18...
Kongou was in quite the predicament. She was trapped in a strange industrial shipping area fighting for her life against some nightmarish abomination of man and parasite. Now Kongou wasn't a stranger to weird occurrences (after all, she had spent most of her life as an unintelligent nonthinking 26,000 ton hulk of steel), but whatever mess she was in right now was definitely approaching the top of the strangest things that had ever happened to her. Kongou's priority at the moment was to find a way back to her home in Yokosuka, but she simply couldn't focus on that task while being incessantly chased down by the Parasyte and being forced to fight it. Kongou had decided long ago that it needed to be killed, which was precisely the problem because no matter what Kongou tried, whether it be blunt trauma by way of fist or a crowbar through the skull, it simply refused to die.
19...
Of course she could always try to blow it up, but given how Kongou lacked any kind of explosives on-hand, that was a strategy that would have to wait.
20...
Kongou noted that the parasyte possessed some kind of extreme regenerative abilities, which when combined with its quick reflexes and speed, made it effectively invulnerable to whatever damage Kongou managed to throw at it. On the flipside, Kongou observed that the parasyte was having a hard time hurting her as well. However, after multiple skirmishes and fights against the parasyte, she was beggining to wear down. While her skin gave her the equivalent of 280 mm of armor-grade steel in protection against piercing attacks like blades and gunfire, it didn't do nearly as much for blunt trauma. So while the parasyte's attempts to slice her had resulted in nothing more than shredded clothes (Kongou hadn't liked them much anyways), the parasyte's powerful punches and kicks had left nasty bruises all over her body. Kongou knew that if she kept fighting battles of pure attrition, she wouldn't emerge victorious.
21...
It was simple: If Kongou wanted to win, she would either have to find something to shut down the parasyte's healing factor or do enough continual damage to it at a rate which it's healing factor wouldn't be able to keep up.
22...
Yup, that was the 22nd shipping container Kongou had been slammed into since the parasyte had gotten a nice grapple on her with its powerful length-changing appendages. It had simply grabbed onto her legs and began slamming her around like a ragdoll into the steel crate "walls" of the maze. Kongou had actually taken the liberty to keep track of just how many shipping crates she was colliding with, as it helped take her mind off the fact that she was probably going to die. In fact, she had come up with quite the ingenious plan to free herself from her current situation all while being thrown around like a leaf in a hurricane. If she wasn't in so much pain, Kongou would have been quite proud of herself.
As the appendage swung her violently upwards in preparation to smack her into the 23rd shipping crate, Kongou jerked her upper body just far enough forward to allow her hands to close around the flesh of the parasyte's appendage. Then she squeezed and twisted the appendage like she was wringing a towel. With a hiss of pain, the parasyte instinctively let go, and Kongou, who was in the process of being thrown upwards by the appendage, was carried by her momentum over the edge and out of the maze.
Kongou barely had time to celebrate her "victory" before the ground came up to meet her. She skipped and bounced along the ground and for quite a while then slid to a halt. If she hadn't been protected by her natural armor, Kongou knew that she would have accumulated enough severe lacerations and abrasions from her latest fall to cause a minor bleed-out. As it was, Kongou noted that the ground she hit actually came off quite a bit worse than she did. While she received only a minor bruise on the left kneecap from her initial impact, the asphalt she had skipped and bounced across was heavily torn up and scratched while her initial impact was denoted by a small crater.
The groan of bending steel startled Kongou, and she looked back towards the maze in time to see a long black appendage stick its way above the maze's steel walls. This was all the motivation Kongou needed to stand up and start running.
Kongou was getting tired of running. If Secretary ship Nagato was here, she'd probably tell Kongou to "woman up" and fight the damn thing. However, if there was one thing that Kongou was more tired of than running, it was being swung around and beaten up like a doggy chew-toy. Kongou also noted that she had a particular aversion to dying. And by that sound logic to guide her thought processes, Kongou decided to keep running.
Sprinting with all her might, Kongou actually managed to open the distance between her and the pursuing parasyte by quite a bit. A large grey building loomed in the distance. She had no idea what the building was used for, but her gut instinct told her that the key to defeating the parasyte lay within its mysterious grey walls. She began to run towards it, but then hesitated. The last time Kongou had trusted her gut instinct, she had received a 16 inch armor piercing shell to the forehead. After spending another few moments weighing her options and realizing that her other choices would likely result in her untimely death, Kongou decided to follow the narrow dirt path leading to the structure. A cloud of dust formed behind Kongou as she made a beeline towards the building. As Kongou got closer, she began to make out the details of the structure. It looked ancient with an archaic blocky foundation and rusted-out corrugated iron side walls. A single smokestack loomed over the rest of the structure, and it belched out thick black smoke that blotted out the sky. The entire structure was devoid of windows and a single catwalk led to an opening on the side which Kongou assumed was the building's entrance point. Kongou took a quick glance behind her, and duly noted that the Parasyte had almost managed to catch up. Kongou, having reached the front of the building, quickly dashed up the catwalk and into the structure itself.
