trafford I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    "Ts. But that's enough for us now. Even if you help only occasionally, it would be a great deal because of your strength."

    Said Eto with a somewhat disappointed voice. She wanted Lucien to help Aogiri more actively, and not only when the situation was dire, but it was still better than nothing at all.

    "Now, when will the first batch of materials arrive, and where could I pick them up?"

    He was clear that they won't be delivering the bodies of ghouls to the house like some kind of delivery service. In the case of quinques, it could still be done because they could have retreated to their form of suitcases or another form that is easier to transport around.

    "Bodies and quinques would be ready on the first day of each month, here at the 24th Ward."

    This time it was Arima speaking. Lucien nodded his head, and then they talked about the detail of cooperation between them. This talk took more than several hours to finish; most of the talk was about various strategies against the Commission of Counter Ghoul.

    Some of them again were in the case when Vasuki would join this "war" to hunt for members of Aogiri. And the last discussion was about the method of how to bring more ghouls to the organization.

    Eto wanted to spread the name of the One-Eyed King and him as the ghoul race's liberator. But this was nearly impossible in the current state because Arima was the current One-Eyed King, and probably no ghoul would follow the most notorious and strongest ghoul investigator as their king.

    Lucien knew that soon the perfect candidate would appear, and Eto's and Arima's would change again to another course.

    Before he left, he gave Eto that blood essence to eat. It was Blood-Essence extracted from ordinary ghouls, so it wasn't very effective. However, like it was said before, this thing was a precious treasure to ordinary ghouls who couldn't find any way to increase their RC Level.

    ***

    Lucien picked up the first batch of quinques and bodies of ghouls for this month, which was already, we could say stored, in the 24th Ward. To be truthful, the 24th Ward is something like a junkyard for ghouls.

    They dumped here bodies of other ghouls, remains of killed people, or quinques. No ghoul investigator was brave enough to come, so it was a relatively safe place.

    Lucien currently had 37 B-Rated quinques and 12 A-Rated quinques. Somewhere from killed ghoul investigators, and some were stolen by the collaborator of Aogiri Tree inside of CCG. These things were little darlings in Lucien's eyes because they could be used in a variety of things.

    The bodies of dead ghouls were astonishing. Exactly a hundred and fifty, but most of them were only B-Rated ghouls, but it was still a nice number. Lucien decided to refine them by ten to achieve a somewhat high-graded Blood-Essence. He would give Aogiri Tree three or four of them and keep the rest for himself.

    He returned to his estate. He wasn't in a hurry to refine everything he gained today because he was still thinking about one thing.

    Meeting with Arima.

    That person looked so calm and, in a certain way, harmless. Like an ordinary person, his instincts told him that he was extremely dangerous the entire time.

    From Eto, he had another impression. A hot, mischievous, and hidden sadist and dangerous too. Lucien laid on his bed and closed his eyes slowly. He was thinking about the future because soon, the game would start, and the war would break out.

    He was wondering what Oni Tsune would do and how he would react to the entire situation.

    Washuu Clan was suspiciously silent and wasn't doing anything. They were even ignoring him after that incident with those ghoul investigators.

    He spent some time extracting the Blood-Essence from the delivered ghoul corpses.

    Four weaker ones with only one body of A-Rated ghoul inside were given to Aogiri Tree, and the rest Lucien ate by himself.

    He increased his RC Level to almost 36,000.

    Now it was already September, and the weather was a little colder. Lucien would spend most of his free time with Itori. Sadly he didn't have much free time because he kept training like a madman to increase his personal strength.

    Once he even sparred with Arima, but the result wasn't very good for Lucien. They sparred using the only sword, and Lucien used kagune, but he was still defeated. However, it must be said that he could put up a somewhat better fight.

    Other than this, he went on some dates with Itori, and he even kissed her more often. They had become something called a couple, probably. Lucien gave her two Blood-Essences that he extracted from ghouls he personally hunted so that they won't be some weaklings of B-Rate or A-Rate, but rather two ghouls of S-Rated ones.

    He explained to her about blood essences stuff and everything, and she was very happy that he cared about her. From time to time, he bought her some jewelry or something in that spirit. Women especially loved nice pieces of jewelry.

    ***

    Lucien and Itori were walking through some parks as they held hands. Lucien wore a black suit with a trenchcoat instead of his "noble attire" and had a light brown coat. Itori, on the other hand, was clothed as always and had just a black trenchcoat on her.

    After some time of walking, they both sat on the nearest bench; they looked around themselves.

    Lucien firstly scanned their surroundings to find if are there any people. Fortunately not, so he kissed Itori on her lips. He would never do something like this when people were near, so every time, he made sure they were in places where aren't people if they were intimate.

    Itori was surprised at first, but then she noticed that nobody was there. Hence, she passionately returned the kiss with her tongue. After a short time, they separated and looked at each other.

    "I may be in love with you, Itori."

    Said Lucien with a serious voice.

    ...


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  8. Threadmarks: Chapter 38 – Confession
    Trafford

    Trafford I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Lucien didn't know if he could call his feelings for her love. Because love was a very relative concept, he only knew that he wanted to be with her most of his time, and he couldn't stop thinking about her.

    Itori was caught by surprise. She knew that understanding their mutual feelings and saying something out loud were two different things.

    She knew that Lucien had feelings for her, and truthfully, she too, had feelings for him.

    Only for her, it was harder to confess herself.

    Itori was thinking about what to do now. She took all her courage and said in a very low and shy voice.

    "I love you too."

    She was saying it in a lower and lower tone. But Lucien still managed to hear that and hugged her tightly. He knew that for her to say something like this was very difficult because her entire life was filled with the constant fight for survival and blood.

    Though inside, she wanted to love and be loved.

    "Came. I want to talk to you."

    Said Itori decidedly; as she pulled his hand, they went to the Helter Skelter Bar. They arrived at the Helter Skelter Bar rather quickly, and Itori locked the entire place down as they both sat down and started talking.

    Lucien knew that Itori had decided to talk about herself. In the past month, she rarely talked about her past or present time.

    Lucien was who talked about himself. This gave Itori a feeling of his trust, and now when he said those words of fate, she decided to trust him in return.

    This made him feel warm inside his heart.

    That feeling was very addictive.

    "So, where should I start? Do you want to hear about my past or about the present?"

    She herself didn't know from which point to start. Her past wasn't exactly a nice one, and not talking about childhood which was basically just a survival game. She wanted Lucien to decide; this was another thing that she wanted.

    Someone on whom can she count.

    "You could start from your past probably, but you don't have to force yourself."

    Said Lucien with a gentle smile. He didn't want to force her to say anything. He knew that most of the things about her he already knew. These were pieces of information he mainly received from Uta.

    But still, it was entirely different to hear it from her.

    "Okay. Hmm, Where should I start? I was born in the 4th Ward, and practically I have lived there for my entire life until I opened the Helter Skelter Bar here at the 14th Ward. When I was still at the 4th Ward, most of my time was filled with fights with ghoul investigators or, rarely, other ghouls. But the number of ghoul investigators was very high, but all first four wards were entirely filled with doves. I joined their gang of ghouls, which Uta led, and later when Ren-chan arrived, we three fought doves together. I was responsibly luring them into traps."

    These were pieces of information he knew long ago. Now there would probably be those how she joined Clowns and so on.

    "When came to the 14th Ward, the atmosphere here is totally different. There aren't as many ghoul investigators as in the first four Wards, so it is relatively safer here. And then, shortly after my arrival here, I joined a ghoul organization called Clowns."

    Then she stopped here for some time, only to observe Lucien's reaction to this. He was still calm and didn't show any indications of surprise or something similar.

    Seeing this, Itori was surprised and unsurprised at the same time. Members of Clowns were best at keeping their identity top secret, and this group was extremely mysterious.

    The Commission of Counter Ghoul stated that a group of ghouls called Clowns have an unknown purpose and goal.

    Their real purpose is to create chaos and spread destruction. They all wore clown-themed masks and were rather crazy; it was interesting that almost all, if not all, strong ghouls, were totally crazy, wicked, and mad.

    Especially those at SS-Rate or SSS-Rate.

    "Have the last laugh, isn't it?"

    Yes, this was the goal of the Clowns because it's the Clown who is always laughing as the last. Lucien knew it and understood that the Clowns were always winners because their goal was to spread chaos and destroy everything around them.

    "No point in living if things aren't interesting. The ones who get the last laugh are us, the Clowns."

    Said Itori with a happy voice. Lucien couldn't help and nod. He knew that this quote was pure truth. What was the point of living if things weren't interesting? Life would be boring and seem like an eternity.

    "Clowns aren't really some group with a noble goal. We only want to see the destruction that would soon start. Bearing witness to the moment of their destruction... Wouldn't that be just divine? We'll watch the whole thing from the best seats in the house. Watch as the curtain falls. Was there ever a time in the past when Ghoul-kind was backed so far into a corner? I wonder..."

    Lucien was thinking about her word. These words meant that Clowns were already making a move. Actually, Red October is coming, and soon the curtain will fall, and the game will start. Ghoul-kind would be cornered even more, and the war would erupt.

    "Soon, the red October would arrive, and chaos would start. Itori, I hope that you will stand with me when the time comes, but don't worry, I don't care about Clowns or ghouls. The only thing I want is to see Washuu Clan in ruins."

    Itori nodded her head and then came to Lucien and kissed him on her lips.

    Said Lucien with a resolute voice. He only wanted this and really didn't care about some Clowns. Conversely, they would be beneficial to him because they are best at wreaking havoc. They always associated themselves with all sides and created only rivers of blood.

    "Yes, we would stand together."

    "Itori, when will Clowns make their move?"

    Asked Lucien. He knew that Souta, or rather Washuu Kichimura, was scheming his plan already, and when will Red October arrive, it would start.

    "Souta would start it soon."

    Itori was now ready to tell him most of the secrets of Clowns. She knew that even if they found out about it, they couldn't do anything because he would surely protect her. She knew that Lucien was strong. Very strong.

    "That's good because it is starting to be boring here."

    Lucien said with a mischievous smile. It was the truth that he was bored already here. Not much was happening, and he couldn't even fight as much as he wanted. He could only train and evolve his RC Level to higher levels.

    Lucien looked at Itori and took something from his Cross Crest.

    It was a simplified version of Rinkaku Martial Arts, something similar was given to Tatara only with bikaku, namely Bikaku Martial Arts.

    ...


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  9. Threadmarks: Chapter 39 – Gift
    Trafford

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    "This is a simplified version of Rinkaku Martial Arts which is an ancestral martial art in my family. If you ever decide to be part of my family, you would be able to train the complete version of this martial art because you can't use this martial art in your current state. Even though this is only a simplified version, it could help you greatly to increase your strength."

    Itori blushed at his word about becoming part of his family because she could imagine what he was talking about. But then she decided to divide his attention by asking him a question, why she can't practice the Rinkaku Martial Arts.

    "Why did you say I can't use Rinkaku Martial Arts?"

    "Rinkaku Martial Arts requires two things to practice to its maximum effect, but we will talk about them later. For now, it would suffice for you to train in this simplified version of Rinkaku Martial Arts."

    But the moment he started talking, he decided to talk about this later. He would give her the RC Star Evolution Method at a later date; it is for Ghoul of not noble blood to use RC Star Evolution Method and force evolution some external help was needed.

    Then they talked about some mischievous things and people. Lucien was talking about some things from his childhood and training in his family. He even talked about some of his abilities as his detachable kagune, which was able to shapeshift into weapons or some objects, and showed her Telekinesis.

    Itori, too, talked about her abilities as her kakuja, which was body armor with several tails. It looked pretty strong.

    ***

    After spending an entire evening with Itori in Helter Skelter Bar, Lucien returned home in the deep night. He only took a quick shower and then went to sleep.

    The next day when he woke up, he found out that he got a message from his parents on Blood Island.

    The message was talking about how he would get a batch of Blood-Essences extracted from Greater Demons. It could directly increase his RC Level to help him reach the 5th-Star and become a superior SS-Rated Ghoul in no time.

    It would be delivered after several days, and Lucien would need to go to take over those blood essences at the airport personally. After reading the entire message, Lucien was almost in ecstasy because of Blood-Essences he would receive.

    Now his biggest problem was that he couldn't get enough Blood-Essences to increase his RC Level. Sadly Blood-Essences extracted from demons are less effective than those refined from ghouls because they don't contain Red Children Cells.

    Apparently, the number of Greater Demons was increasing all the time, and Aeon House and Tepes House were fully occupied with killing all of them. But this had even some good side as nowadays Aeon House had too many materials to extract Blood-Essence.

    This resulted in many ghouls reaching 4th-Star and even 5th-Star, and countless of them had unlocked the Kakuja States of V2 and higher. This was the beauty of the RC Star Evolution Method, which Lucien predicted had even the ability to awaken Psionic Abilities.

    While his own Telekinesis was a "Gift", he somewhat senses that he could awake another Esper Ability when he reached 6th-Star. His Grandfather, who reached the 6th-Star, told him something similar before he left the Island.

    Thus Lucien would also get his share as heir. And that share would be big.

    After reading the entire message, Lucien went to train in his kenjutsu Telekinesisesis.

    Last few days, he spent some time training his ability because he noticed he was neglecting the training Telekinesisesis. He decided to spend more time training his mental prowess, so he could lift up at least ten tonnes by the end of the week.

    After several days, the day when the blood essences would arrive finally arrived. Lucien explained to the Darkwalker that everything must be perfect. If by any chance they would encounter some ambush by Washuu Clan and V, they must be prepared for the bloody fight.

    Her kakuja abilities, which were in the form of body armor with several tails, looked pretty strong.

    Lucien had a faint feeling that something bad would happen, so he arranged for most of the mercenaries to go with him as escorts. All of them were at A-Rate, and some of them would be at S-Rate.

    Darkwalker's group has to receive some of the Blood-Essences. Thanks to this, their strength has increased these months. Still, even a 4th-Star Ghoul who has undergone the process of RC Star Fusion could handle several S-Rated Ghouls who didn't at the same time.

    When the sun set down, several Hummers and one armored vehicle had left the estate in the 21st Ward. This armored vehicle was the same as the military in various countries used. Shortly, Lucien bought it in the black market from some corrupted Japanese Self-Defense Forces general, or JSDF. It was the newest version of this vehicle, so Lucien was pretty satisfied.

    After an hour or so, they finally arrived at the airport. Even though there was an evening, the roads were full of cars, and the traffic was terrible. When they arrived at the airport, they immediately arrived at the hangar where the particular plane of the Aeon House was staying, and around twenty mercenaries started to secure the area.

    When the area was secured, Lucien stepped out of the car and went to check the blood essences. They were in the huge wooden cart, which looked rather ordinary. Inside the cart were several smaller treasure chests, each filled with blood essences.

    Lucien controlled the cart and treasure chests and then gave the order to load them into the armored vehicle.

    Suddenly as Lucien was standing in the hangar and thinking about something, he heard not-good sounds. It was the sound of the congealment of kagune.

