(Book 2) Neferpitou and the human Royal Guard

Chapter 13 Devastating Defeat.

As Pitou uses Doctor Blythe to stop the bleeding from the severed arms and tail we had to cut from our brainwashed King Meruem, I start to use my body manipulation to mend the wounds in my abdomen from when the King stabbed me as best I can, though I know I will need to be healed properly by Pitou later when the King is back to his old self. For now, I need to make it seem like I haven't taken much real damage after the battle with the brainwashed King. I can't risk the him attacking us again, especially when Pitou is defenseless right now.

Doctor Blythe disappears when Pitou finishes closing Meruem's wounds, prompting me to speak up. "All done? Good, let's go." is all I say before the three of us silently but swiftly make our way back to the castle. During this time, I can't help but have a bad feeling about what we're going to witness when we get back, seeing as Father has likely already made it there by now. It doesn't take long for my fear to be confirmed when we arrive, because what we find is even worse than what I had imagined.

Standing in front of us and blocking our path, is Youpi. While he was never the most intelligent guy I knew, he still had the capability to form his own thoughts and make his own decisions. Now however, his thoughts are no longer his own, as he blindly attacks the three of us on sight, including Meruem, crashing a massive fist into the ground between the three of us, making us all disperse. This action makes it painfully clear that Youpi is not effected by the same thing the King is. Where as the King still has some control over his own mind, it is obvious that Youpi doesn't. He would never dare attack the King of his own free will, so either he is more susceptible to whatever nen ability Father put on Meruem is due do his significantly lower intelligence, or some other ability has hold of Youpi's mind. Either way, talking is completely out of the question right now.

"W-what's going on?" I ask as the three of us dodge Youpi's attacks.

Meruem attempts to take control of the situation by commanding "Stand down, Youpi."

Unfortunately, Youpi does not even seem to register the King's words, and continues attacking us. However, while all three of us are heavily damaged, we are more than enough to quickly subdue Youpi in his rampage, as we all pummel him into the ground, knocking him out in mere seconds.

"Youpi..." Pitou mutters quietly with what I can only imagine to be a mixture of sadness and bewilderment when we look upon the unconscious Royal Guard.

We don't have much time to dwell on this, however, as sounds of another fight breaking out can be heard. Looking out to the distance, on top of a large pile of debris that has fallen from the castle itself, Hina can be seen using pieces of said debris to swat away what looked like emaciated chimera ants that I didn't recognize attacking her. "Go away, go away, go away!!!" she yells while fighting them off.

Not far from her, we also Komugi trying to pull an injured Donny out from underneath the rubble. Just as she manages to pull him out, unbeknownst to her, one of the emaciated ants is already upon them. Seeing this scene unfold, I begin to attempt to intercept them to ensure Donny, Komugi, and Hina are safe, but before I can react, King Meruem is already standing between Komugi and her pursuer. The ant who was just about to attack Komugi and Donny attempts to claw at the face of the King. However, before it's claws can reach it's mark, Meruem delivers a kick to it's midsection that cuts the ant in half. I stand in awe at the sheer speed of our King, my eyes were barely was able to follow his movements. Impressing me even further, the King regenerates his arms and tail in an instant after saving Komugi, who didn't even notice how close to death she was, before he proceeds to kill every single enemy ant attacking Hina one-by-one. Were this situation not so dire, it would have been comical to see Hina's reaction to this when she gets startled by the sudden save and falls backwards.