The approaching roar didn't give me long to wallow in self-reflection.
Wait—what?!
I turned toward where Birkin was supposed to have been destroyed. According to canon, before his death he should have torn almost all the cars off the train—leaving one or two at most—and then gone out in a blaze of glory.
But no such luck!
Crawling toward us was a charred mass veined with glowing red fissures, resembling a colossal amoeba with three eyes—each larger than my head—and a writhing forest of tentacles.
"He's… not dead?" the Four Eyes blurted out.
"I'm guessing not," I replied, just as stunned.
"Fall back and keep firing. Yamata, give Kate a weapon. Accuracy doesn't matter—he's filling the entire tunnel as it is. Another pair of hands won't hurt. And don't be stingy—give her something with proper caliber. She already has a pistol, and it won't do much here." I shook off the shock and started issuing orders.
We retreated, occasionally slipping fully into acceleration and widening the gap, showering the monstrosity with gunfire. But despite the fact that he was penetrable now, Birkin ignored all our hits—even Yamata's use of two assault rifles. With the sheer size of his bulk, those injuries were no more than mosquito bites to him, and his regeneration meant he had no need to worry about exhaustion, except perhaps in the very distant future.
He ignored even the precise shots—Yamata's from the sniper rifle and mine from the pistols—aimed at his eyes, only forcing him to move faster toward us. By then we had already reached sections of the tunnel that were openly scorched and smoking, and everything ahead promised to be worse still—bad enough that we might end up boiled alive.
"Cover me. I'll try a different approach," I called out, then moved in.
The smaller tentacles were neatly shot down by Yamata. Kate kept pumping round after round into the monster's bulk itself. The larger tentacles were easily severed with knife and claws, but when it came to the body itself—that was the problem. Even though the creature had shifted its focus to me as the irritant, landing any truly damaging blow was still out of reach.
Leap. Slide beneath the mass, claws carving as I passed. Emerge on the left, nearly pressed against the wall—there wasn't even a full meter between its body and the tunnel, and I was diving straight into that gap. Spring aside from the oncoming tentacles—too many to hack through head-on—and plunge beneath the body again.
Another full pass from one side to the other, knife and free hand working relentlessly, sometimes tearing out entire chunks of flesh. Out the far side. A jump toward the ceiling to evade a massive limb—or whatever that colossal appendage qualified as—then landing atop it. Knife and claws again.
Monotonous. Repetitive. Assembly-line brutality.
Strangely, this weighed on me more than any previous clash with the creature. Perhaps because before, it had still been vaguely humanoid—partially vulnerable. But now, all our combined efforts seemed utterly insignificant. Never before had I felt so helpless. Surely this thing must have a weak point?
But if there was, it refused to reveal itself.
On yet another pass beneath the enormous body, I made a mistake. One of the tentacles caught up to me, coiling around my arm and yanking me back. A crack sounded in my left arm announced it would be useless for a while.
I severed the tentacle and rolled to the right, narrowly avoiding the rest. And then a strange thought crept into my mind: repeat what I had done with the alligator's corpse. Even now, the creature's blood was being drawn toward me.
I just hoped I wouldn't burst.
"Kate! Yamata! Whatever happens next, don't panic. If the thing starts convulsing like it's having a seizure—fall back. Nothing's going to happen to me anyway!" I shouted toward the sound of gunfire, having long since lost sight of the girls.
"Got it! Just don't overdo it—whatever you're planning!" Yamata shouted back.
I slid beneath the monster again, but this time emerged on the side of the tunnel it had already passed through. I ran a short distance back, then accelerated to my limit, practically flying toward it—only to drop at the last moment and skid under the mass with my knife extended.
Judging by how my legs stopped responding, the fall hadn't gone exactly as planned.
The knife, stuck fast in the flesh I was cutting, snapped halfway down the blade, and inertia dragged me a little farther under the monster's body.
I flung the useless hunk of metal aside and sank my claws into the monster's flesh, halting my slide. Pulling myself forward with my right arm—and my left gradually responding again, unsurprising given the torrent of blood flowing from the enemy into me—I began to climb into the gash.
Clearing a path as I went, tearing and carving, I pushed deeper inside, searching for its heart—its core—anything that might serve as the center of this abomination. And I kept moving forward.
(End of Chapter)
P@treon: /SadRaven
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