"Who do you think you are, bursting in here and acting all big and bad? Just stop with the act already!"

The yelling forces me out of my sleep and I find myself slowly getting off the couch. I walk into the hallway and enter the cafe only to see Touka arguing with a certain blue haired boy and some men I'm not familiar with by the entrance.

"Well..." I yawn. "I walked in at the perfect time. Alright, somebody fill me in."

"Tch...just my luck. You're here." Ayato says in a clearly annoyed tone.

"Uh...Ryumi?" Kaneki says.

"Yeah, what is it?" I say, keeping my eyes on Ayato.

"Banjou and his gang came here first. Ayato...kinda just came in here all of a sudden." He whispers. "Just in case you're still wondering what's going on..."

"Thanks for the update, Eyepatch. So...I'm guessing you guys know the relationship between Touka and Ayato already?"

Kaneki simply nods in response.

"Alright... Ayato, why are you here? I doubt you came all this way for Touka. Especially not after talking all that bull about power."

"I have business to take care of." He says. "This has nothing to do with her."

Oh, so now you can't even say Touka's name?

"And what business would that be?"

"I'm sorry." A man in a white suit walks in through the door with another man who looks rather feminine. "I'll be taking the boy now."

"I can see why you picked this one, Yamori. He absolutely reeks of Rize." The feminine one says.

What does she have to do with Kaneki? Whatever...I don't care. Touka cares about these people and he's threatening to take one of them away. That's not gonna happen.

"You're not taking anyone." I say, rushing toward the suited man known as Yamori.

Touka and I both end up charging toward him but he manages to avoid us both. Ayato jumps in front of Touka and they start battling it out. I notice Kaneki now doing his best to fight off Yamori.

"Don't turn your back on me! I'm your opponent!" I release my rinkaku kagune and they go full speed toward the ghoul.

He quickly turns and uses his own kagune to try and cut mine off with one quick slice. I back away just in time so he doesn't sever them.

"It appears we have another interesting one, Nico..." Yamori says. "Shall we take both?"

"You must not have heard me earlier..." I feel my other kagune begin protruding from my upper back and I crystallize them. "I said you're not taking anyone!"

Purple and red projectiles shoot at the man but he doesn't even try to dodge it. He instead just lifts an arm and the crystalline objects pierce his skin, seeming to not even have an effect.

"Well, what do we have here?" He says, examining his arm and plucking out the projectiles like splinters. "A chimera?"

I can't keep fooling around with this guy... I need to help Touka...

I avert my eyes and look in Touka's direction, seeing that she clearly needs help even though she'd probably deny it herself.

Before I can even put my eyes back on him and make another move, something hard hits my stomach and knocks the breath out of me, causing me to fall forward. Just as my eyes are about to close, I see Kaneki about to attack Yamori.