*
It did not take long for me to open my eyes. But waking up took an agonizingly long time.
My consciousness sank and rose slowly, like a stone submerged in water, and my ears felt muffled as though they were underwater.
Even the sensation of oxygen seeping into my lungs felt like heavy air beyond a glass bottle.
"Ugh... haa."
The first sound I made was impossible to tell apart from a laugh or a groan.
My tongue was bitter, as if someone had smeared it with metallic ash, and my heart was slow, dull, and irritatingly human.
Was it because the suppressor had sunk its claws deep into the circuits inside my body?
The viruses within me───
The little things that always chattered and danced were not completely dead, but they were curled up like beasts on the verge of their last breath.
They did not answer when I spoke to them.
It was quiet. So quiet that it gave me goosebumps.
"...This feels kind of gross."
My own voice sounded unfamiliar in my ears. Every cell in my body was growing heavy and stiff, while pain flowed down my spine as though cold mercury were running through it.
'Seriously... I never thought there'd be a day these guys shut up inside me.'
I laughed inwardly.
But that laugh did not last long.
When I tried to sit up, my waist gave out. My legs trembled, and my fingertips shook faintly.
"...Wow. This much? Were you planning to make me weaker than a cat?"
It was a joke, but my words struck everyone in the room sharply. Mother stared silently at me from beyond the glass, her hand clenched as if she might shatter it.
She looked as though she was holding her breath. Her anger was a silence louder than shouting. Kir sat hunched over in a chair beside the bed, and the instant I raised myself, his shoulders jolted and trembled.
"Ki...ria... are you... okay?"
Father's voice was trembling in the smallest vibration I had ever heard from him.
I forced myself to blink and said,
"Looking at your face, Dad, I'm more worried about you."
Kir drew in a breath.
That one small joke nearly made him lose the dam holding back his emotions.
His face was losing all shape beneath a cruel mixture of paternal love, guilt, rage, and self-loathing. He was a father, a scientist, and a sinner crushed beneath the choice he himself had made.
And his eyes were clearly saying it.
"I ended up doing this to you."
I looked at him one last time and let out a long breath. It was cold, thin, and far too faint.
The suppressor had sealed away my power. And it had cut away far more than I expected.
I whispered.
"...Now I really understand."
Just how much you fear me.
*
The testing did not end. Even after the parasite had taken a chunk out of my strength, GenTek did not stop.
When the test room's metal doors opened with a hiss, five Blackwatch soldiers in black armor stood before me like shadows arranged in formation.
The grinding noises of their mechanical gear scattered through the air like fine metal dust.
I slowly curled up the corner of my mouth.
"What a surprise. I thought my sister would be coming. A familiar face would've put me more at ease, you know."
The researcher remained expressionless.
"Today's opponents are anti-virus combat operatives armed with PROTOTYPE weaponry. M-01."
I swept my eyes over the five soldiers. Even through their masks, I could see their eyes trembling anxiously as they tried not to meet my gaze.
Even weakened by the suppressor, I was still something 'not human' to them.
"Look at those faces. Frozen solid like ice. Pretty tense, aren't you?"
No one replied. Instead, their wariness tightened around me, harder and colder.
Good. I was used to this stage of silence.
Countdown.
── 3 seconds.
── 2 seconds.
── 1 second.
Gunfire erupted.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat──────!!!
Bullets like beams of light sliced through the air in an instant.
I took a short breath.
"Hup!"
Shhhaaaak───!
I bent at the waist like a beast and slid down toward the floor,
dodging the whirling barrage of bullets. I gathered the faint biomass I had left and spread it around my body like a wrapping.
But the response at my fingertips───was different from the ferocious mutations of before.
My nails sharpened into blades. But the transformation that had once enveloped my entire arm was gone.
The suppressor was already gnawing me apart from the inside out.
Fine. Just because I'd gotten weaker didn't mean I could stop dancing.
I sprang up like the wind and cut diagonally toward the foremost soldier.
Shk───!
I raised the edge of my hand, twisted my body to add speed, and drew one sharp line.
Kreeeek────!!
With the compressed shriek of iron being torn apart, the soldier's thick body armor split open as cleanly as glass and broke apart.
He collapsed where he stood.
"Good. That's one."
