[Laboratory - Level -1, containment corridor]
The heat from the earlier explosion was still vibrating in the cracked walls. The ceiling leaked dust and shards of metal, letting flickering beams of light pass through the gloom.
The five regrouped near what was left of Kurou's control: a charred mass, unrecognisable. Goro kept his steel fists clenched until they creaked.
No one spoke. Only the sound of heaving breaths mingled with something new: wet thumps behind doors, deep shrieks, broken breaths as if someone - or something - was inhaling through organs that weren't meant for it.
Shiftie swallowed, clinging to Ricochet's back.
-Don't tell me that's normal," she muttered.
Haruto twirled the boomerang in his fingers, the blade trembling.
-Nothing here is normal.
A gigantic latch popped off its frame with a sharp click. Yume stepped back. He saw a crawling silhouette emerge, bloated and oozing black vapour. It was Node - The Root Devourer. It crawled like a rotting tree, leaving an acidic slime that devoured the tiles.
From another burst cell emerged Ikari - The Black Twin: a bony body, with a double arm that grazed the ceiling. Above his collarbone, a childish face split open in a muffled whimper.
Rokuro - The Living Ocello - crawled along the wall like a blob of mould: dozens of eyes blinked in no pattern, spinning in impossible directions. Each time one closed, a new illusory reflection formed around the heroes.
And finally, something crawled out, almost floating: a slender body covered in translucent skin, furrowed with vibrant red filaments.
Its throat expanded and contracted like a broken wind organ. When it let out a shriek, the walls vibrated, leaving cracks in the concrete.
Shiftie let out a choked groan.
-What... is that?
Yume didn't answer. Goro squinted: something, in the shape of those filaments, seemed painfully familiar... but he didn't know why.
Node pounced first, leaving a trail of corrosion. Daiki formed a makeshift barrier, deflecting the acid jet.
-Aoi, Haruto! -he roared. "Keep your distance!
Rokuro crawled across the ceiling, his eyes casting distorted reflections. Suddenly, Haruto found himself locked in a cell, hearing his own voice pleading.
-It's not real! -Haruto, look at me! It's me!
Ikari swung his double arm towards Goro like a giant claw. Goro stiffened his left arm, blocked the impact, but was thrown into a broken pipe. The cracking sound reverberated throughout the hallway.
Yume took a deep breath, extended his field of silence. But when the Red Siren opened its mouth, the screech was so high-pitched it vibrated within the field, tearing it apart like wet paper.
The air filled with dust, shards of metal raining down on them. Daiki snarled, raising a second barrier.
-You can't scream that loud...!
Shiftie stared at the creature, transfixed. For a second, she thought she saw something impossible: a piece of red tape, dirty and burnt, caught between the filaments of its back. She couldn't make sense of it.
Node roared, advancing towards Ricochet. Haruto threw his boomerang, which caught in a soft crease. A spray of acid splashed against the wall, burning it instantly.
-Stay together! -Goro shouted, rising to his feet in sparks.
But Rokuro released another glare: Aoi saw herself, alone, surrounded by corpses. For a second, she almost screamed.
Haruto pulled her back.
-Don't look at him, look at me!
The Red Siren's shriek intensified. A broken echo mingled among the screams, almost human... but incomprehensible.
Goro felt a knot in his chest. For a second, in the background of the roar, he thought he heard his name... but the roar swallowed any certainty.
The battle was just beginning.
[Laboratory - Level -1, containment corridor]
Broken alarms continued to wail like a rusty siren, as each blow echoed off the gnawed walls.
Node writhed like a black-rooted tumour, devouring pipes and beams. Each corrosion left a smoking hole. Ricochet stood at a distance, throwing his electric boomerang to tear at its softer protrusions.
-Aim for the joints! -Haruto shouted, sparks flying from his weapon. If we open it, it'll eat itself!
