The assignment center buzzed with a nervous energy that clung to the walls like static.
Takeru followed the slow river of recruits through the wide glass doors, his boots scuffing against the polished floor. The building was all cold steel and humming monitors, rows of massive digital screens casting a pale blue light across dozens of tense faces.
Names scrolled endlessly across the displays, trainee names paired with others, small photos blinking beside unfamiliar faces. Group assignments, deployment times, containment sectors. No one spoke above a murmur. The tension was too thick.
Takeru and Kaneki pushed their way closer to one of the main boards.
Takeru scanned the list, heart thudding.
Hoshino, Takeru – Nishimura, Ema – Sector 12-B
He frowned slightly, reading it again. Not Kaneki. Some girl named Ema Nishimura.
Kaneki leaned in, squinting. "Looks like we're splitting up."
Takeru gave a short sigh. "I guess so."
He caught a glimpse of Kaneki's assignment: paired with some stocky guy named Shun Hirata. Kaneki snorted when he saw it, rolling his shoulders with a mock sigh.
"At least he looks like he can carry me if I pass out," Kaneki said, chuckling.
Takeru shook his head, a small smirk tugging at his lips. Typical Kaneki.
A tap on his shoulder made him turn.
A girl stood there, maybe an inch shorter than him, with dark brown hair tied back in a practical braid. Sharp eyes, cool and distant, studying him like she was already sizing him up.
"I am Ema Nishimura" she said simply, offering a hand.
Takeru took it, feeling the strength behind her grip. No hesitation. No forced smiles.
"Takeru Hoshino" he replied.
She gave a quick nod and dropped his hand. "Try to keep up," she said, matter of fact before stepping back into the crowd.
Takeru blinked, caught somewhere between impressed and annoyed.
"Looks like you got a lively one," Kaneki snickered beside him.
"Better than someone who'd freeze up" Takeru muttered.
The assignment center speakers crackled overhead, drawing everyone's attention.
"All recruits assigned to sectors 10 through 15, report to Briefing Room Delta immediately," the voice announced, cold and mechanical.
Takeru tightened the strap on his gear bag and glanced at Kaneki.
"See you on the other side," Kaneki said, bumping his fist lightly against Takeru's shoulder before disappearing into the crowd.
Takeru exhaled slowly and moved to find his new partner.
The mission hadn't even started yet, but something about the air in the assignment center felt heavier than before. As if the walls themselves were bracing for what was about to be unleashed.
Briefing Room Delta was a slab of concrete and steel, no windows, only harsh fluorescent lights buzzing overhead.
Takeru filed in with the others, finding a seat near the middle. Ema Nishimura was already seated a few rows up, arms crossed, back straight. She hadn't even spared him a glance.
Instructor Kurose stood at the front, flanked by two officers in full field armor. Unlike her usual sharp sarcasm, her face today was carved from stone.
When the last of the recruits settled, the door slammed shut with a mechanical hiss.
Kurose stepped forward.
"This is not training," she said flatly, voice cutting clean through the room.
The holographic projector behind her blinked to life, displaying a rough 3D map, a sprawling suburban ruin, overgrown, blanketed in thick, swirling mist.
"Sector 12-B. Former residential zone. Now a known nesting ground for C-Rated monsters. Specifically, mist born types."
The map zoomed in. Cracked roads swallowed by vines. Houses half-collapsed. Streetlights bent at odd angles.
"Objective is simple," Kurose continued. "Each pair will be dropped into a separate entry point. You will patrol your assigned grid for two hours. Standard containment sweep. Neutralize any hostile. Record and report any irregularities."
She let the words hang for a beat.
"If you find yourself isolated, maintain radio contact. If you lose contact... survive. Extraction teams will sweep at dawn."
"Any questions?" Kurose asked.
Silence.
None of them were dumb enough to waste time now.
"Good, gear up."
The room emptied in an orderly rush, boots echoing against the floor. Takeru found himself walking beside Ema as they made for the lockers.
Neither spoke at first.
Finally, she broke the silence.
"You handle yourself in sparring, right?" she asked without looking at him.
Takeru snorted lightly. "I can stand up without falling over, if that's what you're asking."
