KITSUNE

➖ Reserved: Wealth

TSUKIYAMA FAMILY HAD ALWAYS BEEN CONSIDERED WEALTHY AND INFLUENTIAL. They ran the Tsukiyama Group, a powerful international Business Conglomerate, with holdings in most sectors and ownership of more than 20 subsidiaries. What a little few knew, was that the Tsukiyama family were not humans, but ghouls themselves that managed to integrate deeply into human society.

Mirumo Tsukiyama was the Head of the family and he was responsible for the well-being of his family and business. However, lately, he felt like he was losing his strings. Two years ago, his son, Shuu Tsukiyama fell into depression. And for those two years, he had been bedridden without any hopes of recovering.

Shuu began binge eating and ate anything, whether human or ghoul. His binge eating cause Mirumo to send out his employees to hunt for "ingredients" more frequently. These mass kidnappings caught the attention of the CCG. Unavoidably, his employees were hunted and on one hunt, an employee had been captured by the CCG.

The foundation of Tsukiyama family had been shaking. Even though Shuu had gotten better by some miracle and begun to leave the house more often, the threat of CCG was growing larger. Mirumo felt uneasy with CCG breathing down on their necks, but the true threat came in form of a video that was posted on CCG's website, available for all eyes to see.

"Hey there, Rose."

The Ghoul Investigator on the video spoke. Shiki Kijima – that was his name and Mirumo had memorized well. He had seen the video twice and he was seeing it again. He thought that watching the video again and again will show him something, something that will give him a clue to where his employee is; even though he was certain his employee Yuuma was already gone and the video was a bait.

"I had a formal greeting prepared but for convenience's sake, we are just going to call you Rose. As you know, we've had captured your colleague the other day and thought you might like report of his current condition. We've roughen him up a bit but he's still alive for now. We attempted to interrogate him numerous times, but he doesn't seem to want to talk to us. I can't imagine way. Since he wouldn't talk I figure he didn't need his tongue anymore."

Mirumo felt disgusted towards the ghoul investigator. He was well aware that ghoul investigators could be cruel – but this unethicalness he did not expect. Nor did he expect that the CCG would go this far to post the video of such a gruesome scene onto their website. Nothing was censored, not the blood on the ghoul or the tongue that was cut out.

"The thing is once I cut it out; I realized he had other body parts he didn't need. I'll be getting rid of those too. I'm the only person who knows where your buddy is being held captive."

The screen showed the face of the ghoul investigator that was responsible. He was a strange man with a rotund figure. His face and body were heavily scarred. Around his right eye, there was discolored skin graft that made the ghoul investigator resemble a scarecrow.

"For the record, I'm Shiki Kajima and now that you've seen my face I'm certain you'll never forget me. You probably want to kill me, huh? Come by anytime and try. I'll be waiting for you, Rose."

The video ended and Mirumo let out a sigh. He reached forward and closed the laptop as various troubling thoughts begun to cross his mind. He did not hide his unease towards the current situation that was threatening Tsukiyama's very foundation.

"And they call us the monsters."

Through the tainted orange circular-framed glasses, he looked at the person standing by the doorway of his small living area. Mayumi... The woman was a splitting image of a woman he had once know very well. However, there were many differences. The long platinum bleach hair fell in waves to her hips. Her eyes were much bluer and clearer from the eyes he remembers Mayumi had.