"Please... Natsu, leave."
"I don't want... to hurt... hurt..."
The heavy atmosphere made the surrounding darkness feel even thicker.
Yugawa Mao's face had completely melted into a pale white spine, leaving only a blurred mouth that continued to open and close.
A few raspy syllables stripped the countless memories of their time together into overlapping shadows, finally shattering like mirrors, cutting the dark-red-haired girl until she was covered in wounds.
"Natsu, I... I like you..."
The monster dragged its bloated, misshapen body out of the bathroom stall. Its massive abdomen caused the stall to burst, wood chips flying everywhere. Its elongated arms reached toward Natsu Kuri's face, as if to caress her, or perhaps to tear that beautiful face to shreds.
"Natsu... cute... like..."
The monster's long, sharp claws rested on Natsu Kuri's shoulder. A blurred, twisted face drew close to the girl, and the sharp spider legs beneath it left deep gouges in the tiled floor, sparks flying with an ear-piercing screech.
"Stay with me, Natsu. Together forever."
"Stop it..." Natsu Kuri was pushed against the wall by the monster's arms. She slid down the wall, her long bangs falling limply to hide her expression.
"I know all of Natsu's hobbies, the places she often goes, her catchphrases. I remember everything Natsu likes perfectly."
"Because I like Natsu..."
"I said, stop it." Natsu Kuri bit her lip until it bled.
"Let's become one, Natsu."
"I like—"
A crimson blade-light tore through the heavy darkness like a bolt of lightning illuminating the night sky. Silver and pitch-black intertwined before curving at godspeed. A deep bloody gash erupted across the monster's massive, bloated neck, and dark green blood exploded into a rain.
"Agh!" Half of the monster's body was annihilated in the blade-light, and it let out a shrill roar as it retreated.
"Shut up! Don't use Xiao Xu's voice to say those things to me!"
Rain-like droplets of blood fell before Natsu Kuri's eyes. The Mimicry Spider-Gu Fangs crossed into an X, a drifting light pulsing from the gap. A nearly blood-red anger burned in her eyes, like a cluster of furiously burning camellias.
Yugawa Mao was already dead.
The one who had just been talking to her was merely a sower mimicking her tone from when she was alive—a creature whose thought beacons and behavior patterns were influenced by the girl's memories. It was nothing more than a monster.
"Natsu, it hurts..."
Once a sower gathers enough nutrients, it seeks a host to parasitize and finds a relatively hidden space to build a nest. At that point, the host's body will undergo abnormal growth, becoming bloated until it fills the entire space and transforms into a flesh nest, just like what happened at the steel plant.
The monster before her was in its final state before nesting. Everything it had just said was merely an evolutionary deduction based on Yugawa Mao's memory model, born of its survival instinct.
'Yugawa Mao' thrashed around the narrow restroom, crushing and collapsing the stalls one by one. Its spider legs flailed in pain, slicing through the ceiling like it was tofu and leaving deep claw marks, while shattered light bulbs sparked.
Natsu Kuri stepped forward, the cold chill of death flowing from the twin daggers of her Mimicry Spider-Gu Fangs. Vivid dark-red trails flickered in the darkness as another cross-shaped wound erupted on the monster.
She didn't stop there. Natsu Kuri vanished into the shadows, reappearing with intense killing intent. She stepped onto the monster and leapt into the air, her body dancing in the void. Her twin daggers spun repeatedly, carving out freezing arcs. Large chunks of flesh and limbs flew from the monster.
Wherever the dark-red blade-glow swept, the blood it drew fell like crimson snow, blooming into eerie red tassels on the ground.
Natsu Kuri breathed out frost. Her body was overclocking amidst a weave of fear, anger, and various emotions. The tree-like spider totem turned increasingly blue-black, as if it were being carved directly onto the surface of her skin. Fine white spider hairs covered her arms, and terrifying compound eyes, like bubbles rising in water, threatened to take over her sockets.
"It hurts so much, Natsu! Hahahahahaha!"
The snow-red blade-glow was dense and woven, peeling away the layers of flesh covering the monster's massive body. The frantic slashes drained her physical strength but also exposed the monster's most vulnerable part: a bright red, spherical heart.
Just as Natsu Kuri crossed her daggers to deliver the killing blow, the blood near that heart suddenly began to flow faster, transforming into countless soft hands that embraced her body. Yugawa Mao's face emerged from the blood-red mass, her expression the same as always:
"Are you really going to kill me, Natsu...?"
Natsu Kuri froze for a moment, her grip on the twin blades instinctively loosening.
That momentary lapse in focus was nearly fatal at the most critical moment of the battle.
The flesh that had been peeled away was all drawn back into the monster's body, filling the gaps until it was perfectly restored. Not a trace of fresh red could be seen. Countless blue-black spider legs unfolded from 'Yugawa Mao's' back, thrusting straight toward Natsu Kuri's chest!
Overlapping visions of death stacked within her compound eyes. The future she could foresee a second later was nothing but an infinite silence.
In that hair's-breadth moment, Natsu Kuri thought she heard the sound of water—like a single drop falling into a vast lake, sending out ripples.
In the blink of an eye, a streak of dark-gold light had stepped before her. A black-gloved hand was raised, and with only overlapping fingertips, it blocked all the drill-like spider legs. In the gale of the clash, the girl's windbreaker and loose blonde hair danced wildly.
"Yuzu, how are you..."
Xu Xiaoyou stopped her advance, glanced at Natsu Kuri behind her, then looked at the monster. With a flick of her fingers, the monster's massive body was blown away like a cannonball, slamming directly into the wall.
"I couldn't get through to you on your curtain communication. I thought something might have happened on your end, so I hurried over," Xu Xiaoyou said as a long whip appeared in her palm.
"It looks like you've run into some trouble." Xu Xiaoyou looked at the monster struggling to crawl up from the side of the burst sink, quietly using a Kinetic Storage as she rested her hand on the whip.
"Do you need me to take care of it for you?"
"Natsu, who is that damn person?!"
The monster roared with twisted resentment. Its newly risen body collapsed again as if falling apart, its flesh constantly melting into a viscous dark-red liquid that spread toward their feet.
"Clearly... Natsu only needs me as a friend."
"Natsu, it hurts..."
"I really hurts... I have no strength left. I can't pull myself together, I can't crawl..."
"Sorry, Yuzu. I'll handle what's left here," Natsu Kuri said softly.
After a brief flicker in her eyes, Xu Xiaoyou nodded, choosing to respect the girl's wishes, and left the restroom.
'Yugawa Mao's' massive body continued to melt, the dark-red liquid flowing down the drain. Sensing someone approaching, the bright red heart wrapped in flesh throbbed, visible fear surfacing on its blood-red surface.
"Nat... su..."
"Don't... don't hurt me, Natsu..."
Natsu Kuri came to its side. A deep, pale powerlessness made her lips tremble, but she couldn't say a word. She aimed her Spider-Gu Fang at that heart—more accurately, a spherical sarcoma wrapped in flesh.
"Xiao Xu, I'm sorry. I haven't been able to consider your feelings all this time. And..."
"Goodbye."
The sarcoma was sliced in half, revealing the item hidden within. It was Yugawa Mao's curtain. In the album labeled 'Most Treasured Things,' there was only a single photo: a picture of her with a dark-red-haired girl. Behind them in the photo was the night view park, the fireworks as brilliant as the girls' smiles.
The note attached to the photo had only one sentence: [November 6th. As long as Natsu is happy every day, I'll be happy too~]
Rate on N.U.
