The Circle of Death
"Some secrets shouldn't be unearthed. Some monsters shouldn't be born—yet blood calls to them, and the world trembles when it answers."
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Six years before Tokyo ever learned the name Ashida, an unnatural fog hung over an abandoned industrial zone at the city's edge. A squad—led by Dr. Kanou—advanced in formation, their footsteps echoing through a silence that wasn't silence at all, but a warning.
There was no wind.
No life.
Only a stench soaked into the air: fresh blood, charred flesh, splintered bone.
Routine mission, the reports said. Investigate rumors of a ghoul anomaly—a nine-tailed Rinkaku, a legend the CCG archives dismissed as myth.
But the air itself seemed to whisper they were wrong.
The squad—twelve investigators and scientists—moved with the precision of a well-oiled machine, yet their faces betrayed fear. The RC sensors, designed to detect any trace of ghoul activity, stayed silent—screens flickering black. Dr. Kanou, in a white trench coat dust-stained at the hem, led them forward, expression unmoving, as if death were just another entry in his notebook.
— Hold formation —he ordered, voice cold as Quinque steel—. Rumors don't kill. Negligence does.
Itsuki Genya, the youngest member of the team—barely nineteen—clutched his tool case with trembling fingers. His glasses reflected the fog, making him look like prey trapped in a nightmare he couldn't wake from. He'd studied ghouls long enough to know what he might be facing… but he'd never felt anything like this:
A weight on the chest.
Like the air itself was crushing him.
— Doctor… this isn't normal —Itsuki murmured, barely audible—. The sensors are dead. The air… it smells like something that shouldn't exist.
Kanou didn't answer. His eyes—cold, analytical—scanned the darkness.
Then the fog parted, as if an invisible curtain had been drawn back to reveal the stage of a nightmare.
A perfect circle, twenty meters wide, stretched before them.
Covered in corpses.
Not human.
Ghouls.
More than fifty—many with RC signatures that would've flagged Class A or higher on the sensors. Their bodies were shattered, but not from a battle. There was too much blood spilled, and no signs of struggle that even suggested a dignified defense.
Only execution.
Bodies pulverized by impacts from a colossal kagune—torsos pierced as if enormous pillars had punched through flesh. Kagunes crystallized and broken like glass. Some still clutched fragments of destroyed Quinques, embedded in their own bodies like ironic trophies.
The warehouse walls were riddled with forty-centimeter holes, laid out in a symmetry that froze the blood.
They weren't random impacts.
They were a design.
A signature carved into concrete like a message no one wanted to read.
A demonstration of absolute power.
— This is impossible! —one investigator shouted, voice cracking as he staggered back—. No footprints! No resistance! This wasn't a fight, it was… a slaughter!
Itsuki stumbled over a severed head—face locked in pure terror, eyes burned from the inside as if acid had eaten the flesh. He slapped a hand over his mouth, forcing the nausea down.
— Acidic RC! —another technician gasped, holding a crystallized kagune fragment that began to corrode his gloves—. This isn't a normal ghoul! It's burned from within!
Itsuki dropped to his knees, flashlight trembling as he lit the center of the circle.
There—amid the carnage—was a single drop of blood.
Tiny. Bright. A red so pure it looked like it was beating.
As they neared it, the sensors went insane—screaming impossible RC levels, like that drop contained the essence of something beyond comprehension.
— This isn't just a massacre —Itsuki whispered, voice shaking with horror—. It's a message. Something… is telling us it exists.
Kanou stepped forward, boots sinking into a mixed pool of blood. He crouched by the droplet and drew the sample with a pipette. His eyes gleamed with hunger he didn't even try to hide.
— The legend is real —he said, calm to the point of obscenity in the middle of that horror—. A nine-tailed Rinkaku. A force that can break the world. Exactly what we need.
— We need?! —Itsuki exploded, rising, face pale as death—. Doctor, this isn't a weapon—this is a punishment! That drop has more RC than a Class SSS ghoul! If the original did this, we can't control it!
Kanou lit a cigarette, smoke mixing with the stink.
— Science doesn't move forward on fear, Genya —he replied without looking at him—. The sample is real. The patterns are consistent. Everything else is detail.
