Chapter 80: The Truth, the Dark Side of CCG
Tap, tap, tap~.
Leisurely footsteps echoed as Kuki Arima emerged from a corridor.
Wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth, Su Xiao looked at Kuki Arima.
"Arima, do you know what you're doing?"
Just a few seconds ago, Kuki Arima had actually used a Koukaku to ambush him, clearly intending to protect Takatsuki Sen.
"If you hadn't come, I would have been killed by this guy."
Takatsuki Sen walked toward Kuki Arima, a Ghoul standing side by side with an Investigator.
"Bai Ye, I originally planned to discuss this with you after returning to the surface, but it seems we have to do it now."
Kuki Arima stood beside Takatsuki Sen without any wariness, as if the two were old acquaintances.
"What, are you planning to join forces with Takatsuki Sen against me?"
Su Xiao tightened his grip on Dragon-Slaying Flash, ready to retreat at any moment.
Given Takatsuki Sen's current state, he was ninety percent sure he could defeat her, but adding Kuki Arima to the mix meant he could only make a strategic withdrawal.
"No need to be so wary. I don't want to fight you; it would be meaningless."
Kuki Arima put away his Koukaku and signaled Takatsuki Sen not to attack either.
"Tch, this bastard tried to cut off my head several times, and you want to let it go just like that?"
Takatsuki Sen was clearly unwilling, glaring hatefully at Su Xiao.
"We started cooperating thirteen years ago, but that doesn't mean we'll continue now. Ken Kaneki is dead."
Kuki Arima's words shocked Takatsuki Sen.
"I understand."
Takatsuki Sen gritted her teeth and turned her head away, no longer looking at Su Xiao and Kuki Arima.
"You plan to cooperate with this guy? He killed many of my subordinates."
"And I've killed just as many members of the Aogiri Tree."
Kuki Arima looked calmly at Takatsuki Sen, who rolled her eyes.
Su Xiao looked at the two in surprise. Their personalities seemed different from the original story—could that have been their disguise?
"Hoo~."
Kuki Arima let out a long breath, lightly adjusting the glasses on his nose with one hand.
"No need to be so wary. Come closer."
"Just say what you have to say. This distance is fine."
Su Xiao had no intention of getting close to Kuki Arima and Takatsuki Sen; the two were clearly in a cooperative relationship.
From their conversation, he could tell they had been cooperating for thirteen years.
The strongest Investigator of CCG cooperating with the One-Eyed Owl—how could there not be a huge secret hidden within, along with very tempting benefits?
Exploring the deep secrets of a derivative world always yielded high rewards, or else Su Xiao would have already left.
"Bai Ye, what do you think CCG is?"
Kuki Arima's expression was serious, with a faint trace of hatred in his eyes.
"Driving out Ghouls? Protecting humans?"
Su Xiao wasn't sure of CCG's purpose, so he answered casually.
"Pfft~, protecting humans? CCG protecting humans? That's the funniest thing I've ever heard. Investigators might protect humans, but CCG never will."
Takatsuki Sen tidied her hair, disheveled from the earlier fight, showing clear disdain for CCG.
"No, CCG isn't protecting humans at all. They're raising humans, 'controlling' humans…."
After organizing his thoughts, Kuki Arima began to explain CCG's secrets to Su Xiao.
The Commission of Counter Ghoul (CCG).
Chairman: Yoshitoki Washuu.
Director: Kichimura Washuu.
CCG handles Ghoul-related incidents worldwide. All matters concerning Ghouls are resolved by CCG, which wields immense power.
On the surface, CCG protects ordinary citizens and drives out Ghouls, but is that really the truth?
Su Xiao had long had a doubt: why didn't CCG use powerful thermal weapons against Ghouls? Concern for civilian safety? In Su Xiao's view, that wasn't it at all.
Some heavy machine guns could easily pierce a Ghoul's hide. For example, in the earlier battle at the entrance to District 24, setting up a few heavy machine guns to fire wildly in that narrow terrain could have slaughtered even thousands of Ghouls within half an hour.
Even if heavy machine guns weren't enough, heavy sniper rifles certainly were.
