A blast lit up the room, leaving a trail of thick smoke in its wake. Hideo stopped, even shocked by what he'd just done, his heart pounding. For a moment, he thought the worst: what if he'd missed? What if he'd hit Okarun by mistake?
"Hey...! Y-You're still there?!"
A drop of cold sweat trickled down his temple as the smoke began to dissipate. The figure that emerged stopped him cold.
TurboGranny clung to the wall like a monstrous spider, her hands and feet digging into the cracked concrete, staring at him with those hollow eyes that seemed to bore into his fragile spirit.
There was no sign of Okarun.
Hideo trembled.
"Now he's even more dangerous..." he muttered, feeling his throat go dry. He thought he had more time before the curse took control of Ken.
He raised his right arm instinctively, as if the new power could protect him. The heat still throbbed beneath his skin like a living volcano… but not enough.
When the yokai lunged at him, pain ripped through him mercilessly. His lack of experience became evident when the impact threw him backward, dragging him across the damp, rough ground.
The silhouette in front of him began to convulse. The old woman's body twisted and distorted, bones crunching, limbs bending at impossible angles. And amid the barely visible deformity, a familiar face loomed.
"This feels wrong…! I think that crazy old woman cursed me…!" Okarun cried in a ragged voice, trapped inside that amalgam, crawling uncontrollably. "I can't…!"
"Shit… try to hold on a little longer!" Hideo gritted his teeth. The palm of his hand burned again, an orange glow igniting in its volcanic fissures. The heat built until it was unbearable, and without thinking, he aimed again.
He didn't know his new ability, nor did he have time to process that fact, but at least he used what little he knew.
A flash tore through the darkness. A sphere of fire shot out, leaving a glowing trail behind it. The recoil jolted his arm, adrenaline helping to dull the pain.
He coughed, barely seeing through the smoke, praying that he had at least grazed the Yokai.
However, TurboGranny dodged with an unnatural movement, as if gravity and logic meant nothing to her. She twisted, zigzagged, and stared back at him.
That instant of respite was enough for Hideo. He ran toward the entrance, sliding across the wet ground and passing by Okarun's fallen bicycle. His gaze scanned the ground desperately, searching for any clue.
Then he saw it. Okarun's phone.
He caught it with his left hand, the only one that remained human.
But before he could react, a brutal weight crushed him to the floor. TurboGranny had fallen on top of him, her bony foot sinking into his chest.
"N-no... you shouldn't be here with me..." Hideo stammered, his voice cracking with the lack of air.
Still, he raised his burning arm, ready to launch another volley. His other hand, trembling, desperately clutched the phone. With a last burst of sanity, he pressed the call button.
A shiver ran through him when he felt the creature's fingers, cold and rough like dry twigs, closing over his face. The pressure was suffocating, and her body began to drag against the floor, pulled by that impossible force.
°°°
In the analysis room of the Serpian ship, Momo Ayase struggled against her restraints.
One of the aliens, with grayish skin and enormous eyes, approached with a device full of needles.
"We will begin the analysis of the female specimen's reproductive structure," he said in a monotone.
The device descended slowly, its metallic sheen reflecting in Momo's eyes, when a shrill sound broke the clinical silence.
Momo's phone, seized on a nearby tray, began to vibrate and ring.
"A communication device? How inopportune..." another Serpian muttered, reaching out to turn it off.
But then the impossible happened.
The screen flickered. First a white noise, then a distorted image. TurboGranny's face filled the glass, screaming soundlessly. The phone's surface cracked from within, and with an unearthly screech, the yokai broke through the digital barrier.
Her body stretched and warped as she materialized in the ship, her arms stretching out like dry branches to grasp at the surroundings.
But she wasn't alone.
Clinging to her back, glued like a shadow, was Hideo. He was still conscious, trapped in a kind of spiritual assimilation with the yokai, desperately struggling to separate himself. The cold of the curse consumed him from within.
[Alert!]
[Cursed spiritual energy detected in user.]
[Aggressive assimilation sequence. Potential risks detected.]
The system screen lit up in front of Hideo. But at that moment, it wasn't exactly his priority.
"I-I don't want that stupid curse!" he roared, pushing with his right arm.
The flames roared again, a burst that detached him from the entity and threw him against a nearby wall.
"It hurts..." Hideo muttered, collapsing to the ground. He looked up, trying to determine if Okarun was still inside, if he hadn't destroyed it.
TurboGranny, now completely free, ignored the boy. She launched herself at the nearest Serpian and, with a savage bite, ripped out its strange alien crotch. The resulting shriek was high-pitched, ultrasonic, piercing everyone's ears.
"Miss Ayase! The ghost was real! I saw it! But it ended up cursing me!" Okarun's voice, distorted, came out of the monster's mouth.
"Occult boy!" He said before looking at Hideo. "And that fire boy!" Momo shouted from the stretcher, still in her underwear. "Do something and get me out of here!"
"I'm just improvising, damn it..." Hideo replied in frustration.
The Serpian leader, with his enormous throbbing skull, watched the scene with clinical coldness.
"Who are you? How do you have the technology to invade our ship through a call?"
"I can't control myself!" Okarun wailed, his voice cracking inside TurboGranny's twisted body, who immediately roared. "Let me suck your cock!"
The yokai writhed on the walls, anticipating his next attack.
Hideo tried to get up, but the flames on his arm were now barely a flicker. Overexertion or perhaps the lack of oxygen was taking its toll.
The leader focused his huge eyes on him.
"Two human males... Wait..." her pupils dilated. "One of them doesn't appear to be 100% human. It's emitting an unknown exothermic energy signature."
"It's a defective specimen," another serpian commented, taking notes. "It doesn't meet minimum mating standards."
"Then it will have to be recycled," another replied in a neutral voice.
The serpians' bodies began to distort, abandoning their pseudo-human forms. Their heads elongated, their eyes shifted to the sides, and lines of light ran along their torsos.
"We'll take any bananas that are useful to us."