    He knew that Washuu Clan and Vasuki must have arrived, and the situation had turned dire.

    Lucien exited the hangar and saw there several tens of agents of V, clothed in their classical long black leather coats with hats on their heads. Each of them was holding one katana.

    Leaden them was a rather old man with a long beard. In contrast with agents, he was wearing dark-green kimono and wooden sandals. Classical Japanese attire.

    Lucien didn't recognize that old man, but seeing that on his kimono were symbols of the Washuu Clan, he knew that he must be one of the clan's elders.

    Lucien only had twenty-one mercenaries here but

    Washuu Clan had brought more than fifty agents of Vasuki and one Elder at the top of it. The problem was that almost all of the agent was at strength of A-Rated. Lucien wasn't sure how strong he could be, Elder of Washuu Clan, but he was already an extremely strong S-Rate.

    He could kill most of these agents in several minutes.

    But the real problem was Elder; even though Lucien was a 4th-Star Noble Ghoul, he could still sense a high amount of danger from this Elder of the Washuu Clan.

    He congealed kagune katana in mere seconds and several kagune daggers that were hidden behind him. His kakugan was already on, and he was looking at the Elder of the Washuu Clan; both of them were in a so-called gazing war.

    Nobody talked, and nobody made a sound. Only Lucien and that Elder were looking at each other. Then the Elder of Washuu Clan stopped gazing at Lucien.

    "Washuu Tsunemoro name mine is. Now let's fight."

    Said the Elder of the Washuu Clan, Washuu Tsunemoro, as he drew out his katana and rushed at Lucien. He was very fast, but Lucien didn't have any problem seeing him.

    He met his attack head-on and successfully blocked it, while at the same time, he estimated that his strength almost met the standards of SS-Rate.

    As they were clashing, Lucien released ten kagune daggers to attack all agents of Vasuki. Ten daggers shot with the speed of thunder at the agents of Vasuki, who were only now taking out their katanas. Several of them were torn to death, but only five or six.

    These were the weakest in this group of agents.

    ...


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  10. Threadmarks: Chapter 40 – Honor
    Trafford

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    Trafford
    Both Lucien and Washuu Tsunemoro jumped away from each other after the initial clash. The Elder of the Washuu Clan realized that in terms of physical strength, he is far weaker than Lucien, but his kenjutsu is more refined and experienced than Lucien's.

    This gave him a slight advantage during this fight.

    After the first wave of attacks, mercenaries attacked still shocked agents of V, which gave them some moment of surprise. But when he realized that Lucien was manipulating several kagune daggers to attack members of Vasuki. Even though they were nothing more than chess pieces, they still held their value.

    Lucien and Elder Washuu Tsunemoro exchanged several strikes, and nobody had an advantage. Lucien had better physical strength, and Washuu Tsunemoro had better kenjutsu.

    "Your kenjutsu is very exceptional, Elder Tsunemoro; in this regard, I must admit my defeat. It's my honor to exchange pointers with you."

    He complimented the kenjutsu of Elder Tsunemoro and bowed lightly. It was the truth that Elder's kenjutsu was more refined and sharper than his own.

    "Same could be said about your physical strength and speed. I am already old, and I don't have that in me already."

    Elder Tsunemoro returned the compliment to Lucien.

    It was a little weird to see two people who were trying to kill each other being so polite to each other.

    Lucien and Washuu Tsunemoro understood regarded it as basic noble manners.

    Both of them took battle stances as they gripped their respective katanas strongly. Iaido is a Japanese martial art that emphasizes being aware and capable of quickly drawing the sword and responding to a sudden attack.

    They performed perfect iaido, and their swords clashed, sparks were in the air, and both of them were gazing at each other. Their duel was at a blank point.

    The same cannot be said about agents of V that were fighting against mercenaries. Lucien was even supporting them by the usage of kagune daggers. He managed to kill several agents of V when they were occupied by fighting mercenaries, which Lucien brought.

    But mercenaries, too, had some losses, and several of them managed to get killed.

    Lucien looked at this and knew the numbers of mercenaries were decreasing, so he gave the signal. He shot one kagune dagger high in the air, and then he let it fall onto the ground, creating a smaller crater.

    This was a signal to Uta, who was hiding in the shadows. He needed him to act. His strength was above SS-Rate, and now his abilities were far stronger as he received many blood essences from Lucien as well as a simplified version of combat technique.

    Suddenly Uta appeared in his second mask, resembling a bird with a wide beak and four small holes on the side. Several tails materialized from his back in mere seconds.

    They managed to kill two agents of Vasuki by taking them by surprise.

    When Elder Washuu Tsunemoro saw that, he was clearly mad. He knew that a powerful one had appeared, and he was locked in combat with Lucien. He was now regretting not bringing stronger combatants.

    All agents here were only A-Rated ghouls or half-humans with the ability of First-Class Ghoul Investigator, and only a minority of them were at S-Rate.

    Now that Uta has come to support him, Lucien could freely fight with Elder Tsunemoro. He knew that after some time, all mercenaries would be killed even with his support. Agents of Vasuki had a numerical advantage which wasn't a small one.

    Fortunately, he ordered Uta to come with him and hide nearby.

    "Finally, my friend arrived here, so now we won't be interrupted during our fight."

    Said Lucien with a vicious grin as he gripped his katana and shot toward Elder Tsunemoro at full speed. But he wasn't the only thing. Several kagune daggers were already aiming at Elder's vitals.

    As Elder Tsunemoror was an experienced combatant, he managed to dodge three kagune daggers and block one. But his leg and arm were injured by the other two daggers.

    Then he saw that Lucien was already before him with his attack. However, unfortunately for him, as his arm was damaged, he couldn't hold his katana properly. Lucien's attack managed to sever his hand.

    His hand fell onto the ground, and he knew that this was the moment he met his demise. Then he felt it; a sharp pain penetrated his stomach, which was penetrated from one blood-red kagune tail.

    "The-y always say that y-onger genrati-on will ov-er-come us."

    Said the old man as he was coughing blood and he was on his knees. Lucien was looking at the last moments of his life before coming to him, holding his katana in his hand.

    "Your abilities in kenjutsu were exceptional, but sadly you didn't manage to block all my kagune dagger, which I controlled through telekinesis. I am honored to give you death worth of samurai."

    Said Lucien as he bowed to Elder before taking a battle stance and slashing at his head. His head was severed, but his face was clearly smiling.

    It could be said that Elder Washuu Tsunemoro died satisfied.

    Then Lucien shot at the nearest agent of Vasuki and killed him in one hit. He wasn't holding back in the slightest cause these were just mere cannon fodder; he couldn't obtain some experiences from them or something.

    When Lucien previously fought with Elder Washuu Tsunemoro, he used his telekinesis only after some time; it was because he wanted to fight by pure kenjutsu.

    Uta was too going on the rampage, and several agents of Vasuki were killed by his hand. For him killing these weaker agents was nothing. The same could be said about Lucien, and even his subordinate Darkwalker managed to kill several agents. Losses of mercenaries weren't so significant as only around eight of them were killed in action.

    After ten minutes, the fight ended, and only dead bodies remained there. Lucien was a little bit shocked at the actions of agents of V.

    Even though they knew that they would lose and be killed, they still fought to the death. This was probably the result of the brainwashing process they had undergone.

    "Bring all the bodies in one place so I can store them."

    Ordered Lucien to mercenaries.

    They just followed his order without any questions. They didn't care about what he would do; they were too brainwashed in some way to be loyal to the Aeon House and carry orders without question.

    They have already seen many supernatural things already.

    After twenty minutes, all bodies were in one huge pile, and Lucien stored them in his Cross Crest. After that, mercenaries loaded all blood essences into an armored vehicle, and then Lucien looked at Uta, who nodded his head and then disappeared.

    Lucien then got into an armored vehicle, and the convoy went back to the estate.

    ...


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  11. Threadmarks: Chapter 41 – Game-
    Trafford

    Trafford I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    After Lucien returned to the estate, he decided he would give mercenaries two weaker Blood-Essences as a reward to increase their RC Level. Lucien was in complete control when he was extracting Blood-Essences; he could even design how many pellets would be from one process.

    He extracted it from B-Rated ghouls into two blood essences each and then put them away.

    Then he extracted Blood-Essence from the several tens of corpses of agents of Vasuki and some of the mercenaries who died. He couldn't leave their body, be just buried in the ground, because the ghoul's body was an extremely precious material for refinement.

    Lucien spent the entire night extracting Blood-Essences, they were too many of them, and some of them were being extracted separately cause some of those Blood-Essences would be given to Itori and Uta.

    Itori would be his future wife, as it was already decided in his head.

    To Uta, he became his friend and was his most trusted subordinate here in Tokyo; besides that, and he helped where he could, as was shown today.

    After Lucien was finished, he counted all blood essences he had, those he extracted now, and those as his share from his family, from ghouls he killed today; Lucien managed to extract over twenty Blood-Essences.

    This number could be seen as small, but each blood essence was refined from three corpses of an A-Rated ghoul or so. Their potency was high.

    Lucien had a rather significant number of blood essences refined from Greater Demons. As Greater Demons started to appear more and more on Blood Island, Aeon House started to hunt them more and more.

    They obtained more Blood-Essences and thus could cultivate to higher stages. It could be said that the portal is a gold mine unless the flood of demons with hundreds of Greater Demons and Demon Nobles would come.

    Lucien sat in a cross-legged position and started eating Blood-Essences like candies; he always ate them in pairs.

    He stored the rest of his Blood-Essences into his Cross Crest and used The Game to look at his statistics.

    Lucien opened his record and was eager to see changes. He wasn't using it often, maybe once per month, to check on his progress.

    [Name: Lucien Etras die Aeon

    Race: Ghoul

    RC Type: Rinkaku

    RC Level: 41,564

    Unique State: Kakuja V4

    - Kakuja V1: Left hand - body armor, right hand - kagune katana

    - Kakuja V2: Entire body armor without a mask, kagune katana

    - Kakuja V3: Entire body armor with the mask, another armor layer (extra thin), kagune katana

    - Kakuja V4: Entire body armor with the mask, another armor layer (extra thin), kagune katana, Rinkaku Tails

    Star Rank: 4th

    ***

    Abilities: Telekinesis - Beta]

    His Telekinesis was Ranked as Beta Level, which wasn't exactly that bad, but the problem with that is, it lacked the AOE effect. He could lift up a car easily, but he could not lift up tanks and planes or move buildings.

    That was Alpha Level, he wished he could achieve that, but he had a tough time training the Telekinesis Ability.

    After that, Lucien went to sleep as he was tired from the entire day and mainly from that fight.

    The next day he immediately went to the training room and activated his Kakuja V1 to see its power. It still looked the same. His entire left arm was covered in kakuja body armor, and his right hand was an extremely sharp katana, waiting for blood.

    Lucien tried to fight a little and did some shadow sparring. He knew that Kakuja V1 didn't give something like boosts to the user's strength or something; it just provided partial body armor with one weapon, based on the user's imagination.

    Real strong kakuja forms were the other three. In contrast, the other three versions gave a considerable boost in physical abilities, healing factors, and even reflexes.

    And what was most important, the final version of Kakuja V4 had wings, which gave him the ability to fly.

    Sadly Lucien never had a good opportunity to use those wings before.

    What was shocking was the fact that the final version of Kakuja, Kakuja V4, gave an extremely large physical boost. For example, if Lucien achieved Kakuja V4, he could fight with even strong SS-Rated Ghouls and win with ease; more importantly, he could even easily escape from the SSS-Rated ones.

    After that, Lucien called Darkwalker and gave him Blood-Essences, which he extracted for mercenaries.

    After finishing that, he returned to his training.

    He spent the rest of his time training. Until the day somebody came to his estate to find him. Lucien knew that only a few people would come here; thus, he wasn't very surprised to see Uta here.

    "Game is starting?"

    Asked Lucien with a vicious grin on his face. He knew that Red October was already here, and the game was starting as Souta would make his move today.

    'Steel Beam Incident, how long I have waited for you.'

    Thought Lucien in his mind.

    "Yes, Lucien-san, we should rather go."

    Spoke Uta.

    During this time, he also got more powerful thanks to Blood-Essences Lucien provided to him and especially that simplified version of Rinkaku Martial Arts he gave him. Uta was a strong nihilist, and his entire life was a pursuit of the meaning of life.

    But when Lucien talked a bit about some things, he started to feel one desire. The desire to get stronger and kill. This came from his side, which he thought was long forgotten, but he still considered Lucien, his friend.

    Lucien nodded his head and then went to change his clothes to suit. He knew that he won't fight today and would just observe. Now was the only morning or so; Lucien wanted to take a tour through the city because Steel Beam Incident would happen only in the evening.

    He already had his battle attire prepared, and nobody knew what that madman would do.

    ***


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  12. Threadmarks: Chapter 42 – -Starts
    Trafford

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    Lucien and Uta exited the estate and went to their separate targets. Uta would return to his HySy ArtMask Studio to wait for the evening, and Lucien went to the 20th Ward, Nerima Ward.

    He wanted to visit Anteiku to observe everything.

    He knew that the entire story started there when Kaneki Ken saw Kamishiro Rize in that place.

    When Lucien arrived at the street where Anteiku was located, it was already noon. He leisurely walked through the autumn street, where the leaves of trees were already in nice yellow color, and the outside air was relatively cold.

    After some time of walking, he found a very ordinary-looking two-story building. Instead of ordinary-looking, it would be better to say it was a relatively plain building and the only thing which was decorating the building was ivy that was scrambling through the entire second story of the facade.

    Even though it was looking like any other building, without any specialty or uniqueness, it was the heart of ghouls of the 20th Ward. Bearing the same name as the cafe, Anteiku was one of the most powerful organizations in Tokyo, and because the 20th Ward was a so-called docile ward, CCGneglectedg the existence of this place and organization.

    Lucien entered the cafe and saw a cozy place. The cafe was one of the smaller ones, and thus it created a more friendly and warmer atmosphere than the rest of the bigger cafes. Lucien sat behind the empty table and looked through the window.

    Because this place was, we could say, somewhat hidden, not many people visited. As Lucien was spacing out as he admired the beauty of autumn nature, he registered that somebody was standing behind him.

    He turned around and noticed a familiar figure. Kirishima Touka was a slender teenage girl with purple hair cut into a bob and long bangs that reached her chin, covering the right side of her face.

    He had to admit that she looked very attractive and cute in some way.

    Like other waiters of Anteiku, she wore her waitress uniform consisting of a white shirt rolled up to her elbows, a black vest, a red tie, and a black skirt down to her lower thighs. On top of that skirt, she also wears a brown skirt that reaches her upper thighs. She also wears tight red leggings.

    When she noticed him as he was examining her, she had a slight blush on her face. Even though she often seemed rather cold, she seemed very cute this time. She was aware of that and was also aware that Lucien was staring at her.

    It wasn't an everyday practice that such a handsome foreign young man was staring at her, but she quickly returned to her duties as the waitress.

