Hydranomaly

Chapter 22: The Monarch Butterfly

Ryujin blinked, his pupils narrowing as he tilted his head back, staring up at the grotesque, towering figure before him. Even with his desensitization to horror which had only grown over time, this was something else—an amalgamation of flesh from a mutation spiralling far beyond anything they had encountered. Monstrous, misshapen, and disturbingly feminine, Etsuko loomed over them, her form pulsating with unnatural life.

His expression twisted in irritation rather than fear. “Couldn’t have just told me instead of a GODDAMN shot to the wing?” he hissed through jagged teeth, his talons pressing against the still-smoldering wound on his shoulder. The injury was already sealing, but the sting lingered, fueling his frustration. “Whatever, how the hell are we supposed to cure that? She’s so… fucking ugly.”

Yamikumo shot him a sharp glance but bit back the urge to reprimand him. It wasn’t the time. Instead, he exhaled slowly, gripping his rifle tighter. “She may be aggressive now, but she’s still in there… We need to weaken her enough to ensure not a single drop is wasted. We can’t risk it.” His voice, usually ironclad, wavered just slightly. No matter how much he tried to suppress it, his composure was cracked. His cybernetic eye flickered, unresponsive. A fresh wave of stress gnawed at him. Not now.

He pressed his fingers against his temple, trying to reboot it manually. No use. “Fuck. Been a while since I overused this thing…” he muttered under his breath, though his grip on his weapon only tightened.

Ryujin, still mid-air, tilted his head. “Hm? The fuck is—”

Before he could finish, the battlefield exploded into motion.

A sickening CRACK split the air as six jagged, cadaverous tendrils ripped from Etsuko’s back, their emergence spraying thick, crimson ichor in all directions. The ground quaked beneath them as the grotesque limbs slammed down with devastating force, sending seismic ripples through the battlefield. Ryujin barely managed to adjust his flight, wings faltering before stabilizing, while Yamikumo was forced to leap back, the hazardous storm before him shifting unpredictably without his enhanced sight to guide him.

The skeletal tendrils retracted with unnatural speed before launching forward once more, hurtling forward the debris scattered across the battlefield that it held. Chunks of stone and metal were sent flying, but the butterfly blades—sharp blades carried by butterfly-shaped wings of pink-plasma, small in size yet lethally precise—sliced through the incoming wreckage with ruthless efficiency. Three tendrils were severed outright, the grotesque limbs recoiling as a swarm of blades carved into her mutated flesh like a thousand cutting instruments in unison.

Etsuko staggered under the relentless assault, her frame lurching backward from the sheer volume of hits. But instead of retreating, she retaliated. Her elongated arm stretched unnaturally behind her, claws hooking deep into a crumbling structure before tearing it from its foundation in a single monstrous heave. Without hesitation, she hurled the entire building at the airborne swarm.

The butterfly blades scattered, then converged, a select few splitting off to shred through the incoming wreckage, reducing it to fragments before continuing their flight path toward her. But Etsuko’s instincts, though slower, were monstrous in their precision. A series of grotesque maws lining her form suddenly gaped open, inhaling a suffocating vacuum of air, disrupting the delicate flight pattern of the swarm.
The moment of hesitation was all she needed.

A blur of motion—her claws lashed out, obliterating several blades in a single swipe. Then, from the grotesque, pulsating mouth on her stomach, a mass of slick, writhing tendrils erupted, snaring and ripping through the remainder of the disrupted swarm as much as they could. The plasma-formed wings flickered, the energy dissipating as the shattered remains of the weapons clattered uselessly to the ground. Regardless, they retaliated against the relentless onslaught with their own.