The moment I laced the end of my words with a grin, the soldier beside him swiftly raised his weapon.
[Anti-Infected Weapon]
A single mechanical chime.
Then──
Fwoooosh──────!!!
Dark crimson flames burst forth explosively. The heat was enough to melt the metal walls in an instant. The air in the test room heated all at once.
But I knew the presence of those flames.
That temperature, that color, that scent.
They were mine.
My energy.
"Ah── I was wondering where I'd seen those flames before."
I kicked off the wall hard and shot upward as fast as the height of a building floor.
I raised my leg high──
Wooooong───
And brought down a strike weighted by gravity.
KWAANG────!!!
With a savage impact, the soldier's helmet shattered almost into dust, exposing his face.
Blood.
Blood and a twisted expression.
But at that moment──the ground beneath my feet froze.
Screeeech───!!
Icicle-like frost raced up from my ankles and seized my legs.
It was a familiar scent. A familiar presence.
The distinctive chill of DX-1118. The same chill as mine.
"My ability again? Do you want it that badly?"
The instant the ice rose, a new presence darted around me.
Bzzzzzt────!!
The third soldier approached, gathering violet current at his fingertips. The electronic whine tore through my ears.
Then the electricity arced.
KRAK──────!!!
The nerves in my body went numb in an instant, and my vision bloomed white.
"That's chilling...!"
I clenched my teeth and forcibly gathered the biomass collapsing under the suppressor's pull.
Wooooooooong─────────
Biomass exploded outward from my body, drawing a radius around me.
KWAAAAANG────!!!
The ice shattered into fragments, and two nearby soldiers were hurled into the wall, dropping their equipment. The black marks left by the current slowly regenerated on my arm.
But───
The regeneration was unbearably slow.
This time, the viruses were truly screaming. The suppressor was severing my cells, cutting away my abilities.
Three soldiers remained.
Their breathing was ragged and their movements disordered, but their eyes still saw me as an enemy.
I looked down at the back of my hand, marked by a black stain, and gave a short laugh.
"So this is what you prepared. Weapons made by copying the abilities I used──wholesale."
I took a step forward.
"You weaken me, then attack me with my own abilities?"
Silence. Then vigilance.
The soldiers had neither an obligation to answer nor any emotions to show. I spat lightly on the floor and muttered,
"Every last one of you has gone mute..."
My voice dropped.
Cool, quiet as a blade.
The air was taut like the heat of a dried-out furnace, and the three soldiers stood unmoving like one shadow, each aiming a different weapon.
I slowly steadied my breathing and brushed the burn mark on the back of my hand.
"...Fine. Then──I'll go first this time."
My body blurred. The floor cracked beneath me.
Then──
Like the afterimage of a beast, my shadow thrust straight between the soldiers.
In that instant──I moved.
The wind made the sound of sprinting, and the floor panels beneath my feet crumpled downward.
The first to come at me was the soldier wielding the ice weapon.
Zing──
Cold spread like mist. From his feet, the floor froze into crystal, trying to catch my ankles again.
"That got me earlier."
I thrust one hand forward in a sweeping motion. The transformation was kept to a minimum──but my speed was even sharper than before.
Shak──!!
I spun around my heel and rode backward into the timing of the rising ice.
I could see the soldier's speed. His gestures, his breathing, his center of gravity. Experience and my viral senses read where he would move next at the same time.
I drove the edge of my hand upward into his throat.
Kreeech────!!!
The thick neck guard of his ice-radiating suit tore away. White shards scattered like broken ice.
He collapsed on the spot and slammed into the wall.
"One more."
The second had already lunged in. The color of current dancing at his fingertips. Familiar violet.
He closed the distance between us in an instant, almost as though he had teleported.
Bzzzzzt───!!!
When those fingertips thrust toward my face, I merely tilted my head slightly. The current grazed past my ear and burst briefly.
Krak───!!
My vision nearly snapped apart from the dizziness, but I laughed instead.
"You're fast."
When he raised his arm again──I grabbed below his elbow and twisted it in an instant, in the direction that would buckle his tendons.
Crack────!!!!
The electrical weapon burned out and died. The soldier was thrown back by the backlash of his own current and slammed into the floor.
Only his trembling fingertips moved faintly, as though he had lost consciousness.
"Two."
