The city holds its breath as the two strongest beings alive circle each other. Investigators clear the area. Ghouls watch from the shadows. Everyone understands what is about to happen. The whole city holding its breath sells the magnitude of this confrontation.
Ayato and Kaneki’s battle is fierce and personal. Ayato fights with raw fury while Kaneki stays cold and precise. In the end, strength and experience win out, but Ayato’s hatred is far from extinguished. Ayato’s fury versus Kaneki’s cold precision makes for a great contrast.
Kaneki wakes up in a hospital bed, alive but not quite himself. Ordinary food now tastes like ash, his senses feel unnaturally sharp, and a strange hunger gnaws at him constantly. Something changed inside him during that surgery, and he is slowly realizing what his body now craves.
The CCG, meanwhile, is not idle. New investigators are promoted, new weapons forged. The loss of so many veterans has made them desperate, and desperate doves are the most dangerous kind. The CCG’s desperation makes them unpredictable and dangerous.
The assault on Aogiri’s stronghold begins. Kaneki leads from the front, his kagune a blur of destruction. Ayato meets him head on, and the brothers in law’s reunion is anything but warm. The rematch with Ayato delivers on every bit of built up tension.
Banjou and his crew find their place in the new order. The strays Kaneki gathered have become something like a family. Nobody is alone anymore, and that was the point all along. The strays becoming a family is the perfect payoff to Kaneki’s journey.
Amon finally faces Kaneki, and the two clash in a brutal duel. The investigator fights with everything he has, but Kaneki is on another level now. It is a battle between two people who once might have understood each other. Amon versus Kaneki is a clash of ideals as much as a physical fight.