Chapter 5
Mad Mind
Nue and Mamizou stared in shock at the nue wearing a lab coat in front of them. The nue took a few steps closer to them and then said, "So we meet again, nue girl!"
"You… You know me?" Nue asked him.
The nue laughed with his teeth grinning and then said, "You made it possible for me to become like this! I extracted your blood, and when you bumped into me in an attempt to escape, I accidentally injected your blood into myself. After that, I took one of the pills we developed from maximizing one's potential to see what sort of effect it would have on me, and this is the result!"
Hearing this, both the girls were even more shocked. "You're… You're Doctor Machida?!" Mamizou said in disbelief.
"In the flesh!" Dr. Akihiro said. "I'd never thought that a nue would exist in real life, and changing into one myself is something that is even less believable! It looks like anything can happen in this world after all, and I'm glad that something like this happened! I'll have to thank you for this, little girl!"
"How… How can you be thankful for this?!" Nue asked. "You're now a monster! Why would like to have an ugly form like that?!"
"Power is one of the things humans strive for, and this power is what I'm looking for!" Dr. Akihiro said.
"I think I'll pass if it means to become horrible-looking like that…" Mamizou said.
"With your help, I'll be able to pass on this power to other people, girl," Dr. Akihiro said to Nue. "I welcome you to help me populate this world with your own kind!"
"Populate this world with my own kind…?" Nue curiously said. She thought for a few seconds about how nice it would be see her own kind all over the, but then she shook her head. "No! As much as it would be nice to be surrounded by my own kind, I don't think it's the right thing to do to forcefully change everyone into nues, assuming that's what you want to do! I won't allow you to do that!"
"Right!" Mamizou said to the scientist. "We will not allow your madness to ruin this world!"
"Then you are against me! I'll make sure that you regret your decision!" Dr. Akihiro angrily said before charging at them. When he was close, some of his wings stretched forward at a fast speed to strike them, but they both quickly jumped to the sides.
When Mamizou landed, she swung her arms horizontally against the air to send forth a group of birds made of blue energy lines, but the nue-turned scientist easily blocked them with his arm before trying to attack her with his wings, but she once again jumped out of the way.
From behind, Nue pointed the tip of her wings at Dr. Akihiro and fired beams at him. Dr. Akihiro turned around after getting hit by the beams, and then he fired constant streams of laser beams at Nue. She quickly flew out of the way, but the scientist moved the beams after her.
Mamizou sent forth several dogs made of green energy lines at the scientist from behind, but because his snake tail shared the same vision as the eyes at the front, he was able to tell that danger was coming. Dr. Akihiro turned around and used the beams coming out from his wings to destroy the dog-shaped projectiles, and then Mamizou quickly jumped to the side to avoid getting shot.
When the tanuki landed, she saw Dr. Akihiro charging at her. She quickly jumped to the side when he attempted to punch her, but the moment she did, one of his wings extended at her and smacked her into the air. Dr. Akihiro landed and then quickly turned to her before extending the blue wings at her to impale her, but the tanuki protected herself by transforming into a stone statue of herself dressed as a monk. Due to the hardness of her transformed state, the wings were unable to impale her, and she changed back after falling down.
"Unidentified: Red UFO of Rage"! Nue shouted as she held up a red spell card that made several small red UFOs appear in flashes of red light, and then they went to Dr. Akihiro and orbited him while bombarding him with energy shots. The mutated scientist held one arm over his face and endured getting shot by the UFOs, and then he lengthened his wings and swung them at the UFOs to destroy all of them in a single swipe.
Mamizou produced a karakasa in her hand with a puff of smoke and swung the one-eyed umbrella at Dr. Akihiro from behind, but his snake tail caught the tip of the umbrella and managed to stop it in its track, much to the tanuki's surprise. With a powerful swing, the snake sent Mamizou and the karakasa flying to the side. The snake then opened his mouth and fired several green energy beams that moved towards the tanuki in a wavy path, but she quickly opened the karakasa and used it as a shield for defense.
From the front, Nue fired several beams from the tip of her wings at Dr. Akihiro, who was doing the same thing. Some of the beams cancelled out each other, but some went past each other and struck their targets. Being the less durable one, Nue eventually fell back from taking too many hits. One of Dr. Akihiro's blue wings then stretched forward, wrapped itself around Nue, and pulled her for forward.