— Detail?! —Itsuki screamed, pointing at the bodies—. Fifty ghouls, doctor! Class A, Class S—torn apart like they were nothing! And not a footprint, not a trace! This isn't a ghoul… it's— it's something else!
Kanou looked at him for the first time, eyes like steel.
— Are you going to argue with the data? —he asked, exhaling smoke—. Collect the sample and prepare for the lab. This is the beginning.
Itsuki trembled, mind on the edge of collapse. The corpse-circle, the symmetrical holes, the blood drop pulsing like a heart…
Everything screamed a truth he didn't want to accept:
They had found something they should never have touched.
Empress Project
"In a womb of steel, horror breathes—and the future cracks."
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That night, the squad returned to base, faces stamped with a silence heavier than words. The sample—that single drop of blood—was sent to the main laboratory, sealed in a titanium container like a cursed relic.
Kanou, unshaken, gave the order:
Replicate the impossible.
Clone the legend.
Create a weapon that could rival the myth of the nine tails.
Thus Empress Project was born.
For four years, the lab became a hell of steel and glass. Cloning tanks exploded under the pressure of uncontrollable RC levels. Bodies were born deformed—skinless, boneless, lifeless. Some opened their eyes, crying blood before collapsing. Scientists worked endless shifts, faces eaten alive by exhaustion and fear.
Itsuki Genya—now second-in-command of the project—watched every failure with a knot in his stomach. Every broken body was a reminder of the blood drop, the corpse circle, the horror they'd chosen to wake.
— This is wrong, Doctor —Itsuki said one night, watching a tank where an amorphous fetus dissolved in scarlet fluid—. We aren't creating life. We're desecrating something we don't understand.
Kanou, scrolling through data on a tablet, didn't look up.
— Desecration is the price of progress, Genya —he replied—. If you want to stop, the door is open. But don't expect the world to thank you for your morality… and don't expect to leave without consequences.
Itsuki clenched his fists—but he didn't leave.
He couldn't.
That blood drop had hooked him, like his soul itself was tied to the nightmare they were building.
In the fourth year, something changed.
A tank held.
A body formed.
T-001.
It wasn't human. It wasn't ghoul. It wasn't anything they could classify.
It stood 2.4 meters tall, flesh dense like liquid steel. Scarlet-red hair fell like a burial shroud. A bone mask covered its face—not implanted, but grown, as if the creature had been born wearing it.
And on its back, eight RC masses pulsed like living parasites—each one a promise of destruction.
When it awakened, the lab turned into a silent tomb. Monitors spasmed. RC sensors collapsed. One investigator fainted, body shaking on the floor.
Itsuki staggered back, voice breaking.
— This isn't a creature! —he shouted—. It's a mistake! If a ninth tail grows, we won't be able to stop it!
Kanou, perfectly still, watched T-001 with a smile that wasn't human.
— Cut four tails off the Rinkaku —he ordered, calm as he'd been in the corpse circle—. Make it look manageable. Move her to the containment cell. Teach her hunger. Teach her obedience.
— It's bleeding pure RC! —Itsuki protested, pointing at the scarlet fluid dripping from the tank—. This isn't a ghoul, it's a— a monster given shape!
— Fifty ghouls fell to the original and still managed to make it bleed —Kanou said, lighting another cigarette—. This is only a copy. It shouldn't concern us. Yet.
The creature didn't scream as they cut the tails. It didn't resist. Its eyes—ruby-red behind the cracked mask—watched with a stillness that wasn't submission, but something older… deeper.
As if it were measuring the world.
Deciding whether it deserved to keep existing.
They chained it.
Limiter suit.
Titanium shackles.
Electrodes suppressing its mind.
Plates sealing its eyes.
And still the lab trembled with its presence, like the earth itself knew something unnatural had been born.
Itsuki stood before the containment cell, a chill crawling up his spine. The blood drop. The corpse circle. T-001.
All of it felt like a message they couldn't read—a nine-tailed whisper promising an ending no one was ready to face.
We've awakened something we can't control, he thought, hand trembling against reinforced glass. And the world will pay for our arrogance.
Deep in the laboratories, something that should not exist was breathing.
And Tokyo—blind in its noise—had no idea the abyss had opened its eyes.
Chained Demon
"Inside a prison of steel and pain, a demon breathes hatred—its chained soul singing a fury the world still doesn't understand."