The last soldier was left alone.
His breath had grown ragged and his armor was partially damaged, but the flame weapon in his hand was still maintained with precision.
Red plasma writhed at the muzzle.
Fwoooosh────!!!
The flames burst out once more.
The test room's temperature boiled like blood in an instant.
I stepped back and stomped the floor hard.
The steel plate beneath my feet boomed, and I used the recoil to whirl upward like a beam of light.
As my body drew a semicircle through the air on the way down, I drove my heel precisely into the soldier's arm.
KWAANG────!!!
Metal shattered into pieces. The plasma weapon broke apart, and red fire blasted in every direction. Pushed back through the flames, the soldier slammed into the floor as if gravity itself had crushed him down.
When the debris settled, I stood alone in the middle of the test room.
My breathing was ragged, and my entire body swayed with exhaustion and the poison of the suppressor, but───
I smiled.
"Even with a parasite in me... I can still manage this much."
The researchers watched me from behind the glass, swallowing hard. I stepped over the soldiers strewn across the floor and walked to the center of the test room.
The room was silent, and only my footsteps lightly disturbed that silence.
*
Beyond a single glass wall, the GenTek researchers' voices continued in whispers.
"...His physical capabilities have been suppressed by nearly 70%, and he can still do that?"
"Suppressing him may have increased the side-effect response instead. The virus's aggressive pattern is temporarily intensifying."
"That shockwave just now—the blast radius was 50% smaller than before, but its density was higher."
"Does that mean his braking power has dropped?"
"No. It means his concentration has increased."
"So the mutation has decreased... but the precision of his control is increasing?"
"Yes. Large-scale transformations have been weakened by the parasite suppressor, but───
his unpredictable instantaneous acceleration has become even more dangerous."
They bent over their screens and rapidly scrolled through the data.
"Look at his heart rate. It has barely fluctuated even after the parasite was introduced."
"The stress readings are absurd too. A human would have gone into shock."
"This... means he has begun adapting to the suppressor."
A brief silence passed among the researchers.
Then, finally, McMullen's low, heavy voice came from beyond the recording equipment.
"—Yes. This is DX-1118 M."
He closed the document and muttered,
"The moment we think we can control him, we're already falling behind him."
Those words made the other researchers freeze faintly.
And as I listened to their conversation through the glass, I smiled quietly, very quietly.
"That's why I keep telling you I'm not human."
*
- GenTek Internal Confidential Report
[GENTEK CLASSIFIED - EYES ONLY]
Submitted by - Raymond McMullen
Submitted to - Peter Randall
Post-M-01 Suppression Protocol Observation Report.
1. Introduction
General.
Today, we must rewrite the meaning of the word 'control.' M-01 has weakened outwardly.
However, that weakening is not the neutralization we expected. Rather, it is closer to the prelude of adaptation.
The suppressor has successfully taken root within his body.
The virus fell silent, his heart rate dropped into a human range, and his metabolic response became distinctly incomplete.
But—
In that state, he subdued five Blackwatch soldiers.
I am not merely reporting facts. I must convey exactly what those facts signify.
Even weakened, M-01 has never stood on equal ground with humans.
The post-suppression combat curve
has merely changed direction from what it was before suppression──
its inherent threat level has barely changed.
What we excised was not his power, but his impulse.
And a beast deprived of impulse inevitably becomes more cunning and more precise.
2. Combat Analysis.
According to the combat data,
his mutation radius has shrunk by more than half,
while its density has increased by 38%.
This is a pattern in which the suppressed virus
has adopted 'precise control'
in place of 'violent expansion.'
The DX-1118-based energy weapons
were not unfamiliar to him. He read the fluctuations of that energy, remembered its presence, and even mocked it.
Ironically, the weapons we created have been more easily 'analyzed internally' through his memories and senses.
4. Conclusion
General.
The parasite suppressor is clearly effective.
His power has weakened, and his combat performance has declined as well.
However...
He is still capable of killing us.
Only in a slower, more deliberate, more selective manner.
Suppression has not made him weak. It has made him focused.
This is my greatest concern:
Until now, we have said that M-01 would someday display a greater mutation.
But today, I believe we must give that possibility another name.
It is not mutation──
Evolution.
And evolution cannot be confined by any power.
*
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