Shiftie was breathing fast, slipping into shadows. Every time Rokuro let out an illusory glare, she countered it with her camouflage: she appeared behind an open eye, blinding him with an accurate blow.
But the monsters seemed endless. Every time one of Rokuro's eyes closed, another opened in a crack in the ceiling. Ikari, with his double arm, lunged at Bulwark again and again, mirroring his blows, amplifying each impact.
Goro planted himself like a wall of steel, his arms vibrating inside, cracking into silver lines.
-Stop copying me! -he roared, slamming his fist into Ikari's torso. The monster shrieked wordlessly. At his neck, the childish face twitched as if laughing.
Behind them, the Red Mermaid floated among broken pipes, her red filaments vibrating like violin strings. From her throat came ripples that swallowed up the shrieks of the other monsters.
Yume watched it from the gloom, trembling.
-It's... different," she whispered. She activated her field of silence, but each wave filtered through, distorted. -It doesn't break....
Goro felt something churn in his stomach. Every time the Siren screamed, something inside him ached like a broken memory.
Ikari stepped back. For the first time, Goro saw that the reflection of his punch had splintered the monster's double arm. The crack extended into the second face, which groaned in a hollow shriek.
-Daiki! -Goro shouted. Now!
Blockwave, panting, raised a wall of barrier in front of Ikari, containing his oncoming glare. The shockwave bounced off the wall and came back multiplied: Ikari's double claw shattered like porcelain. A deafening screech filled the room.
Haruto finished it off: he threw his reinforced boomerang straight into the crack. The weapon smashed through Ikari's main head, leaving a viscous crater. The monster collapsed, spilling black liquid that sizzled on the floor.
Goro drew in a breath, blood pounding at his temples.
Then he felt a strange draft. He turned around. The Red Mermaid was behind him, floating, its filaments swaying like seaweed.
Among the red threads hung a small piece of ribbon, singed but recognisable: a child's ribbon, red.
Goro froze. He had seen it hundreds of times in his workshop. A little girl with pigtails had proudly shown it to him, holding it in her grease-stained hands when she visited Riku.
"... Mina..."
The Siren's scream cut off his thought. It vibrated like a chorus of dead voices. Goro closed his eyes, felt the pulse of his heart resonate in his living armour.
Yume reached out, tapping him on the shoulder.
-What... what did you see?
Goro did not answer. In front of them, Node was devouring support beams, shaking the entire base. Rokuro writhed, projecting distorted reflections: Haruto saw himself die a thousand deaths, Aoi retched.
The Red Mermaid let out a roar so intense it shattered one of Rokuro's eyes. The illusion shattered like an exploding mirror.
Aoi gasped, watching the Siren stare at her - or at them - with no real way of understanding what was going on. Goro gulped. His knuckles cracked like iron plates.
-It's Mina," he muttered. Yume looked at him, horrified.
-What...?
Goro gritted his teeth. The Red Siren seemed to convulse, her throat swelling as if a human voice was struggling to get out. But only a muffled squeak came out, mixed with almost... melodic notes.
Node whirled, looking for a new target. Haruto raised his boomerang, trembling.
-Goro! -Aoi shouted. What do we do!
Bulwark took a deep breath. For the first time, his voice cracked like his armour.
-We help her. -His gaze hardened, his temper returning. Whatever it takes.
Behind them, the Red Siren vibrated with a ripple that was not an attack: it was a pulse, almost an attempt to protect them.
The echo of Mina's name floated in the gloom, between fragments of memory and cries that no one else could translate.
And the battle continued.
[Laboratory - Level -1, reactor area]
The pipes vibrated like broken ropes. The low roar of the beasts mingled with the crunch of rusted metal. Fiery steam rose from the cracks, laden with a chemical stench that made the eyes burn.
Node writhed between crumbling columns, devouring what was left of the supports. Every time his acidic mucus touched the ground, it bubbled like meat on a grill.
Rokuro, half-blinded, stumbled along, his eyes blinking blindly, projecting shattered illusions. The ground was filled with reflections that melted into mist.
