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Meiko's body goes flying against a house wall.
Her head hits the concrete first, and a sharp pain crosses her entire forehead, while she feels something warm running down her face until it gets in her right eye. It's her blood spilling heavily.
Her body falls to the ground with arms spread and legs twisted, with dirty bare feet full of small wounds.
In front of her is her mother.
Her mother, who's no longer her mother.
The head opened like an enormous flower, tentacles coming out from the top moving slowly, and the face below, deformed by a huge smile that reaches almost to her ears.
"It's a shame, you know, dear...?"
A distorted voice comes from the elongated mouth.
"It's a shame my little lamb discovered so soon that she's a lamb destined to be devoured. It would've been cleaner if you'd never found out."
"Mom..."
Meiko sobs while that word comes out without thinking, maybe because it's the only thing her head knows how to do at that moment.
The woman tilts her head to one side while monstrous sounds come from her throat.
"Mm. That doesn't change the fact, Meiko. You're a lamb. You'll just be food before maturing like I'd planned. And look how well I fed you, and took care of you, and brushed your hair every day. It's a shame to waste so much work."
She starts approaching.
Meiko tries to back away using her hand, but her back hits the wall, and there's nowhere else to go. On her right is the neighbor monster standing calmly. In front of her, her mother.
The left side is the only exit, so Meiko pushes with her legs and tries to get up toward that side.
A tentacle crosses the air with a shining blade at the tip, passes in front of her face almost grazing her nose, and drives into the concrete floor a finger's widrh from her hand. Meiko screams a small sound, and falls sitting against the wall again.
"Ah, ah. Not that way, dear."
The woman comes closer, staying only a meter from her.
"Fuuh... I've been a good mother all these two years. I let you watch your shows, bought you your things, took you to the doctor when you got sick. And you, dear, have also been a good daughter, since you're obedient and quiet without causing problems for mom. That's why, I'm going to put mother-daughter feelings above everything and I'm going to respect you one last time. I'll give you a quick death."
After that pause, she continues.
"Goodbye, Meiko."
The woman raises her leg and brings it down toward Meiko's head.
Her foot hits her temple and Meiko's head impacts the concrete again. Her vision goes black for a second, then white, then blurry, and blood starts coming out faster from the wound on her forehead.
Despite the woman saying it would be a quick death, it seems in the end those were just empty words.
The starry sky becomes blurry to Meiko. She can barely keep her eyes open anymore. She sees the lights from the street lamps as well as the house lights and they give her the impression they're moving on their own.
A blade at the tip of a tentacle rises above the woman and descends toward Meiko's neck.
At that moment, the blood that was stuck to Meiko's forehead moves.
It separates from her skin, slides through the air in a thin red line, and before the tentacle's blade reaches her neck, it passes in front and cuts the tentacle in half. The cut part falls to the ground writhing a couple times before staying still, losing color and drying out.
"Huh?"
The woman blinks a couple times in a confused manner at the same time her remaining tentacles move with doubt.
While she's confused, the blood line floats in the air, makes a calm turn, and passes by her arm cutting the skin of her forearm superficially. Her arm starts bleeding, and that new blood also separates from the wound and floats up, before cutting her again.
"Wh-what..."
The woman takes a step back looking at her arm without understanding, while the neighbor parasite beside her goes on guard.
Meiko, who's slowly losing consciousness, raises her eyes toward the sky.
From the dark night sky falls the silhouette of a boy. She doesn't see his face because he has his back to her. The blood floating in the air moves around him.
As Meiko's vision becomes darker and darker, her lips move.
"...Arata-san...?"
She raises her trembling arm toward that silhouette she knows, and passes out.
×××
Tsk. I arrived a bit late.
I see Meiko on the ground against the wall, with her forehead split open and blood running down her entire face, and I see how her eyes close and her body goes completely limp. Her breathing is agitated.
She needs attention soon.
The first thing I do is manipulate her blood. All of it coming out of the wound on her forehead and what's already stuck on her face. I order the blood to stay still where it is, and little by little the bleeding stops.
Of course, it's not a complete solution, but for now it buys her time.
While I do that, the woman's voice reaches me from behind.
"Who... who are you?"
"Where did you come from?"
The neighbor man speaks too.
"Wait... that scent..."
The woman takes a little step forward while her tentacles writhe.
"That scent... I already know it. It's the scent my daughter had stuck to her arm. You... you're her friend. Right? Arata, isn't it?"
Heh.
About that...
I finish stabilizing Meiko, and only then do I turn my head over my shoulder toward them.
As I do, heavy scent of blood escapes from my body, like a thick presence writhing around me.
"Don't call her that."
