CHAPTER 432: FOUR WAYS TO DIE

"How many times do we have to tell you girls? You cannot go asking the rest of us for something when another says no. You shouldn’t want to undermine any of us."

The girls poked out their bottom lips and lowered their heads. Sei and Celeste weren’t daunted.

It would take more than cute faces to save the girls from trouble this time around.

"No means no, girls. It doesn’t matter if I say it, if your dad does, or anyone else who-"

""We’re sorry..."" The children sank even further.

Sei wouldn’t let the cuteness of the children distract her. She wouldn’t be phased again.

It helped that she had already gone through this when Serana was small. All of their tricks had already been done before by a much more mischievous child.

"These are..."

Sei gulped when she remembered her father was still among present company.

Shinji wasn’t an expressive man, but she knew her father.

She knew the kind of look he made when he didn’t know what to make of something.

It wasn’t as if Sei didn’t understand. Even in a world where inhuman features were becoming more common, her kids were still a bit special.

Shiro was literally a mythical fox spirit who learned how to take human form. Camille on the other hand, was an otherworldly little alien girl.

To Sei, they were her beautiful and precious children. But she knew how other people in the world might see them.

"Who’s that?"

Sei felt her mouth run dry. "O-Oh... well, this is your other grandfather... he’s my dad."

The girls stared at Shinji like he was a potential new source of revenue.

Bianca and Malachi’s fathers had set very high bars for grandfathers. They didn’t even know Shinji’s name, but they were already expecting him to match their level.

"Do you know when Christmas is??" Shiro asked with glimmering eyes.

"Girls, please." Sei looked mortified.

She turned to her father to apologize when she saw a most unusual sight.

The beginnings of a smile were etched along the corners of his lips.

Sei was tempted to rub her eyes because she was almost certain she was seeing things.

Things became even more surreal when her father held out his hand for the girls to take.

"Would you like to come on a walk with me?"

-

"Don’t eat me, don’t eat me, don’t eat me, don’t eat-"

"Serosh, eat him if he says that again."

"NOOO!"

Malachi stared down at the man who was the source of so much of his stress.

While pinned underneath Serosh’s tire-sized paws, there wasn’t anything he could do but sit around and wail.

"I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Please don’t kill me, I-I just-"

Malachi took down his sunglasses and stared at the wiry man with a look of distrust.

"Why the hell did you attack me the last time I saw you..? And why did you run?"

"Y-You said you were going to take me! I don’t want to be experimented on!"

"Nobody is going to experiment on you, man, stop fucking whining!" Mal’s demonic blood boiled. The red of his eyes became just a few shades darker.

"Brother.." Serosh reminded.

"Yeah, yeah, I know..." Malachi breathed in deeply through his nose in an attempt to rein himself in.

He was sad to say that he found himself needing to go through these steps more frequently.

"...We don’t want to experiment on you. But we have questions." Malachi said, much more calmly than before.

"L-Like what??"

"Like why the hell you thought it was a good idea to throw the fabric of life on earth into upheaval?"

"What?! I was just trying to make sure we could all live a little longer!"

"By potentially causing a global catastrophe...?"

"N-No! I just...!" The scruffy man turned to the side and screamed. "GRANDMAAAAA...!"

Malachi had originally come here to help transport people out of the village.

The elderly people whom he was supposed to save were surprisingly unmoved by this whole display. It was as if this wasn’t the first time they had watched something like this happen.

One of the older women stepped forward on a cane.

She moved with a bit of a tremble as she walked. Troubling Malachi.

"Ma’am, let me help you..."

Malachi created a shadowy chair for the woman to sit in. He even held out his hand to help her sit down.

She smiled at him earnestly.

"You’re a sweet boy. I’m sorry if my grandson has given you some kind of trouble. He’s just a little bit thoughtless sometimes, but he means well."

"GRANNY!"

The old woman didn’t pay him the slightest bit of attention.

Malachi dropped to one knee in front of the woman, deciding to speak with her since she was clearly the more rational of the two.

"Your grandson somehow used his powers to cause mutations in humans. He’s giving them superpowers."

The old woman looked like she was about to have a heart attack at first. Then she frowned fiercely at her grandson.

Mal would learn that she wasn’t as fragile as she looked, because she proceeded to hurl her cane at him like a javelin.

"You IDIOT!"

"Owww...!" He whined.

"I knew something was wrong with you when you claimed your powers just spontaneously stopped working every few days! What have you been doing, Shoto!?"

The scrawny man, Shoto, winged underneath his grandmother’s fierce assault.

"I-I was just trying to help! What’d you think I was going to do, just let your vision come to pass!?"

"You cannot use your powers to interfere with the genetic structure of human beings!"

"But it worked! I’m making perfect superhumans, so now we’ll be prepared for when the bad things come!"

Malachi wanted to interrupt and say that his superhumans weren’t exactly perfect. Celeste couldn’t even use telekinesis, and she didn’t appear to be a whole lot stronger either.

But he recognized a family spat when he heard them. He and Serosh were going to mind their damn business for the time being.

"We don’t understand everything you can do yet! You have no understanding of the inner workings of human genetics, or your own! Have you forgotten what you did to Mr. Fujimoto!?"

Shoto’s face turned red with shame. "T-That was an acciden-"

"He had a rare blood disease, and introducing your mutation spores into his bloodstream melted him from the inside out! Do you know how many more people you could have killed!?"

Malachi suddenly felt sick.

Celeste had battles with her health in the past as well. He shuddered to think of what could have happened if her illness had resulted in a more lethal outcome.

He ended up having to push the thought out of his head quickly. Otherwise, Shoto was going to be without a head.

"I’m sorry, can someone please fill me in on what’s going on...?" He finally asked.

Shoto’s grandmother looked at Mal apologetically. "I’m sorry, sonny. This is all my fault for not raising my grandson properly."

’Ouch...’ Even Malachi was starting to feel bad.

"I used to be a shrine maiden, you see. It’s a past I’ve put behind me, but around a year ago, I had my first vision in over thirty years. A real brow-raiser." She sighed. "Humanity will soon be under siege once again. Fourfold."

Malachi’s jaw dropped.

"Yes, my grandson had that very same reaction. I suppose I shouldn’t have told him, but I thought you men were supposed to handle pressure better." She shrugged.

"What exactly are we supposed to be under siege from?"

"Oh, that’s the troublesome part.

A queen from the stars...

A black behemoth from the dark...

Rouges of humanity’s own making...

And an inhuman army that is already here."

Briefly, Mal’s memory shifted back to a few months ago. When he and Aisha were hanging out, but suddenly felt that they were being watched.

They chased after their stalker, but never found them. All they came across was a footprint that was too large and too unnatural to be human.

"...Fuck."