Staring at the gash carved into the concrete ground, Kushida Kikyo — who had been clinging to hope by the thinnest of threads — felt her legs give out beneath her. She nearly crumpled to the pavement entirely.
We're going to die.
We're actually going to die.
Something like this — there's no way they can fight something like this!
Fear crawled up her spine and flooded every inch of her body — and then:
"Stop spacing out!"
Somewhere in the chaos, Sakayanagi Arisu — still seated on the ground — had raised the X-GUN in both hands. Without a moment's hesitation, she squeezed the trigger.
Hmmmmm!!
No explosive crack of gunpowder. Instead, a deep, resonant hum pulsed from the muzzle — the sound of something charging. The two blue indicator strips running along the sides of the barrel flickered in rapid, rhythmic bursts, like a creature struggling to breathe.
"Damn it — there's a delay!"
Even Sakayanagi, who had yet to let a single crack show, felt the color drain from her face.
Her pupils contracted. She raised her voice and called out across the battlefield:
"Everyone — anticipate its movements! This weapon isn't instantaneous!"
The words were barely out of her mouth before the barrel blazed with a blinding pulse of light.
But because of that cursed delay, the Parasyte had already shifted its body. The killing blow — aimed dead-center at its skull — landed on the shoulder instead.
CRACK!
As though struck by an invisible sledgehammer.
One of the tentacles erupting from the Parasyte's left shoulder — along with half its uniform — detonated from the inside out. Flesh and blood bloomed outward like a grotesque firework.
"...?"
The convenience store clerk froze for half a second. It tilted its head, glancing down at the twitching, severed stump where its shoulder used to be, and spoke with what sounded almost like genuine puzzlement.
"This isn't America, is it... When did Japanese high schoolers start playing with toys this dangerous?"
"Oh well."
"Guess I'll have to get serious."
Two tentacles, each tipped with a razor-edged bone blade, became twin afterimages — one driving straight for Sakayanagi Arisu where she sat on the ground, the other lancing directly toward Chris, standing at Kushida's side.
The speed exceeded what the human eye was capable of tracking.
"You bastard — quit monologuing and die!"
A roar of pure, incandescent rage exploded into the night air.
Ryuuen Kakeru had finally snapped out of the haze left by his near-death experience moments ago. Whether it was his delinquent pride being trampled underfoot, or pure adrenaline and terror fusing into something savage — at this moment, fury had completely overwritten rational thought. His face was a snarl of wild, ugly fury.
"If it bleeds, it can die — so get the hell out of my sight!"
"I've got three lives anyway — let's see which one of us goes first!"
Ryuuen gripped his blade tight and charged. He didn't retreat. He lunged forward like an enraged lion, roaring as he drove himself straight at the wide-open gap in the Parasyte's exposed torso.
If this slash connected—
Even if it meant going down together, he'd tear a chunk out of this monster before the end.
But courage alone cannot bridge the gap between their kind and ours.
"So annoying."
The Parasyte spoke.
The tentacle that had been driving toward Chris abruptly reversed mid-air — an impossible, serpentine whip-crack of motion — and coiled around the arm Ryuuen was swinging with in an instant.
Then the bone blade swept sideways.
Ryuuen Kakeru's charge stopped cold.
There was no grand duel. No dramatic clash of wills. Just a single instant — and it was already over.
Shhk—
His upper half continued forward, still locked in that forward-lunging posture, carried by momentum alone. His lower half folded at the knees and crumpled to the ground. In his hand, the Gantz blade remained — wedged uselessly into the curved tip of the tentacle's bone edge.
"Ryu— Ryuuen-kun?!"
Ichinose Honami tried to scream. Her throat seized. All that came out was a hoarse, airless whisper.
Dead?
That unstoppable tyrant of Class C... killed just like that... like a fly someone swatted away without thinking...?
"Quiet."
The Parasyte shook the black blade free from its tentacle. The other one hadn't slowed. It rode the momentum straight forward — and drove itself toward Sakayanagi Arisu.
Sakayanagi gritted her teeth and tried to roll aside. But her heart seized with sudden pain — and the frailty of a body that had spent too long in hospital beds refused to answer the commands her mind was screaming.
...Is this where I die? When I haven't even had the chance to begin...
The helplessness was achingly familiar. It dragged her back to those endless days of staring at the world through a window from a hospital bed.
Ichinose Honami wanted to help.
But fear had her hands shaking so badly she'd already missed the window, and the Y-GUN's capture rope had its own ballistic delay on top of that.
