Yuutenji Nyamu crashed heavily onto the cold aircraft skin.
Her lungs burned, and each heavy gasp brought a tearing pain, mixed with an unpleasant metallic taste.
She barely managed to brace herself with one paw against the slick metal surface, steadying her unsteady body. Her short purple hair was plastered wetly to her forehead, sweat and blood mixed together, dripping from her hair tips, spreading into a small dark red stain on the wing surface.
The tip of the sharp claw on the raised cat paw still had strands of fresh flesh and tissue clinging to it.
A few meters away, that flamboyant orange figure was curled up.
Fudou Hayabusa was prostrate on the aircraft's back, his body convulsing in pain, one hand clamped tightly over the back of his neck—where a bowl-sized, bloody gash had been torn open, skin and flesh ripped apart, the muscles at the edges twitching unnaturally.
Dark red blood gushed out like an uncontrolled stream from between his fingers, which couldn't cover the wound, soaking his entire back, turning his orange clothes into a deeper, wet, soy-like color.
Blood fell onto the wing, forming small puddles.
The back of the neck, this fragile nexus connecting the head and torso, is densely packed with lifelines leading to the brain. The spinal cord passes through here, and nerve bundles resemble the most intricate network of electrical cables.
A severe injury here means the brain's commands to the body are severed, and the body's perception by the brain also vanishes.
Paralysis was the lightest punishment at this moment.
More fatally, the surging bleeding point was frantically pumping away the oxygen and strength he relied on to survive. That curled posture was the body's most primal spasm under extreme pain and loss of control.
"How about it... Is he dead now?" Nyamu gasped, her throat feeling like it was stuffed with sandpaper.
The sensation of tearing through skin, flesh, and fascia still lingered on her fingertips; that claw had indeed pierced through tough flesh and violently shattered bone. She stared intently at the motionless figure, her hunter-like vigilance not slackening despite her body's exhaustion.
Should she go forward and finish him completely? Or... [Usually, when such questions are asked, a reversal occurs.] An electronic voice suddenly rang out deep in her mind.
"Shut up!" Nyamu choked on the sudden interruption, almost losing her breath, and started coughing violently, which pulled at her wounds, causing a sharp pain.
"Instead of making such irresponsible sarcastic remarks, quickly give me that item! The kind that can detect an enemy's health bar! An information panel that shows how much breath the opponent has left! Bring them all out!"
She almost roared, fierce light burning in her vertical pupils.
[Uh... your current debt is already...]
"Don't give me that mumbo jumbo!" Nyamu interrupted roughly.
"I'll buy it! Hurry!"
The girl's man-eating expression seemed to genuinely accelerate the efficiency of some invisible process.
Her vision suddenly cleared, as if dusty glass had been instantly wiped clean, and the dizziness from the fierce battle was forcibly suppressed.
Above Fudou Hayabusa's curled figure, several lines of clear data stream abruptly appeared:
[Name: Fudou Hayabusa]
[Life: 24 / 160]
[Mental Power:???]
[Status: Seriously injured, blood loss, lower limb paralysis]
The crimson "24" acted like a shot of adrenaline, refocusing her vision, and the heartstring, stretched to its limit, finally fluttered with excitement at this moment.
"FT! Does this count as completing the mission? The mission to defeat the enemy! Tell me, is it complete!" She urgently called out in her mind, her voice filled with uncontrollable excitement and anticipation.
However, only cold silence answered her.
The electronic voice that had been interjecting from time to time was now like a stone sinking into the sea.
An ominous premonition quietly crept up her spine. Nyamu quickly brought up the mission panel with her thoughts; the glaring text stubbornly remained: [Mission Objective: Defeat the mastermind behind the Beastification Incident, "Fudou Hayabusa"].
The progress bar was completely still.
"Does that mean... I have to kill him... for it to count?"
The girl's body still maintained a warrior's stance, muscles taut, senses sharp; this was an instinct ingrained in her bones from countless struggles on the brink of life and death. To survive, to save Anon, for all the people she had seen along the way, devoured by this madness, she could unhesitatingly swing her claws, tearing out the enemy's throat.
