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Hiruko wakes to the sound of footsteps. It’s a hazy half-awakeness, as if she overslept whilst having a nap. It takes her a while to realise that they are her own.
There is blood on her clothes.
While her mind remains muffled, her body continues to move forward determinedly. There is an excruciating itch on her back, like a ball of fire burning near her spine, and yet she can't move her hand to scratch it.
There is blood on her clothes.
She notices it again, but this time it clicks in her brain. Why is there blood? Whose blood is it?
She brings her attention back to her surroundings, as her body stumbles through the Last Defense Academy halls. It's gloomier than normal, her eyes having adjusted to the lightless hallways.
Then it clicks in her brain again. She can't move. Yet she is continuing to move forward.
She's backseating in her own body.
Her consciousness is like a barely flickering candle. She can barely push through the fog to give an active thought of her own. So she just watches, half-wondering where she's going, and perhaps why the lights are turned off.
She turns the corner, and there's Takumi.
And something is wrong.
In the split-second she locks eyes with him, he is scared. And then he bolts away.
(Run. Run!)
And she runs after him. Her body moans from the wound in her backside, and she can feel the skin tear open from the sudden movement, blood bubbling down her backside. She'd wince, if she had control over her face.
She'd stop, if she had control over her legs. The same clumsiness as before is still in her movements, and yet she has an eerie, staggering speed. There's a sense of terror as she realises she's keeping pace with him, and a small sense of relief as she realises that she's not gaining on him.
(Run! Get away!)
He's been cornered, and the relief is gone. There's another path to escape, but Takumi would know that too, meaning there’s something else blocking it. (Who else is there?) Every time they look at each other, she sees the flash of the whites of his eyes. Mouth perpetually open, chest heaving from the effort.
(Get away! Get away from here!)
She can see the sweat on his face sparkle as she closes in on him. He grabs a pole, and a flicker of a memory reminds her that the weak spot of the G'ie infected dead are their brains. His body tenses up, face scared yet determined, as he steadies his hand to raise the pole.
She looks him in the eye, and something in him hesitates.
She doesn't.
(A hum of a memory comes back to her, of her lips pressed against his, before the world burned up.)
She can feel the warmth of his flesh again, the thrum of his pulse just under it. She can feel her body press close to his, as her mouth is washed with metal.
His pained cry vibrates through his throat. She can feel it.
And then it clicks in her brain.
His flesh tears under her teeth, her lips wet with his blood. She can only see a glimpse of his face from this angle, but it is torn with agony. His hands scramble feebly against her body, half desperate and half pleading. He won't survive the hour.
No. No no no no no no no no no no no nononononononononono.
Her jaw loosens its hold, but already it's too late. She can feel her teeth retreat back through two caverns of flesh. He scrambles away, and almost makes her rip out that chunk of throat with it.
(This is a failed timeline anyways, the logical part of her brain kicks in. What does it matter if he dies or not?)
(She was meant to protect them all.)
Takumi stumbles away feebly. He tries to get to his feet, but falls, his jugular ripped bare, and so he's forced back to the ground, crawling away. He's badly hurt, but he's still alive.
(He won't survive the hour.)
She gets back onto her feet, and walks towards him. He tries to back away, but his back has hit a corner, too dazed from blood loss to ever be able to escape. With each step she takes towards him, he fights to keep his eyelids from shutting for the last time. With each step, he loses the fight to keep them open just a little more.
It comes back to her in drips. G'ie males lay larvae in dead bodies. They puppet those bodies to kill, reproducing through murder. The way Eito (but not really) ripped her back open with just his hand, as she lept between him and Takumi.
(Where is the G'ie queen? Whereisshewhereisshewhereisshe)
Takumi's body is starting to limpen, head stuttering as he makes continual last ditch efforts to keep his eyes open, as the battle to do so becomes more and more dire.
She picks up the pole he brandished at her earlier. He looks up at her with the fear of a prey animal that’s in a predator’s grasp.
And then she stops.
There's a flash of movement, as a pale, cephalopod-looking creature scuttles silently across the floor towards them. Takumi's eyes flicker over to it, and give one last flash of panic, but half of his abdomen is drenched in his own blood.
He resigns, at last, and lets his eyes fall shut. The G'ie male uses its slimy tendrils to slither up his body. Takumi lets out one last weak choke as it wrenches open his mouth, and climbs in. The Ancient Egyptians preferred to go through the nose to reach the brain, a thought murmurs.
She watches it disappear, and then raises the pole. She waits a few seconds.
At last, she brings it down. And then again, and again, and again, until she can see grey and red mashed together, and finally, white. She can see the G'ie wiggle its tentacles feebly as it tries to escape, like a bowl of Katsu ika odori-don. Through all the haze in her brain, there’s a distant spark of glee.
She failed him. This is the least she can do for him, now. It's what he would have wanted as well.
She holds onto that satisfaction for a few seconds longer before her mind sinks into the fog for good.