Ivan knew the trade-off.
While Shinichi gained power, he was slowly losing his emotions.
It was like mixing two different liquids. Migi, the emotionless one, soaked up Shinichi's feelings, and in return Shinichi started sounding more and more like the parasite. He couldn't even tell when his own mood shifted anymore.
"Fuck, that's high," Ivan muttered calmly.
He raised his right arm. It twisted and stretched, bones cracking as it morphed into a four-meter blood-red hook. The hook caught the far edge of the seawall.
Once it locked in solid, Ivan bounced up in a few quick leaps and landed on top. Whole thing took maybe three seconds.
"Putain… seriously rude. Couldn't even wait for me."
His right arm snapped back to normal with a springy twitch.
There were stairs on top of the seawall, probably built for people to enjoy the ocean view. Shinichi was already at the far right end. Following Migi's directions, he finally spotted the parasite sitting on the lowest step.
"Don't move!"
The guy was fat. When he heard Shinichi's shout, he looked up.
"Wrong one, huh.." Shinichi said, jumping down right in front of the man. Disappointment flashed across his face.
The fat guy froze, eyes wide, probably stunned by a teenager dropping three meters like it was nothing.
"Even if it's not the one we want, it's probably still trash. Might as well end it."
The second Shinichi spoke, Migi turned into a blade.
The man threw his hands up in panic. "Wait! Wait! Don't! Let me explain!"
Shinichi paused, surprised Migi hadn't attacked yet. Then Migi's voice came out: "No. He still has his human brain."
"What?" Shinichi blurted, shocked.
Before he could process it, the guy's jaw suddenly bulged out and a completely different voice spoke. "This is rare. You're actually parasitizing a human hand."
Shinichi flinched hard.
"You've got a parasite stuck on your chin. That's way fucking weirder," Ivan said, stepping up right behind him.
"Human!"
The guy's chin instantly morphed into a blade and pointed straight at Ivan. Except the whole thing looked fucking ridiculous because the blade was aimed more at his own throat than at anyone else.
"Don't attack. His situation's special too," Shinichi said quickly, stepping between them.
"So you're a parasite? Then why can't I sense you at all?" the parasite on the man's chin asked, sounding genuinely curious.
From what Ivan could tell, the thing only controlled everything from the chin down to the chest. Its combat power had to be way weaker than a normal parasite.
Ivan ran his blade-shaped fingers through his hair a couple times, combing it back into a loose swept-back style. It looked a bit like Shinichi's but not exactly the same. "Dunno. Maybe my case is even weirder than yours."
"So that makes us comrades, right?"
The chin parasite grinned wide, its deformed face showing three tiny eyes. Because of the huge mouth, it actually looked kinda dopey and harmless.
After that, the fat guy, his name was Uda Mamoru, explained how he got parasitized.
The story wasn't complicated.
His wife had left him, so he came to the beach to kill himself. Turns out he didn't even have the guts to die. Just as sunset hit and the sky blazed blood-red, the view actually moved him. While he was standing there deciding not to jump, a parasite crawled out and leaped right in front of him.
Uda thought it was a snake and nearly shit himself.
In the panic, both of them tumbled into the sea. Uda couldn't swim, so he blacked out fast, basically half-dead. The parasite didn't have time to take over his brain. It only had two options: die with the fat idiot or latch onto his neck and keep him breathing.
Obviously it picked the second one.
"Interesting," Migi commented.
Uda opened his mouth to say something, but the parasite on his chin swiveled its eyes toward him. "If I give the chin back to you, I won't be able to talk properly anymore."
Uda ignored the parasite on his chin and grinned instead. "You guys really gave me a scare back there. This thing suddenly said a companion was coming over, so I thought some real monster was about to show up. Seeing you two actually made me relax."
He shook his head, still smiling. "Never thought I'd meet someone else in the same fucked-up boat. And two of you at that."
Ivan could tell both Uda and the parasite stuck to his chin had pretty decent personalities. Looked like a parasite's character got shaped by its host.
Some got influenced a lot, some barely at all. Most parasites he'd seen so far ran purely on instinct. The only ones that actually seemed like real intelligent beings were Reiko Tamura, Migi, and this chin guy right here. The rest just did a shitty job pretending to be human.
"By the way, why don't you tell us about your right hand?"
"Let's talk somewhere else," Shinichi said. He raised his right hand and introduced them. "I'm Shinichi Izumi. This is Migi. The guy who came with me is Ivan Greevs. Seems like he doesn't have a separate parasite on him."
"Actually, I could."
Ivan smirked. A blob that looked a lot like Migi suddenly appeared on his left hand. The only difference was it had no eyeballs. Ivan couldn't make those yet. The eyes on Migi and the others were probably part of the original body.
"Her name's Minnie. She's Migi's girlfriend."
Shinichi couldn't hold back. "Pretty sure Disney's legal team is already putting together a file on you."
"Fine, not Minnie then. How about Mario? Sounds energetic as right?"
Ivan slapped a little hat on the blob for good measure.
"Not bad," the parasite on Uda's chin said. "As long as the company Nintendo, whose games this fatso plays all day, doesn't mind."
"Shut your mouth and let me talk."
Once Uda took back control, he started introducing himself and the parasite on him. "I'm Uda Mamoru. This parasite I've got, I named it Parasyte. You know, short for parasitic creature."
After that, the three of them found a quiet spot and just shot the shit for a while.
Shinichi explained why he'd acted so hostile the first time he saw Uda.
"So that's what happened. That parasite really is a piece of shit. Good thing you guys showed up in time, or it would've been ugly."
"But are you sure just waiting here will make it show up?" Uda asked, looking curious.
Shinichi shook his head, eyes hard. "No idea. I can't even confirm if the damn thing is dead or not. But as long as there's even the slightest chance my family is in danger, I have to stay alert. If it's still alive, it'll come after my mom soon..."
"Trust me, parasites are vicious when it comes to revenge."
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[]~(￣▽￣)~*
Read 12 Advance Chapters—P@t- Captain69