    "Good afternoon, sir, have you already chosen?"

    Asked Touka. Lucien didn't choose anything because he was only looking at the trees. However, he knew that coffee at Anteiku was one of the best, so he wasn't particularly worried about what to drink.

    "One Espresso, please. And If I could ask, what is your name, lady?"

    Ordered Lucien his favorite coffee drink, and at the same time, he asked for her name because he officially didn't know her. Touka wrote down the order before she heard that he was asking how she was called.

    "Kirishima Touka."

    Said after some short time of thinking about the smiling man before her.

    "Lucien Etras di Aeon."

    Introduced Lucien himself, and he bowed and politely kissed her hand. Even though she was surprised by his actions, she quickly assumed this was a form of greeting.

    She was a very intelligent person, so she deduced from his name that he must be some kind of nobility.

    Every one of his actions seemed so elegant, noble, and simply perfect looking.

    An old man with white hair swept back, with his eyes closed. He was tall and clothed in a waiter uniform. Lucien noticed that when he introduced himself and said his name, this didn't go unnoticed by an old man behind the bar.

    Yoshimura, name of his was.

    Nicknamed Non-Killing Owl is an SSS-Rated ghoul and manager of Anteiku. He was also a member of Vasuki under the alias of Kuzen as one of their cleaners. Lucien knew that he had probably heard his name before when he was still in Vasuki and knew of his family.

    After a brief introduction, Touka quickly went to submit an order with a blush on her face. This was the first time in her life she was touched by a man in this kind of manner. As she could somewhat feel that he didn't harbor any ill intent, she wasn't angry about his action.

    As Lucien was waiting for his cappuccino, he scanned the entire Anteiku. He noticed several other important people as Hoito Roma, that was also present. One of the most dangerous and wicked ghouls actually looked so harmless.

    With her slim build and child demeanor coupled with her red hair in a spiky bun with bangs framing her face, she looked innocent and pure, but she was more wicked and dark than most ghouls in Tokyo.

    After a few minutes, Touka returned, bringing him a cappuccino with her. She put it in front of him, and Lucien quickly sniffed the beautiful and enticing aroma of the coffee before saying.

    "Its fragrance is very beautiful and enticing, as I have always said that coffee is one of a few pleasures in our life."

    Touka heard his statement, and one bizarre thought ran through her mind, but she quickly dispersed it to the void.

    As Lucien was drinking his coffee, he noticed two young men that entered the Anteiku. Nagachika Hideyoshi is of average height with short, messy, dirty blonde hair with dark roots and brown eyes.

    He is wearing bright-colored clothes that consist of a yellow varsity jacket and green shorts and a pair of headphones around his neck.

    The second one was the 'victim' of the Steel Beam Incident, Kaneki Ken. He looked like a somewhat short and scrawny young man with little to no athletic physique; he looked weak and innocent.

    Lucien understood why Rize had chosen him as her dinner.

    When they sat down, TV news started announcing something important. Again with flashy letters saying Breaking News.

    "Today morning, the remains of a man's body were found on Takada Building Street on the 28th. Body fluid was found at the scene to have come from a ghoul. The authorities have begun investigating this as a ghoul attack."

    Lucien knew that this was an incident between Kamishiro Rize, The Binge Eater, and Oomori Yakumo, Jason.

    He was tasked to bring Rize to the Aogiri Tree, but he ultimately failed.

    "The horrific ghouls haunting the streets of Tokyo... What exactly are they? Our guest today is a ghoul researched by Dr. Ogura to answer that question."

    The reporter on the TV continued with the reportage.

    "Ooh. Check out this sketchy dude. Damm... The Takada Building isn't that far from here. I bet you'd be eaten up before you knew it, Kaneki. Since you're a nerdy weakling always reading those weird books."

    Said the young blonde man to his weak-looking friend. As Lucien was listening to their conversation, he couldn't help to laugh inside. He knew that Nagachika was teasing him, but his words would turn to reality this evening if not for falling steel.


    ***

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  13. Threadmarks: Chapter 43 – Fall Down
    Trafford

    Trafford I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Then Lucien took out a small sheet of paper and wrote something down. After that, he stood up and went to the bar to pay. He wasn't willing to watch stupid hitting on Touka by certain someone.

    And shortly, Rize would arrive, so he wanted to go away.

    Lucien went to the bar and gave old man Yoshimura a hundred-dollar banknote with that sheet of paper. The old man noticed that he was giving him some paper in a rather discreet manner as he quickly hid it in his attire.

    He knew that Lucien wanted to send him some kind of message.

    Lucien exited the Anteiku Coffee and disappeared into the streets, waiting for the evening.

    ***

    "Touka, come here and start preparing coffee. I am going to the basement for supplies."

    Ordered Yoshimura as he walked away.

    When he arrived in the basement, he took out that paper he had received from Lucien and started reading. When he finished reading that letter, he immediately burned it with a lighter and went back.

    "Chaotic times are going to descent."

    Muttered the old man while he was walking back to the cafe.

    ***

    The evening of the same day

    The city was brimming with light, and people were walking on the streets. One could say that the city was a living organism with so many colors and light; the dark night wasn't so dark.

    It was a fascinating sight in such a metropolis city at night.

    Lucien and Uta were currently standing on the roof of the nearby building next to the construction site. Lucien and Uta both were observing two people walking through an isolated alleyway near a construction site.

    "Do you think he is also watching this drama?"

    Asked Lucien in a somewhat annoying voice. He had been observing them for a very long time together with Uta, and it had already started to be boring.

    Especially when they both knew how the story would end, at the same time, it was a little funny to see their date. Especially when thinking about how timidly he was behaving and how scheming she was.

    "Probably. Nobody knows what's going on in his head. He is one of a few people who can't be seen through. Maybe because he is mad?"

    Said Uta and ended his answer with the question. It was certain truth that someone like Washuu Kichimura/Souta couldn't be seen through.

    Suddenly both of them stopped talking as they looked at the scene below them.

    Both of the main actors of the event, Kaneki Ken and Kamishiro Rize, stopped in the dark alley, and Rize leaned over his chest.

    "I don't hear anything. Shame we can't go closer."

    Complained Uta. It was the truth that from this height, he didn't hear anything, and even Lucien didn't hear anything. They couldn't go near them because there was a huge chance that Rize would notice them. After all, she was an S-Rated ghoul; even though she wasn't strongest, she was still rather strong among other S-Rated ghouls.

    In an instant, everything started. They both could see that her eyes changed to kakugan as she bit Kaneki's shoulder. After they separated, he fell to the ground with a confused expression on his face and, of course, a terrified expression that he almost had tears in his eyes.

    They could see that several tails materialized from her back as she screamed: "That I was a ghoul!!!".

    They could faintly hear that, and seeing her excited face, they could deduce she was very enjoying the current situation.

    The poor young man started running for his life before his right leg was caught by her kagune tail and dragged back to Rize. When she was careless, he managed to escape again, but her kagune tail struck him down, this time rather hard, and he was severely injured in the process.

    He was shot to the nearby wall and barely alive. Rize stood before him and was looking at him when several steel beams fell down at her. She noticed too late and even tried to defend herself with her kagune, but steel beams crushed her.

    Lucien and Uta both observed this and showed a faint smile at how everything had gone. Finally, the game could start when they were leaving Lucien to look at the top of the construction site, only to see a faint silhouette standing at the top of the building.

    Lucien knew that it was Washuu Kichimura, known as Souta.

    ***

    Kanou General Hospital, Office of Dr. Kano Akihiro

    The hospital itself was located in the 20th Ward and was deeply connected to the Vasuki and Washuu Clan.

    It looked like a modern building constructed only a few years ago.

    "How are you feeling, Mr. Kaneki?"

    Asked an elderly, grey-haired man. He wore the typical attire of a physician, a white coat, a white shirt, and a black necktie. He seemed like a kind, older man and a caring doctor.

    "Pretty normal, I guess."

    Answered Kaneki, who looked like nothing had happened at all. He was clothed in those attires that patients received when they were in the hospital. Kanou was sitting in front of a computer and looking at some surgery process images. To be more precise, surgery of transplanting of Rize's kakuhou.

    "If you continue taking the immunosuppressant, you should be back in school in no time."

    Explained Kanou to Kaneki. After that, his eyes took a sharp glare at him before saying.

    "By the way, a nurse told me the hospital food isn't to your liking?"

    This sentence makes Kanki shudder in response because he knows that something is different with him, but he can't tell what.

    All the food he had eaten now tasted absolutely terrible.

    "N-No... It's good."

    Said the young man with some difficulty, to which Kanou showed a faint smile. After that, Kaneki left the office, leaving Kanou alone.

    He took the phone and called someone, who picked it up almost in an instant.

    "Process was a success. We have managed to create an artificial one-eyed ghoul; I would need more time to observe him for now. But I can guarantee that the surgery process was a success, and I have managed to create an artificial one-eyed ghoul. Now we could move to the next phase of the plan."

    Said Kanou to the phone, and then he ended the call.

    ***

    Lucien returned to his mansion and went to sleep. Now, the game has started, and everything is on the move.

    He would need to spend more time training and finding some hidden facilities of Vasuki and Washuu Clan to destroy them.

    "Maybe I should go to Anteiku more often. Their coffee is the best."

    Murmured Lucien as he laid down on his bed and looked at the ceiling.

    ***

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  14. Threadmarks: Chapter 44 – Martial
    Trafford

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    Sometime later, the Basement of Anteiku.

    The basement of the Anteiku looked very nice and clean; it was used mainly for storing supplies for a cafe and human meat for ghouls.

    In the basement, two figures were standing side by side in waiter uniforms. Both of them were looking at something in the distance and thinking about something else; by one glance you could say that the young woman looked rather displeased.

    "Why help him, sir?"

    Asked a purple-haired teen woman. Touka was the so-called Ice Beauty, only admiring from a distance but no touching, or you would be beaten to death.

    "Touka."

    Said old man Yoshimura to which she immediately looked at him. It was because she felt concerned about his voice. She respected him a lot, and he was a father-like figure for her; learning morals from him, and he was her support.

    "Have you seen the recent news about the organ transplant case?"

    Questioned Yoshimura with a curious voice. Even though he knew the answer that she didn't, he still asked.

    Young people nowadays are less and less interested in the news.

    "...?, No, not really."

    Said Touka indifferently.

    "It all started when steel beams fell on some students. One of the victims, a female student, died instantly, and the other one, a young man, was on the brink of death. He needed an emergency organ transplant. The doctor chose to transplant the dead girls' organs into the young man...."

    Here he took a short pause as he was explaining some important context to Touka.

    "It seems those organs...belonged to Rize."

    Touka almost got a heart attack from this as she screamed as soon as he finished this sentence.

    "Rize?! Did she die? In an accident?"

    Asked Touka in disbelief. Something like hearing that an S-Rated ghoul died in something stupid like an accident was very unusual and rare.

    "The injury must have been so severe that not even a ghoul's regenerative abilities could repair the damage. And so Rize's organs were used."

    He finished his speech about this event.

    "So now there is a human with ghoul organs inside them? Sir.. his yes. Could it be...?"

    Asked Touka with a shaky voice; it was unbelievable that a normal human was turned into a ghoul.

    Yes, sometimes some rare breeds like one-eyed ghouls appear, and half-humans, too, aren't something very rare. But creating a ghoul out of nothing was now impossible; turning a normal human into a ghoul was something unheard of before.

    "Yes."

    Yoshimura answered while nodding his head in agreement because now, even the impossible is becoming possible.

    "Touka, do you remember that foreign young man that came to the Anteiku on the day of the incident?"

    Asked Yoshimura.

    Truth be told, it was almost impossible not to remember someone like that; with those silver hair and bright blue eyes, he looked like perfection himself.

    Touka nodded her head in approval.

    "He is the ghoul, an extremely strong one."

    To this, she froze in shock; she didn't think that he would be a ghoul.

    "He gave me a message. It stated that war is coming and chaotic times are going to descend."

    Touka didn't know what to say, but if it was confirmed that war would be coming between humans and ghouls, then the situation was solemn.

    Very solemn.

    "Who is he? You are talking about him as you know him, sir?"

    Asked Touka in a curious voice, as she knew that Yoshimura knew him from the way he was talking about him.

    "He is from the noble family of ghouls; all of them are extremely powerful. I don't know what one of them doing here in Tokyo is. Maybe you should find it out."

    Finished his sentence with a teasing smile, to which Touka had a slight blush. He noticed how Lucien was looking at her, and he wanted her to befriend him.

    Yoshimura was a very experienced man, and from how Lucien was behaving and talking to her, he noticed that he didn't have any ill intent or something. Having strong allies was always a good thing.

    'Washuu Clan and Aeon House were always enemies to death; from information that was available in Vasuki, it is apparent that Aeon House is much more formidable than Washuu Clan, but they can't leave the place they are residing in. So now the question is, why did they decide to act? But now, with someone from Aeon House here, the Washuu Clan won't be so daring as they have a new formidable enemy to deal with.'

    Thought Yoshimura in his head.

    He was thinking about how to get Lucien on their side.

    ***

    When Yoshimura and Touka were taking care of newly found Ghoul Kaneki Ken, Lucien was training in his estate. He was constantly training in Rinkaku Martial Arts.

    "Hmm, what to do now? Maybe I should go visit Itori; I haven't seen her for a few days."

    Said Lucien to himself.

    Lucien exited his estate and went on a walk through the city. As he was walking, he noticed some screams in some back alley. He went toward the source of the noise until he stopped and started listening.

    It was a familiar feminine voice that was speaking.

    Lucien knew that Touka was screaming at somebody, probably ghoul newbie Kaneki Ken.

    "There's no place for someone who can't decide between being one or the other. If you want to be human so badly... try starving yourself to the limit once."

    She apparently stopped and started walking away from him towards the place where Lucien was standing and listening to their conversation.

    "I'll tell you right now, a ghoul's hunger... true hell."

    After that, she exited the back and dark alley when she heard someone walking behind her.

    "Don't you think you are being harsh on him a little?"

    Said Lucien with a chuckle.

    ***


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  15. Threadmarks: Chapter 45 – Hunger
    Trafford

    Trafford I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Touka immediately turned around to see Lucien standing behind her and smiling at her. It was apparent that he was hiding here and listening to their conversation.

    "Not really. That half-ass is delusional about how things go in this world. He is already one of us, even when he isn't accepting that fact."

    Explained Touka in a calm voice. She knew that Lucien wasn't a threat, and he seemed to be a kind person, at least from a third-person view.

    "Hmm, you are right. But his mind is still like a human, and he lived in a human society unlike us. We are raised in a strength-based hierarchy, where strong rule and weak die. That is completely different from human's idiotic ideas these days."

    One thing must be said, and it was that Lucien despised current society.

    Talks about everyone being equal and everyone having the same rights are pure nonsense. He could see that the young boy that had been turned into one-eyed ghouls was still leaning over his previous morals and ideals.

    Touka, hearing this smiled and nodded her head in approval.

