On Top of the Food Chain

Grace Mori lay sprawled on the bed, his legs still dangling off the edge, his mind consumed with worry and irritation. It had been two days since he last heard from Kazuki, and the silence was gnawing at him. Why wasn’t Kazuki contacting him? He had called and messaged countless times, yet no reply came. Each passing hour only deepened his unease.

With a sigh, Grace sat up, his gaze drifting around the room. The study table across from him was simple but stylish. Grace got up and walked over to it, his fingers idly reaching for the pen lying there. He began to spin it between his fingers, lost in thought, the repetitive motion failing to soothe his nerves.

Suddenly, his phone rang, startling him. The pen slipped from his grasp, clattering onto the table. Grace snatched up his phone, bringing it to his ear. “What is it?” he asked, his voice laced with impatience. After a brief exchange, he hung up with a terse “Alright.” He let out another sigh, trying to shake off the tension that clung to him.

But as he stood there, a surprising smile crept onto his face. “This room really smells like Kazuki” He muttered.

The room still carried Kazuki's scent, a familiar and comforting reminder of his friend. The thought of Kazuki brought a pang of longing, and before he knew it, Grace was dropping Kazuki a few more messages, hoping for a response.

With one last glance around the room, Grace climbed out of the window he had entered through, leaving Kazuki’s house behind, his heart still heavy.

***

Rika lay on the bed, the room bathed in soft moonlight that cast long, eerie shadows across the walls. Her normally composed and cold face was a picture of worry and sadness, her sharp, calculating eyes now dulled by melancholy. The weight of the room pressed down on her, a stark contrast to the delicate silver light that filtered through the window.

Kazuki's phone, resting beside her, buzzed incessantly with calls and messages from Grace. The sound was persistent, like a mosquito that wouldn’t leave her alone. But Rika didn’t care. She was beyond the reach of such distractions, lost in a labyrinth of her own thoughts, each more painful than the last.

‘Maybe if I had kept us together, he would be with us now,’ she thought, her mind swirling with regret. ‘Maybe if we had gone back, he would still be here.’ The thoughts were relentless, stabbing at her heart with each ‘maybe,’ each ‘what if.’ ‘Maybe if I had given him it before…’ The guilt was overwhelming, suffocating as if she could have prevented this terrible separation.

Rika was supposed to be the leader of the group. But now, as she lay in the darkness, the burden of responsibility crushed her. She had failed them, failed Kazuki, and the consequences were tearing her apart from the inside.

Rika’s eyes fluttered shut as the moonlight bathed the room, but her mind was far from at peace. The memory played on a loop, refusing to release her from its grip. She could still feel the rough, calloused hand of the Poacher groping her breasts, violating her, making her feel powerless in a way she had never experienced before. The sensation was sickening, and the more she tried to push it away, the more vividly it resurfaced.

Her breath hitched as she recalled the moment Kazuki intervened. In her mind’s eye, she saw him again—his body moving like a blur, the black mist swirling around him as if he were a specter from another world. The sight was terrifying yet mesmerizing. That red horn, sharp and glowing, made entirely of Aura, protruded from his forehead like a crown of vengeance.

Rika could see the Poacher’s eyes widen in shock as Kazuki's horn pierced through his chest, swift and merciless. The life drained from the Poacher’s face as Kazuki’s Aura bore through him, his body collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut.

But it wasn’t the violence that haunted her; it was Kazuki’s expression. In the glow of his Aura, his face was revealed—cold, harsh, utterly unrecognizable. His eyes, usually so kind and warm, were now frigid and piercing, as if he were looking through her rather than at her. It was a look of disappointment, of judgment, as though she had failed him in some irrevocable way.

That expression—so devoid of the Kazuki she knew—played over and over in her mind, searing itself into her consciousness. 

The image of Kazuki standing there, enveloped in darkness with that cruel red horn, lingered like a ghost, haunting her with the memory of her failure and his silent rebuke. No matter how hard she tried to escape it, the memory kept replaying, trapping her in a cycle of guilt and regret.

***

Kazuki lay on the futon, in the welcoming eeriness of his cell, the darkness wrapping around him like a suffocating blanket. The cell was silent, save for the distant thumping of the music that seemed to echo through the entire facility. His thoughts swirled in his mind, refusing to settle. The dim light of his surroundings mirrored the confusion and fear that gripped him.

‘How did she know about Junpei?’ The question gnawed at him. Lucy’s casual mention of his mentor’s name had sent a jolt of fear and suspicion through him. And the way she had called him the “Ghoul-Devourer” had chilled him to his core. The title felt like a curse, a reminder of the path he was walking—a path that could lead to his ruin if he wasn’t careful.

The workings of the fighting ring were brutal, ruthless, and designed to break the weak. Winning twenty consecutive matches sounded impossible, especially for someone like him who was just beginning to understand the depths of his own abilities. Kazuki knew that he had barely scraped by in his fight against Elyas. The thought of facing another opponent, possibly someone even stronger, filled him with dread.

‘How do I get stronger?’ The thought pounded in his head, over and over. He couldn’t afford to be weak here. He couldn’t rely on luck or chance to survive. He needed to master his Aura, to materialize it like he had before. The memory of that fight flashed through his mind—the feeling of power when he had manifested that red horn, the sheer force that had surged through him. He needed to tap into that again, to control it, to use it at will.

But how? How could he relive that moment, harness that strength on command? The uncertainty gnawed at him, along with the fear that if he couldn’t figure it out, his next fight might be his last.

As these thoughts consumed him, his mind drifted back to a conversation he had shared with Junpei and Rika. When they discussed what happens when a Ghoul and a human get together and have a child.