Takeru adjusted the strap of his bag, glancing up at the towering gate ahead. Monster Investigation Bureau Training Academy, Tokyo Branch. The name alone felt heavier than the warm spring air that hung over Chiyoda that morning.
He took a slow breath.
The complex looked more like a massive government facility than anything military. Sharp white buildings lined up behind thick security fences, motion sensors ticking quietly at the edges. Above the entrance, a simple black sign displayed the MIB crest, a sharp sword piercing through a swirling spiral, the symbol of humanity's defiance against the unknown.
As he stepped forward, he felt it. The slight tightening in his chest. It wasn't fear, not yet. Maybe it was the final realization that he couldn't turn back anymore.
"This was it."
"Identification, please," a uniformed guard said, scanning him from behind mirrored sunglasses.
Takeru quickly fumbled out the ID card he'd received the previous week. The guard took it, glanced at the embedded chip, and waved him through.
Inside, the atmosphere changed immediately.
People bustled between buildings, men and women in reinforced coats, instructors barking commands, trainees jogging across the training fields carrying weighted gear. The smell of sweat, metal, and something faintly chemical floated through the air.
Takeru stood still for a moment, taking it all in. It didn't feel like some heroic battleground. It felt like a forge. And he was the raw metal waiting to be hammered.
Orientation Room C was a bare, brutal room. Rows of metal chairs faced a podium where an instructor, a tall woman with short cut hair and a steel gaze waited for the new recruits to settle.
There were about forty peoples. Some looked excited. Others terrified. Most wore the same expression Takeru knew he had, uncertain determination.
"Welcome to hell," the instructor said, her voice flat. No greetings. No introductions.
"My name is Ayame Kurose. You will address me as Instructor or Ma'am. Anything else, and you'll be scrubbing the training toilets for a month."
The room stiffened immediately.
"You are here because you chose to be," she continued. "Monster hunting is not a job. It is not a career. It is a sentence. Most of you will not make it past the first month. That is not a threat — it is a reality."
Her eyes swept across the room like a blade. Takeru felt her gaze brush against him, measuring, weighing, discarding.
"You want glory? You want revenge? You want meaning?" She smiled coldly. "Good. Hold onto that. It'll keep you alive. Barely."
Behind her, a holographic projector flickered to life, showing a monstrous silhouette, jagged, wrong, pulsating even as an image.
"C-Rated Monsters," she said. "The weakest type. These things slaughter civilians without a second thought. You will be fighting them first."
A few recruits shifted nervously.
Takeru stared at the creature. It wasn't even that big, it about the size of a large wolf but something about it, the way its limbs bent at the wrong angles, made his stomach tighten.
"If you survive the C-Rated field trials, you move to B-Rated. If you survive that, you get your provisional license. If you survive a year, you become full investigators."
Instructor Kurose shut off the projection.
"If you die... well, no one outside these walls will remember your names anyway."
The room stayed silent.
The first day blurred into a relentless routine.
Physical conditioning. Monster theory lectures. Close-combat drills.
Takeru found himself paired with a slim guy named Kaneki, who seemed just as laid back as he was. When they first locked wooden swords, Kaneki just grinned lazily.
"Try not to knock me out, yeah?" he said with a casual chuckle.
Takeru laughed under his breath. "Only if you don't trip over your own feet first."
They sparred, trading blows with no real aggression, both more focused on not embarrassing themselves than winning. Instructor Kurose still barked at them for being too slow, but Takeru found it easier working with someone who didn't take everything so damn seriously.
Their rhythm came naturally, parry, strike, recover. Not perfect, but good enough to survive another drill.
Pain became a language of its own. His muscles screamed. His palms bled. And yet, a strange part of him welcomed it.
This wasn't the dull ache of meaningless part-time jobs. This was something real.
On the third night, after a brutal day of drills, Takeru sat alone on one of the academy rooftops, wearing his simple academy uniform, looking out over glittering skyline.
The wind was cool against his sweat soaked skin. Far above, the stars barely blinked behind the city lights. He stared at them, wondering.
Why did they come? Why were they still here, hiding? And why... why did he sometimes feel like something was watching him back?
A whisper.
Faint. Just at the edge of hearing. He snapped his head around, heart thudding but there no one. Only the rustling of his uniform, the faint hum of distant traffic.
