Chapter 73

Trapped in a cramped passage, Ayato Kirishima tries to work out what Ken Kaneki means by only half-killing him. Kaneki spells out the disadvantage: Ukaku kagune drain stamina fast, which is why Ayato keeps backing away, and the tight walls deny him the space to unfurl his wings and attack from a distance. Bristling at the implication that he is helpless up close, Ayato snaps that short-range combat is precisely his specialty.

On another front, Special Class officers Iwao Kuroiwa and Yukinori Shinohara trade blows with the One-Eyed Owl. Iwao tests how well the experimental Arata gear holds up defensively, while Shinohara reads the enemy's Ukaku nature aloud. The Owl excels at range, and closing the gap means bracing for spines that burst from its shoulders, leaving the pair with poor odds even should the monster's endurance fail.

Shinohara's thoughts drift to Take Hirako's early career. A middling student at the Academy, Hirako was assigned to a twenty-two-year-old Kishou Arima, and the two helped wipe out the Clowns before Hirako proved his worth during operations in the 24th Ward. Their partnership held until Hirako earned a First-Class rank. He remembers Arima faulting him for failing to wield a paired quinque with both hands, an ability Hirako brushed off by calling himself an ordinary man.

Snapping back to the present, Hirako lunges at the One-Eyed Owl and takes a brutal hit to the skull. With the creature's attention split, Iwao and Shinohara seize the moment and strike it together.

Titled Spark (火花, Hibana), this is the seventy-third installment and appears in the eighth volume. The chapter juxtaposes Kaneki's duel with Ayato against the veteran investigators' struggle with Yoshimura in his Owl form, and its Arima flashback fleshes out Hirako's backstory and the elite investigator's demanding standards. Touka Kirishima is referenced but does not appear.