They blink.
"Huh?"
"Don't say she's your daughter, or you her mother. Don't say it again."
The woman stays quiet while her distorted eyes move. And then she lets out a long, hollow laugh that makes the nearby window glass crack.
"Hahahaha! And who do you think you are to tell me that, boy?! I gave birth to her! I raised her! I'm her mother!"
Pronouncing those words, she shakes her head full of tentacles. The blades at the tips sharpen, and a bunch of tentacles shoot toward me from various angles.
—Shink!
I raise my left hand and the fingers become long blades. I move my arm in a short arc, and the tentacles cut cleanly upon colliding with my fingers. Chunks of flesh fall to the ground and writhe a bit before staying still.
"..."
The woman and man stay quiet seeing that.
"Hoh? He's like us."
"No. Look at his eyes."
While they talk to each other, the woman takes another step back. The laughter erases from her face. But then, as if wanting to regain control, she raises her chin and says with a twisted smile.
"Doesn't matter. You won't be able to do anything anyway, boy. Besides, I'm warning you, if you also intend to eat my daughter, then—"
I appear in front of her without even bothering to run. A hand's width from her head full of tentacles. Her eye, below where the tentacles join, blinks with surprise, and I sense fear in her frequencies.
My right fist rises.
"I told you to stop calling her that."
I tense my arm muscle and push with all my body weight forward. My fist impacts her head, and the head reduces to nothing in an instant, the tentacles disintegrate, the face dissolves, and the force that keeps pushing goes through everything and continues, pierces the air behind her, and hits the house wall they have behind them.
The wall explodes inward, the concrete cracks and opens in an enormous hole, and behind that the force keeps going through, part of the interior wall breaks too, and leaves a long trail of destruction.
"H-how..."
The woman's body falls backward. All that's left of her head is the lower jaw part, the lips, the tongue, and her mouth moves to pronounce those words before the flesh withers quickly, turns gray, and dies.
One down.
Before I can turn around, the neighbor man moves. It surprises me a bit, because he moves fast. Seems the parasite has spread through a large part of his body.
His legs compress and launch him toward me in a straight line, and from his head come tentacles with blades, and from the sides of his arms blades also come out, everything coming toward me from three angles at the same time.
"Oh."
I see it all clearly.
I dodge the first by tilting my neck, duck under the second, and the third I answer with my blade fingers, cutting it in half. While I do all that, my other hand is already under the man's chin.
"See you never."
I push upward.
My blade fingers pierce through his jaw, go up through his mouth, pierce the palate, and keep going up. I feel the gelatinous structure writhing around my fingers, trying to detach from the head and flee, but I cut it to pieces from inside.
The man's body collapses.
Once I've finished with the two parasites, I manipulate the blood from their bodies. The woman's blood and the man's blood separate from the flesh, float out through the air, and come toward me. The amount is quite a bit, so I open my mouth and absorb it.
While I swallow it, I receive some fragmented memories from them.
That's problematic. In this area there's a community of parasites living hidden, and they share food among themselves to not attract the attention of the Special Parasite Division. They mainly hunt children who return late from school, or those people who leave work very late at night.
I'm going to have to deal with that, but not now.
—Chomp! Chomp!
Hundreds of small mouths appear on the two corpses and devour them.
I walk toward where Meiko is. She's still lying against the wall, her breathing still agitated and now it's a bit slower, which I don't like.
I crouch down and lift her in my arms.
"Hang in there a bit, Meiko."
Her head settles against my shoulder, at the same time I push with my legs and start running.
I don't transform into mist because to carry her I need to be in body, so I run at a speed much faster than a car.
While I run, I think about where to take her.
A normal hospital is ruled out, because her parents' presence would be needed, police will come, and everything will get complicated. And her mother just died tonight, so I don't want that part to come out now either.
But I know someone.
Miss Marikawa. She studies nursing, and though she's not an official nurse yet, she already has enough knowledge to treat serious wounds.
She's not going to ask me weird questions if I show up at her door at this hour with an unconscious girl in my arms.
Well, she'll probably ask me some question, but ones I can handle.
Through the All-Seeing Eye assigned to her, I see she's sitting in front of her desk, studying with a sleepy expression.
I change direction mid-air, jump onto a roof, take two steps along the ridge, and let myself fall to the other side. I keep running. Miss Marikawa's house is about twenty minutes walking from here, but at my speed I cover it in less than one.
When I arrive, I stop short in front of the entrance.
It's a huge house that looks like a small mansion, four stories. The fourth floor light is on.
I look at Meiko in my arms. Her face is pale, but she's still breathing.
"We're here, Meiko."
I ring the doorbell to call her.