*
The entrance to the test room exhaled air as cold as a refrigerator.
Black shock-absorbing material covered the floor before the thick steel door, while the industrial floodlights lining the ceiling poured down a stark, chilly light like dawn.
The two Blackwatch soldiers standing beside the door pulled their levers at the same time.
"Opening test room. Prepare code authorization."
With a final bang of metal locking together, the door slowly opened.
Instinctively, I took a step back. Every time that door opened, it sounded as if some enormous beast were opening its jaws.
The air seeping out from within was... cold, heavy—and somehow sticky. Like something alive, it crept into my lungs.
Cross entered first. Her heavy-duty helmet flashed silver as it reflected the light. Her footsteps were sharp as blades, not combat boots.
Alex Mercer followed behind her.
He walked lightly and quickly, chest swelling with anticipation, like a researcher on his way to see experimental data that set his heart pounding. Finally, Kir placed a hand on my shoulder.
"...Are you afraid?"
His voice was calm, but his fingertips trembled ever so slightly. I shook my head.
"No. But that woman... she's dangerous."
The corner of Kir's mouth lifted by the slightest degree.
"You sensed it precisely. That is your instinct, Kiria. Do not be afraid. Your body is strong."
Yet his voice was... strangely trembling. Whether from excitement, anxiety, or both, I could not tell.
Alex urged us on from ahead.
"Dr. Minazuki. Hurry. I do not want to miss the child's first response."
Kir looked at me and spoke softly.
"...It's all right. Come with me."
I drew a deep breath and stepped into the empty test room.
*
This place... was colder and wider than any other room. The center was completely vacant, while thick metal supports and pressure-dispersal panels had been arranged in regular intervals along the walls.
Crane-mounted observation equipment, dozens of cameras, and thin laser sensors crisscrossed the entire room from the ceiling.
It felt like an arena built to record a scene of "a fighter jet battling a monster."
Then Gina Cross spoke up.
"No changes to mission parameters.
Target: M-01. Keep him alive, but break him. That level of difficulty should be sufficient."
Then—a hard, rhythmic mechanical sound rang out.
Gina Cross was checking her weapons: a long tubular grenade launcher mounted on her left arm, two-tier electronic stun batons at either side of her waist, a combat knife on her thigh, and a simple ECM device on her back for countering missiles.
Her arms moved smoothly. It was the perfect mechanical rhythm that could only emerge from performing the same motions hundreds of times.
She inspected her equipment, then finally lowered her helmet's visor. A black sheen slid down, fully concealing her eyes.
Cross did not so much as nod at me. Her posture said that only the mission existed. She opened her mouth.
"Target: M-01. Thirty seconds until test commencement."
Mercer said as he examined the recording equipment.
"Stable. Respiration, pulse, even tissue-mutation response are calm.
But... that will change soon."
He gestured to me.
"Kiria. To the center of the room."
I lowered my eyes to the floor. Hundreds of scrape marks covered the gray steel plating, as if someone had fallen and been dragged across it. Were they all... traces left by things that had been tested in this room?
I stood in the center.
My heart began to throb faintly.
I could feel a pulse.
Beneath my skin, the virus gave a single twitch.
Alex spoke as though reading a report.
"The response has begun. Faster than expected."
Gina slowly raised her weapon.
"Ten seconds until test commencement."
Kir crouched slightly beside me and whispered.
"You will never die. You are... far stronger than that."
With those words, I steadied myself.
I took in a deep breath, then let it out.
—Five seconds.
Gina's body leaned slightly forward. The toe of her gloved boot scraped faintly against the floor. It sounded like the low warning a cat gave just before it sprang.
—Four seconds.
A thin line of madness spread through Alex Mercer's eyes.
—Three seconds.
DX-1118 M writhed beneath my skin.
—Two seconds.
Kir watched me as though he were praying.
—One second.
The Specialist vanished.
'Wha...?!'
Her speed surpassed anything I had imagined. I had felt the full weight of the Specialist's fearsome reputation in the original work.
But to this extent—
Thud!
Cross's left hand drove brutally into my abdomen.
"Ghk!?"
Whirr—
My breath cut off for an instant. Then came the sound of something powering up.
"...Don't tell me, point-blank range?"
She had already fixed the grenade launcher against my stomach. Horrified by that insane idea, I twisted my body and leaped as far away as I could.
Boom—!!!
The grenade flew into the wall. The floor was gouged deeply by the explosion, and shredded metal fragments scattered everywhere.
Then—
Slash!
In that instant, a strange heat grazed my shoulder. I turned my head to see a shallow vertical cut across the skin there.
Before a single drop of blood could fall—the wound closed. When I looked up, Gina Cross had already drawn back her dagger. The instant I retreated, she had slashed at me without warning.
I smiled.
"...You've got rougher tastes than I expected, don't you?"
The wound had already vanished.
At that moment, I was certain.
'This woman... isn't on a human level.'
I had let my guard down. I knew Captain Gina Cross was strong, but I had still underestimated her because she was human. At my current level, she was a formidable enemy—one I could barely handle...!
