Side Story: Joker

Serving as both storyteller and lead, Rank 2 Investigator Hanbee Abara opens by describing the hidden menace of ghouls, human-looking predators who kill using an organ called the kagune, and the CCG agents who hunt them. He confesses that he owns barely a fraction of the nerve shown by his terrifying superior, First Class Investigator Juuzou Suzuya, and tends to flee whenever ghouls close in, which leaves him feeling useless. His team, the Suzuya Squad, has fixed its attention on a growing gang known as the Skull Masks, whose swelling numbers and widening feeding range prompt a decision to bring down its leader.

Combing Kurashiki Street, the investigators split up to track their target, whom Abara pegs as short, reckless in his hunting, and startlingly young. Riding a train, Abara's keen senses catch a foul odor, and he spots an old man crowding a girl; frozen by doubt, he can only watch as Suzuya steps in instead. Scenting something wrong on the man, Suzuya trails him off the train and needles Abara over his timidity, drawing out the admission that he entered the CCG after a ghoul crippled his father, a rescue the young Abara was too frightened to attempt and now fears that courage itself could get him killed.

Screams draw the pair underground, where the bespectacled stranger stands with a hand hacked off, exposed as the gang's leader amid a swarm of ghouls. Left to fight alone once Abara's nerve fails yet again, Suzuya carves through the pack until his quinque snaps against the leader's kagune, and only at that point does Abara finally summon his resolve and run the leader through with his own katana weapon. With the injured man sent to hospital and calm restored, Suzuya suggests a trip to the donut shop, while Abara quietly wishes for even a tenth of his partner's bravery.