Parasite Eve Sephirotto Part 25

8.

FLAP.

What was that?

thought Toshiaki.

Something had brushed his cheek.

Something like pebbles. It hurt. He slowly raised a hand.

He touched his cheek with a finger.

It was warm, slimy.

What was that? FLAP.

Toshiaki woke up with a start. He shook his head, blinked his eyes. His vision was blurry. It was dark. He wiped his face with both hands. The lack of feeling in his fingers frightened him and he cried out.

He looked at his palms.

Something was stuck to his fingertips like soft calluses.

He tried to stand up and stretch his legs, but slipped in his daze, floated in the air for a second, and came down hard.

He pressed his head and looked around. He'd suffered a mild concussion. The scene looked unstable.

He was in a room. He could see the silhouette of what looked like a desk. He remembered now.

The lab.

Toshiaki stretched his back and went over to the wall switch. He turned on the light. He heard a flicker, then a steady buzz. He shielded his eyes from the intense brightness.

When his eyes grew used to the light, he was treated to a strange sight.

Pieces of flesh were splattered all over the room. Some were beige, some red, and others black. They ranged from the size of a fingertip to that of a fist. Asakura's table was covered with what looked like ground pork. There were even some slender pieces dangling from the ceiling. Strangely, there was not a single drop of blood.

They were all moving, oozing slime, and convulsing, struggling against death. He heard a plop as a small one fell from the ceiling onto the table.

Toshiaki sighed.

These were parts of Kiyomi.

The remains of Eve 1, which had turned into Kiyomi.

These pieces of flesh were losing life. They showed no indications of gathering together and propagating. Instead, their movements were gradually weakening, and they were losing l.u.s.tre. As he watched one of them, it constricted feebly, then shriveled up.

They were dying.

And Toshiaki felt relieved.

He finally looked at himself. His shirt was torn back, his belt undone. He groped around, pulled down his underwear and checked himself. Her remains were wiggling around all over it. In disgust, he ripped them off and threw them to the floor. He appeared fine.

Everything had happened too fast to process, but Kiyomi had left him unharmed.

"Why?" he muttered.

Why hadn't she done anything? Hadn't her purpose been to subdue and kill him?

Toshiaki walked over to the experimentation table and looked at its surface.

This is where I was attacked. Kiyomi tore off my clothes, then...

He cradled his head in terror.

Eve 1 ...no, the mitochondria...had they simply wanted to mate with him?

That was perhaps all they needed to do?

The mitochondria said they had been waiting for millions of years, and they ravished him. But could that really have been their goal? That didn't make any sense. Possessing Asakura, they said they had been planning this since long ago. Hadn't they even boasted of remembering Mitochondrial Eve?

Mitochondrial Eve.

"Oh no."

A horrible thought came to his head.

"Oh no. Oh no..."

He started to tremble. Toshiaki looked hesitantly at his underwear.

Mitochondria were pa.s.sed matrilineally. That was why the distant ancestor found through the a.n.a.lysis of mitochondrial DNA was called Mitochondrial "Eve" and not "Adam."

Mitochondria were female.

And I had s.e.x with that female.

Toshiaki broke down. He slammed his head on the table, cursing himself for his own foolishness. He had e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

The mitochondria merely wanted his sperm.

Asakura's words were revived in his ears: "The prosperity of the world will be in the hands of my descendants."The mitochondria had needed only to get his attention and lure him here. It was all a setup.

A child would be born of himself and them.

Just the thought of it forced the contents of his stomach out onto the floor. He felt like his body was in pieces.

... They must be stopped.

1 must prevent Eve from giving birth, he thought as he wiped the vomit from his face.

Eve 1 and her child must both be killed, or they really will replace us all.

But...

Where had she gone?

He lifted his head and surveyed the room. Only remnants scattered all around. These could not be Eve 1 herself. She was undoubtedly in some other place.