Holding the struggling Nue, Dr. Akihiro said to her, "You may be a full-blooded nue, but my capabilities far surpass you now due to the pill I created! It is my intellect that allowed the invention of such a thing! Unless you undergo years of training, you will never be as powerful as me!"
Mamizou ran towards Dr. Akihiro from behind with her karakasa pulled to the side, ready to take a swing at him. The snake tail saw her approaching, so the scientist attacked by swinging one of his red wings at her from the side. Mamizou jumped up to avoid it, and then she slammed the tip of the karakasa onto Dr. Akihiro's head from above hard to make him let go of Nue, and the latter quickly moved back from the scientist.
Mamizou landed in front of Dr. Akihiro, who quickly recovered from the blow and caught her with the snake tail's mouth. With the snake biting the screaming tanuki's waist tightly, Dr. Akihiro flew in the direction of a wall and flung her against it. After Mamizou hit the wall, the scientist punched her in the abdomen hard to crush her against the former. After punching her up to five times, Dr. Akihiro lifted her up by the neck and then slammed her onto the part of the floor behind himself. With his hand pinning her against the floor, the scientist pointed one of his blue wings at her to use it to impale her face.
"DON'T HURT MY FRIEND!" Nue shouted as she ran at Dr. Akihiro with her trident pulled back, and then using all her might, she hurled her weapon at Dr. Akihiro's forehead. With the trident stuck into his skull, the scientist let go of Mamizou and roared in pain. Nue quickly helped Mamizou up and carried her to a safer distance by placing her arm over her own shoulders. "Are you all right?"
The tanuki coughed in pain and then slowly said, "Not… that… good… …"
Dr. Akihiro pulled the trident out of his head and then angrily flung it at Nue, who managed to catch it by grabbing its handle with one of her blue wings. The trident was only a few millimeters in front of her face, and she sighed with relief that she didn't get pierced by her own weapon.
Dr. Akihiro ran towards the two, and Mamizou suddenly clapped her hands together to cause a large amount of smoke to spread out from around herself. Dr. Akihiro coughed when he breathed it in, and then he quickly moved back from the smoke while waving his arms.
He suddenly heard the door closing, so he turned to the door leading outside and realized that they both got way while he was blinded by the smoke. Dr. Akihiro growled in frustration that they escaped, and while he thought of going after them, he reminded himself that there was something more important to do at the moment, so he ignored them and then turned around to the staircase leading to the upper floor.
Nue carried Mamizou into an alleyway and then placed her onto the ground there. "Phew… Good thing we managed to get out of there with our lives…" Nue said. "How are you feeling now, Mamizou?"
"Still in a lot of pain…" Mamizou replied while rubbing her abdomen. "Ugh… That guy sure punches hard… It's as if he's actually capable of punching a hole right through you…"
"You look like you're fine. I'm relieved!" Nue said. "What do we do about him now? We don't know the details of what he wants to do, but we can't just let him do as he pleases!"
"Not sure if we can take him down in a direct confrontation… Maybe we can try to do something like destroying his equipments," Mamizou suggested. "That way, he won't be able to transform everyone into nues." Suddenly, the tanuki felt like wanting to throw up.
Seeing this, Nue lightly patted her in the back and asked, "I think we better take you back to the inn first… You should return to top condition first before we attempt to take on him. Can you fly?"
"Don't know…" Mamizou said. She tried floating into the air, but she couldn't go very high and looked like she was going to fall back down any second. "This seems to be the best I can do… for now…"
"Guess we'll have to travel on foot… or ride a car…" Nue said.
Yumemi and Chiyuri were standing outside Dr. Akihiro's house. After pressing the doorbell, they waited for about a minute for someone to open the door, which never happened. The former pressed the doorbell the second time, but the result was ultimately the same. "Strange… He said he isn't feeling well, so he should be home…" Yumemi said.
"Maybe he went to the hospital?" Chiyuri asked.
"That's a possibility…" Yumemi said.
"So what do we do now?" Chiyuri asked her. "How are we going to find that girl now? I assume that she left after finding out that Dr. Akihiro isn't home. Maybe we should come back later today or tomorrow? Perhaps she'll show up again to find him."