    Ghoul society and human society were completely different. Current human society is based on the principles of democracy and tolerance. In contrast to that, ghoul society was a strength-based hierarchy.

    Strong rule, the weak die.

    If you want peace, you must be strong enough to create and protect it.

    "Sooo, what are you going to do now? Wanna go on coffee?"

    Hearing this, Touka knew that she was tasked to watch over him a little, but she thought that he wouldn't need her some time, so she accepted Lucien's offer.

    After a while, they both went to some coffee that Lucien chose.

    As he always wanted the best, he chose the most expensive cafe in the surroundings.

    Touka was speechless from this cause prices here were like from another world. She was still only a student so paying several thousand yens for coffee was too much.

    "Don't worry; I am paying as it was me who invited you."

    Lucien said with a charming smile to her.

    Lucien ordered the most expensive coffee here for both of them. It was coffee made from Viverrinae, which those small animals that were eating coffee beans and... you know what.

    Touka was surprised by his choice that he chose this type of coffee.

    After some time, they talked about various things; Lucien asked her about the school she was visiting because she was still a student, judging by her attire. In this life, he never attended school because Blood Island wasn't anything like that.

    Children on Blood Island were taught by their parents mostly, so there wasn't any need for something like schools.

    "It looks like a bother, going every day to schools with countless humans."

    Stated Lucien as he sipped his coffee. One must say that this coffee was a very good one.

    "It sounds like you have never attended it."

    She answered Lucien, to which he only smiled.

    "Nope, I was taught at home, but in my home, there is more combat teaching than a theory like in modern schools. I started my training at a very early age and was trained by experts in martial arts and in the usage of kagune."

    Touka was hearing this with rather enthusiasm. She always longed to be strong, strong enough to overcome all her enemies and get her vengeance.

    Listening to Lucien, she had a strong urge to ask him if he couldn't teach her something.

    She wasn't some strong ghoul, even though she had some foundation, as she knew how to kick and punch, but she never trained in some martial arts or something similar.

    She was just a kid in the eyes of really strong ghoul investigators and ghouls. Even her brother could beat her, and he also wasn't someone who could be considered some sort of powerhouse.

    "Could you teach me when you are free?"

    After some time of thinking, she decided to risk if he could teach her. Lucien was surprised at this, but he nodded his head in approval. Even though he wasn't interested in her as a woman, he admired her will and courage to ask him for teaching when they barely knew each other.

    "We must go. I think something bad would happen to that half-ass."

    Said Touka to Lucien as he nodded his head. They had been here already for more than an hour before Lucien paid for the coffee, and they left.

    They were searching for Kaneki because Touka had lost him when they were at the cafe.

    After some time searching for him, they finally found him in a confrontation with Nishio Nishiki, who would later be known as S-Rated Serpent, thanks to his deadly bikaku kagune tail. Touka then stopped Lucien as they were both watching the fight. Of course, if you could call it the fight.

    Nishiki was just beating the boy around here and there.

    Suddenly they saw that Kanki managed to congeal his rinkaku kagune and strike Nishiki. Then he turned around to his friend who was laying on the ground and looked at him like he was a most delicious meal.

    Then both Lucien and Touka acted. Lucien appeared behind Nishiki, and with one strike, he knocked him out; he was unconscious. This happened so fast that Kaneki didn't even notice that Nishiki was already unconscious.

    Touka appeared before him and looked at him with disgust and hate; it was apparent that this wasn't the best way to spend her free time.

    "You're starting to become more like one of us. Half-ass."

    Said Touka as she walked toward him. Kaneki was already in a mindless state, without any sign of rationality and clear consciousness.

    "The pain and hunger have stripped away from your reason. It hurts so much almost want to die, don't you?"

    He was like a wild beast, as he took some kind of primitive battle stance. It was apparent that he wanted to attack her. Lucien was also on high alert as he observed both of them, ready to intervene if something went the wrong way.

    "If it means you can be free of that pain... you don't give a damm about your friend's life, do you?"

    It was like she was talking with herself.

    The only sound he was saying was something like "grrr...grrr".

    Like a wolf who went berserk, his tails were already swinging around, waiting for a moment to attack. He desperately wanted to eat something.

    This resulted from hunger; a ghoul's hunger is true hell in every meaning.

    ***


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  16. Threadmarks: Chapter 46 – We
    Trafford

    Trafford I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    "After you devour him, you will be alone, consumed with regret. In a sea of blood and guts."

    She stopped for a while to observe some kind of reaction. The only thing was, again, those mindless sounds of a wild beast.

    "That's a ghoul's hunger. That's our fate."

    Now she, too, took some kind of battle stance as she was also prepared for a fight. She knew that Lucien was watching, so it was impossible for something happening to her.

    "I'm fed up with it. So this one time, I'll save you from that."

    She rushed at him with fast speed, swiftly delivering a precise kick to his abdomen, which sent him flying to a nearby wall, where he crashed. Thanks to his rinkaku kagune, which provided stronger regenerative abilities, he still managed to get up and tried to attack Touka again, this time with his kagune.

    But all of his efforts were in vain, as Touka appeared quickly behind him and knocked him out. He was still only a newbie ghoul who couldn't fight or control his power.

    Moreover, he is in berserk mode, so he can't even think clearly.

    Lucien looked at Touka and this entire mess they had created here.

    "What to do now?"

    Asked Lucien as he was scanning the entire area. Everything here was destroyed, and soon it would attract the attention of people living here; maybe even some doves would fly here, so they need quickly go away.

    "We need to bring both of them away; the best would be Anteiku. And leave that four-eyes here."

    Said Touka in a somewhat bossy tone.

    But Lucien didn't mishear certain words, and that word was "we".

    'Wasn't Kaneki her problem? Why has it become us?'.

    Thought Lucien in his mind.

    "When it became us? Wasn't that half-ass your responsibility?"

    Asked Lucien in a curious voice when they actually started to share duties and responsibilities.

    "From the moment you appeared here and knocked out that four-eyes."

    Answered Touka with a faint smile. Lucien nodded his head and called his loyal henchmen for help and a car. He always told them where he would be, so they could be nearby when he needed them, but he never told them the precise location, only ward.

    Soon two Hummer H3s arrived, and several men exited the cars, which shocked Touka to see so many people there. They all arrived before Lucien, giving him a salute, and then they began clearing the surroundings and loaded both Kaneki and Hide into the car.

    "These are mercenaries I hired. All of them are around A-Rated ghouls in strength."

    Lucien explained the current situation to Touka. She nodded her head, and then both of them got into a car and left for the Anteiku.

    Lucien secretly ordered one of his people to bring away even Nishiki; he wasn't a bad person, only a little arrogant.

    ***

    Anteiku.

    Lucien was sitting behind the bar inside Anteiku and before him was Yoshimura. Cause of his visit and the many people he brought with him cafe was closed for some time. As mercenaries were all ghouls, their consumption of coffee was huge.

    And it was showing even today.

    "I must say, Mr. Yoshmura, you have brought coffee making to an art."

    Smiled Lucien as he complimented the coffee he was drinking.

    "Secret is in patience, love, and accuracy."

    Explained Yoshimura as he was preparing other cups of coffee for mercenaries here; they actually drank coffee like water.

    "I must thank you for helping her deal with this issue. I let her observe that young man because I felt something bad would happen to him. He is unstable and can't decide to which world he belongs."

    Lucien nodded his head in approval.

    He admired the old man Yoshimura.

    He was a somewhat kind and caring person toward other ghouls who needed help; maybe it came from his personality or from his tragic past, who knows.

    "Mr. Yoshimura, from my respect to your person, I must warn you that Washuu Clan is scheming something. Something big and extremely dangerous for us."

    Said Lucien with a severe voice, to which even Yoshimura opened his eyes slightly, even though he always kept them closed.

    "I wish I could help you, but I was only cleaner in Vasuki; we were tasked with eliminating and killing targets, and we didn't have access to confidential pieces of information of the organization itself."

    Stated the old man.

    Cleaners were at the very bottom. They just killed targets that they were told, and that's all. They didn't have access to any secret information or something like that; Cleaners were just weapons that the Vasuki cultivated, their attack dogs.

    "You should be careful these times. I am preparing to move against Washuu Clan soon."

    Yoshimura wasn't surprised by his claim because he was aware he had enough power to back up his word; only those with supreme strength could say something like this.

    It was common knowledge that attacks against Washuu Clan were nothing more than some form of suicide.

    ***

    On the second floor of Anteiku.

    This room looked very comfortable at first look. In the center of the room were two sofas facing each other and a television on the wall. At one of those sofas, young black-haired Kaneki was sleeping, or rather he was already waking up.

    When he woke up, he looked through the window, surprised by the change and waking up in an unfamiliar place.

    "You're awake."

    Said the elderly voice behind him.

    An old man, Yoshimura, was standing behind him and observing him. When Kaneki turned around to him, he continued explaining the situation to him.

    "You're on the second floor of Anteiku. Touka and Lucien brought you here."

    To this, he was shocked. Firstly because Touka, that apparently hated him, actually helped him. Secondly, it was the name of the man whom he didn't recognize, but he could deduce he was probably a foreigner from his non-japanese name.

    "What about my friend?!"

    Screamed when he finally remembered the situation.

    "... Come with me."

    Then Kaneki stood up and followed Yoshimura to another room where his friend Hide was sleeping currently. From their conversation with Yoshimura, Lucien could think that it wasn't good to hear for Kaneki.

    ***

    "Touka-san, I think you would have a new colleague."

    Said Lucien with a mischievous and teasing smile to Touka; he was calling her by her name because she was doing the same.

    As he wasn't Japanese, he wasn't very comfortable with this style of addressing, so they both called each other by their names.

    She gave him a very, very unpleasant look before turning away. She swore to herself that she would try to hit Lucien as hard as she could when they would train together tomorrow.

    She knew that he was from some noble family, and he seemed to be a gentleman, so he won't be using his full power when they would train against her.

    ***


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  17. Threadmarks: Chapter 47 – Potential
    Trafford

    Trafford I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Lucien was currently watching something hilarious and amusing. It was Kaneki Ken who was trying to learn how to make coffee from Yoshimura properly; he was dressed in Anteiku attire for waiters and wore a white eyepatch on his left eye.

    "Slowly take your time...like you're writing the hiragana character for no."

    Instructed Yoshimura as he was standing behind Kaneki and watching the entire process. After some time of watching this drama and then listening to Yoshimura's lecture, Lucien decided to go away.

    It was already tiresome to listen to all this, and he was already tired.

    But before he went away, he came to the Yoshimura, and they sat away from others to have a private conversation. Yoshimura was somewhat interested in some things; he wanted to ask Lucien some things about Washuu Clan and Vasuki.

    On the other side, Lucien wanted to warn Yoshimura to be cautious.

    "Lucien-kun, even though this mind sounds daring, I have to ask. Why is someone from your house in Tokyo?"

    Lucien wasn't surprised by this question because Arima had asked him something similar. Almost everybody who was aware of Aeon House would be surprised if even one of them left that Island.

    "Answer is straightforward, Sir. Washuu Clan needs to be eliminated. Thoroughly."

    Lucien actually respected Yoshimura a lot, and because of that, he called him Sir. This old man has done too much for others and sacrificed a lot in his life, and lost, even more, his daughter included.

    He helped other ghouls in need, such as Touka, in her time or now Kaneki. Once, he helped even Renji not lose himself in the endless cycle of hatred.

    "Washuu Clan has stood firmly for hundreds of years, but I hope you can succeed."

    Smiled Yoshimura at Lucien. He was aware of the fact that Washuu Clan was powerful, but they needed to be eliminated.

    They were the reason for hatred and all those strifes here.

    ***

    Several weeks had gone by the time of the Steel Beam Incident. Lucien spent most of his time training and would often visit Anteiku. He wasn't visiting Helter Skelter Bar too much because Itori was now visiting him in his estate.

    Now they were an official couple; she was acting more daring and more demanding to him.

    Itori wanted to be spoiled by him and held. Sometimes she would be scared from that; he would leave her behind. Lucien realized that he really loved her dearly and was even thinking he should send a letter home telling them that he had found himself a girlfriend.

    But that would probably create a mess because his mother would insist on coming here to interrogate both of them, so he deleted this particular idea from his head.

    He was still waiting for time to strike against his enemies, and he knew that the time was coming soon, during the 11th Ward Battle and Second Chochlea Raid at the end of December.

    Lucien even received an invitation to the Ghoul Restaurant. However, he wasn't too interested in the event, even though Kaneki was the dish.

    Now Lucien wanted to meet Eto, not because of some matters to discuss but just. He just wanted to see her.

    He can't deny the fact that she is gorgeous to him, and even though she has a rather weird personality, even more wicked than Itori, she is still very appealing.

    ***

    As now was already November, and the weather was colder. Lucien went to the 24th Ward by foot, so it would take him some time to get there. He liked going on foot because he could observe everything around him; observing people was always one of his hobbies.

    When he gets there, as always, 24th Ward is ugly and destroyed as it used to be. Nothing more than ruins, but now something changed.

    There were more ghouls here, and many of them even fought amongst each other. Lucien only looked at this before going to the place was Eto was living.

    When he was on his way there, he noticed familiar figure training in some martial arts. It was Tatara, clothed in his traditional white clothes from times when Chi She Lian was still active; he always wore the same clothes and the same mask as the Chi She Lian for his entire life.

    Memento.

    "Hello, Tatara-san."

    Lucien greeted the fellow martial artist.

    It was an unusual view to see one of these ghouls train so much. What's more, Tatara trained even simplified versions of Martial Arts that Lucien gave him.

    "Greetings, Lucien-san. How about we have a spar?"

    As soon as he had the opportunity, Tatara asked Lucien for a spar. He actually didn't have many people with whom he could train, and Lucien could be counted as one of very few.

    Lucien smiled at this and nodded his head.

    "Why not? I did not train yet."

    ***


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  18. Threadmarks: Chapter 48 – Weird Situation
    Trafford

    Trafford I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    It took more than an hour for the spar to end. Lucien even used his Kakuja V3 to fight against Tatara to gain some kind of advantage. However, then Tatara used his own Kakuja, and they were again in a stalemate.

    Lucien wasn't using his full power to fight cause this was only a spar, and they mainly used various fighting techniques.

    After the fight finished, both of them parted away, and Lucien went to fight Eto, who was currently watching the match from a hidden spot. When she saw that, her lips curled into a smile as she thought about something.

    Then she went to her place because Lucien would be soon there.

    When Lucien entered her room, he saw Eto laying on the couch, almost half-naked, because she was just putting down the bandages around her body.

    Lucien couldn't help himself and looked at her attractive body as he gulped.

    Eto saw that he was staring at her, she even had a slight blush on her face, but she quickly returned to her main nature, smiling at him before starting to tease him.

    "Do you like the view?"

    She asked, with a mischievous smile on her face, as she tried to look innocent. But this action only made her seem more seductive, like some kind of succubus. Even though Lucien wasn't accustomed to something like this, and actually this was the first time being in this type of situation, he suppressed his feeling and started to think rationally.

