Mr. Hybrid is pretty strong.
We've been trading hits in the alley for a while now, and every time I think I've got him in a bad spot, the parasyte's blade filaments react before the kagune does and deflect my attack or open another cut on me.
By the time my last wound closes, I already have two new ones.
He's got cuts too, but every time my blood blades slice through his arm or open his side, the flesh seals back up using that fibrous texture that mixes ghoul tissue with parasyte filaments, and he keeps coming with a smile.
—Crash!
A tentacle hits me square in the chest and I fly back ten meters, break through another wall, and land on concrete rubble.
I get up and shake off the dust.
...Honestly, this thing is solid.
"Hey."
The hybrid stops and speaks. His voice comes from two places at once, the ghoul's throat and other souns resonating on top of it from inside, and it produces a strange effect, like hearing two people speaking at exactly the same time in different tones.
"Why are you attacking us?"
Isn't it a little late to be asking that?
I brush the last bits of concrete off my shoulder and look at him.
"Because you're a threat to someone I care about. Do I need another reason?"
"..."
He tilts his head to one side, and the parasyte's blade tentacles twitch.
"When we are sent to this planet, we receive a mission. Someone gave it to us. A mission to exterminate those who live on Earth."
"Someone?"
"Humans call it God."
God, huh?
I don't know if it's the same god from the myth of creation or something else that calls itself that, but either way, I don't have enough information to decide anything right now.
Mr. Hybrid keeps talking.
"You are like us, aren't you? So why don't you carry out the mission?"
At that, I burst out laughing.
"Hahaha..."
After a few seconds, I settle down, go serious, and move toward him.
"I never received any mission from any god."
My right fist hits his face and drives him into the alley floor, opening a crater two meters deep. The concrete around it cracks outward in a broken star pattern.
I crouch at the edge of the crater and look down at him.
"But don't worry about that. The end of days is coming no matter what, and when it does, that mission of yours will take care of itself."
"...The end of days?"
From inside the crater, the hybrid's double voice sounds confused.
Before he can say anything else, the tentacles reach out from the crater to both sides, and the hybrid starts dragging himself toward where the parasyte bodies I killed earlier are lying.
He reaches the first one, his head opens, and he swallows it whole. Then the second, then the third and fourth at the same time.
"Hoh?"
I stand and take a step back, watching.
As he absorbs the others, the hybrid's body starts to change.
His shoulders widen, his muscles grow so much that the skin tears and the flesh underneath is exposed. The tendons press out visibly over his arms and legs.
Blades extend from the kagune that remind me of my own mutated ones.
Considerably larger. Two and a half times, maybe three times the size of before.
This thing can evolve too?
Oddly enough, that makes me smile.
"Hey. A bigger target is easier to hit, you know?"
The monster lunges at me.
On top of being stronger, the hybrid's attacks now come from more angles and with more brute force behind them.
The parasyte's filaments shoot out from every direction at once, some aimed at my legs, others at my head, others at my torso. It's a pattern that clearly learned from our earlier exchanges, trying to cover the gaps I used to hit him before.
"Kuhuhu..."
It doesn't bore me, so I fight with everything I've got.
My kagune extends into six tentacles.
I take hits that send me crashing into walls and close the wounds on the way down. He takes mine and closes them on the way back. The alley is starting to look pretty wrecked.
At one point where he has his tentacles extended and is bearing down on me from above, I show a wide, distorted smile.
"This should be enough."
At the same time, waves of mental frequency wrap around the monster's body.
—Flesh dreams of biting itself, and every eye aches for a sibling.
Accompanied by sounds of cracking and moaning that seem to come from everywhere at once, mouths full of teeth open in his skin and start chewing his own flesh from inside. And clouded, bleeding eyes burst up between the exposed muscles and blink.
I feel my head buzz a little. Using this ability against an opponent with a strong physical body takes a lot of mental energy.
—Groaaarr!
The monster roars and tries to tear the mouths off with his tentacles, but the mouths bite the tentacles too.
The eyes open and find my face, and some of them look away on their own, as if they don't want to see, and when they do, the sight drives them mad and a few burst with a small, wet sound.
Mr. hybrid staggers back several meters.
"What... what are you...? You're a... monster."
The double voice trembles with fear.
Hearing that, my excitement drains away pretty quickly.
"Where did that smile go...?"
And here I thought he was a strong opponent.
Someone who's afraid of me doesn't deserve my attention.
I look at him with a flat expression and pull the mouths and eyes back from his body.
Then I walk straight toward him.
In the final stretch of the fight, the hybrid tries several more attacks but without the coordination from before, because the parasyte side and the ghoul side are no longer in sync.
It looks like what he actually gained when he absorbed his fallen companions wasn't evolution, but a temporary buff with a serious downside. His biology is now fighting against itself.
Because of that, my attacks get through with less and less resistance. I tear off the left kagune while planting my foot on his back, then catch the right one with my hand and kick his body hard enough to send him flying.
—Cresshhh!
I pull out the parasyte's filaments one by one, and by the time I'm done, the ghoul's body is on the ground in rough shape.
Then something I didn't expect happens.
The ghoul's head warps and separates from its neck. The head has transformed, parasyte tentacles extended.
I thought the fusion with its host was complete and that it couldn't separate anymore, but apparently it still can, though the body it leaves behind is a wreck that starts withering the instant it's abandoned.
The parasyte drops to the ground and starts moving at an alarming speed, using its tentacle to propel itself forward.
I track it through the All-Seeing Eyes I have scattered around the area as I run after it out of the alley.
The parasyte hits the main street, crosses to the opposite sidewalk, and about fifty meters down it finds a kid around my age.
That kid has dark hair, a school uniform, and looks like he's talking to, or actually more like arguing with, his own hand.
Mr. Parasyte marks him in a second and launches itself at his head.
The kid startles, lets out a frightened sound, and then his right hand, the one he'd been arguing with, stretches out.
His skin and muscles extend, and the fingers transform, elongate, become blades, and block the parasyte in midair just centimeters from his face.
The parasyte gets caught between the blades of the kid's right hand, which holds it there.
Staring at it with wide eyes, the kid takes a few shaky steps back.
I reach the end of the alley and stop about ten meters away, watching the scene.
"Mm."
Mm, mm.
Shinichi Izumi...