Takeru shook his head, trying to laugh it off. Just exhaustion and stress but deep inside, a thread of unease tightened.
Someone... or something... was calling. He didn't know it yet. But this was only the beginning and not every monster wore fangs and claws.
The next morning started before the sun even had a chance to warm the city.
Takeru found himself running laps around the academy's massive training grounds, his academy uniform already clinging to his skin with sweat. Instructor Kurose's voice cracked through the air like a whip, shouting times, barking orders.
By the fifth lap, Takeru's legs felt like jelly. His breath came in ragged pulls, his side burning. Around him, other recruits were slowing too, some stumbling, some outright collapsing onto the gravel.
Kaneki jogged beside him, somehow still managing to smirk.
"You dying over there?" he puffed out, not even pretending to hide his amusement.
"Come on I'm just... saving my energy," Takeru lied between gasps.
Kaneki chuckled and slowed his pace a little, staying alongside him.
Instructor Kurose watched from the sidelines, arms crossed, eyes sharp as razors. She didn't yell this time. She didn't have to. Her silence was pressure enough.
Finally, after what felt like a small eternity, the whistle blew.
Takeru stumbled to a stop, bending over with his hands on his knees. His entire body screamed in protest, but somehow, he stayed upright.
"First rule," Kurose barked as they gasped for air. "When you're hunting monsters, you don't get to be tired. You don't get to collapse. The second you slow down, the second you hesitate... you're dead."
The recruits nodded weakly.
"Again," she said simply.
Groans rippled through the group, but no one dared argue.
Takeru pushed forward, willing his legs to move.
By mid morning, they were back inside the close combat gym.
The air was heavy with sweat and tension. Wooden swords, reinforced with monster material lined the walls.
Takeru picked one up, feeling its weight. It was heavier than he expected, but the balance was good. Natural. Familiar, somehow.
"Partner up!" Kurose ordered. "Today's lesson: real strikes. No dancing around like kids."
Takeru barely had time to turn before Kaneki tossed him a lopsided grin.
"Guess we're stuck together again," Kaneki said.
Takeru shrugged. "Could be worse."
They squared off in one of the padded sparring circles around them, pairs clashed, wooden swords smacking against each other, some grunts, some yelps of pain.
Kaneki raised his sword lazily. "Go easy on me, will ya?"
"You wish."
The spar began with a sudden rush.
Kaneki moved fast, faster than Takeru expected for someone so chill. Takeru barely parried the first blow, stepping back on instinct. The force rattled through his arms.
Not just sparring anymore.
Kaneki grinned wider. "Come on, Hoshino! Swing like you mean it!"
Takeru's pulse spiked. He tightened his grip and swung low, a clean strike aimed at Kaneki's legs. Kaneki sidestepped easily, countering with a tap to Takeru's shoulder.
Takeru reset his stance, gritting his teeth.
They clashed again harder and faster.
Takeru wasn't the best fighter... not yet, but he was stubborn and he could feel underneath the chaos, the rhythm Kaneki moved with. Casual but precise. Takeru adapted quickly, throwing feints, mixing real strikes with false steps.
After several exchanges, both were panting, sweat dripping down their brows.
"Better," Kaneki huffed, flashing another grin. "You're getting there."
Takeru didn't answer. He just nodded, focused.
The instructor's voice cut across the room.
"Stop!"
Everyone froze.
Instructor Kurose walked through the sparring circles, observing silently. When she passed Takeru and Kaneki, she paused.
"You two," she said sharply. "You're not hopeless. Barely."
It was probably the highest praise they were going to get. Takeru allowed himself a small exhale of relief.
By evening, the recruits gathered in one of the larger lecture halls.
This time, the lights were dimmed and a massive screen glowed at the front, displaying footage, real footage from an investigator's helmet cam.
Grainy night vision showed a squad moving through an abandoned building. Shadows danced across cracked walls. Every step echoed unnaturally.
Then movement.
A shape lunged from the darkness.
A monster. The cam shaked violently as screams filled the speakers. Blood sprayed. Shots fired. Chaos.
The footage ended abruptly.
Silence gripped the room.
Instructor Kurose stood by the screen, arms behind her back.
"This is what waits for you outside these walls," she said quietly. "There will be no warning. No second chances. You will not be heroes. You will be meat if you are not prepared."
Her gaze swept the room again.
"Training here is cruel because the world out there is worse."