Kongou gasped as a wave of heat slammed into her. Kongou took a second to examine exactly what she had just walked into. She scanned her surroundings and saw that she was on an elevated metal walkway that overlooked giant roiling cauldrons of molten metal. Kongou was in a metal foundry.
A loud noise from behind snapped Kongou out of her thoughts. The parasyte barged through the flimsy metal door that Kongou had closed upon entering the foundry and charged right at her. Kongou ran across the metal walkway, but it was only moments later that she realized she was trapped. The elevated walkway spanned only halfway across the foundry and ended in a small control panel that regulated the temperature of the cauldrons. Kongou ran to the end of the walkway, skidded to a halt, and took a quick glance at the control panel, noting the different temperatures of the various cauldrons. An idea then popped into Kongou's head. It was crazy, delusional, and insane, so just the kind of idea that a Kongou class Kanmasu would come up with. With the Parasyte just feet away from her, Kongou took a deep breath and flung herself over the protective guardrail and into one of the cauldrons of bubbling liquid metal.
Now Kongou was crazy, but she wasn't quite crazy enough to concoct an escape plan that involved her own death. Kongou knew that all Kanmasu, battleships in particular, had a high degree of heat-resistance. Direct contact with temperatures between the boiling point of water (212 deg. F) but below the melting point of steel (2,700 deg. F) would cause a Kanmasu varying degrees of discomfort and even pain depending on which class of shipgirl and what temperature in specific, but likely wouldn't cause severe injury or death. Kongou had used the control panel display to find a very specific cauldron to jump into. She had chosen a cauldron that held molten aluminum, which due to its temperature of just 1,400 deg. F, was relatively safe for Kongou to jump into. At least that was the theory. Kongou really hoped that what she had been taught about Kanmasu heat resistance was true as she entered the molten metal with a splash.
Huh, this isn't so bad, thought Kongou as soon as she was completely under the liquid metal. Kongou felt as if she was in a hot tub that had been cranked up a little too high: unpleasant, but not painfully or unbearably so. With 30 seconds (or however long Kongou could hold her breath) of reprieve from the Parasyte, Kongou began to think strategy.
Kongou decided that it would be best to ambush the parasyte and stab or cut the parasyte with something extremely hot. She realized that doing so would instantly cauterize any wounds and prevent the parasyte from healing itself. Thus with her brainstorming session over and her lungs signaling a need for a breath of air, Kongou quickly clambered out of the cauldron and hit the floor with a thud.
Kongou then noticed that her torn and shredded civilian clothes had been incinerated into nothingness by exposure to the intense heat within the cauldron. Kongou glanced around, scanning the area for something to wear. By some act of god, Kongou spotted a full set of clothes including a blue hoodie and long pants just lying on the ground a few meters away from her. She scampered over and slipped them on while quietly thanking her luck. Surprised by the pungent odor of burnt denim, Kongou looked down and was shocked to see wisps of grey smoke rise from her clothes, which were slowly beginning to singe and blacken. Apparently, Kongou's impromptu soak in molten aluminum had left her body temperature scorchingly high.
Kongou heard a series of progressively louder thumps and realized that the parasyte had somehow found its way off the elevated walkway and onto the main floor of the foundry where Kongou was currently standing. With the acoustic properties of the foundry causing the parasyte's heavy footsteps to echo around, Kongou was unable to pinpoint from which direction the parasyte was approaching her. Kongou squinted her eyes in an attempt to spot the parasyte, but the foundry's poor illumination combined with its smoky and disorientating atmosphere made such a deed nigh impossible. Suddenly, a black tendril came out of the darkness and wrapped itself roughly around Kongou's waist before it recoiled and withdrew into the unseen. A shriek of pain rebounded off the walls and Kongou realized that the parasyte had actually burned itself through its contact with her superheated skin. The parasyte made another attempt to charge at Kongou, but was held firmly at bay by the waves of heat rolling off of her body. Kongou felt her body temperature begin to lower, which meant that it would only be a matter of time before she would cool down enough for the parasyte to grab onto, and when that happened… Kongou decided it was best not to think about those kinds of things.