But what about the future?
Yuutenji Nyamu would not always be a warrior.
To personally end a life, to take away the last breath of a living person—this real touch and weight would forever remain on her hands, in her memory. For a girl not yet fifteen, harboring a shining dream of being a star, this burden might crush her future stage presence.
However, this hesitation lasted only a moment.
She took a deep breath, the air mixed with blood and aviation hydraulic fluid filling her lungs.
Her resolve had been forged much earlier.
From driving alone into the torrent of beasts in Ikebukuro, from deciding to stand alongside the mysterious and cold Fuuki, from stepping onto this fighter jet to fight to the death with the mastermind... she had been prepared.
To get through the present hardship and welcome a new tomorrow, her determination had long been set.
Even if she had to personally take this life, she would not shrink back.
But another question, like a vine, wrapped around her body, ready to act.
"FT... doesn't seem to quibble over words in such matters," she muttered to herself, more like she was sorting through her chaotic thoughts.
"At least so far, mission judgments have been very direct, with no word games involved."
In her vision, the red number "24," representing Fudou Hayabusa's life, still floated.
'Defeat... if it's just physically knocking him down, making him lose his ability to resist, doesn't that count as "defeat"?'
'Unless...'
"He... hasn't been completely defeated yet!" Nyamu's pupils suddenly contracted, staring intently at the curled figure, "He still maintains a considerable degree of willpower... vitality... and..."
"Combat capability!"
No more hesitation. That blood-stained cat tail, like a nimble third hand, lightning-fast, coiled around a piece of metal skin debris at her feet, sharp-edged like a knife, which had been blasted off during the previous battle.
A cold sensation transmitted through her fur, she gripped this makeshift weapon tightly, lowered her center of gravity, and cautiously began to slowly approach the glaring orange mass.
One step, two steps.
The distance was shortening, the air seemed to solidify, leaving only her own heavy heartbeat and the opponent's almost imperceptible, blood-flecked gasps.
Her gaze flickered rapidly between Fudou Hayabusa's curled body and the information panel floating in her vision, not missing the slightest anomaly.
Five meters. Four meters... The next moment, her gaze detected a change on the information panel.
[Life: 24 / 160]
That number, ever so slightly, flickered.
[Life: 25 / 160]
It wasn't a hallucination! It wasn't an afterimage! That number was really increasing!
Immediately after, the status bar also refreshed instantly:
[Name: Fudou Hayabusa]
[Life: 29 / 160]
[Mental Power:???]
[Status: Minor injury, blood loss]
"His body is self-healing! Even the paralysis caused by the cervical spine injury... is gone?!"
Without the slightest pause, her body's instinct was even faster than thought! She used all her remaining strength to violently hurl the sharp fragment in her hand. The target was Fudou Hayabusa's exposed back of the head!
At the same time, her legs pushed off the ground, and she shot forward like an arrow from a bow, following close behind the fragment. Her blood-stained cat claws tore through the air, carrying a resolute determination to end everything, pouncing towards the rapidly recovering enemy!
'I must finish him completely before he fully recovers!'
However—
Buzz!
In her vision, the area that originally contained only Fudou Hayabusa's target information panel was, without warning, instantly filled with countless crimson markers, as if exploding.
Dense streams of data, like a swarm of locusts, almost completely covered her vision!
[Warning! Detecting large hostile biological signals!]
[Great Horned Owl (Mutated)! Life: 85 / 85]
[Golden Eagle (Mutated)! Life: 90 / 90]
[Gyrfalcon (Mutated)! Life: 78 / 78]
[Serval (Mutated)! Life: 65 / 65]
[...]
Piercing, ear-splitting bird cries, like steel needles, poured down simultaneously from all directions of the factory's towering dome. Huge shadows, accompanied by strong winds, like a black wave of death, swooped down from above.
The thrown metal fragment was precisely swept away with a "clang" by the wingtip of a giant Great Horned Owl with a wingspan exceeding two meters.
Nyamu, following close behind, was instantly surrounded by at least three terrifyingly large birds of prey. Their sharp talons clawed at her face and shoulders! Their sharp beaks, like daggers, pecked at her eyes and throat!
