Chapter 61

Kaneki dreams of his mother, who urges him to become the one who is hurt rather than the one who hurts others, promising that a kind heart will find peace in that choice. He wakes bound to a wooden chair, murmuring for her.

The story rewinds ten days to when Yamori first brought him to the torture room, where a previous victim slumps beside a bucket of severed toes. Yamori explains RC suppressants, which leave a ghoul as fragile as a human, then drives a syringe of the drug into Kaneki's left eye, noting that exposed mucous membranes are a ghoul's weak point. Kaneki grasps that he was chosen for this from the outset. Yamori tears out his toes with pliers and orders him to count down from a thousand by sevens, a trick Kaneki realizes keeps him conscious and sane. Stripped of his powers, he feels human and helpless; each time the drug fades, Yamori feeds him, lets him heal, and begins again.

Unable to restrain himself, Yamori even stabs Nico, who heals at once and looks thrilled by the wound. The pointless cruelty drains Kaneki of hope. Yamori then recounts how he learned to relish torture as a prisoner called Jason in the Ghoul Detention Center, broken by an unhinged investigator seeking information on the 13th ward as the Clowns rose to power. By imagining himself as the torturer, he found their roles truly reversed, and a single hour of turning the pain outward made him feel human for the first time. From that investigator he learned the injections and methods he now uses.

Yamori tells Kaneki that Rize's regenerative power makes him the rare exception to how easily ghouls and humans die, and describes how Kanou used Rize to make a half ghoul. He then slips a red centipede into Kaneki's ear as Kaneki pleads. Distant laughter reaches him, and he recognizes it as his own; the thought of going mad begins to feel like relief, and he begs for death. Wondering whether Touka and Hide are safe and whether his mother would be proud of him, Kaneki sees Rize appear, sneering that he is boring and secretly believes his mother's lessons were wrong. The chapter ends with Rize cradling his face and speaking his name.

Yamori begins ten days of methodical torture using RC suppressants to keep Kaneki weak and healing. His backstory as Jason explains the origin of his sadism. Kaneki learns that Rize's regeneration is why Kanou made him a half ghoul. Pushed toward insanity, Kaneki begs to die as a vision of Rize seizes on his breaking mind.

Bearing the Japanese title 微光 (Biko), this Volume 7 chapter published in issue 2013-05-06 on January 4, 2013, between Chapters 60 and 62. It marks the first moment Kaneki's hair turns white, a visual signal of the transformation his torment forces upon him.