Kongou decided to use the time that her current body temperature bought her to look for any kind of heated object that she could use to impale the parasyte. After dashing in between several of the large cauldrons of molten metal, Kongou spotted a small gas furnace up against a wall that wrapped around several red-hot bars of iron, each about a meter long and a few inches thick. Kongou, upon realizing that those bars were just the right size to stab the parasyte with, ran over to examine them closer. It was at this point that another problem arose: How exactly Kongou was supposed to utilize the bars. While the immersion in molten aluminum hadn't even been painful for her, Kongou knew that the temperature of the metal bars, which approached the melting point of steel, would be significantly harder for her to deal with. She looked at the equipment lying around, and upon realizing that none of the tongs or grippers would allow her to wield the metal bars with any kind of dexterity, slipped on a pair of welding gloves that she found nearby. Looking at the fierce glow of the metal rods, Kongou slowly brought her gloved hands towards the furnace. She hadn't even made direct contact with the red-hot metal when her gloves burst into flames. Startled, Kongou quickly threw them off and watched as they burnt themselves to ashes on the floor of the foundry.
A black tendril shot out from behind Kongou and wrapped itself around her leg. This time, it didn't pull away. Kongou was out of time. Kongou struggled, but due to her fatigue, she was unable to break free. Another tendril grabbed onto Kongou's free leg and in unison the appendages began to pull her slowly toward the looming parasyte. With no other options left, Kongou grabbed onto one of the red-hot iron bars with her bare hand and used it to slash at the dark tendrils that bound her captive. The semi-molten metal burned through the parasyte's tendrils with ease, and much to Kongou's satisfaction and relief, prevented them from regenerating. The parasyte looked at the smoking stumps that were once its most powerful limbs and in doing so, wailed a cry of anguish that reverberated throughout the foundry.
Kongou took a quick glance downwards and saw that the heat emanating from the superheated metal clasped firmly within her right hand had caused her already singed hoodie to burn away completely from the wrist all the way up to her elbow. As for her hand, holding onto the red-hot metal had been uncomfortable for Kongou, but like the molten aluminum hadn't yet been painful. However, unlike her dip into the molten aluminum, Kongou's continued contact with the red hot metal resulted in a small stinging sensation along her palm that started out nonexistent, but increased in intensity as Kongou kept contact with the scorching hot metal. As Kongou kept hold of the metal while waiting for the parasyte's next move, she felt a few lances of pain shoot up her arm. Realizing that she could only hold onto her red-hot weapon for so long before she would have to drop it, Kongou decided to make the first move. She was going to end this here and now.
Kongou dashes towards the parasyte with her ad hoc sword, her eyes glued to the target, waiting for it to attempt a block. Time seems to slow as the parasyte's hands and arms morph into wickedly long blades.
As Kongou lashes out with a side swipe from her flaming blade, the parasyte brings its own blades up to block its path. With a crack like thunder, red hot iron strikes synthetic bio-steel, echoing loudly and causing a shower of sparks and smoke to envelop both combatants.
As the smoke clears, Kongou is able to see that the parasyte's blades are cleanly embedded into the soft heated metal of her own weapon. Kongou also notices that the shower of sparks, while leaving Kongou unharmed, has burned several small wounds onto the parasyte's head and neck, further accentuating its terrifying appearance. With a growl, the parasyte attempts to pull its bladed arms free from the red-hot metal, but they are stuck fast. As the heat from Kongou's superheated metal bar begins to transfer to the parasyte's blades and down its arm, it lets out an ear-splitting shriek. As Kongou grimly watches, the parasyte's arms begin to blacken and sizzle as they carbonize. In an attempt to save the rest of its body from being burned, the parasyte rips off its own charred and ruined arms, leaving only cauterized atrophied stumps hanging from its sagging body.
With a quick flick of her wrist, Kongou flings away what remains of the parasyte's disembodied arms off of her weapon. She takes a moment to observe the now helpless parasyte, but sees nothing but hatred and death in its eyes.
With one clean stroke, Kongou separates the parasyte's head from its body before plunging her red-hot weapon through the chest of the parasyte's now decapitated body. The parasyte jerks and wriggles as it feels its own life force being sucked away by the ardent blaze that is Kongou's blade. As the parasyte dies, the color drains away from its body, leaving only a bone white corpse that crumbles to dust before Kongou's eyes.
Kongou withdrew her bar of superheated metal from the pile of ash that once constituted her greatest foe. As her adrenaline began to run down, Kongou felt a strong burning sensation coming from her right hand. With a yelp, Kongou quickly dropped the superheated piece of metal and examined her hand. Due to her prolonged direct contact with the searingly hot semi-molten iron bar, Kongou's right hand had been rendered both red and raw. While her hand would be tender for a day or two, Kongou recognized with a sigh of relief that no serious harm had been done. Her multitude of large bruises and cracked ribs were a different story however, and she doubted that they would heal quickly without some form of medical treatment. Regardless, Kongou was just glad that it was all over, and that she could finally begin to find out how to get back to her home. With determination in her eyes, Kongou walked out of the dark foundry and into the blinding sunlight of an unknown world.