A ghost of a smile flickered across her face. Gone just as fast.
"Good. I don't plan on dragging anyone back," she said.
"Same."
They checked out their weapons, reinforced short swords standard for C-Rank containment, sidearms loaded with low penetration rounds, more to stun than kill.
Takeru's fingers brushed the hilt of the training sword as he strapped it across his back. The weapon felt heavier today like it knew what was waiting out there.
The transport van rumbled beneath their boots, its armored frame creaking with every bump along the half-abandoned roads leading to Sector 12-B.
Takeru sat by the window, watching the mist thicken as they drew closer. It rolled across the cracked asphalt in slow, ghostly waves, swallowing everything past a few dozen meters. Street signs leaned at broken angles, the text almost unreadable under layers of grime.
Across from him, Ema sat with her elbows on her knees, quietly checking the blade of her short sword. She wore the standard dark gray academy uniform reinforced for fieldwork.
The tension inside the van was a living thing, pressing down on them with every mile they traveled. At the front, one of the senior officers grunted into a radio. Static answered back.
"Comm interference already this far out," the officer muttered. "Don't stray too far from your partner. No hero shit."
The van finally lurched to a halt.
The rear doors clanged open.
"Sector 12-B, Entry Point Four," the officer barked. "Hoshino, Nishimura... you're up."
Takeru stood, pulling his jacket tighter against the cold. His fingers brushed the sword strapped across his back, feeling the familiar weight.
Ema was already moving, adjusting the strap of her sidearm holster.
They dropped down into the mist.
The mist clung to them like damp cloth, soaking through the fabric of their uniforms, numbing the skin beneath. It muted every sound, their boots on the pavement, the creaking of ruined houses until even their own breathing seemed distant and strange.
Ema tapped her earpiece. A soft green light blinked in response, local comms still functional... for now.
She glanced at Takeru.
"Stay within five meters," she said. "If we lose visual, use two taps on the line signal."
"Got it" he muttered.
They moved.
Minutes stretched into long silences. They swept each abandoned house methodically, finding only dust, rot, and the occasional shattered piece of furniture.
No monsters.
No bodies.
Just that ever present mist, thickening by the second.
It felt less like weather and more like something alive, pressing in around them, coiling between the ruins.
Takeru's skin prickled. Something was wrong here.
Ema suddenly froze, one hand snapping up in a silent signal. Takeru stopped dead, muscles tensing. A low sound carried through the mist, a wet, dragging noise, slow and deliberate.
Both of them dropped into a crouch instinctively, blades half drawn. The noise grew louder... closer.
Takeru strained his eyes but saw nothing beyond a few meters of swirling gray. Ema flicked two fingers forward, move to cover. They slipped behind the ruined shell of a car, breathing shallowly.
The dragging noise stopped.
Silence.
Then a whisper.
Not words exactly, but something like them soft and slithering, brushing the edge of comprehension.
Takeru's heart hammered against his ribs.
Ema met his eyes briefly, her expression hard.
She raised three fingers. Advance.
Takeru nodded. They moved together, keeping low, boots whispering over cracked pavement.
Another whisper brushed past them, closer now. Takeru swore he could almost feel it against his skin. He tightened his grip on the sword hilt. Ema led them to the mouth of an alleyway between two collapsed houses.
She peered inside.
Nothing... just mist.
Ema tapped the line twice.
Signal: Proceed with caution.
They stepped into the alley, the mist closing behind them like a door.
And for the first time since arriving, Takeru was sure, absolutely sure that they were being watched.
Something was here with them.
Something that liked the mist.
Takeru tapped his earpiece again, trying to raise Command.
Nothing but dead static.
He gritted his teeth.
A soft beep pulsed in their earpieces, the automated heartbeat signal every fifteen minutes.
Two pulses.
That meant most teams were still active. At least for now.
They pressed deeper.
The mist grew stranger. Warmer. Almost... breathing.
Takeru wiped sweat from his forehead, even though the air should have been freezing.
That's when they found the first sign.
A discarded weapon, a standard issue short sword lying in the middle of a broken street. Its blade was cracked, the hilt scorched black.
