Monday, three a.m. Kento Hayashi was called to the scene. Third in a row.

"Have you heard?" That was his partner following behind.

They ducked under the tape and walked straight in.

"The drop of human birth rate?" Hayashi was too sleepy to entertain his partner. "Nothing new. The birth rate in Japan has always been on the low side."

Police, TSC, and even the army? Everyone was here. Too bad it was not for a picnic.

"But this time, it sounds like a global crisis. The human race will go extinct in sixty years."

"Extinction, eh?" Hayashi raised the plastic makeshift cover that hung vertically.

Meat, flesh, whatever one calls it, smeared every wall and tile. The drawings on the bulletin board. A foot stuck out from an overturned triangular table.

That place was messier than a slaughterhouse.

"Make it ten… if we don't kill whatever that did this."

"Wait, Kento!"

He heard his shoe make a squishy sound then it was his partner's lament.

"Seriously, you aren't a newbie anymore yet you acted like one."

His partner was right, but it was very difficult to maneuver his way through the room as there was not an inch that had not been soiled by human's remains.

It seemed like he had to keep his foot there until the lab arrived. "Chief's going to kill me." Even if he survived getting mauled, the report which he had to write would finish the job.

"You bet he would."

Hayashi gulped. That voice was behind him. Perhaps he had kept his amatuer self. Else, he would not have had that wishful thinking that he might be wrong.

Hayashi turned to his partner for confirmation. The latter was literally a salt pillar. His death was certain.

"Status report."

"Right. We just arrived, sir. But…"

The chief stuck his head forward. Those triangular eyes swept the scene before finding the pile of sky-blue uniforms, which reminded Kento of his five-year-old.

"Children again?" The chief's tone was bland.

Hayashi never knew if his chief had any emotion. If the latter did have any, he never showed them.

Associate Special Class Kuki Urie. Was that how all the TSC elites were like?

Whatever… His chief most likely disgruntled for being demoted to lead a bunch of incompetent like them.

"Yet to be confirmed." His partner answered. "Like the previous cases, this place may not be the first crime scene."

With that number of victims, the room should be in red, especially if the culprit was a ghoul.

"Minced victims and lack of blood spill…" Urie turned around. "I want a full report." He walked away.

Both Hayashi and his partner waited. "Is he gone?" He had enough work and cases at hand that he did not have spare time to appease his superior.

An elite like Urie would not stay long anyway.

The drizzle picked the right time. Beyond the sealed boundary, where the spectators were standing, a girl caught Urie's eyes.

Unlike the rest of the crowd, she had kept her distance like an outlier. Her eyes, however, glued to the backs of the curious adults, not even perturbed by the wet mist that touched her eyelashes.

"Are you lost?" Urie crouched beside the girl.

Her waist-long hair and big round eyes made her a living doll.

"Where's your parent?" He tried again just that once. Any wandering children should be considered a high-risk, especially when they were unaccompanied.

The girl turned her head to her left, leading Urie to a wailing woman. An officer was standing beside the woman, seemingly consoling the latter.

A victim's family?

Urie took his white jacket off and draped onto the girl's shoulders. There was nothing else he could do.

Except solving the case.

The girl turned to the leaving peacekeeper. Her hand touched the slick fabric over her shoulders. Her previously glued lips separated, manifesting a pair of long and pointed incisors.

Ghoul, human, or neither. The already grey world had taken a new color into the mix.

As of now, red had all the fun.

——

A/N:

Akiramon is one of my favorite ships. They are such a cute couple and I'm surprised that there are not many works that are dedicated to them. I hope this work will get more people to write their stories.

First chapter is short, but let me know what you think.