:re Chapter 177

Fighting his way through the tangled kagune growths inside Dragon, Kaneki turns everything he has lived through over in his mind. He remembers deciding, on becoming a one-eyed ghoul, that if his life were a story it would read as a tragedy.

He extends the thought: every person stars in a tragedy of their own, unable to be otherwise because that is simply what they are. People take and are taken from, chase and are chased, rob and are robbed, cage and are caged, act and are acted upon, and struggle endlessly only for it all to come to nothing. Life is sorrowful, yet people keep reaching to improve and to choose for themselves.

Even as he reflects, Kaneki batters aside Dragon's final layers of resistance, overwhelmed and rallying by turns. At last he breaks through to the core, aware that Rize waits inside. A tear falls as he offers her an apology before landing the final strike.

Kaneki recalls his own conclusion that his life resembles a tragedy and broadens it into a reflection on human struggle. Pushing past Dragon's last defenses, he reaches the core where Rize lies and, in tears, apologizes to her before delivering the decisive blow.

The chapter is part of the sixteenth volume and carries the Japanese title Tenki. Its cast narrows to Kaneki and Rize as the confrontation at Dragon's core plays out.