Nearby, dark smears streaked across the pavement, vanishing into the mist.
No signs of a C-rated attack. Those creatures weren't strong enough to snap reinforced gear like this.
His stomach twisted.
This was something bigger.
Ema crouched beside him, picking up a scrap of torn uniform, the academy crest barely recognizable under dried blood.
She said nothing. She didn't have to.
Takeru rose slowly, every nerve screaming at him to run but they couldn't, not yet. They were still investigators. Trainees or not.
The heartbeat signal beeped again. This time only one pulse. Takeru's blood ran cold.
Half the teams had gone dark.
Vanished.
The mist stirred around them, carrying a faint sound, a voice, broken and thin.
"Help... me..."
Takeru spun toward it, sword raised.
Through the shifting fog, he caught a glimpse, a figure limping toward them. Uniform shredded, one arm dangling uselessly.
Ema grabbed his sleeve, yanking him back sharply.
"Look closer" she hissed.
Takeru squinted.
The figure twitched oddly with every step, limbs jerking at unnatural angles.
And the face... there was no face. Just stretched skin, stitched where features should have been. The thing stopped, tilting its head in a grotesque imitation of curiosity.
Then it smiled, a gash splitting across the blank skin like an open wound and lurched forward.
Takeru barely ducked aside as a clawed hand slashed where his throat had been a second earlier.
"That definitely not human!" Ema shouted, drawing her sidearm and firing.
The bullets slammed into the creature's chest but it only staggered slightly before regaining its balance.
Takeru moved on instinct, blade flashing out. Steel bit into flesh and the thing screeched, a sound like metal tearing underwater, before stumbling backward into the mist.
It vanished.
Breathing hard, Takeru scanned the mist desperately.
"That's not C-rated..."
Ema nodded grimly. "I think that's should be around B-rated."
The ground trembled under their feet, a deep vibration rolling through the concrete.
Takeru tightened his grip on the sword. They hadn't been sent here for a simple sweep. They'd been sent into a death trap.
And they weren't the first to fall into it. This mist wasn't just hiding monsters. It was eating them.
And now it had its sights set on them.
Inside the Mobile Command Center, the atmosphere had turned from tense to suffocating. Instructor Kurose stood before the main ops table, arms crossed tightly over her chest, watching as technician after technician fought a losing battle against the static drowning their systems.
"Status report" she barked.
One of the officers, a wiry man with a deep frown carved into his face turned from his console.
"Communications down to 30% effectiveness. Short range only. Long range relays are offline, we think the mist itself is disrupting them."
Kurose ground her teeth.
"And the recruits?"
The officer hesitated.
"Heartbeat monitors confirm that we've lost six so far."
The words hung in the air like a gunshot.
"Six confirmed dead?" she said sharply.
The officer shook his head.
"No... not dead... gone."
Kurose narrowed her eyes.
"Explain."
The officer tapped a few keys, pulling up a grim, grainy feed, last known GPS pings from various trainees.
Each blinked in and out rapidly before going completely dark.
"No visuals, no bodies recovered, no distress signals, just... disappearance" he said, voice low.
Kurose stared at the screen, her mouth a thin line.
This wasn't right. Even against C-rated monsters, trainees were trained to fight, to survive. And if they fell, there would be blood, wreckage, evidence.
She turned sharply.
"Prep a second extraction team. I want a perimeter lockdown within thirty minutes."
Another officer spoke up from the side, worry leaking into her voice.
"If the mist keeps expanding, we'll lose total visibility before then."
Kurose's hand tightened around the hilt of the standard issue saber at her hip.
"We don't leave them behind," she snapped.
A heavy silence answered her.
Because deep down, every officer in that room already knew some of those kids wouldn't be coming back.
Far from the command post, deeper inside the mist choked ruins, Takeru and Ema crept between the skeletal remains of collapsed houses.
No more casual banter. No more testing the weight of their swords. Just silent movement, tense breathing. And the knowledge that every step might be their last.
Takeru checked his cracked handheld scanner, a relic of academy training but it blinked uselessly, no readings coming through. Beside him, Ema motioned to stop.