The recruits shifted uncomfortably. Takeru's hands tightened on his knees. He thought back to that night on the rooftop, the whisper he thought he heard.
He shook it off. Monsters were real. Whispers were just exhaustion.
Later that night, Takeru found himself wandering the academy courtyard. The moon was bright overhead, casting pale shadows across the training grounds.
Kaneki found him sitting on a bench, a can of cheap coffee in hand.
"Couldn't sleep either?" Kaneki asked, dropping onto the bench beside him.
Takeru shrugged. "I don't know man, maybe I'm too tired to sleep."
Kaneki cracked open his own drink. They sat in silence for a while, listening to the distant hum of traffic.
"Crazy, huh?" Kaneki said finally. "Monsters, MIB, all this stuff."
Takeru nodded slowly. "Yeah. But it's real."
He remembered the footage. The screams. The blood.
Kaneki took a long sip, then leaned back to look up at the stars.
"You think we'll make it?" he asked.
Takeru didn't answer right away.
He looked up too, at the night sky stretching endlessly above them. Somewhere beyond that black ocean was the rift. The tear in reality that had brought all this upon them.
A faint breeze stirred the courtyard, carrying the faintest hint of something, not sound but something brushing against his mind.
A whisper.
He closed his eyes, breathing it in.
"I'm going to find out," Takeru said quietly. "Why they came. Why they're still here."
Kaneki chuckled lightly. "You sound like you're about to become a main character or something."
"Oh really?" Takeru smiled faintly.
Maybe he already was, he just didn't know it yet.
The next morning came too fast.
Takeru rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he stumbled across the courtyard, following the flow of bleary eyed trainees. The academy grounds, usually filled with the noise of drills and sparring, were eerily silent under the soft gray light of dawn.
Instructor Kurose stood on a raised platform ahead, hands folded behind her back, expression unreadable. Beside her, several other instructors in formal uniforms flanked a set of large digital boards.
Takeru found Kaneki in the crowd, who looked just as tired but managed a lazy grin.
"Morning, my friend" Kaneki muttered, bumping Takeru's shoulder lightly.
"Yeah, morning... if you can call this hell morning," Takeru grumbled.
Before they could say more, Kurose's voice cracked sharply through the courtyard.
"Attention!"
Everyone straightened immediately.
"You've survived orientation. Barely," she said, her gaze sweeping across them like a blade. "Now we see if you have even a sliver of what it takes to become investigators."
"Your first practical evaluation will be live combat," she continued. "Tomorrow, at 5AM, you will be deployed into a controlled containment zone housing C-Rated monsters. Your task: neutralize or survive."
A wave of murmurs rippled through the trainees.
Takeru felt his stomach clench, a strange cocktail of excitement and fear.
"This isn't a simulation," Kurose said coldly. "You will be using standard issue reinforced training weapons. No backup unless you are dying. If you hesitate, you die. If you disobey orders, you die. If you panic, you die."
Simple enough.
Kaneki leaned closer and whispered, "Well... that's comforting."
Takeru cracked a dry smile but said nothing. His heart was pounding too loudly in his ears.
"Your assigned partners will be posted by noon today," Kurose finished. "Dismissed."
The crowd broke apart slowly, everyone heading toward the main building to check the assignment boards. Takeru and Kaneki walked side by side, the heavy reality of tomorrow settling between them.
"You think we'll get paired together?" Kaneki asked casually, hands stuffed in his uniform pockets.
"I don't mind it," Takeru said honestly. "Better than getting stuck with some dead weight."
"Yeah. If we die, at least it'll be with someone who doesn't whine the whole time."
As they moved toward the academy's assignment center, Takeru paused for a moment, glancing up at the brightening sky.
A breeze stirred his hair and with it, something else, a voice.
Faint. Whispering.
Calling his name.
"Takeru."
He froze, heart lurching. The crowd moved around him, oblivious.
The whisper was barely there, like breath against his ear. It didn't sound human. It didn't sound monstrous either.
More like something ancient, buried deep beyond the sky.
"Hoshino? You good?" Kaneki asked, frowning slightly.
Takeru blinked and shook his head, forcing a smile.
"Yeah... just nerves," he lied. But deep down, he knew it wasn't nerves.
Something was waiting for him beyond those containment zones.
Something far worse or far greater than a simple C-Rated monster.
And the first real step into that unknown was coming tomorrow.