All she could do was watch, frozen, as that sharp bone blade closed in on Sakayanagi's throat.
Was it... really going to end like this?
In the moment everyone had written off the outcome as certain—
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Three rapid, muffled detonations punched through the chaos without warning.
The X-GUN, fired three times in rapid succession.
At the moment Sakayanagi had raised her gun, Chris had already positioned himself in the shadow of a streetlamp — eyes narrowed to thin lines.
Unseen telekinetic force spread outward like a web, latching instantly onto the core of the Parasyte's brain.
Telekinesis. Yes — actual telekinesis.
Honed and developed through Doraemon's gadget — the Psychic Power Training Box.
It hadn't reached the level where he could tear monsters apart barehanded like Tatsumaki, but for correcting bullet trajectories and refining his aim in real time? It was more precise than any fire-control radar ever built.
Please.
If he hadn't had some kind of safety net in place, why would he have ever let a group of total rookies walk into a live hunt in the first place?
And while we're at it — how exactly did anyone think Ryuuen managed to dodge that first surprise attack?
But Ryuuen had done what he needed to do. He'd played his part.
Which meant now...
"Just in time."
Chris breathed the words under his breath.
One second.
Two seconds.
In the suffocating silence of the delay countdown, the curved blade had already sliced through silver hair and pressed its cold edge against Sakayanagi Arisu's neck.
"Die."
The Parasyte declared its victory.
But in the very next instant—
Three invisible gravity pulses, arranged in a triangular spread, sealed off every possible evasion route around the Parasyte's core.
No contest whatsoever.
The Parasyte — which had been calculating its next host, already planning to slip into a new body — felt its skull tip forward.
SPLAT——!!
It didn't even have time to scream.
It detonated from the inside out in a single, catastrophic instant — and became a red rain that scattered across everything.
The tentacle that had been a mere three inches from the tip of Sakayanagi's nose lost every last trace of strength in an instant. Like a dead snake, it dropped between her legs with a dull, wet thwap — still twitching with the last involuntary spasms of severed nerves.
[Target Eliminated.]
[Mission Complete.]
The cold system chime echoed down the empty street, accompanied by the sound of Ichinose Honami retching and falling apart completely.
Kushida Kikyo and Sakayanagi Arisu both turned to look at Chris at the same time.
Kushida's gaze was pure, overwhelmed relief — the gratitude of someone who had just narrowly escaped their own funeral. Sakayanagi's was something altogether different. From the absolute calm on his face, she was piecing together a familiar feeling — something that tickled at recognition, deep and unsettling.
For one breathless moment, she forgot to breathe.
Then Chris lowered the gun barrel. His body swayed slightly — as though the tension had finally left him all at once — and he dragged in several long, ragged gulps of air.
"Ha... ha... Is it... finally dead?"
"Chris-kun!!"
Kushida Kikyo threw herself at him without a second thought — like a drowning person lunging for a piece of driftwood — and locked both arms around his, holding on with everything she had. Tears soaked into the sleeve of his uniform before she'd even drawn her next breath.
"We're alive!! We're actually alive!!"
"Thank god... hic... I'm so glad... I'm so, so glad..."
Beside that touching reunion of survivors, Sakayanagi Arisu felt nothing of the sort.
She ignored the shallow cut on her own neck. Let the thin line of crimson trace its unhurried path down her collarbone and disappear beneath her collar.
Her eyes were fixed — unblinking — on the hand of Chris's that Kushida had latched onto.
Three consecutive shots. At a distance where a single millimeter of deviation would have severed my throat.
If that was luck — then he's God's own bastard child.
And if it wasn't...
"Chris-kun."
Sakayanagi touched the tip of her tongue to the corner of her lips and licked away a faint trace of blood. A smile spread across her face — slow and entrancing and deeply, deeply unsettling.
"Your acting is quite good, you know..."
"But your hands — they're not trembling. Not even a little."
— End of Chapter —
Note ① — Psychic Power Training Box: A gadget from Doraemon. Designed to train the user in three ESP abilities: telekinesis, clairvoyance, and teleportation. Requires three hours of daily practice for three consecutive years before the abilities can be used without a warm-up delay.
____
👻🔥The Director is back! But with a brand new look, heheh...🔥👻
New Story: Classroom of the Elite: Black Sphere Academia
✅ Access up to 40 advanced chapters of ALL stories!
✅ Receive exclusive content and updates!
Help us hit our community goals:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter for everyone
🚀 140 MEMBERS = +5 extra chapters of ALL STORIES!
👻 P - Walnut-chan