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In the heart of the underground lab, T-001 wasn't a creature.
It was a chained curse.
Pulled from a cloning tank like a demon ripped out of the abyss, its existence was an insult to nature. For six months it lived in a reinforced concrete cell lined with titanium, its 2.4-meter body trapped in a limiter suit that was more torture than containment.
Lead shackles.
Fifteen-kilo heels bolted to each foot.
Titanium plates screwed into flesh.
Electrodes injecting inhibited RC directly into the spine.
Every movement was agony. Every breath was a reminder of its purpose: to be a weapon, not a being.
A surgical plate embedded along its back prevented regeneration of the amputated Rinkaku tails—leaving pain that burned like liquid fire through its veins.
It knew no light.
No mercy.
Only the guards' voices, spitting hate through the steel hatch.
— Filthy monster —they hissed—. Rotten meat that breathes.
When hate wasn't enough, the shocks came. Voltage straight to the skull. Spasms that snapped fingers. Screams that never left its sealed throat.
Food was another punishment: anonymous corpses, decomposing meat shoved through a slot, reeking of stagnant blood. T-001 ate because dying wasn't an option.
Every bite was poison.
Every day was a lesson in hate.
Shadow of the Red Thread Killer
"Under rumors of blood and red threads, death whispers its arrival—weaving a tapestry of fear that makes even the guards tremble."
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Something changed in the sixth month.
Guards started disappearing. First one. Then three. Then seven. Patrols grew erratic. Feeding schedules slipped. Voices on the other side of the cell began to shake with fear.
Rumors seeped like blood under a door.
— You hear? —a guard whispered one night, voice cracked with nerves—. There's a new ghoul out on the outskirts of Tokyo. They call him the Red Thread Killer. Uses needles and RC threads that cut like razors. Doesn't use a kagune. Kills like it's art.
— A serial killer? —another guard muttered, banging on T-001's hatch to hide his unease—. What's that got to do with us?
— I don't know. But he eats ghouls. Leaves pieces… or nothing. No one knows his name—only the red threads the CCG finds.
— Forget it —the first one said, laughing with a tremor—. Down here we're safe. This thing isn't getting out.
He leaned to the viewing slit, face lit by weak light.
— How's it going, monster? —he spat—. You like crawling like a rat? Bet you miss your tank.
It was the last thing he ever said.
Release of the Abyss
"When steel silence shatters, the abyss wakes—and its tails dance a blood-waltz no one can stop."
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The suppression systems needed recharging every six hours.
Ninety seconds of silence.
One instant where inhibitors shut off.
That moment arrived.
The cell sank into darkness. The electric hum died. The guard—still laughing—didn't notice the change.
An obsidian claw speared through the viewing slit, fast as lightning. It closed around his skull and crushed it like wet clay. His body was yanked inside—head smashed against the steel edge—spraying the cell with blood and bone fragments.
The second guard didn't even have time to scream.
A Rinkaku tail—black as night—punched through his chest, hoisting him like a broken marionette before hurling him into the wall, where he collapsed into mangled meat.
T-001 stood.
For the first time—upright—lead heels creaking under its weight. Four Rinkaku tails erupted from its back—not soft, but sharpened like guillotines made of living crystal.
One to tear.
One to pierce.
One to crush.
One to decapitate.
Each moved with precision that wasn't instinct.
It was contained fury—rage so old it felt carved into blood.
The cell door didn't fall.
It exploded.
Titanium fragments tore through the air like shrapnel, biting into walls. T-001 advanced, limiter suit shrieking, electrodes ripped from flesh like parasites. The plate along its spine bled pure RC—but it didn't stop.
Pain was home.
Silent Massacre
"In corridors of death, silence is a sharpened knife—cutting lives like petals falling onto a godless altar."
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The underground hallways became a slaughterhouse. Alarms howled, but human screams were louder. T-001 didn't run.
It walked.
Its Rinkaku tails swept the air like underworld whips. A scientist tried to reach the emergency panel—one tail skewered him, splitting his body in half. Blood evaporated as it hit the floor, corroded by the acidic RC dripping from T-001's tips.
— T-001 is out! —a guard screamed, firing a Quinque that barely grazed its armored skin—. Evacuate! Detonate the chamber!