In the midst of it all, the Red Mermaid floated like a living spectre. Its filaments churned, sending out pulses of waves that either shook Node or split the walls in two. With each roar, her form seemed to shrink and expand as if something inside her was fighting to get out.
Goro clenched the red ribbon between his steely fingers. Haruto saw it, boomerang at the ready.
-That monster... is helping us? -Yume gasped, almost in disbelief.
-It's not a monster... It's Mina..." Goro replied.
Goro just walked forward, stiffening his right arm like a beam. Each step resounded like a hammer blow.
Node turned, letting out a dull roar. He spat a blast of acidic mucus straight at Ricochet and Shiftie. Haruto leapt towards Aoi, covering her as Daiki erected a makeshift barrier that sizzled on contact.
-I can't hold it much longer! -Daiki shouted, veins popping in his temples.
Yume took a deep breath. She approached the Red Mermaid. He reached out his hand towards her vibrating filaments.
-Mina..." she whispered, though she knew it was absurd.
For an instant, the Red Mermaid turned her translucent membrane head. Within its burnt filaments, its throat throbbed. A guttural sound emerged: it was not a shriek, not a sonic wave. It was... something softer. Something... almost like a wail.
Yume felt a chill. It was like hearing a memory.
Node pounced, breaking the moment. He extended a tumescent root straight at Mina. The Red Siren shrieked, a ripple bursting from her chest. The roar tore Node in half. His slime shot in all directions, scorching electrical panels.
The lower half of Node reflexively crawled away, leaving a trail of steam. Daiki closed his eyes, concentrating. He lifted the final barrier and redirected the acid from Nodo into an open transformer. The contact generated a burst of sparks that spread across the exposed wires.
Rokuro writhed in his shattered illusions. Shiftie, panting, slid in behind him. With a choked scream, he rammed a rusted metal rod into one of its larger eyes. The monster writhed like a burnt insect, its eyes closing one after the other until it was a dark scab.
Aoi collapsed to her knees, trembling.
-There... there are no more eyes left..." she muttered.
Haruto knelt beside her, holding her shoulders. His boomerang still sizzled, hot from contact with the acid.
The Red Mermaid let out a final scream that shook the entire hallway. She turned to Goro. He stepped forward. For a second, she thought she saw in his misshapen face a glint of eyes she knew.
Goro held out his hand. His knuckles opened slightly, as if his steel fingers wanted to touch the living membrane.
-Mina... it's me," he whispered.
But what emerged was a roar, charged with rage and something that sounded like... guilt. The sonic wave shook the walls. The alarms sounded again, distorted.
Mina turned to Node, still crawling like an open sack. She let out one last vibrating note, so loud that it blew the joints in the pipes. Node's acid mingled with high-voltage lines. A spark. An electric crackle.
The whole lab shook.
Yume shouted something, but her voice was lost in the din. Bulwark turned to the team, covering them with his steel arms.
-Take cover! Now!
A roar of steam and metal filled the chamber as the Red Siren shouted a note that was not one of fury, nor monstrosity: it was almost an echo of pleading.
As if that small part that remembered Mina was struggling, one last time, to be heard.
[Laboratory - Level -1, reactor area collapsed]
The containment corridor was now a maze of ripped wires, boiling steam and pools of acid sizzling on broken tiles. Every nook and cranny burned with electric sparks that lit up the shadows like trapped lightning.
The four monsters - or what was left of them - writhed in pools of slime, black blood and corrosive fluids. Rokuro was crumbling in the corner, his last eyes flickering rhythmlessly to extinction. Node crawled in circles, devouring himself. Ikari, split in two by his own reflection, murmured a hollow echo from his second face, fading with a crackle.
But the Red Mermaid remained standing. Mina.
Her form was no longer quite solid. Red filaments churned like bloody algae in a toxic river. From her throat came a low, irregular hum, like an incomplete song. Each note shook the walls, rattling the gas pipes and the reserve tanks that sizzled with each vibration.
