The parasite's reaction was somewhat slow; it waved its limbs in an attack, but its strike did not hit Yuko.
The upper part of Shimada became a burden; the mass grew larger. Although the fluid didn't kill him, it inflicted severe damage—swollen limbs showing burn marks and bloodshot eyes, some of which had completely lost their sight. "What is this? Am I being crushed by a girl? How could I let a child inflict such damage on me?" Shimada said after regaining his ability to speak. "I transformed carelessly and absorbed some of it (the fluid) inside me," he lamented, scolding himself for hastily transforming when he had been in control of the situation.
"It seems she was trying to save her life," said one of the students near the site where Yuko fell. "Did you see that thing up there?" another said, unsure of what that thing was. "Let's go take a look!" Three students in their sports gear headed over to check out what they had seen.
"That sound came from outside, right?" Izumi said after hearing the students yell when Yuko fell. "It's moving," Migi said after sensing Shimada's movement. "Where to?" Izumi said, opening his right palm as he stood up.
Migi formed three eyes on Izumi's palm, each spinning in a different direction. "Strange! What happened? Is that really Shimada?!" Migi exclaimed with great surprise.
"Speak! What's going on?" Izumi urged.
"His brain waves are disjointed, or rather completely scattered. His cells aren't cohesive," Migi explained.
On their way to the scene, the three students encountered a university administrator. "You there! What was that noise?" the administrator asked, curious about the commotion outside.
"We think there's something happening in the lab floor," one of the students replied.
"Something? What do you mean by that?" the administrator pressed.
With no response from the students, he added as he walked away, "Fine, I'll go take a look. You all return to your training."
"Wait, sir!" the students called out, following him.
Shimada staggered out of the hall, leaning against the wall as he walked down the corridor. His limbs tensed and shrank, forming a massive rock-like structure on his head. "I need to... I need to return to my human form..." Shimada thought aloud.
"No use, the cells in my face refuse to cooperate..." Shimada lost the ability to return to his human shape. He stopped walking, feeling his stiff, shrunken limbs on his head, and repeatedly banged his head against the wall, trying to break free from the rigidity. "My body is maintaining an attack position; what must I do to return to my human form?"
Shimada couldn't revert to his human form due to the antimonic fluid that had destroyed all the skin cells of the human host. Thus, it wasn't that Shimada failed to transform; rather, there was simply no human form left to return to.
"Wait! The dead cells are preventing me from reaching the healthy ones. I need to unify the cells as a first step..." While he was thinking this aloud, a fly buzzed past him.
Without his command, one of the appendages from his head shot out to slam against the nearby wall, returning to him after crushing the fly, which was now stuck like a piece of paper on the cracked wall.
"What? What am I doing?!" Shimada said, bewildered by his own actions.
Not far away, the administration head and the three students heard the sound of something crashing.
"Over here!" the administrator called out as he pinpointed the source of the noise and rushed towards it with the students.
"You! What's wrong? What are you wearing on your head?" the administrator began as he approached Shimada from the start of the hallway.
Without hesitation, Shimada launched all his appendages toward the individuals, and in the blink of an eye, there were eight halves lying on the ground.
Izumi finished off the administrator and the students who accompanied him by slicing their bodies in half.
A strange sound emitted from Migi, resembling a scream of terror at the moment Izumi ended the lives of the four beings.
"What's going on?" Izumi wondered aloud.
"He just ended the lives of four beings," Migi replied.
"Then the slaughter has begun," Izumi said angrily.
One of the students froze in place when he crossed paths with Shimada in the hallway. Unable to run away, he began to take slow, hesitant steps backward until he tripped and fell to the ground. He started to crawl in a desperate attempt to escape until he reached the end of the hallway. To his left, he spotted two supervisors descending the stairs from the upper floor.
"There, there," the student uttered with great difficulty.
"What's wrong with him?!" one of the supervisors exclaimed, sensing something was off.
The answer came quickly, as Shimada showed no mercy to the innocent student. He formed a spiked flail with his appendages and brought it down like a hammer onto the student's face, blood spraying everywhere as the skull shattered.
Shimada's eyes, close to the weapon, detected two people to his right. Without hesitation, the appendages shot out and stretched toward them. Since the two were human and had never witnessed anything like this in their lives, they were left in shock. Their first instinct was to flee for their lives, but the flail caught up with them and split their heads open, parts of their skulls flying out of the building through the window.
"Where is he, Migi?" Izumi asked.
"Wait, Shimada's brainwaves are very erratic," Migi replied, taking a minute to locate him. "He's moving quickly towards your classroom," Migi added.
"What?!" Izumi shouted, rushing toward the location.
"I can't get through in conditions like this," Izumi said.
To reach Shimada, he had to navigate against a large crowd of students who were evacuating the building following directives from the university authorities. Izumi found this impossible; such an action would draw unwanted attention to him.
"Well, I won't say we can use this crowd as human shields since you previously rejected that idea, so fighting is impossible under these circumstances," Migi said, recalling Izumi's anger in their earlier fight when he had suggested using the students as shields. "We'll evacuate like everyone else for now," Migi added.
Though dissatisfied with the temporary retreat, Izumi ultimately accepted the situation.
The university courtyard was increasingly crowded with students who had been evacuated from the classrooms.
"Hasn't this happened before?" one student recalled the last time the building was evacuated.
"Are you talking about the killer who was killed during that explosion?" one of his classmates asked.
"This time it's the killer B, of course," said another student, raising his hands to eye level and starting to make scary gestures.
"What are you doing? Get out quickly, go, hurry!" He noticed how slowly the students were moving and their indifference. One of the officials began to scream hysterically after exiting the building, passing through one of the bloodstained corridors.
A group of students started mocking the way he spoke and the fear evident on his pale face.