No time.
One tail slammed him into the ceiling, skull bursting like ripe fruit. Another tried to flee—second tail wrapped him, snapped his legs, then tore off his torso.
T-001 didn't dodge attacks.
It absorbed them.
Bullets. Quinques. Explosives—nothing truly pierced. Its flesh regenerated instantly. It chewed bodies as it advanced, bone mask on its face, red eyes burning like rubies in the gloom.
It didn't roar.
It didn't speak.
It only killed—calmly.
A calm more terrifying than any scream.
When it reached the lab's core—where support pillars held the structure—T-001 did something no experiment had ever conceived.
It wrapped one pillar with a tail and ripped it out like a dry branch. Concrete screamed. The building trembled.
Then another pillar.
And another.
Each impact boomed like a heartbeat, like the lab itself was dying.
The remaining scientists sprinted for the only exit—a corridor littered with shredded bodies.
But T-001 didn't chase them.
With a final motion, it impaled the last pillar with its sharpest tail, snapping it like glass.
The roof collapsed.
The laboratory folded into itself in a symphony of dust, steel, and blood.
Kanou's Fury
"Among rubble and blood, the arrogance of a false god burns—blind to the monster he unleashed and the fate now hunting him."
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Five minutes later, Dr. Kanou arrived at the perimeter, his face a mask of calm hiding volcanic fury. The lab was rubble—smoke and ash rising into a sky that offered no answers.
Itsuki Genya—now twenty-four—stood beside him, pale but cold, eyes emptied of the faith he'd once had in his mentor.
— What happened? —Kanou asked, voice sharp as a scalpel.
— T-001 —a surviving technician stammered—. It broke the cell. Killed everyone. Collapsed the lab. No signs of life.
Kanou knelt in the wreckage, fists digging into blood-stained dust.
It wasn't grief.
It was rage.
Five minutes. A stalled elevator. A needless call. A cold coffee.
Five minutes had destroyed his work, his legacy, his Empress.
— This is what happens when we play at being gods, Doctor —Itsuki said, voice icy, stripped of the admiration he once carried—. We wake something we can't control, and now it's free. I hope you're proud.
Kanou snapped his head toward him, eyes lit with fury.
— You dare question me, Genya? —he hissed—. This isn't a failure. It's a beginning. We'll find it. We'll rebuild it.
Itsuki didn't answer. His hands trembled—not from fear, but exhaustion. Five years following Kanou. Five years watching deformed bodies in tanks. Blood that shouldn't exist. Horrors that shouldn't have shape.
He was done.
Done with Kanou's arrogance.
With the obsession.
With the refusal to see the truth:
They had created a monster they could not contain.
Rebirth in the Shadows
"From dust and blood rises a nameless echo—a shadow walking beneath a sky that fears its awakening."
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Far from the ruins, in an auxiliary tunnel smeared with dried blood and debris, T-001 emerged.
Its body—reduced by the energy it had unleashed—trembled, but did not fall. It had lost mass, not strength. Its four colossal, scaled Rinkaku tails dragged behind it, carving trenches through the earth like infernal plows.
It didn't run.
It didn't need to.
It walked—slowly—scarlet hair glowing under dawn, red eyes opening to the sky for the first time.
It had no name.
No purpose.
But it had a mission carved into blood:
Destroy.
Humans. Ghouls. The world itself.
Tokyo, far away, kept shining with blind lights—unaware of the horror approaching.
T-001 stopped in a clearing and collapsed against a rock—not from fatigue, but instinct. It needed to recover strength. Its tails coiled around it, protective, like guardian serpents. The bone mask on its face cracked and fell away in pieces, revealing a weary face full of fury—and a glint in eyes that didn't look with hatred…
But with a calm more terrifying than any rage.
I am free, it thought—if it could think. But the world won't be.
Dawn painted the horizon red—a color it knew, a color that was home. T-001 drew a deep breath, fresh air slicing through flesh like a knife.
It didn't know what freedom was.
But it knew what vengeance was.
And that was enough.
Back in the laboratories, the echo of its escape rang like a warning. Itsuki, staring at the rubble, understood the world had changed.
And Kanou—fist still clenched in blood-stained dust—knew his obsession had only begun.