The parasyte is caught between the fingers of the kid's right hand, and for a moment neither of them moves.
I stop about ten meters away and watch from the top of a building.
Then the parasyte opens something along the front of its body and speaks directly to the hand.
"You failed. You should have gone for the head."
And the hand answers back.
That's a pretty strange thing to watch. A hand talking in a high-pitched voice that doesn't come from any throat.
"Don't blame me. The default drive to take the head doesn't fall under my control."
The hand has a point. A parasyte enters the nearest body to where it lands. Its main objective is to take over the host's brain, and it can get there from practically anywhere on the body it entered. Unless something blocked the path, which clearly happened here, since this parasyte ended up in the kid's right arm instead of his head.
The parasyte tries to move upward, toward the kid's neck, but the hand squeezes tighter and the blade fingers slice off several tentacles.
The parasyte pulls back, then speaks again.
"You... listen. I currently have no host. If this goes on I'll wither soon. But if we share a host, both of us will be stronger and we can live up to 500 years thanks to my mutation. What do you say?"
The hand doesn't respond to the offer right away.
The kid, who had been watching all of this with wide eyes and barely saying a word, opens his mouth and calls to his hand.
"H-hey... Migi..."
His hand still doesn't respond.
The kid looks pretty worried, and he has good reason to be, because if his hand accepts the offer the next thing that happens is that parasyte cuts his head off. That wouldn't be great for him.
Parasyte notices Migi's silence and adds.
"You're still very inexperienced, aren't you? I had already matured enough to take full control of my host's head. When one of us reaches that level we can transfer and fuse with another head. If you accept, we both gain something."
Migi stays quiet for a few more seconds.
The kid swallows as a drop of sweat slides down his cheek.
"...I've been with this human for a while now. And being with him, between a human's sentimentality and our coldness... I prefer the sentimentality."
Maybe because the parasyte won't hesitate to kill him if it has to, since it's just "a hand" with no absolute control over the body. But with a human, who is capable of feeling affection, from its logic it might be easier to manipulate and earn sympathy.
Even without the head, it can keep living through the nutrients it gets from its host.
The parasyte seems surprised for a second or two.
"You're an idiot."
Then it lunges forward with all the speed it has left, intending to kill them both first and then take the kid's head on its own.
Migi's fingers stretch several meters like rubber, and from the tips come blades that make a pretty sharp sound slicing through the air.
Migi blocks the parasyte's blades one by one, but the parasyte has more speed now and Migi starts to give a little ground.
The kid also steps back, moving his arm wherever Migi needs it, but his face makes it pretty clear he has no idea what to do with the rest of his body.
Parasyte finds a gap in Migi's defense and fires a blade tentacle straight at the kid's head.
Migi deflects it just in time, but it still catches the kid's cheek and opens a cut.
"Even without a host right now, I have already evolved. That's why you can't do anything. Die for your stupidity along with your host."
The parasyte lines up its next attack, using all its blades to finish off both of them in one move.
But before it can launch, a hand grabs it from behind.
Parasyte goes completely still.
I hold it in front of my face, between my index finger and thumb, and smile at it with all my teeth.
"Hi."
Its tentacles try to cut my fingers, but without a full body now it's much weaker, and the blades make the sound of hitting metal.
My mouth opens disproportionately. The Parasyte is no doubt looking at my teeth in that moment, though I don't think it has much time to think about it, because I eat it in one bite before it can do anything else.
Its tentacles try to fight back for a second inside, but my teeth cut through them without much trouble, and whatever's left goes down.
Huh. Feels like eating a squid.
I close my mouth and wipe the corner of my lip with my thumb.
Tastes pretty bad, though.
After that, I turn toward the kid.
He's staring at me with very wide eyes.
Migi is also looking, with two eyes, one at the tip of the index finger and the other at the tip of the middle finger. Both of them stay quiet for several seconds.
"..."
"..."
I put my hands in my pockets.
"Shinichi Izumi, right?"
The kid blinks hard and raises Migi in front of him, taking a few steps back.
"H-huh... you know me?"
"A little."
He looks down at Migi, then lifts his chin again to meet my eyes.
"Y-you... you ate it..."
"As you can see."
"So... you're not human either?"
"No."