Yume, Haruto, Shiftie and Daiki clustered behind Bulwark, covering themselves with his cracked steel body. The red ribbon - that childhood ribbon - hung a metre away, attached to a throbbing filament.
Goro looked at it. His hands trembled. It was no longer just steel: between the seams, flesh bled, mingling with black oil.
-Mina..." he murmured, barely audible.
The Red Siren bowed her head, emitting a sound that, for an instant, seemed... soft. Like a restrained gasp.
Shiftie felt her blood run cold. The beast's roar wasn't a feral scream this time. It was... a whisper?
Daiki felt it too. His barrier vibrated with each pulse, as if something inside the creature was trying to form words that his shattered throat could no longer sustain.
A blast of gas burst a pipe. Sparks flew closer and closer to the corrosive puddles. Haruto raised the boomerang, but did not throw it. His hands were shaking.
Yume swallowed, feeling that his field of silence was no longer of any use. He could not shut out that murmur. She should not.
The Red Siren shrank back, emitting a shriek that cracked halfway through. Through the static in her throat, something impossible emerged: a ragged sentence, so broken it hurt to hear.
"...Goro..."
Goro paused, every steel joint vibrating. He took a step. The red ribbon hung, burnt, imbued with a memory that pierced it more than any sonic blade.
The Red Siren gave another shriek. Its filaments dug into the wall, spreading like desperate roots. Shockwaves ricocheted throughout the base, hitting containment tanks that cracked, releasing flammable gas. Alarms went off, one after another, in no order.
-It's overloading everything! -Daiki shouted, holding his head. It's going to explode! Haruto looked at Goro, his voice cracking.
-Goro! Say something to her! Make her stop!
But there was no stopping her. The Red Siren was not just Mina. It was all the poison the Cult had injected, all the despair of failed bodies that died alone. And yet, in that jumble of horror, Mina was still there.
The filaments twitched. The shriek turned into a vibration that made Shiftie and Ricochet cover their ears. The Red Mermaid's head shook like a membrane about to rupture.
And then it came out. Like a song, like a wail that didn't belong to a monster.
"...Save... my... friends..."
The words died between wet crackles. The Red Mermaid let out one last note that split the ceiling vault in two. Pipes exploded. Sparks leapt into pools of gas.
A flare grew like a heartbeat.
Yume screamed. Haruto hugged Shiftie, covering her with his body. Daiki stepped in front of everyone, extending the largest barrier he had ever erected.
Goro took a step towards Mina, but a shockwave threw him backwards. His steely eyes filled with the final flash of the blast.
The Red Mermaid, her red ribbon waving like a farewell flag, shattered into a thousand fragments of flesh and sonic waves. White fire filled the lab, devouring every remnant of the Cult, every cell, every corridor where screams were heard that no one heard.
The wind carried dust and ashes. A dirty rain fell on the cracked earth.
From the rubble, a silhouette of steel emerged. Goro raised his arm, cracked and smoking, pushing aside a twisted beam. Behind him, Daiki was breathing heavily, holding Haruto and Aoi, covered in dust and minor burns. Yume came out last, staring blankly, clutching a piece of blackened cloth between her fingers - Mina's red ribbon.
No one spoke. Only the fire could be heard devouring what was left of the base. Shiftie covered her mouth, holding back a sob that still escaped between her fingers. Haruto put a hand on the back of her neck, lowering his gaze.
Daiki, his voice splintering, was the only one to break the silence.
-...Is it over?
Goro didn't answer. He knelt on the scorched earth, letting the rain hit his sooty face. Between his steely fingers, the red ribbon mingled with the mud.
He clenched his fist, without raising his head.
-Mina... thank you.
A spark of heat ignited the centre of his steel chest.
And for the first time, amid the ash, everyone knew that nothing that remained would ever be the same again.