    "I apologize, but I must say that you are very beautiful."

    As he said that, he turned around because it wasn't suitable to watch her undressing and co. Thus he exited the room and waited for her until she finished changing her clothes.

    After some time, he heard knocking on the door, and he went into the room again.

    Eto was now finished, and both of them sat at the chairs and started talking. Actually, Lucien enjoyed talking with her very much; more accurately, it was Eto who was asking countless questions about Lucien and more.

    When he wasn't paying attention to her, because he was already tired from all that talking for several hours, he felt something weird. He realized that Eto was now sitting on him, and she licked his neck.

    She had a little-crazed expression, but he didn't overthink it; instead of panicking, he hugged her, which took her by surprise.

    "You taste good."

    Smiled Eto as she whispered it to his ear. Lucien knew that she was crazed more than most female ghouls and much more than Itori.

    From his time spent with Itori, she was more 'normal' than Eto. It was also from the fact that Eto was her entire life alone.

    Regarding Eto, Lucien chose a more aggressive way to win her heart. He gently kissed her neck several times, which resulted in deeper blush appearing on her face.

    "You too."

    After both of them separated, there was a weird atmosphere in the air. They sat opposite each other and resumed their conversation.

    "Oh, now I remember. Arima said that he wants to talk with you about something important."

    Lucien furrowed his brows at this because it was somewhat surprising to hear. Arima Kishou wasn't typing of a person who would be requesting a meeting for something stupid, so this must mean that it would be something vital.

    "Where and when?"

    Asked Lucien. In his head, he still couldn't stop thinking about Eto and intimate things.

    "Tomorrow, in severs leading to the 24th Ward."

    Lucien nodded his head in approval.

    "How are things going with Aogiri Tree? I heard some rumors about the upcoming war in 11th Ward."

    Stated Lucien.

    There were already rumors going on between certain circles that Aogiri Tree was preparing for war and was going to attack the 11th Ward. Lucien knew that this would happen by the end of December of this year and, at the same time, would attack the Cochlea Prison.

    Eto was now considering what to do. But after short thought, she decided to talk with Lucien about the situation itself. She was aware that Lucien was a trustworthy person, and he was on their side, on her side.

    "Preparations are going very well. There are two parts to the plan one is an attack on the Cochlea Prison, and the second part is attacking the 11th Ward. Which part would you like to discuss first?"

    Lucien chose to discuss the Cochlea Prison attack because it was much shorter. The plan of the 11th Ward attack was far more complicated because it involved the creation of a future One-Eyed King, and of course, they must provoke CCG to attack their base at the 11th Ward.

    "Cochlea, truth to be said, I am rather interested in that prison."

    Lucien himself was planning to participate in that raid. He would intercept Arima Kishou and Squad 0 to help more ghouls escape from Cochlea Prison.

    This action would strengthen Aogiri Tree much more because they would obtain stronger combatants.

    "We would attack the command center of Cochlea Prison with a small group of elites and open the gate. We need to free as many ghouls as possible. Arima Kishou would arrive later together with Squad 0 to intercept escaping ghouls. If possible, I would like for you to be part of that group. With you there and Tatara commanding the operation, we could liberate all ghouls in that prison."

    "Good. Are there any primary targets?"

    This was a rather important question because they would need to liberate the most powerful ghouls at first and then liberate the weaker ones.

    "Yes, they are. We would start with the SS-Rates. Kamishiro Matasaka, Naki and we must kill warden Misaka Kyouji."

    Lucien nodded his head and then continued.

    "I hope Vasuki won't show up, but if they do, I will slaughter them all. My priority during the mission would be to kill most of the investigators there. If possible, it would be best to massacre the entire Cochlea prison and liberate all ghouls there. Regarding that Arima, what should be the outcome of our fight?"

    Lucien presented his version of the plan. It would be best if the entire Cochlea is turned into the dead zone. They would be forced to fill it with a new staff that would be taken from other places of the Commission of Counter Ghoul and would create a lack of manpower.

    Lucien was eager to see the results of the Cochlea Raid and 11th Ward. In original results weren't that bad for the Commission of Counter Ghoul.

    It could be said that the results were a pure catastrophe for Aogiri Tree because Bin Brothers and Yamori were killed, and Kirishima Ayato was heavily injured.

    Lucien wanted to change this result. So the first measure was that he gave Eto some weaker blood essences for Bin Brothers to increase their strength to SS-Rate. Then Kotarou Amon won't be able to kill them, and maybe he would be captured and delivered right to the Kanou's hands.

    In regards to Yamori, there wasn't much he could do because Kaneki Ken would kill him in all endings. However, he could order Yamori not to return there and send there some A-Rated disposable ghouls that could be killed in his place.

    ***


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  19. Threadmarks: Chapter 49 – Return Soon
    Trafford

    Trafford I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    "What about the 11th Ward battle?"

    Asked Lucien with curiosity.

    "This is more complicated. Actually entire battle is just a cover operation for the real target, Cochlea. But we could use this to kill more damage to the CCG. We could tell now that this would be a defensive battle, so we need proper fortification."

    Eto explained some basic pieces of information about the plan. It must be said that the 11th Ward Battle was a highly complex event. There were actually three sides; besides CCG and Aogiri Tree, there was Anteiku, commanded by Yoshimura.

    "We have managed to obtain some firearms, to fight against cannon fodder soldiers, and we have several S-rated and SS-Rated ghouls ready to fight against strong ghoul investigators. I predict that some Associate Special Classes and maybe even Special Classes would also participate in the battle."

    "I will help you obtain M2 Browning machine guns, several of them, together with enough ammo. Next would be grenade launchers and rocket launchers. This would help you deal with armored vehicles and, lastly bulletproof vests and other gadgets."

    Said Lucien to Eto.

    He wanted to change the progress of the entire battle by supplying a massive amount of firearms and explosives to deal enough damage to the CCG.

    This was because CCG brought, we could say, a vast army of cannon fodder armed with guns to fight, and they even brought many ghoul investigators.

    Lucien would change the results of the battle by slaughtering many of these cannon fodders. Even though they were the weakest of the weakest, if he managed to kill a huge number of them, it would create huge losses for the CCG, as they would lose the main army.

    "Thank you; it would help us greatly."

    Lucien nodded his head and then proceeded to continue some of his ideas.

    "Another thing I have to help with is your plan. I would gift you several blood essences to distribute between S-Rated ghouls and SS-Rated ghouls. You know, we can't afford to lose such valuable battle assets. Every S-Rated ghoul and SS-Rated ghoul is an extremely valuable chess piece in here."

    He then started explaining another part of his master plan.

    By strengthening existing S-Rated ghouls and SS-Rated ghouls to create stronger ones, it would enhance the battle potential of the Aogiri Tree. If some people like Bin Brothers or Yamori could be saved, it would be relatively good.

    Even though Yamori was a little mad, he still listened to Noro and Tatara.

    Honestly, Lucien didn't care what would happen to the people here or the entire world when he left it. He only cared for the only thing, and that thing was the destruction of the Washuu Clan at any cost.

    It wasn't his problem what would happen after the annihilation of the Washuu Clan.

    "Thank you again. With this, we would stand a better chance at this battle. We are far behind in terms of the number of soldiers; gaining a huge number of firearms, and some blood essences would help us greatly."

    Lucien smiled at this.

    "Friendly reminder. Try to restrain Ayato more; his arrogance would cause him huge trouble. And Yamori too, that man is mad, after that all torture in Cochlea, he is too some threat."

    The result of the 11th Ward Battle was the following. Kotarou Amon killed the Bin Brothers, both of them were S-Rated ghouls, so this could be considered a loss for Aogiri Tree. The next one was the loss of Yamori, who was critically injured by Kaneki Ken and then killed by Suzuya Juuzou.

    Yamori was a very complicated individual, but his strength was above average S-Rate, and he still followed the orders of Aogiri Tree and was a useful pawn. And last losses were around two hundred Aogiri ghouls, which could be said to be a big number, but Lucien would best to reduce them.

    Compared to the Aogiri Tree, losses of the Commission of Counter Ghoul weren't exactly that bad, counting that the usage of Arata proto wounded Shinohara Yukinori and Kuroiwa Iwao.

    The quinque armor made of kagune of Kirishima Arata.

    And, of course, the most serious and heavy loss was that of Marude's motorcycle by the hands of Suzuya Juuzou, when he used it to crash into the fortification of ghouls, and it exploded afterward.

    "I would try, but one of them is still a kid, and the other one lost his clear mind during his residence at Cochlea Prison. It's hard to control either one of them, but I would try my best."

    Eto remarked from the side, hearing his comment.

    She was aware that even Tatara and Noro sometimes had a problem controlling both of them.

    "And lastly. Be aware of Clowns. They are more dangerous than they look, and they only want destruction and chaos. Nothing more, nothing less."

    Lucien felt that he should warn Eto about Clowns. It would create a huge mess if Clowns suddenly did something, and that act would result in chaos.

    He was also aware that one member of Clowns was associating himself with Aogiri Tree.

    This was a normal strategy implemented by Clowns. Their members would always associate themselves with all sides. Uta, Itori, and Roma were associated with Anteiku, Nico was together with Aogiri Tree, and finally, there was Souta, or by his true name Washuu Kichimura.

    He was affiliated with Washuu Clan, Vasuki, the Commission of Counter Ghoul, Sunlit Garden, and Ghoul Restaurant; he was the ultimate man because he was almost everywhere.

    The only exception was Donato Porapora, who was an Orphanage Caretaker before his imprisonment in the Cochlea; because of that, he was called The Priest. And also, because he was an actual Catholic Priest, it could be weird sounding that Catholic Priest was a ghoul and was eating children at the orphanage.

    "Okay, but they are most troublesome to deal with. On the other side, Nico was able to help us sometimes greatly. They have infiltrated every organization in Tokyo and are scheming something big, but we can't stop them for now."

    Lucien was surprised at first by the fact that Eto was aware that Nico was a member of Clowns. On the other side, she was the leader of Aogiri Tree, and despite her young age, she was a very experienced and capable person.

    She worked from nothing to create Aogiri Tree by herself.

    "It is already late. I should be going now."

    Then he stood up and wanted to go home until Eto appeared before him and leaned over his chest as she wrapped her hands around his neck. Then they both looked at each other, and Eto kissed his lips passionately.

    Lucien was initially surprised, but soon she returned her kiss and hugged her, and they continued this for several minutes.

    One must say that Eto had a lot of passion for her. Lucien became an interesting individual for her whom she could obtain.

    "Return soon."

    Eto said seductively while licking her lips. Lucien showed a charming smile as he exited her home. He went straight to his estate to sleep because it was already evening.

    He couldn't believe that he had spent several hours here, almost the entire day.

    ***


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  20. Threadmarks: Chapter 50 – Spar with the White Reaper
    Trafford

    Trafford I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    The next day when Lucien got up after good sleep, he went to train a little before meeting with Arima Kishou. Lucien wanted to ask him for a spar. He wanted to test his power by fighting the Undefeated Ghoul Investigator and the most notable combatant of this world.

    But before training, Lucien started refining some blood essences that he promised to give to Eto. This process took him almost two hours as he was refining a rather bigger number of them, but they weren't of high quality. Medium at best.

    Then he contacted Darkwalker to prepare bulletproof vests for cannon fodder members of Aogiri Tree. These bulletproof vests were specially made to resist Q bullets. A special type of bullet with a melted down kagune coating.

    Even though the coating is moderately thin because it must be refined from the kagune of ghoul, it still has more destructive force against ghouls. Normal bullets are nothing in front of a ghoul, but a Q Bullet could do damage to the ghoul and with several precise hits, it could even kill them.

    They are people assigned to the offices of the Commission of Counter Ghoul; they do not carry quinques and are weak as an ant. The only force that uses them is Bureau Investigators or what Lucien calls cannon fodder of CCG.

    Their main work consists of paperwork in offices; they do the majority of the paperwork. We could say that bureau investigators are backup for the real ghoul investigators, and quantity is more important than quality in their case.

    Lucien knew that they were trained in Ghoul Countermeasures Training Center, and they created the majority of the CCG employees. In his head, he even had the plan to attack that facility and destroy it, but he could instigate Clowns to do that work.

    Darkwalker was able to obtain several hundred units of q bullet bulletproof vests for Lucien. They were extremely expensive, so Lucien was forced to pay a huge amount of money for them, but if they would serve the purpose, so be it.

    After finishing all things he had to do, Lucien went to the place where he should have a meeting with Arima Kishou.

    ***

    The meeting place was the same spot when he first met Tatara; it was a wide and empty space under Tokyo, inside the complicated system of tunnels.

    Lucien quickly arrived at the place and noticed that Arima still wasn't there, so he decided to wait for him.

    Fortunately, he waited only around twenty minutes or so until he arrived.

    Arima Kishou was clothed as usual in one of those typical long white coats of investigators and was holding the case with his left hand. He brought even quinques here; probably he said he was going to investigate some suspicious places here.

    It could be said that he had effective cover; he had two cases, one of which was pitch black with various golden ornaments.

    "Greetings Arima Kishou."

    "Greetings, Lucien Etras di Aeon."

    Both of them exchanged pleasantries at first.

    "Arima-san, you are the strongest ghoul investigator in the world. I would like to request a spar with you if I could."

    At this, Arima didn't say anything and just silently nodded his head.

    He, too, was curious about the power of the heir of the Aeon House. He knew something about them from Washuu Clan, but it wasn't much, only that all of them were extremely strong.

    That's all.

    Lucien seeing this, became very happy, his eyes sparkled, and he quickly took the battle stance, and his eyes turned black with a red iris; kakugan was on.

    He congealed one kagune katana, which he firmly held in his right hand.

    Arima also took out his weapon. Quinque rated at S+ IXA. It was a koukaku-type quinque that took the form of a lance attached to a gun-sword handle with a spiked pommel. Very deadly and dangerous weapon and this was just an offensive mode.

    It also had a defensive mode when it could expand to create the weird-looking shield, capable of defending against many strong kagune attacks. Not to mention it also had Mode Change, when it became something like kagune tails and could attack enemies.

    Lucien knew that Arima was an excellent swordsman who was a master in kenjutsu and swordsmanship in western countries; both of them went to create some distance between them, and then they both bowed to each other.

    By this, the duel had started.

    But not completely. Neither of them wanted to make the first move because one who made the first move would be put at a strong disadvantage. After several minutes of scanning and analyzing, Lucien couldn't bear it and congealed several kagune daggers, which shot at Arima with terrifying speed.

    Arima looked at this and Lucien could faint smile. He easily dodged the daggers and rushed straight at Lucien, who was prepared to defend.

    When the distance was almost closed suddenly, IXA transformed from the lance to the tails and attacked Lucien from several sides.

    Lucien smiled widely at this; he was happy that Arima could come with such surprise attacks. He quickly used kagune daggers to block all of those tails that were attacking them and shot at the Arima.