Toshiaki rushed out of the lab and into the Cultivation Room. He checked the incubator. It was still open, but empty. He looked across the hallway. There was only a trail of greasy slime between the Cultivation Room and the lab. She had not escaped through the hallway. He returned to the lab again, looking frantically for any signs.

"Where...where did you go?!"

Time was needed for a fertilized egg to mature. Her womb had to be functional and receive the correct hormones. But whether Eve 1 could actually achieve this probably presented a challenge. Though the being Toshiaki had mated with looked exactly like Kiyomi on the surface, she was not human inside. Eve 1 had certainly evolved, but she had not been able to mimic a human being flawlessly. There was no way that her womb was exempt from this. In other words, Eve 1 could not nurture a fertilized egg by herself.

But maybe Eve 1 was aware of this?

Toshiaki mulled over the possibility desperately.

Could she possess another woman's body like Asakura's, but use it to raise a child in her womb? No, even that would be impossible. A woman's body could not accommodate Eve 1's egg. Of course, if the egg were normal, there would be no problems. But Eve 1 had the power to divide, propagate, and change her form at will. She was not made up of simple human cells. People, h.o.m.o sapiens, were completely different from her. The possibility of an egg created by Eve 1 gestating in a human woman's womb was miniscule. A modified egg, transplanted into a normal woman, would probably never develop. So, what exactly were her intentions?

Toshiaki was silent.

Wait.

His brain pulses converged on one point.

That meant there was only one possibility.

There was someone who could raise her fertilized egg.

Eve 1's zygote cells were trying to differentiate themselves from humans. They were on the verge of an evolutionary miracle. At such a turning point, there had to be some overlap between the two types. But couldn't someone who possessed a similar cellular overlap accept Eve 1's fertilized egg? In such a biological environment, the egg would grow into a fetus.

"She can't do this!"Toshiaki moaned, his head in his hands.

Kiyomi's death, her kidney transplant, even his primary culture on her liver cells had all happened as Eve 1 intended. He had unconsciously furthered her plans by obsessing over Eve 1's data and inciting her propagation. Beset with violent emotions, Toshiaki was unable to restrain himself from crying out in fury.

Just then, a loud gurgling sound echoed through the room.

He looked up.

The sink.

9.

Mariko felt it.

Something pa.s.sing through the darkness.

She pressed an ear to her pillow and listened closely. It was coming from underneath.

She could hear it inside her like a ringing in the ears. Not someone on the floor below, but further down, underground. Maybe it was moving through soil. Something with the speed of a subway train.

She was afraid.

Visiting hours ended at seven o'clock and her father had just left. He had been at her side since noon. It was the first time they were together for so long. He hardly said anything, but it put her at ease nonetheless.

Her ear still pressed to the pillow, Mariko looked across the room.

No one here now.

Her father was gone, as were the nurses, and the sickroom suddenly felt endless. This was too big a place for her to be alone. No one could ever reach her even if she were in danger.

She heard no voices, no sounds in the hallway, and wondered what happened to everyone. She normally could hear nurses running between wards and patients clearing their phlegm in other rooms. Without these, the blowing wind, pa.s.sing bikes, and ventilation jarred in her ears. But in her growing fear, they too faded.

And among that stasis, she heard only that one sound echoing from the soil.

It called to her from afar, growing with every moment.

Thump.

Her kidney moved.

Mariko looked down to her abdomen with an all too familiar terror.

She gazed around frantically. The wall clock showed 7:30. She put a hand to her face.

She was wide awake. This was no dream. But still, her kidney moved as it did in the...

Thump.

Mariko began to panic. She touched her abdomen, but recoded from the heat. Once again, she put an ear to her pillow. She gasped. The sound was getting louder.

"No..."

She buried herself in the sheets from head to toe. Her body began to tremble.

The donor had come at last. Come to take her kidney back. She had risen from the grave and would be at the hospital at any moment. First there'd be the flap. Flap of her footsteps. Then, she would open the door and come into the room, her only goal to dig into Mariko's body to reclaim what was once hers.