"Let's see if we can contact him through his mobile phone first," Yumemi said as she took out her smartphone and called the scientist. She waited for close to a minute and then cancelled the call. "No one's picking it up… but I think I can hear his phone ringing from the second floor's window… He didn't take it with him… Well, I guess we should just come back and find him tomorrow. Let's also hope that girl comes back to look for him tomorrow…"
The next day, Nue and Mamizou came back to Dr. Akihiro's neighborhood. The latter had recovered from her abdominal pain, so she suggested that they come back to the scientist as soon as possible to stop him from carrying out his plan.
Instead of heading for his house, they headed in the direction of the warehouse. As they were moving past his house, Yumemi and Chiyuri, who arrived again to find Nue, spotted them, so they quickly followed them.
Nue and Mamizou made it to the warehouse Dr. Akihiro was working in and looked around inside to make sure that there were no traps set up first before rushing for the staircase. Once on the second floor, they opened the sole door there and peeked into the room behind it, but they didn't see anyone at all. However, there was a table with a computer and several other lab equipments on it. "Where is he?" Nue wondered.
"Don't tell me that he already went to carry out his plan…" Mamizou said.
"Uh oh… We're too late…?" Nue said in a worried tone.
"But let's see if we can find anything here that will give us a clue to what exactly he is doing and where he is," Mamizou suggested, and then they both went inside and looked around the place.
Not too long after they stepped inside, they heard someone calling out to them from behind, so they turned around and saw Yumemi and Chiyuri. "Who… Who are you?!" Nue asked in surprise.
Seeing that the two girls were looking at them cautiously, Yumemi told them, "You don't have to worry about defending yourselves, because I'm not here to harm you. Well, that depends on whether or not you want to cooperate attentively and if you can provide an explanation for… this place…"
"You should at least tell us who the both of you are first," Mamizou said to her. "For all we know, you may be Doctor Machida's assistants!"
"Doctor Machida? Well, we know him, since we also work at Ota Tech," Yumemi told her. "Anyway, I'm Yumemi Okazaki, one of the lead researchers of that place."
"And I'm her assistant, Chiyuri Kitashirasawa!" Chiyuri told them while holding up a peace sign.
"What do you want from us?" Mamizou asked them. "And how do you know about this place?"
"Well, we were looking for someone in particular, and then we noticed her coming in here, so we followed her. When I showed the receptionist from our company a picture of that girl acquired from one of our security cameras, she told us that you asked her for Doctor Machida's address, so we went to his house to look for her," Yumemi explained. "You see, that person took something from our company, and we want it back."
"Um… I don't know what you're talking about…" Nue said. "Can you please elaborate on things?"
"I think you know what I'm talking about, missy," Yumemi said while looking at Nue. "Think carefully, and you'll know."
Nue started to think about what Yumemi was talking about, but then Chiyuri pointed at the equipments on the table. "Hey, aren't those equipments from our company?"
Yumemi noticed this and then approached the table. "You're right… If I remember correctly, they're from the biotechnology department… What are they doing here?"
"They belong to Doctor Machida," Mamizou told to the two. "He extracted my friend's blood and then injected it into his own bloodstream. After that, he used a pill he created to transform himself into a monster."
"What are you talking about…?" asked a confused Chiyuri.
"The reason he can transform into a monster… or rather… a nue… is because… I'm one myself…" Nue said before revealing her wings to the two.
Chiyuri was surprised by the sight of this, but Yumemi wasn't that much surprised. "Interesting…" she said. "So those aren't accessories or part of your clothing?"
"Nope," Nue said while shaking her head, and then she waved her wings around. "They're real and part of my body."
"So they're real, eh? Well, I can't say I'm not surprised, but since I've been to a place where mythical creatures exist, I'm not extremely surprised to find one out here either," Yumemi said.
"You've been to a place where mythical creatures exist?" Mamizou curiously asked.
Yumemi nodded. "Yes. I used to try to prove to the science community that there's a possibility of magic existing. Of course, it's hard to convince people who believe only in things that can be proven through science and logic, so I became a laughing stock. That place is called Gensokyo. My assistant and I went there before to try to kidnap one of its inhabitants and then bring him or her back to the outside world as proof that magic does exist. I set up a contest there and tried to kidnap the winner, but I ultimately lost to one of the participants, a shrine maiden, and was forced to offer her a prize and then leave that world empty-handed…"
"Shrine maiden? I guess she means Reimu…" Nue said in her head.