    Lucien gripped his katana strongly and slashed at Arima with full force; he knew that Arima was someone above his level regarding techniques and experiences, so there wasn't much need to hold back.

    When the katana was nearing Arima, in an instant, IXA changed to the Defensive mode and blocked that attack, to which Lucine showed a very displeased face. He knew that his attack failed, and soon retribution would come.

    And it came, as he was kicked to the stomach by Arima and was shot several meters away. Arima Kishou was half-human, a breed between human and ghoul; thus, he had partial ghoul physiology and was stronger than normal humans many times.

    Lucien was caught by surprise and couldn't defend against the attack properly. He wasn't even wearing his battle attire because it was made from some stronger materials, and it would be unfair to use it in a spar.

    Lucien spilled a little amount of blood, but he was smiling. Smiling from this feeling, of feeling which gave him a spar with Arima, it was making his blood boil, and he wanted to fight more.

    Arima didn't wait for Lucien to recover, as he was already before him, slashing at him with his IXA. Lucien knew that Arima wouldn't miss such a perfect chance to attack and was prepared.

    He blocked the IXA with his katana and sparks were flying in the air from the collision.

    They were exchanging one blow after another. At the start, Lucien had some problems assimilating to Arima's fighting speed.

    However, he soon caught up and the actual fight started.

    ***


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  21. Threadmarks: Chapter 51 – Idisputably the Strongest Investigator
    Trafford

    Trafford I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    After several more exchanges, Lucien chose a new strategy. It was clear that by doing this, the spar won't move to another point. So when they both rushed at each other and clashed again, Lucien let go of his katana and kicked IXA with all his power, shooting Arima away from him.

    Then he congealed several kagune daggers, which shot at Arima with high speed, and as he couldn't react properly, he ended up injured by several of them, but nothing serious, just some scratches and so on.

    Arima then stopped up and dropped the long white coat he was wearing all the time, revealing a pitch-black battle suit underneath. Lucien knew that this meant only one thing, Arima was going to be serious this time, and his assumptions became real as Arima rushed at him at his top speed and slashed at his right hand.

    Lucien tried to block the IXA, but as he dropped his katana, he didn't have enough time to create a new one because Arima was already before him.

    Leaving no other option, he tried to dodge the attack, barely dodging, but a few strands of silver hair were flying in the air.

    "I must compliment you that your reflexes are rather good, but that's not enough."

    Arima stated indifferently as he opened another case; this time, it was that pitch-black case with golden ornaments, which was waiting for Arima after he put it down.

    Lucien knew that this was his second quinque, Narukami rated as S+-Rate, but the real strength was around SS-Rate, same as the IXA.

    Narukami is an ukaku-type quinque. It discharges condensed RC cells just like lightning bolts that could do massive damage to the targets. One shot could kill B-Rated ghouls like ants and severely injure A-Rated ones, maybe even killing them in the process.

    Possessing a tracking function, evasion of the bolts is next to impossible. But what was more alarming was that even this quinque had Mode Change. In this mode, this weapon becomes even more terrifying.

    Then Arima aimed at Lucien and shot a bolt at Lucien, who immediately entered Kakuja V1 to defend. He was aware of the fact that it was impossible to dodge this attack, so the only option was to defend against it.

    As he was watching the lightning bolt closing him, he took a defensive stance and waited for the moment. When the lightning finally hit him, he felt like his entire body was without any sense and like he was about to fall down.

    However, fortunately, this condition lasted only a very short time as RC Cells started to work inside his body, and Lucien soon could control his body.

    Then he returned this favor by shooting two kagune spears at Arima this time. He chose to create spears because they were far bigger than daggers, and he would have a far harder time shooting them down.

    When two spears were flying at Arima, he tried to shoot them down by using the Narukami, but it was in vain; he managed only to damage one spear, so he couldn't do anything more and could just dodge the attack.

    Lucien used this as he appeared behind him, delivering one swift kick to his stomach, and it didn't end there as he followed after flying Arima and slashed at him with his katana aimed at his hand, which was holding Narukami.

    As Arima was rather immobile, he couldn't block the slash, and Lucien managed to break off Arima's grip on the Narukami, and now he remained with only one weapon IXA.

    Arima coughed blood and looked at Lucien with a somewhat respectful gaze. Then he nodded his head at him, and Lucien did the same. It was already time to decide the winner; they had been sparring already almost for an hour.

    Both of them stood opposite each other and prepared for the final clash. Lucien was prepared to perform Iaido, and Arima just stood there gripping his IXA. Lucien made the first move as he jumped at Arima.

    His physique was extremely strong, so it wasn't any hard feat to jump several meters high into the air; when he fell on the place where Arima was standing, everywhere was dust wave.

    Nothing could be seen, and it took several seconds for the dust to fall down. There was Arima, who was holding his quinque IXA, pointing it at Lucien's throat. But around his neck were three kagune daggers levitating and pressing his neck.

    Draw.

    The result of the spar was a draw. This could be said to be an amazing achievement. He actually managed to get the draw in the spar with White Reaper and Undefeated Ghoul Investigator Arima Kishou, but the truth was that none of them fought with the intent to kill.

    This was a huge factor, intent to kill, because when one fights with the intent to kill, his attack is more vicious and more powerful.

    "Exceptional."

    Complimented Arima. He was sounding like a teacher, and Lucien enjoyed it because it came from someone like him. Lucien knew that he was a teacher, like a figure to the Kaneki Ken, when he lost his memories and lived under the new identity, Sasaki Haise.

    "Arima-san, you are really Indisputably the strongest investigator alive. I heard from my father that you were the most notable combat genius of this generation; I am glad to be able to spar with you."

    Lucien was genuinely happy to spar with a figure like Arima Kishou; he knew he could learn many from him by sparring with him even once.

    Arima Kishou was able to train Sasaki Haise as an Associate Special Class investigator in a very short time. Even with the usage of quinque, Yukimura was B-Ranked quinque to combat stronger ghouls and kill some of them.

    After both of them finished this spar, they went to the more secluded place where the conversation could be held.

    "So what was that thing you want to discuss with me? Eto said that it was something very important."

    Lucien said to Arima.

    "I have obtained very important and very alarming information. I must warn you that this thing is very serious; it is personal order from Washuu Tsuneyoshi for the entire Washuu Clan and even Vasuki."

    Hearing this, Lucien's expression changed in an instant.

    If something important came from Washuu Tsuneyoshi himself, it must be something very important. And personal orders were different from normal ones; personal orders must be completed by any means, at any cost.

    ***


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  22. Threadmarks: Chapter 52 – Shi Xue
    Trafford

    Trafford I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    "I should start at the start of the story. The personal order was released around a week ago. But more important is the background of this. Apparently, Washuu Tsuneyoshi ordered several elders of the clan to go to an excavation site in China that was newly founded; they are mobilizing for their huge amount of mercenaries and various contracted killers."

    Hearing this, Lucien paled very quickly.

    He was already suspecting the reason why Washuu Clan was searching for some ruins in China. They probably found the Ancestral site of the Shi Xue Clan and some heritage there.

    Like Aeon House, even Shi Xue Clan had their own heritage and techniques they taught to their descendants; now, it was probably found by Washuu Clan, and they wanted to obtain it for their purposes.

    For Lucien, this was critical information. Not only for him but even for the entire Aeon House. Now he could officially request support, but he knew it was meaningless.

    He would need to leave in the shortest amount of time, and it would be troublesome to coordinate with reinforcements then.

    "Continue, Arima-san. This matter is more serious than we have previously thought."

    Arima nodded his head, corrected his glasses, and continued talking.

    "They already left, two days before, from what I have managed to find out. Their entire force is composed of around two hundred to three hundred people. The core force is, of course, the clan's elders and some clan members. Inner force is created by members of Vasuki; I must apologize that I don't know the exact number of agents sent there. And outer force, even though they are weakest in individual combat, they are most numerous among are mercenaries they hired. But they would hire more in China, probably some local ghoul gangs would join them after some bribery, or they would force them."

    Summarized Arima their numbers. Lucien wasn't very worried about a high number of low-leveled ghouls because he could just slaughter them like ants.

    He was instead worried about agents of Vasuki and elders of the Washuu Clan; they were real problems to deal with.

    "The numbers won't be problems. Ghoul mercenaries are usually around B-Rate or A-Rated; to me, they won't be any threat as I could slaughter them with kagune daggers and telekinesis in a short time. But the Elders are a totally different matter. Do you know at least how strong they are approximate?"

    Lucien questioned Arima, as only the Elders of the Washuu Clan were the problem; the other ones were just resources for blood essences.

    "I can't say, but I can guarantee they won't be weak. Even by my standards."

    Arima answered him grimly, signifying that they were not weak even by his standards; just hearing that sounds rather bad.

    "Can I ask you, Lucien-san, what could they find there?"

    Asked Arima with a curious voice., it must be told he was curious about what Washuu Clan found there.

    What forced Washuu Tsuneyoshi to mobilize several elders and tens of strong agents of Vasuki to send them all to some ruins in China?

    He himself couldn't answer, he could only guess, but he was aware that Lucien would probably know the answer.

    "As you may know, Aeon House has several legacies or techniques meant for their descendants. The same goes for the Noble House of the East, Shi Xue Clan. Washuu Clan probably found the Ancestral Site of the Shi Xue Clan, where they stored their legacies during that event. So they are trying to excavate the ruins and obtain those things there."

    Explained Lucien. If Washuu Clan manages to obtain something which would enhance its strength even more, it would have terrible results for everyone else. Arima was a smart and intelligent person who knew the consequences of this thing.

    "Will you go there?"

    Lucien, hearing this question, faintly smiled.

    He knew that he didn't have a choice. He must go there and stop Washuu Clan from obtaining the legacy; he only hoped he could return before the start of the 11th Ward Battle as he wanted to participate in the Cochlea Raid.

    "I don't have a choice, you know. My family sent me here to destroy the Washuu Clan, so this is the perfect opportunity. The only problem is that everything is just too rushed, and I won't have enough time to prepare properly for this so-called expedition."

    Laughed Lucien as he finished this sentence. Yes, even if he didn't want to go there, he must. It was his duty. But he was eager to see China and more eager to spill some blood. The killing was an extremely addictive activity. For ghouls even more, as it was a sport in some way.

    "Good; I hope you can succeed."

    Lucien nodded his head and took out a small vial, which was filled with red liquid. He gave it to Arima, who took it from his hands, not understanding what to do with the vial.

    "Drink it; it would give you more time and heal your eye."

    Said Lucien.

    That liquid was, in reality, his blood.

    For ordinary ghouls, the blood of Noble Ghoul had a miraculous effect, and for half-humans, even more. Arima was already losing sight, so it would help him heal it and stop the aging process for some time; even though Arima didn't want, he nodded his head and agreed to drink the liquid.

    He drank it, and nothing happened.

    "It would take effect after some time, piece by piece. Don't wait for miraculous healing."

    Chuckled Lucien as he said that even though his blood could help, it doesn't have instant-regenerative properties.

    "When will you be leaving?"

    "Day after tomorrow. I need to leave as soon as possible to finish my mission fastest. But I need to finish some things before I can go to China. I need to prepare some things, and so."

    Arima nodded, and then both of them shook hands and went to their own business to do. He ventured into the tunnels a little and killed a few ghouls just for fun because he was bored and he needed to release some steam.

    Lucien watched his disappearing figure a little before walking away.

    Unfortunately, there weren't any strong ghouls, only B-Rated weaklings, so the harvest wasn't much.

    After one hour of hunting for ghouls, he decided it was time for him to return to his estate to prepare for the expedition.

    ***


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  23. Threadmarks: Chapter 53 – Preparations
    Trafford

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    The first thing he did after returning to his estate wrote a message home describing the situation here. He mentioned the personal order of Washuu Tsuneyoshi, mobilizing many forces of clan and Vasuki, and of course, the essential part of the message, the legacy of the Shi Xue Clan.

    He immediately sent the message home.

    After that, he called Darkwalker and told him about the situation and that he would need to leave.

    After reading these records, his mood was at max, and he searched for information about Shi Xue Clan, which could be helpful. Some books were describing the Shi Xue Clan and where the ancestral lands of the clan were located; because of this, it wasn't a big problem for Lucien to find relevant pieces of information.

    After some time, he found out that the location of the heritage was, surprisingly, the Kunlun Mountains. Those are some of the most extended mountain chains in Asia, extending more than three thousand kilometers.

    They were located in the provinces of Tibet, Qinghai, and Xinjiang. The highest peak was Liushi Shan, also called Kunlun Goddess, which has an elevation of 7,167 meters.

    Now Lucien knew that this was his first target. The Kunlun Mountains. After some time spent in the library, he was already a bit tired.

    So he went to take a nap in his chamber.

    Lucien managed to refine several blood essences, which he saved from Itori, Uta, and some other his friends. He even planned to give some to Eto to make her stronger; it could avoid her many troubles.

    Next, he went to train kenjutsu because it was necessary never to stop training. He needed to go to Helter Skelter Bar to inform Itori that he would be leaving for some time. Maybe two months. Now they were a couple; he was worried about her reaction.

    ***

    Mercenaries were running here and there, arranging the weaponry.

    Lucien knew that they were probably arranging for the arrival of weapons, q bulletproof vests, and many other things. It must be said that Darkwalker wasn't wasting time, only a short time elapsed, and he was already making arrangements.

    Lucien nodded his head in satisfaction, seeing this, and went to the Helter Skelter Bar, but before that, he went to the HySy ArtMask Studio to inform Uta. This would be much easier done. When he was on his way to the HySy ArtMask Studio, he remembered he would also need to inform Eto about his absence.

    They were allies, and his support for Aogiri Tree was crucial.

    Lucien arrived at the HySy ArtMask Studio after a while and found that Uta was making some masks. Probably for Kaneki. Lucien always liked that mask, it gave a weird feeling, but at the same time, it looked like one of those leather masks used in BDSM plays.

    "Uta-san hi."

    Hearing that Lucien had come here, Uta stopped working on the mask and went to Lucien.

    "Hi, Lucien-san."

    Both of them sat down, and Lucien started talking.

    "I will be leaving for China tomorrow. Something dire came concerning Washuu Clan and Vasuki. I must go there and do my work."

    Explained Lucien in a solemn voice, to which Uta nodded his head in understanding.

    "I am going to tell that to Itori now, and I think she won't be pleased about this."

    This time Lucien was complaining.

    He wasn't fond of the fact that he must leave, especially now when he was together with Itori because he knew he wouldn't see her in the next two months, but what must be done was clear.

    He hoped he could finish it quickly and return as soon as possible, even though Lucien often spent several days training or so; it was only days.

    Two months were different.

    ***


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  24. Threadmarks: Chapter 54 – Parting
    Trafford

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    Lucien and Uta had a short chat about some things. Lucien told him to keep an eye on Itori; he didn't want something bad to happen to her. After some time, Lucien went away and went to the Helter Skelter Bar.

    Lucien told Itori that he would arrive today and that he wanted to discuss something important, so the business was closed for today.