She pointed ahead, a shattered street lamp bent into a jagged arch. Dangling from the rusted metal was a torn academy jacket, sleeves fluttering limply in the mist.
Takeru's heart hammered against his ribs.
He exchanged a glance with Ema, grim, wordless.
They weren't alone out here.
And whatever was hunting them was smarter than any C-rated creature.
Smarter, faster and patient.
From somewhere in the mist came the soft scrape of metal on stone, a deliberate sound.
A warning or maybe an invitation.
Takeru gritted his teeth and gripped his sword tighter.
This mission was no longer about patrols. It was about survival and about finding a way out before they joined the others...
The mist shifted.
It wasn't just moving with the breeze anymore. It was coiling, breathing, alive.
Takeru tightened his grip on the sword, his palms slick with sweat. Ema moved to cover his side, sharp eyes scanning the dense fog.
A shadow stirred.
At first, Takeru thought it was just another ruined lamppost or shattered tree. But then it stepped forward. It was wrong.
Too tall, too thin, body swaying unnaturally as if the bones inside didn't fit right.
Pale skin stretched tight over unnatural muscles.
A head smooth and blank, no eyes, no nose, only a long, vertical slit that peeled apart to reveal rows of crooked teeth.
A low, rattling sound echoed out, like a death rattle buried deep underground.
Takeru's heart slammed against his ribs.
This wasn't C-Rated. Not even B-Rated.
This was something else.
"Move!" Ema barked, cutting through his frozen horror.
The beast lunged.
Takeru barely dodged, feeling a razor sharp claw slice through the air where his throat had been a heartbeat ago.
He rolled and came up swinging, his blade carving an arc through the mist but when it hit, the monster's flesh seemed to waver, absorbing the strike like smoke.
Ema darted in beside him, her strikes precise and brutal but the creature moved too fast, slipping between their blows, retaliating with deadly swipes.
Takeru took a glancing hit to the side, pain flaring through his ribs as he staggered back.
The creature loomed over him, casting a sickly shadow.
He forced himself up, raising his sword again, shaking, bleeding, terrified.
The beast reared back, preparing to strike
And then Takeru heard it.
A whisper.
Soft, delicate, almost impossible to hear over the roar of his own blood in his ears.
"Takeru..."
The voice was neither Ema or anyone nearby.
His breath hitched.
The world around him seemed to stretch thin
The mist deepened
The stars overhead, faint behind the clouds, seemed to pulse.
For a fraction of a second, it felt like something beyond this world was watching him.
"Not yet... It's too early fo you..."
The whisper faded, leaving only a hollow ache behind.
Takeru blinked, dazed and saw the monster lunging for him.
Then
A flash of silver.
Something faster than sight blurred past him.
It crashed to the ground, twitching spasmodically.
A woman stood between him and monster.
Long white coat whipping in the mist.
Sword slick with black ichor.
Cold, sharp eyes that didn't waver.
Commander Shizune Arima.
Takeru recognized her. High rank First Class Investigator in Japan.
She moved with inhuman grace, finishing the creature in two more quick strikes. Its body dissolved into the mist with a sickening hiss.
Shizune wiped her blade clean, never once glancing at the steaming corpse. Then she turned to Takeru and Ema, two rookies barely standing.
"You fought well enough," she said coolly. "But remember, don't count on luck next time."
Her voice was calm but there was an edge underneath, razor sharp.
She tapped her comms device.
"Sector 12-B, target neutralized. Two survivors. Immediate evac required."
Static crackled back, a broken reply, strained and panicked.
Takeru barely heard it.
He was still staring into the mist, heart pounding in his ears, remembering that whisper.
Ema reached out, steadying him briefly with a hand on his shoulder.
"You alright?" she asked, voice low.
Takeru nodded stiffly, not trusting himself to speak.
How could he explain it?
That someone or something had spoken to him?
The mist swirled around them, hiding broken houses, hiding dead bodies, hiding truths they were not yet ready to see.
Above, behind the thick clouds, the night sky pulsed faintly.
Watching.
Waiting.
And somewhere out there, the whisper still lingered.
Those who had already vanished in the mist.