"Get lost!" Nyamu roared, the agility and strength granted by her Beastification exploding at this moment. Her blood-stained cat claws flashed out like lightning, with a tearing shriek, parrying the talons aimed at her eyes, and even leaving deep, bone-visible claw marks on the wing of a Gyrfalcon.
At the same time, her body twisted with an incredibly flexible angle, narrowly avoiding another Golden Eagle's pounce.
But there were too many attacking raptors, and they were too fast.
She had just dodged the Golden Eagle when a foul wind, carrying killing intent, suddenly enveloped her from above. A slightly smaller but ghost-like swift Great Horned Owl, like a silent specter, had already anticipated her evasion trajectory.
Excruciating pain suddenly exploded on the left side of her head!
"Urgh ah—!"
Nyamu let out a tragic scream.
The Great Horned Owl's sharp beak bit down hard on her soft purple cat ear on top of her head, and then, an irresistible, tearing force suddenly came.
Accompanied by the teeth-gritting sound of flesh tearing and cartilage snapping, that cat ear, a symbol of her Beastification, was forcibly ripped from her head.
Blood spurted out like a small fountain from the torn wound.
The intense pain made her vision go black, and she staggered backward, almost slipping off the edge of the wing.
She instinctively raised a hand to touch the excruciatingly painful left side of her head. Her fingertips touched only a warm, sticky wetness and an empty wound.
Just in this moment of intense pain and dizziness, the sensation of the wound on her hand suddenly vanished.
Not only that, the vitality that filled her body was rapidly disappearing like a receding tide.
Her once clear vision began to blur, and besides the buzzing in her ears, there seemed to be some static—the subtle movements beyond human hearing limits had disappeared.
Her body's flexibility also receded, her movements becoming sluggish and heavy. Most noticeable were her hands; those hands covered with purple fur, with sharp claws extending from the fingertips, now, the fur was visibly receding, and the claws were retracting, transforming back into human, blood-stained girl's fingers.
'Beastification...deactivated?!'
She looked down in horror, no longer seeing arms covered in purple fur and sharp claws, but her original, slender arms, now covered in bruises and bloodstains.
Strength was rapidly draining away, and fatigue and pain, like beasts unleashed from chains, instantly rushed back, gnawing at every nerve.
And at the same time, another scene unfolded in her vision, blurred by pain and shock.
The beasts not entangled by the raptors—a nimble Serval, several silent wolves, and even several colorful venomous snakes—like the most devout followers, silently and swiftly surged to Fudou Hayabusa, who had just straightened up.
They rubbed affectionately against his legs, licked the still-wet bloodstains on him, their eyes full of unreserved devotion.
Fudou Hayabusa knelt amidst his friends, the anxiety and rage from the fierce battle now gone, his face showing only a calm that was almost compassionate.
"'Japari Park'... is a very gentle Stand," Fudou Hayabusa's voice rang out, low and clear, with a strange gentleness, piercing through the raptors' cries and Nyamu's heavy gasps, clearly reaching her ears.
"Creatures that undergo [Friendification] do not die immediately after receiving a fatal injury," Fudou Hayabusa's voice had little fluctuation, yet it conveyed a sense of pity.
"Or they consume a large amount of life force to self-heal..."
He slowly lowered his head, his gaze falling on a Serval at his feet, affectionately rubbing against his thigh.
The agile and graceful creature, its amber eyes reflecting his figure, was filled with pure, unreserved trust and joy.
Fudou Hayabusa reached out a hand, seemingly wanting to stroke its smooth fur.
Just as his fingertips were about to touch that warm life—
The Serval, which had been vibrant and full of life a second ago, like a popped soap bubble, instantly lost all its color and form. Its outline dissipated in a flash of light.
What remained on the cold aircraft skin was only a gray, faded, incomplete leg bone of some small feline, with old cracks.
"Or... they return to their original form."
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To Read Advanced Chapters, and support this novel, please join me on [email protected]/geats2000
(Note: Replace "@-" with "a" on your web browser.)