:re Chapter 154

The Quinx Squad reaches the scene and Urie tells Touka to withdraw, then reminds Mutsuki that an operation is underway. Mutsuki cannot accept the CCG joining forces with ghouls, but Urie answers that leadership made the call and that he stands behind it. Enraged, Mutsuki lashes out. Urie sends Hsiao and Higemaru to take on Aura while he and Saiko handle Mutsuki. In the chase, Higemaru strikes at Aura and misses, Hsiao kicks him from behind, and Higemaru runs him through with his kagune, asking why friends must turn on one another. Higemaru insists they have no real choice but to stand beside ghouls given how dire things have become.

Aura rejects the reasoning outright, calling the truce an affront to every investigator who died and declaring that humans should fight as humans. He recalls his aunt Kiyoko Aura, who has given her whole life to battling ghouls and whom he idolizes, and he presses Higemaru to remember what ghouls did to his uncle while reminding Hsiao of the pain of First Class Ihei's death. Hsiao counters with a kick to his neck, telling him that if protecting his aunt is his aim, cowering here betrays it. Nearby, Urie and Saiko press Mutsuki, whose kagune is turned aside by Urie's shield. Saiko drops in from above shouting Mucchan, but Mutsuki copies her own kagune and uses the traced weapon to stop her punch. Both are shocked to learn his RC level has reached three and that he has been hiding it, and Mutsuki, indifferent to whether he lives or dies, releases a monstrous kagune.

The Japanese title Toresu is given in English as Trace, a nod to Mutsuki's ability to replicate an opponent's kagune. The chapter ran on December 21, 2017 in Issue 2018-03-04 and belongs to Volume 14. Aura's stance frames the ideological rift between investigators who accept the ghoul alliance and those who see it as betrayal.