:re Chapter 144

The chapter opens on a fantasy in which Kaneki's loss to Suzuya plays out as an arena tournament, watched by Nishiki Nishio, Kazuichi Banjou and Shuu Tsukiyama and prayed over by Touka Kirishima. Kaneki insists this is the only path to humans and ghouls coexisting, yet the vision still ends with him beaten and limbless as the imagined crowd howls its disappointment.

Another daydream rewrites his old reunion with Suzuya from Re: Chapter 11, only this time Haise runs him through and coldly announces the kill, horrifying Hanbee Abara, Kuki Urie and Tooru Mutsuki.

These scenes belong to the space inside Kaneki's head, where every version of himself has gathered. The Anteiku-era self calls the killing justified while the Black Reaper mocks it, and the caged Cochlea prisoner screams under the Black Reaper's scolding. Together the selves interrogate the disaster: the One-Eyed King is blamed for returning to the ward alone and for being too weak, though Haise notes no one could have beaten two Arata-armored foes. They wonder what became of the Stopgap Squad of Kaya Irimi and Enji Koma, and whether bringing the Provisions Squad would have changed the result.

The reckoning stretches back further, to the Anteiku Raid that cost them Yoshimura and scattered their friends, and forward through the Quinx, Shirazu's death, and the choice to abandon the Black Reaper's life to rescue Hinami. As the One-Eyed King and the Black Reaper fall into a furious argument that Haise cannot quiet, the present, weakened Kaneki simply asks why it came to this and says he wants to see Touka, while his past selves long to name their unborn child.

Realizing he can still bite and crawl, Kaneki tears into Hajime Hazuki's face and impales his skull, then butchers the Oggai squabbling over whether to kill or capture him, Touka the only thing on his mind. As the S3 Squad withdraws, an earthquake heralds a vast, warped kagune. Kichimura names it a mass of Ken Kanekis, gloats that it devoured the Oggai exactly as intended, and is struck down mid-boast while praising his Dragon. Far off, Miza Kusakari has just shrouded Naki's body when explosions rip open the ground across Tokyo.

Kaneki's inner selves relitigate every decision that led to their defeat. Refusing to die, the maimed Kaneki kills Hazuki and the surrounding Oggai. His body swells into the monstrous kagune known as Dragon, which erupts across Tokyo and consumes even Kichimura's own forces.

Running twenty pages in issue 2017-46 on October 12, 2017, this chapter caps the thirteenth volume by giving birth to Dragon. Within Kaneki's imagined tournament, the rematch is captioned as "Chapter 143: Kaneki Dies." The installment's stark one-letter title, "A," suits its plunge into raw internal collapse.