after reveals to Ranmaru that the Machida incident was caused by the monsters, which are demons from the otherworld. Five days before the incident, a box created by ancient philosophers and alchemists was opened that connects to the otherworld, the demons that came through committed the massacre. The stronger demons are called Phantoms and grow stronger by eating humans, these are the ones Tokko are tasked with finding and killing. The holes created by the earthquakes are the gates that allow them to enter the world. It is also confirmed that the main members of Tokko aren't fully human, referring to themselves as hunters. Ranmaru and his best friend and partner Hanazono sneak into the closed off Machida crime scene to inspect the hole. When Ranmaru disturbs the hole by dropping something in it, a demon comes out an attacks them. Tokko arrives and saves them, and explains they are all survivors of Machida and the only ones that can defeat them as they have "awakened" into symbionts, having Phantoms inside them that protected them during the incident. The Machida hole is getting bigger and in two years will swallow Tokyo. The box that opened the gate was broken into 108 pieces, each of which is inside a Phantom, and Tokko collects the pieces in order to close the gate. The 12th Phantom, the one controlling the human faced larva parasites, then appears. Ranmaru asks Kureha Suzuka to show him how to awaken so he can fight, even after she warns him that he might not remain himself in which case they would have to kill him. To do so she mortally wounds him and throws him into the hole. When he emerges he completes the symbiosis with a giant demon, forming his tattoos and granting him two large swords, and defeats the Phantom in one attack. When he wakes up a week later, he is transferred to Tokko. In the epilogue it is hinted that two years later the hole did in fact swallow Tokyo. The story then focuses on Itsuto Araragi and his sister Mayu in 2011, who are survivors of Michida and symbiont hunters unaffiliated with Tokko. Together they hunt Phantoms and eat them to get stronger, absorbing their abilities, aiming to eventually kill them all. They accidentally save Yukino Shiraishi from committing suicide and deduce she was being controlled by a Phantom. They learn students have