Chapter 19

* Title Card
* Cover Page

## Chapter Chronology

**Paper Trip** is the nineteenth chapter of the manga *Choujin X.*

## Summary

A small flashback of Azuma as a child looking at his trophies and a wheelchair appears before showing Noh Mask in a motel communicating with Ririka and Ricardo to come visit Tokyo now that they've captured him.
Meanwhile Ely has arrived in the vicinity of the place where her friend is being held and Simon and Maiko are also on the way, trying to plan the rescue. Tokio waits with Ricardo, busy watching television while eating pizza.

Azuma continues walking as he recalls an episode from his childhood. Together with his father they had followed tracks other than those that lead to the city for many kilometers and in silence. At the end they found the road blocked and Azuma realizes that the tracks led nowhere. When he fails to make a choice the boy always thinks back to that binary.

He is aware of slowing down Yamato Mori's Keepers but is also disturbed by the idea that something could happen to Tokyo if he does nothing and another lesson that his father taught him was that "to shirk justice is cowardice".
Suddenly he meets a hyena appearing from the shadows and asks if he can show him where the ocean is. Azuma is frozen in terror and can barely raise his arm in this direction, to which the hyena thanks him and walks away.

Ely notices Azuma just as he arrives in front of where Tokyo is being held. The boy thinks that what just happened to him is a sign and that his friend didn't hesitate to risk his life to save him and that being a Choujin fits him perfectly. He is now determined to make the right choice and be a person ready to do the same thing for a friend.

Azuma is faced with Ririka who invites him to leave but he still assumes a fighting pose and declares that he wants his friend back. The girl accepts the challenge passively and takes out her giant scissors. Although the Choujin is able to dodge the blows by turning into paper, Azuma follows her speed and manages to hit her in the face.

Azuma finally realizes that Paper Trip is an ability she can apply on herself but it's too late as Ririka stabs him in the chest and cuts off his ear with her scissors telling him that he will die soon if he keeps fighting. The girl questions his decision asking if she wants to save Tokyo or if she just wants to prove herself, as some people similar to the boy have tried to do with her in the past. These people are confident in their abilities and want to prove them, thinking that if they defeat a Choujin they will gain their powers.

Ririka loses her temper when she remembers that Azuma's blow had removed her mask, exposing a horrific scar across her cheeks. The signal it emits alerts Ricardo who walks away and leaves Tokio a chance to activate Beastification and free himself.
Meanwhile his friend finds himself at the center of a tornado of paper scraps that swirl around him and cut deeply into his body. Realizing that he is fighting something infinitely superior to himself, the boy slips into despair and thinks once again of rails before his body is severed cleanly.

## Characters

* Azuma Higashi
* Azuma's father *⟨Debut⟩*
* Ririka Umezawa
* Ely Otta
* Tokio Kurohara
* Ricardo Terror

## Trivia

The fact that Azuma was able to speak with a hyena may be because his still dormant Choujin abilities included those of Zora's acolytes as the original blood of Sora inside the serum contained a wide array of Choujin powers.

## Navigation

 **Volume 6**
 **Volume 8**

 Tower of Mourning Arc