Gina drew her stun baton. Crackle—! Intense current flared along it. Once again, she closed the distance in an instant.
"Then—I'll get serious too!"
I did not know what functions DX-1118 M possessed. So... I would use Mother's virus.
I drew a breath and activated the virus within me. Dark crimson biomass surged beneath my skin. Bone and muscle twisted, bundles of nerves expanded, and my arms and legs transformed into something beastlike.
Animal ears, a tail, and sharp claws emerged.
Not bad, though. At least it was a different sensation from before.
"...Here I come!"
Gina swung the stun baton in a wide arc.
Flash!
A tingling sensation far beyond an ordinary electric shock raced through my entire body. It felt as if lightning were boring into every inch of me. At the same time, I swung my claws.
Slash—!
Sparks flew as metal collided with biomass. Gina was knocked backward, then immediately leaped behind me.
Her kick and mine flew out at the same time.
Boom!!
The air split apart, and a powerful shockwave rocked the room.
A brief silence hung between us. I exhaled.
"...Are you really human? You're way too skilled."
Gina Cross answered shortly.
"I have fought many things like you."
"...No wonder you seemed familiar somehow."
The standoff continued alongside my mocking laugh. A long silence passed.
Gina Cross's breathing was steady, with none of the unnecessary emotional tremors of a pilot climbing into a fighter jet. Meanwhile, tiny arcs of residual current still snapped from my fingertips.
Beast-form mutation.
My physical senses had become extraordinarily sharp, every motor nerve drawn taut like a sharpened string. Gina left me with just one sentence.
"Initiating second sequence."
And once again—
She vanished.
This time, I genuinely could not see her. I swept my claws wide on the diagonal, creating something like a shield.
Clang—!!
A shrill metallic scrape as metal ground against biomass. Gina knocked aside my claws with her baton and, in the same instant, swung her knife from the opposite direction.
Swish!
The air was cut. Reading the airflow behind me, I lowered my body.
The blade passed over my head.
"You really aren't messing around...!"
Instead of answering, Gina launched a kick. A high-level spinning kick that put her entire body into the rotation—I blocked it with my arm, but I was still sent flying into the wall.
Bang!
Dust rose. The impact mark on my body swelled instantly, and regeneration began 0.2 seconds later. Without even drawing a breath, Gina charged at me. I kicked off the floor and rushed straight at her.
And at that moment,
my senses... expanded.
Cross's movements slowed as though they were in slow motion. I could see her ankle tilt and her center of gravity shift left.
"This time—"
My claws slashed toward her abdomen.
Slash!!!
Her armor tore apart in a shower of sparks.
Gina stepped back and, for the first time, took a long breath. She was finally accepting that I was not merely a "child."
"...Confirmed. M-01's first mutation pattern is normal."
Alex's voice was excited.
"Good... very good."
Gina split her stun baton into two. Current flowed from both ends, arcs of lightning stretching outward.
"Now—the real thing begins."
She rushed me from both sides at once. I deliberately stimulated my body, making dark crimson biomass burst from my fingertips.
Then—
I crossed both claws and slashed upward in a huge arc from below.
Crunch—!!
One stun baton spun through the air. Gina's right hand twisted backward at an unnatural angle for an instant.
It was a violent evasive maneuver. I lunged forward to counterattack.
But—
"Bait."
The moment Cross said it, the safety on the grenade launcher mounted to her left arm disengaged.
Click.
"...!"
This time, there was nowhere to run.
A direct hit.
BOOOOOOM!!!
The explosion swallowed me in a massive shockwave. My ears rang, my vision warped, and the metal walls reverberated as one.
Within the explosion, my body was being torn apart, regenerating, and torn apart again.
From far away, I heard Alex Mercer shout.
"Good! Tissue alteration speed is rising! Is this the true nature of DX-1118 M—?!"
A burning heat rose beneath my skin. It was not merely pain.
—It was a 'function.'
My arm trembled.
Not tentacles, but a sharp heat.
'...Fire?'
Before I could find the answer, the biomass reacted first.
Red flames burst out from my body.
But they were too black and violet to call them flames.
Gina immediately leaped back.
"A new ability? This... was not in the plan."
Alex let out a shout bordering on madness.
"At last! Energy-based alteration!
A type unseen in DX-1118 A or C...!!
Flame response—confirmed!!"
He was obviously ecstatic.
I drew in ragged breaths. Every bone in my body multiplied and twisted, and the biomass churned violently.
Every time my heart gave two hard beats, something within me awakened.
The flames grew larger. Violet heat spread across the metal plates beneath my feet.
"Ha... hahaha—good. This is... kind of insane, isn't it?"
My voice echoed in a strange double layer. It was the voice of my beast-form mutation mingling with DX-1118 M.
Gina Cross raised the one remaining stun baton in her hand. Current began to surge fiercely through it again.
"...Here I come, M-01."
I prepared myself as well.
The biomass scattered by the blast gathered again in my hand, transforming into an even sharper clawed form.
The air filled with the mingled smell of electricity, flames, and burning metal.
*
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