A dozen well-trained snipers using heavy rifles, maintaining a good distance, could turn Takatsuki Sen into a pile of flesh within five minutes.
In the original story, Rize Kamishiro was nearly killed by a falling steel beam, showing that a Ghoul's hide wasn't as tough as imagined.
And even if all the above weapons failed, humans had another land-based overlord: tanks!
Under the charge of that steel beast, Ghouls had no chance to fight back.
Could humans really not completely eradicate Ghouls? Don't be ridiculous. Humans are the strongest creatures on Earth, a fact proven over millions of years.
So why, to this day, do humans still live under the threat of Ghouls? Take some dangerous areas in Tokyo, for example—humans there live in constant danger, frequently attacked by Ghouls.
The culprit behind this situation was CCG.
"Bai Ye, none of CCG's higher-ups are human. They are all Ghouls, Ghouls of the Washuu family. Or rather, a Ghoul organization called V controls CCG. Ghouls, of course, won't completely eliminate Ghouls."
This information from Kuki Arima made everything clear to Su Xiao.
So that's it. No wonder CCG never used powerful thermal weapons to drive out Ghouls. He had previously struggled to get even a few high-explosive grenades from CCG headquarters, which took days to approve, and in the end, they only gave him one, with such weak power that it couldn't even kill an S-class Ghoul.
If Su Xiao hadn't seen the power of high-explosive grenades himself, he might have believed that thermal weapons were ineffective against Ghouls.
All of CCG's higher-ups were Ghouls, and Ghouls wouldn't completely eliminate Ghouls.
If that was the case, then not only were CCG's higher-ups Ghouls, but government agencies, and even military higher-ups, might have Ghouls among them. The thought was terrifying.
Ghouls looked too much like humans in daily life, and the Washuu family controlled a powerful department like CCG, making it easy for Ghouls to infiltrate those institutions under their cover.
CCG had always instilled in Investigators the idea that thermal weapons weren't suitable for dealing with Ghouls. This indoctrination began at the "Ghoul Investigator Training School" and followed Investigators throughout their growth. Lies repeated over time became truth, so CCG invented Koukaku, allowing humans to use them against Ghouls.
This raised a new question: if CCG's higher-ups were all Ghouls, why would they let human Investigators drive out Ghouls and kill their own kind?
This was actually a simple problem. With human authority under Ghoul control, Ghouls were natural enemies to humans.
So CCG, or rather the V organization's Ghouls, came up with a plan: use humans to eliminate Ghouls on a small scale, controlling their numbers to prevent human extinction.
This also gave humans a sliver of hope, preventing despair that might lead to the formation of resistance groups.
Humans were the main food source for Ghouls. If humans went extinct, Ghouls wouldn't be far behind.
Although Ghouls could survive by cannibalizing each other, human extinction would cause the entire society to collapse. The Earth would be left with only Ghouls, killing each other, leading to the end of civilization and even the risk of returning to primitive society.
CCG didn't want this to happen, nor did they want Ghouls to go extinct, since they themselves were Ghouls. So, Investigators who fought with Koukaku emerged.
Investigators were like diligent "scavengers," controlling the Ghoul population.
Su Xiao had previously cleared District 14, which greatly helped humans. If CCG fought for humans, why didn't they let Su Xiao clear Ghouls from other districts, instead transferring him to District 24, a place with no human inhabitants, to kill Ghouls? Even if he killed all the Ghouls in District 24, could humans live underground? Obviously not.
Some Ghouls in District 24 might have known CCG's secrets, and CCG was eliminating dissidents.
The conflict between the Aogiri Tree and CCG wasn't a war between Ghouls and humans, but a civil war among Ghouls.
The Aogiri Tree gathered many Ghouls and occupied certain areas, which, in the eyes of CCG's higher-ups, was a challenge to their authority.
If CCG hadn't already spread the idea that thermal weapons were unsuitable for dealing with Ghouls, and that idea had become deeply ingrained, the Ghoul higher-ups in CCG would have long sent planes and artillery to bomb the Aogiri Tree.
Author's Note on Going Premium
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