"The scholars at my university questioned my absence, and when I told them where I went and what I discovered, it was the last straw for them," Yumemi continued. "They kicked the both of us out of the university. Embarrassed, my assistant and I returned to Gensokyo to live there for a while. However, due being surrounded by technology all our lives, we couldn't get used to the primitive lifestyle of that place, so we eventually left and returned to the outside. Eventually, we both got a job at Ota Tech. We've never talked to anyone about Gensokyo and magic ever since…"
"Wow… That's quite a story…" Mamizou commented.
Yumemi looked at the lab equipments and said, "So… what's the story here?"
"It's like what my friend said earlier," Nue told her. "Doctor Machida injected my blood into his own bloodstream, and then he used a pill that he says can maximize one's potential to make himself transform into a nue…"
"So he used that pill… Yeah, I know what you're talking about," Yumemi said with her hand placed underneath her chin. "Makes sense that it would do that to him, since the pill caused the DNA of his blood to be enhanced and alter his appearance.
"He also said he wants to turn everyone into nues," Mamizou added. "We fought him yesterday, only to lose badly. We managed to escape with our lives, and now we're back to try to stop him, but he's nowhere in sight.
"If what you said is true, then we'll have to stop him fast…" Yumemi said. "Maybe we can find out something about his plan if we look around here…"
The four started searching the room for anything that could help them track down Dr. Akihiro. When Chiyuri looked at the computer, she noticed a video file on the desktop that was entitled "Plan". Thinking that it might help them learn something, she played the video file. Dr. Akihiro, in his human form, appeared on the video and started talking about his plan, so Chiyuri quickly told the others to come over and see.
"I have been enlightened," the scientist said. "When I underwent the transformation yesterday, I found out how powerful my new body is. I eventually realize that the bodies of human beings are weak and fragile. No matter what you do to strengthen the body of a person, he can still be killed by a gun with ease. My new body, however, is highly durable and is also capable of healing itself! Its strength, stamina, and skills far surpass that of a normal human being! Therefore, I have decided that having the body of a human is not worth it! Like I said earlier, human bodies are weak and fragile! They die easily! There is no point in having such a useless body!"
He then held up a test tube containing blood-red liquid. "Therefore, I've extracted some of the nue's blood inside me and managed to duplicate it. I have modified it so that one will obtain the DNA of a nue just by coming in contact with it. I've also added the formula of the potential-maximizing pills I created into it, so when one comes in contact with this, they will instantly transform, and the effect is eternal! You will never be able to change back again!
"The reason I'm doing this is for the good of all! Our current bodies are too weak and useless! What is the point of having such a weak body when you can have a powerful one instead? My dream has always been to make people live a better and healthier life, and I believe that I have finally found the solution to this! You will all thank me for being the man who changed life for the better! This world shall become a better place once everyone throws away his or her human bodies and becomes nues!" After saying all those, the video ended.
The four girls couldn't believe what they just heard, and Chiyuri said, "He's insane…"
"Tell me about it…" Yumemi said to her.
"But how is he going to accomplish this?" Nue said. "With just so little of my blood, he shouldn't be able to accomplish such a large scaled task! How is he going to make a large amount of people come in contact with that?"
Suddenly, Mamizou remembered something. "I think I may know how he's going to do it… If he's going to use that thing I saw at the exhibition at Ota Tech that day…"
"He's going to use something from our company?" Yumemi asked her.
Mamizou looked at her and nodded. "Yes. I believe he's going to use that device for creating clouds to get the job done!"
Hearing this, Yumemi said, "Of course! That thing can surely help him accomplish his goal! That device will turn the blood into a gaseous form and spread it throughout the air! If people breathe in the fume or even come in contact with it, they will transform into nues!"
"Uh oh… This is bad… We better go and stop him now before it's too late…" Chiyuri suggested.
"Before that, let's see if he left behind the formula for the serum that will transform people into nues," Yumemi said as she started searching the desk. "If we find the formula, then maybe we can create a cure for it, in case we're too late to stop him."
"So you're going to create something that can reverse the effect? That's a good backup plan!" Mamizou said.
"I think I found it!" Yumemi said after looking through a notebook she found inside the desk's drawer.
TO BE CONTINUED
This chapter was supposed to be longer and go past the part above, but the number of words made me think that it's enough for now.
I came up with the idea of having Mamizou change into a statue before I found out that she has that move in Hopeless Masquerade. I originally had her change into a statue of an actual tanuki, but after finding out about it in the game, I made the statue as it is seen there.