    When Lucien arrived at the Helter Skelter Bar, Itori was already waiting for him with a bottle of the blood wine prepared. Lucien smiled at her and gently hugged Itori, after which they both sat down and started drinking blood wine.

    "Today, I wanted to discuss something very important with you. I will be leaving for China tomorrow because of Washuu Clan. I received a message from Arima that they are excavating some ruins and searching for the inheritance of the Shi Xue Clan. They have apparently mobilized a huge force of the clan, and this may be a good opportunity to strike and weaken their forces greatly."

    Lucien explained his plans.

    He was waiting for some kind of retaliation and for the moment when Itori would be mad at them, but contrary to his expectations, she was calm and quiet. Not saying anything at all and just looking at him.

    "How long would you be away?"

    Asked Itori the most important question for her, how long would Lucien be away? She wanted to know it even though it may be painful to be separated for such a long time when they became a couple just recently.

    "I don't know. Around two months at longest."

    Answered Lucien honestly. He must return at least before the end of December because of the 11th Ward Battle and raid at the Cochlea Prison, where he would be playing the major role.

    He couldn't miss that event, but he knew that this trip wouldn't take long.

    He only needed to find forces of the Washuu Clan, slaughter them all, and if he had some time, he would search for the inheritance of the Shi Xue Clan.

    "Then I wish you luck, and I hope you will succeed and return quickly. Even though it makes me sad that you must leave now and for such a long period of time, it must be done. I am sure you would kill all those dogs of Washuu Clan and return safely."

    Itori smiled at him before she leaned over and gave him a passionate kiss.

    Lucien returned her kiss and started to hug her closely.

    After some time, they separated and looked at each other. Itori had a blush on her face, and Lucien was doing his best not to lose himself in his lust.

    He wanted to have their first time in a more proper situation at some special opportunity, then he took out some blood essences, which he prepared to give Itori.

    "Here are some Blood-Essences I have extracted for you, then use RC Star Evolution Method. Use them to increase your RC Level and evolve. Oh, here are some for Uta; when I visited him today, I forgot to give them to him."

    Itori took all blood essences from Lucien and nodded her head at this.

    "Thank you, d-e-a-r."

    He was caught by surprise by this act; it must be admitted that she was very good at teasing others, including him.

    Itori liked very much to tease Lucien, and when he was in the mood, he did the same to her.

    "You are welcome d-e-a-r."

    Said Lucien, the same thing to her.

    After spending some time with Itori at the Helter Skelter Bar, Lucien went to the 24th Ward to tell this to Eto because she was the final person whom Lucien needed to visit and tell this news.

    ***

    It didn't take much time to arrive in the 24th Ward and find Eto. She was doing the same thing most of her time.

    Lazying around and doing nothing at all, she would occasionally write some new novel or something.

    When Eto saw him, she ran to him and hugged him around the neck, and she was hanging on him like a koala. Lucien patted her head and gave her a kiss on her forehead, then they both sat down, and Lucien started explaining the situation to her.

    "So would you be able to return by the time when the plan would start?"

    Eto was apparently very concerned about the fact that he was leaving.

    Mainly, if he couldn't return to the date of the 11th Ward Battle, it would affect their plans greatly, but he already did the great deed by arranging various supplies like weapons, ammunition, and other important things.

    "Yes, I should be able to return. I think I would be able to return around early to middle December of this year. I don't want to miss the chance to attack Cochlea, and beside me, who could stall Arima Kishou for long enough for all our forces to escape."

    Stated Lucien, as aside from attacking and slaughtering every life in the Cochlea, he also had another objective.

    That was to stall Arima Kishou long enough for all ghouls to escape safely. Of course, they would be just playing around as this won't fight to the death; they only needed to do enough damage and injuries to look like a real fight to the death.

    "That's good then. I would prepare everything we need at the 11th Ward Battle and Cochlea Raid."

    Lucien nodded at this and then stood up and went away, but before that, Eto did the same thing as the last time when he went here. She came to him and gave him a passionate kiss.

    After they parted, Lucien returned to his mansion, and because he couldn't sleep, he started training in Rinkaku Martial Arts and then practiced Telekinesis.

    The next day in the morning, Lucien stood before his mansion, with only one Hummer H3 that would be transporting him to the airport, where his private jet was already waiting for him.

    Lucien observed everything here and also talked a bit with Darkwalker about some things. He told him to help Aogiri Tree if the situation was very dire during the time when he would be away and also talked about supplies and other things that would be needed for the 11th Ward Battle and Cochlea Raid.

    ***


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  25. Threadmarks: Chapter 55 – Myths and Legends, History and Future
    Trafford

    Trafford I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Lucien was now sitting in his private jet that was flying to the location near the Kunlun Mountains.

    Because the flight would be a bit long and boring, he started to read some books, especially one book that described the Kunlun Mountains and some myths around them.

    Kunlun is originally the name of a mythical mountain believed to be a Taoist paradise. According to the legends, the first to visit this paradise was King Mu of the Zhou Dynasty. He supposedly discovered there the Jade Palace of the Yellow Emperor, the mythical originator of Chinese culture, and met Xi Wang Mu, the Spirit Mother of the West, usually called the Queen Mother of the West.

    Also, Kunlun or Kunlun Shan is an important symbol representing Axis Mundi and divinity.

    Axis Mundi is certain beliefs and philosophies, is the world center, or the connection between Heaven and Earth. As the celestial pole and geographic pole, it expresses a point of connection between sky and earth where the four compass directions meet.

    At this point, travel and correspondence are made between higher and lower realms, similar to the Kunlun Shan in China and Mount Fuji, Japan. Also, others like Mount Olympus or Mount Kailash. Of course, many more places are also regarded as Axis Mundi.

    Kunlun also has a lively bestiary as various more-or-less fantastic beasts and birds are described as present in its environs. The tiger or beings with tiger-like features are often associated with Kunlun since the tiger is symbolic of the west, as Kunlun is often associated with the Western Paradise.

    The flora of Kunlun and its environs is in keeping with the rest of its natural and supernatural qualities and includes the Pearl and Jade Trees, the Tree of Immortality, and Tree Grain, the last of which Muhe was forty feet in height and five spans in thickness.

    And lastly, Kunlun Mountain is a major scene of action in various myths and legends, where many important events happened. One of the most notable ones was the marriage of Nüwa and Fuxi. Nüwa is the mother goddess of Chinese mythology, the sister and wife of Fuxi. They were a sibling and also husband and wife.

    Fuxi was an ancient Chinese god who is said to have shown the ancient Chinese people how to domesticate animals. She is the creator of mankind and is also credited with repairing the Pillar of Heaven. Fuxi is her brother and husband, also credited with creating mankind. He was the first of the Three Sovereigns at the beginning of the Chinese dynastic period.

    He stooped reading and went to meditate a little to calm himself before the storm that was coming. He was aware the moment he arrived at the Kunlun Mountains that the fights would start and would only end by annihilating one party. Either he or Washuu Clan and their lackeys.

    ***

    When Lucien arrived at the place, it was already around noon. He quickly exited his jet that landed in a private area near the Kunlun Mountains; he went to find his pre-arranged car was already prepared for him here.

    There weren't almost any people here, and it looked very abandoned place at first look.

    After a short time, he found the car, which was surprisingly a luxurious BMW limo in black color. It was parked in the same area as Lucien's jet landed, he got into the car, and then he drove to the Kunlun Mountains. Fortunately, his jet dropped him near the Kunlun Mountains, so he was at the location by car after two or three hours of driving.

    As he was driving, he also watched and admired the environment around him.

    The entire area was very nice, and it gave a feeling of nature and peace; he arrived at the location after two hours of driving at full speed.

    When he stepped out of the car, he admired the Kunlun Mountains as he had seen them now for the first time in his life.

    The Mountains themselves were majestic and beautiful; they were actually snowed mountains because they were high above sea level.

    Lucien was clothed in his battle attire and also wore the hollow mask that Uta made for him. Even though it was very cold here and when he entered the mountains, it would be even more; he wasn't bothered by it.

    As a 4th-Star Ghoul, he could bear this cold relatively easily.

    ***


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  26. Threadmarks: Chapter 56 – The Valley
    Trafford

    Trafford I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    The Kunlun Mountains, China.

    It was already two days after he entered the Kunlun Mountains. Nothing else than snow could be seen here.

    Lucien was currently walking through some paths, and he was literary following his intuition in his pursuit of forces from the Washuu Clan.

    Even though it was very cold here because it was constantly snowing and the wind blowing, Lucien was fine, he was a 4th-Star Ghoul that evolved with RC Star Evolution Method, so this kind of temperature was nothing to him at all.

    He walked through the passage and various mountain passages.

    Lucien walked through this passage for several hours until he saw that sky was darkening and the wind was getting stronger and colder. He knew that snowstorm was coming this way and he must go to hide.

    He wondered how we're able the forces of the Washuu Clan survive in such a hostile environment, but he thought they were better equipped and prepared for this situation than he was. They planned it longer, and he knew that this must be planned for a long time and the personal order of Washuu Tsuneyoshi only started the operation.

    On the other side, Lucien only knew about it for one or two days, and it looked like that too, he was without any preparations and so.

    His only preparation was parting with Itori, Eto, and Uta.

    That's all.

    Maybe giving orders to Darkwalker and his bunch of mercenaries.

    He found himself a nice cave to wait till the snowstorm ended.

    ***

    Now the weather was much better as there wasn't any wind blowing or snow falling. Lucien smiled widely at this, and he proceeded to the deeper parts of the mountains. He wasn't going too fast as he was very cautious about this place.

    Nobody knows when could be some avalanche or another snowstorm. He could also step on the wrong spot, and frozen ground under him would crack, and he could fall, who knows, whereas, in some places, the ground was just frozen snow and ice.

    As Lucien was going through this place slowly, it took him a week to arrive at the entrance to the inner parts of the Kunlun Mountains. The entrance itself was located in a valley, which was a relatively small one; when he saw the place, he noticed there were many people around.

    Lucien knew that Washuu Clan probably had some kind of camp here. With his telekinesis, he counted all people here. There were around sixty people here, which meant that this was supplying point and also sentry.

    Of the sixty-five here, fifty were mercenaries for sure because they were clothed like ones. Some were holding even assault rifles and were dressed in various types of clothing to keep them warm.

    Lucien knew that these people were just some weaklings at B-Rate, and maybe a few of them would be of A-Rate, but then there were precisely 10-people in pitch-black heavy leather long coats, which were similar to those coats which agents of Vasuki are wearing.

    Though this was some kind of version of cold environments, apparently, these people were agents of Vasuki as they were clothed in a similar fashion and all of them had katanas handing at their waists.

    And lastly, there were five middle-aged men in luxurious clothing, and all of them wore masks covering their faces, the same as the agents of Vasuki; they also had katanas handing at their waists.

    Lucien could feel from their auras that they should be stronger than those agents of V, and a small grin formed on his face.

    It was time to tint this pure white snow with some blood.

    ***


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  27. Threadmarks: Chapter 57 – Blood and Snow
    Trafford

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    Now Lucien was thinking about the plan of how to deal with them all before they could report something to the higher-ups. However, even when they would report the attack to the higher-ups, it would solve nothing.

    The only thing achieved would be reinforcements sent here, and those would be composed of B-Rated and A-Rated ghoul mercenaries, which are like ants to Lucien with his telekinesis and kagune daggers duo.

    Fortunately for him, those idiots were all gathered in one place. This was a huge mistake, and they would pay dearly for their stupidity. Lucien went closer to them; he was sneaking around because he didn't want to lose the moment of surprise when he would attack; when he was close enough, he started congealing kagune daggers.

    Now he could congeal around twenty to thirty of them because of his higher RC Level. When he congealed the kagune daggers to the max, more concretely thirty-six, he started to control them and chose targets.

    By making this surprise attack, he wanted to slaughter all those B-Rated ants and weaker A-Rated rats. When preparations for the ambush were done, with a simple thought, a bloody massacre started. All daggers shot towards pre-determined targets with frightening speed, and blood was scattering in the air.

    But not only blood but heads of some unfortunate mercenaries who couldn't even react properly r were also flying in the air, with a shocked expression on the severed head as it was falling down on the snow, painting it in bloody crimson color.

    Those with greater luck would have only their throats cut, so it wasn't such humiliating death, thought Lucien. The entire dance of death and festival of blood took only two minutes. Two minutes later, fifty mercenaries were reduced to four, from whose two had severed entire arms and blood was spraying from the wounds, and two were relatively fine.

    Nothing really happened to those agents of Vasuki and those middle-aged men who were members of the Washuu Clan itself, as they weren't targets of this slaughter.

    Now that Lucien had cleared the field for the game, he could start the fight.

    Lucien turned on his kakugan, his iris quickly turned red, and the sclera turned pitch black with red veins across the eye and to the skin around the eye. His face was hidden under the Hollow Mask, and only his kakugan was visible.

    He congealed several kagune tails and rushed to the four mercenaries. He wanted to finish them as soon as possible because then he would have more time to deal with troublesome members of the Vasuki and Washuu Clan. Because two of them were severely injured, when Lucien appeared before them, only one slash with a kagune tail was enough to put them into eternity.

    Then he congealed kagune katana and rushed at another close mercenary with lightning speed, and with one precise slash, he severed his head from his body, as his blood sprayed the entire surrounding with blood.

    The same fate was of the last mercenary as his head was also severed from his body, and Lucien watched it lifelessly fall onto the ground.

    Then he turned around and saw that those ten agents of Vasuki and five Washuu Clan members had already taken battle stances and held their weapons. Some of them had their kakugans turned on, which meant they were ghouls.

    All five middle-aged men from the Washuu Clan were ghouls, and only three agents of Vasuki were ghouls. The rest was probably half-humans.

    Lucien immediately entered Kakuja V1, as his left arm was covered in kakuja armor, and his katana, which he was holding in his right hand, changed slightly.

    Now it looked more imposing and dangerous than before.

    "If you don't start, then forgive me."

    Said Lucien seeing that those five middle-aged men from the Washuu Clan weren't talkative ones, because they were standing in some kind of formation.

    Lucien wanted to forcefully breach it, as he was much stronger than them.

    He appeared before the agents who stood in the middle of that formation and slashed with his katana, aiming at his neck.

    The agent was probably one of the strongest agents of Vasuki here because he was taking the central position of the formation; their swords clashed, and sparks were in the air.

    As they clashed, the rest of the agents quickly surrounded them, and two were already preparing to attack Lucien from behind.

    Lucien only smiled at this, and shortly after those two agents were close enough, a red kagune tail materialized from his back and attacked those two agents, tearing them apart.

    This was the beauty of a permanent kagune tail. He couldn't use the normal kagune tails during the Kakuja state, but the permanent kagune tail could still be used.

    Then he used his tail to attack the agent before him, killing him in an instant because he couldn't react.

    After that, Lucien jumped and performed a flip backward and swiftly escaped the encirclement of his enemies. With a wide smile, he looked at all agents of Vasuki and members of the Washuu Clan before him. Only a shame that they can't see his smile because he wore the mask.

