:re Chapter 165

Koori Ui, Takeomi Kuroiwa, and Kuramoto Itou weigh a grim problem: over a thousand ROS patients can no longer hold down food, and though intravenous feeding sustains them, no one knows for how long. Asked whether they may have to kill the afflicted, Ui admits the line is hard to draw. Takeomi repeats his wife's belief that standing to fight in a crisis is what defines an investigator. With conditions worsening, the whole human population of the 23rd Ward could turn, and the Quinx Squad visits Saiko Yonebayashi in her hospital room.

Kimi Nishino reports that the Dragon holds nine oviducts, one of which has entered a collapse phase, though clearing them all could take an unknown span. She argues the poison's origin should be destroyed first. Her team has separated the golems into toxin carriers and non-carriers, finding the carriers massed around one oviduct, beneath which lies a large cavern that she believes hides the key to a solution. Tsukiyama warns that search parties would succumb to the poison down there, and when Nishiki suggests ghouls might resist it, Kimi counters that too much toxin would still corrupt a ghoul's Rc patterns. Kaneki volunteers to descend himself.

An explosion interrupts them as Furuta hurls a wave of V agents at the CCG. Marude scrambles combat units, and as Goat and the investigators ready a joint defense, Hide breaks in to urge them toward the poison source instead. Since a large team would draw notice, Ayato Kirishima agrees to accompany Kaneki alone, and Kaneki promises Touka Kirishima he will return. The allied forces launch a savage battle against V to cover the pair's descent. Watching from afar, Donato Porpora, Uta, Itori, and Nico decide to buy time by sending her into the field. As the V agents are torn apart, the Taxidermied Owl descends from the sky.

The medical staff confront the possibility of exterminating over a thousand transforming patients. Kimi maps the Dragon's nine oviducts and pinpoints a cavern beneath the toxin carriers as the likely key. Kaneki and Ayato are chosen to infiltrate it alone while Goat and the CCG hold off Furuta's V assault. The Clowns deploy the Taxidermied Owl to prolong the fighting.

Titled Thin Ice, this is the one hundred sixty-fifth chapter of Tokyo Ghoul:re and opens the sixteenth volume. It ran in the 2018 sixteenth issue on March 22, 2018.