    "Hmm, so the elite agents of Vasuki amount only to this. Ts, ts, ts, pure disappointment. I thought your elite hunting dogs would be stronger, Washuu Clan."

    Complained Lucien about the weak power of his opponents. Because he managed to kill the three of them in such a short time, it clearly showed his far superior power and their weakness. Even though the faces of V agents remained unchanged and indifferent, deep inside, they knew that situation was bad.

    Very bad.

    The same goes for the five middle-aged men of the Washuu Clan. They also knew that this was a dead end and nobody would save them. Elders and Grand Elder were deep inside the Kunlun Mountains, and they won't be sending reinforcements for them.

    "What do you want, Aeon?"

    Asked one of five middle-aged men of the Washuu Clan because all five of them were clothed in the same clothing. Also, they wore the same masks; it was rather hard to know who was who from the outer perspective.

    "I? Many things, but now I want only one thing."

    Lucien said, while he took a battle stance and gripped his katana strongly, then he looked at the agents of Vasuki and those members of the Washuu Clan.

    "To paint this snow with your blood."

    ***


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  28. Threadmarks: Chapter 58 – In the Past White, Present is Red
    Trafford

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    After two more exchanges, Lucien managed to reduce numbers to only three agents of Vasuki remaining alive, together with five middle-aged men from the Washuu Clan.

    Agents of Vasuki weren't especially strong individuals, and he could kill easily either with his katana or tail.

    Those five middle-aged men were more troublesome because all of them had perfect coordination and were good at group attacks. Another point was that they weren't attacking him and were just observers; he knew they were searching for a weak spot in his combat style and for an appropriate opportunity for an ambush attack.

    Still, Lucien let them be as he was now focused on killing agents of Vasuki because they were much weaker than members of the Washuu Clan, apparently.

    Lucien rushed at their formation again, and with the jump, he slashed one of the agents, sending him flying away with his tail.

    Death. One down, only two more to go.

    As soon as he landed, he slashed with his katana, severing the hand of the agent to his right, turning to the agent to his left, who was slashing at him with his katana.

    Lucien swiftly dodged the attack, and he pierced the agents through his heart, instantly killing him on the spot.

    Then he slashed at the agent whose arm was severed, separating his body into two parts. Now only he and those five middle-aged men from the Washuu Clan remained alive.

    They both looked and observed each other for several seconds until Lucien exited his Kakuja state and congealed five kagune katanas and controlled each with telekinesis.

    At the same time, all those five katanas each shot with lightning speed at their targets. Lucien didn't want to fight them all at once because their coordination was looking too troublesome to deal with.

    So he just used his telekinesis. In just a second, all five katanas clashed with the swords of their targets, sparks were flying in the air, and the sound of clashing weapons was heard through the entire valley.

    Compared to the past, controlling larger numbers of weapons through telekinesis was much more manageable because he was more proficient in it, but there wasn't control as a control. One type was a direct one, where he would personally control weapons through telekinesis.

    Another type was when he would leave a small imprint of his psionic energy on the target, and weapons would automatically attack the target. With direct control, he could control up to fifteen weapons with his current psionic powers.

    After several minutes of the intense fight, Lucien was gaining an advantage over those five middle-aged men from the Washuu Clan. As he was making the attacks stronger and faster, they were having problems keeping on with them.

    When the fight was in full flow, he congealed one kagune dagger, which was hidden close to the place where they were fighting.

    Suddenly when one of those five men showed a weak spot as he just barely defended against an attack from Lucien's katana, from nowhere kagune dagger shot with terrifying speed and slashed his neck, instantly killing the man.

    Lucien was smiling widely under the mask, and the remaining four men were rather indifferent to the death of their comrade.

    'Truly professionals. Even the death of their comrade can't distract them. Even I must admire their rationality over the situation and keeping a calm mind. Some other idiot would start raging around and losing even that bit of rationality that they kept till now.'

    Thought Lucien in his mind as he was controlling the entire battle to his satisfaction. And soon another man was killed in a flash; the reason was the same as the first one. After the second one was killed, the men were still able to keep their composure.

    Seeing this, Lucien chuckled and intensified the fight by more levels. Katanas were attacking more fiercely and faster; each of them was aiming at a vital spot of the enemy.

    Soon enough, one of the three remaining men couldn't defend themself, and he was pierced through. When only two of them remained, their calmness was finally broken, and they panicked.

    They both looked at each other before nodding their heads, and one of them rushed at Lucien while the last one chose to escape. Probably he wanted to deliver the message about this attack, and another one was just stalling for a time.

    All in vain.

    One katana killed the escaping man as soon as he turned his back to Lucien and focused on escaping; apparently he forgot that he could still be attacked.

    What an idiot and that unlucky one that was rushing at Lucien were pierced with several katanas at once, but none of his vital points were struck.

    Thus he died slowly.

    Lucien was thinking about keeping one of them alive, but it was rather useless as he already knew there was an ancestral site of the Shi Xue Clan located from books in his library.

    Then he watched an entire valley as it was slowly being colored with the color of crimson red.

    Before the start of this "battle", the entire valley was pure white in color, just like the snow which was everywhere, but now, after the massacre happening here, it was turned to blood-red color.

    It looked ominous and radiated an aura of blood and death.

    "What a mess. I should look for something useful at least."

    Lucien stated as he stored all bodies in his Cross Crest. After looking for some useful things that may be here, left by the Washuu Clan, Lucien found only some useless things like tents or some things here.

    Even some firearms and ammunition were there, but he didn't take them at first as it was useless to him because he was a greedy bastard; he inherited them after his grandpa; he took them and stored them in Cross Crest.

    He knew that he was on the right path, and it didn't matter even if the Washuu Clan obtained that inheritance, as this was the only path leading in and out. He could intercept them anywhere he wanted, but still, he wanted to look at the ruins and search the ruins themselves for some hidden resources.

    ***


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  29. Threadmarks: Chapter 59 – Good Loot
    Trafford

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    After he finished the fight, the first thing done, again, was to sleep for five hours.

    Truth be told, Lucien loved sleeping most.

    It was one of his favorite activities and even hobbies.

    After a good sleep, he inspected those bodies to see if they were carrying something valuable. He started with those mercenaries, but they didn't have anything useful at all. Compared to them, agents of Vasuki at least had their katanas which could be used to combat ghouls.

    Lucien kept those katanas, as those swords seemed made from some special metal or maybe some unique technique.

    They looked like any other katanas, but they could injure and kill ghouls; it was common knowledge said that normal weapons couldn't even injure ghouls.

    To Lucien, the swords of the Washuu Clan were always a bit mysterious, but originally they didn't originate from Washuu Clan.

    They were products of the Noble House of the East, Shi Xue Clan.

    Lastly, Lucien searched those five middle-aged men. However, besides some jewelry like signet rings or some necklaces, they also didn't carry anything.

    Seeing this, Lucien almost went mad because he didn't obtain some loot.

    "Why the hell can't I have some loot from them?! Besides swords, they weren't carrying anything useful."

    Screamed Lucien to the air as he kicked one of the corpses. After several minutes he calmed down and started some tasks.

    ***

    Then Lucien started extracting the Blood-Essence from the bodies of sixty-five ghouls with the Blood-Essence Extractor; he was eager to raise his RC Level by a great amount again.

    He knew that he was probably behind when compared with Ghouls on the Blood Island as they were a probably endless supply of Blood-Essences extracted from demons.

    When he was finished with the entire process of extracting, he started to eat them like candies. Of course, he again did the verified method, eating one Blood-Essences extracted from ghouls together with one Blood-Essences extracted from demons.

    He felt and even saw his Red Children Cells eager to reproduce and how they were multiplying at a terrifying speed.

    Soon he was reaching the end of the journey as he was out of blood essences, and the process of multiplying Red Children Cells was already slowing down until it stopped completely.

    Lucien now felt that he could contest with Eto in her Owl form when it came to pure physical strength. This was a rather scary thought as Eto in her Owl form had extremely terrifying physical strength.

    He achieved the RC Level of 57,564, soon to be reaching the threshold of 75,000, and that meant evolution to the 4th Star.

    [Name: Lucien Etras die Aeon

    Race: Ghoul

    RC Type: Rinkaku

    RC Level: 57,564

    Unique State: Kakuja V4

    - Kakuja V1: Left hand - body armor, right hand - kagune katana

    - Kakuja V2: Entire body armor without a mask, kagune katana

    - Kakuja V3: Entire body armor with the mask, another armor layer (extra thin), kagune katana

    - Kakuja V4: Entire body armor with the mask, another armor layer (extra thin), kagune katana, Rinkaku Tails

    Star Rank: 4th

    ***

    Abilities: Telekinesis - Beta]

    Lucien inspected changes on his record, and the only notable things were two. The increase of his RC Level to 57,564.

    He opened a bottle of good blood wine to celebrate his today's loot and advancement in the RC Level.

    After drinking the whole bottle, he wore his battle attire and returned to the Kunlun Mountains to continue the journey to the Ancestral Site of the Shi Xue Clan. The weather was good out there, and he could proceed some distance these days.

    He knew that his target location was still far away, but he wasn't in much hurry, letting the Washuu Clan do the dirty work of excavation, and he would just reap the rewards.

    ***


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  30. Threadmarks: Chapter 60 – Another down
    Trafford

    Trafford I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    After nearly two weeks of traveling through the Kunlun Mountains and fighting unfriendly weather such as snowstorms, coldness, and avalanches, Lucien managed to reach the place where was Ancestral Site of the Shi Xue Clan is located.

    He walked for another hour until he finally arrived at the place. When he saw that mountain and noticed that forces of the Washuu Clan created fortification, he was surprised, but he smiled faintly at the coming bloodshed.

    The Ancestral Site of the Shi Xue Clan was located in the mountain before him. Leading there was a small entrance, which looked like the entrance to some cave, but it was apparent that this was a complete building complex a long time ago, as parts of stones and pillars were everywhere around, and even snow couldn't hide them.

    Lucien counted more than a hundred people, but what surprised him was the fact that the majority, if not of them, were mercenaries. Probably all agents of Vasuki and members of the Washuu Clan were already in ruins searching for the inheritance of the Shi Xue Clan.

    'Now, getting into the ruins would be much easier.'

    Lucien thought in his mind because the majority of people guarding the entrance were only B-Rated or A-Rated mercenaries, which he could slaughter in seconds and get into ruins in no time.

    He started congealing one kagune weapon after another.

    Soon all of them were shot, and again blood scene from several days ago was repeated. Same as the first time, mercenaries who were weak as an ant and could serve as cannon fodder only fell one after another.

    Soon the white snow turned bloody red, as their blood was created into rivers.

    Lucien walked to the entrance, but when he was in the middle of the camp, which fortified the entrance, a surprise waited there for him; Lucien received the same one some time ago.

    The old man, wearing the kimono with the symbol of the Washuu Clan, walked out of the tent. Katana was handing at his waist, and he was already gripping it with his hand.

    "Did you like the show, Elder? Forgive my rudeness; my name is Lucien Etras di Aeon, heir of the Etras di Aeon House."

    Lucien introduced himself with a low bow to the old man as a way of a formal greeting. The Elder from the Washuu Clan looked at him indifferently and scanned him from toe to head.

    "My name is Washuu Tsuneyashi, Elder of the Washuu Clan."

    He returned the bow in the same manner as Lucien, greeting him in return, as this was a common courtesy between the nobility and a form of mutual respect, despite the fact that both of them were enemies.

    "It seems that you still haven't succeeded in acquiring the inheritance of the Shi Xue Clan. How fortunate for me. Don't worry; another of your clansmen would follow shortly after your death, Elder."

    When he finished the sentence, his kakugan turned on, and he immediately congealed on his kagune katana, which he gripped in his right hand.

    Elder Washuu Tsuneyashi nodded his head and gripped his katana, ready to attack at any time.

    "Yes, we didn't succeed yet, but soon we will. Then in the future, even your clan won't be a match for the Washuu Clan, and your House would disappear from the world's light, just like the Shi Xue Clan."

    Hearing this, Lucien started to grow mad, but he was doing his best to keep calm. He knew that as he was trying to provoke Elder Washuu Tsuneyashi, the Elder was doing the same thing.

    To provoke the opponent.

    Suddenly both of them disappeared from the places where they stood, and their swords clashed, creating sparks in the air. When they were still locked in the clash, two kagune daggers shot at Elder Washuu Tsuneyashi out of nowhere.

    This time Lucien wasn't planning to contest with pure Kenjutsu, and he was using his telekinesis too.

    The last time when he was fighting against the Elder of the Washuu Clan, Elder Washuu Tsunemoro, he was using just his Kenjutsu to fight because he wanted to. Now the situation was different and more dangerous, as Elder Washuu Tsuneyashi was more dangerous and stronger for sure.

    Elder Washuu Tsuneyashi managed to dodge both kagune daggers, but he was still injured slightly by them. Nothing serious, just two cuts, but it was still something.

    Lucien used the opportunity created by this and attacked Elder Washuu Tsuneyashi, who just barely managed to regain his composure, precise slash was already aimed at his head.

    Unfortunately, Lucien's attack was blocked by the elder. However, Lucien used this, and as Elder Washuu Tsuneyashi was blocking Lucien's attack, he kicked him from his full strength, sending him flying several meters.

    Lucien followed Elder Washuu Tsuneyashi, and with one precise attack, which wasn't blocked properly by the Elder, Lucien pierced his shoulder through. Elder Washuu Tsuneyashi groaned from pain as his shoulder was pierced, and Lucien congealed a kagune dagger in his hand, swiftly slashing his neck before he could do something.

    Lucien searched his surroundings a little, storing all bodies inside his Cross Crest in the special room. He also stored some weapons and ammunition; then he went to the tent, from whose Elder Washuu Tsuneyashi walked out.

    When he entered, he noticed that the tent was his, because there were some luxurious things, such as a watch and even a bed.

    He walked to the table and searched through the papers that were on it for some essential pieces of information.

    He found out that the Washuu Clan was in the last parts of the excavation of the ruins, and they should already be accessing the Ancestral Site of the Shi Xue Clan.

    This was a piece of somewhat good news because Washuu Clan still didn't enter the Ancestral Site of the Shi Xue Clan.

    Lucien would consider it heresy for the blood traitors to enter the Holy Ground of the Noble House of the East, Shi Xue Clan.

    He spent ten more minutes searching the tent of Elder Washuu Tsuneyashi before turning around and walking out.

    He wanted to enter the ruins already and started to clean them from the filth inside.

    ***


    Please support me on pa-treon (it would mean a lot and basically, only thanks to the patrons, the novel is still going on / PS. new billing system on) and read advanced chapters Trafford Novels | creating Novels, Fan-Fiction Novels | Patreon
    Mortal = 5 chapters ahead of regular release
    Legendary = 10 chapters ahead of regular release
    Mythos Horror = 15 chapters ahead of regular release
    Eldritch God = 20 chapters ahead of regular release
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