F Grade Healer Becomes Strongest Biomancer-Chapter 42: Deja Vu

Mio

She could see it from the end of the street.

Shibuya Parco was doing that shimmer thing. The mirage you see on asphalt in August. Buildings warping at the edges.

It was still December.

Bureau police had the tape up already. Civilians shuffled past without looking too hard. A few office workers took photos on their phones. The shimmer was worse near the entrance—reality sweating through the glass.

Shizuka took a corner too fast and crashed into a parked Honda.

"Oops."

Mori didn’t react. Neither did the cops.

Shizuka pulled into a spot and killed the engine. The frost on the windshield was already thickening from the inside.

"Go on without me."

Mori opened her door. "You’re not coming?"

"Overflow. C-grade." Shizuka reclined her seat and closed her eyes. "Wake me if it pops."

"Huh? You’re just lazy?"

She waved her off. Mori was already at the shimmer.

Mio’s breath finally stopped fogging as she caught up. The front of the car was dented in.

This was normal for them.

She stood at the entrance. The shimmer pressed against the glass doors. Wrong in a way she recognized.

Meguro.

"Scared?" Mori asked. She was already walking.

"No."

They stepped through.

[Entering Incursion]

[Shibuya Parco — Grade: C]

[Type: Swarm]

[Hostiles: 603]

The atrium had been stretched.

Six floors of retail pulled vertical, escalators frozen mid-climb. Storefronts dark. Mannequins staring from behind glass. The ceiling was too high—had to be three times normal. Like the space had been pulled upward by something hungry.

Then the chittering started.

Mio looked up.

Husks—hundreds of them. Gray skin, hollow eyes, limbs too long. They poured down from the upper floors, crawling over railings, spilling from storefronts. Climbing over each other like insects fleeing a flood.

More than Shinjuku-7. More than anything she’d seen.

The first wave hit the ground floor.

Scrambling toward them on all fours.

Can was practically pleading for first blood now.

He materialized into the familiar obsidian blade. Mio couldn’t contain her smile.

"You got it, no?" Mori said. "I’ll help with your blindside."

"That’s awfully nice of you."

"Don’t want my pay getting docked over your dead body."

"We are never getting along," Mio muttered.

"Show me I wasn’t wrong about my reports." Mori took a step back, putting in an airpod. "Nobody wants dead weight on their team."

The words landed harder than they should have.

Mio’s jaw tightened.

A Husk lunged at her throat, claws primed and bloodshot eyes feral.

She cut it in half.

[HP: 253/472]

It wailed in response. Another strike to its neck shut it for good.

[HP: 0/472]

The bloom manifested. She took it.

[+472]

[Debt: -30,000 → -29,528]

Two more came. She took their heads. One clean, one messy. The debt kept dropping.

Four more Husks charged straight toward her. They were met with Can’s decisive slashes—limbs, torso, heel, neck. They didn’t stand a chance.

Fodder now.

Mio never blinked.

[+2,832 Reservoir]

[Debt: -29,528 → -26,696]

The swarm was getting closer though. Five turned to six, six turned to twelve. She felt the slightest ache in her muscles, and the Husks kept on coming and coming.

A larger Husk emerged from the wave of bodies. This one was taller and bulkier. She brought Can down—and it stuck to its limb.

Shit.

The smaller ones finally gained ground, surrounding her. Scratching at her body, tearing at her sleeves. One climbed on top of her. Then another.

"Mori!"

[Rail Gun]

A beam of energy danced over her head, piercing the one clinging onto her back. It splattered across the floor.

From the pillar, Mori had her hand out, mimicking a gun, the end of her finger smoking with thermal heat.

"Mio-san, no matter how easy they die, enough get onto you and you get overwhelmed."

"So help me!" The words came out before she could stop them.

Mio pulled Can free and sent it in a whirl, decapitating eight at once. Her face was burning.

[+3,776 Reservoir]

[Debt: -26,696 → -22,920]

The bigger Husk brought its abnormal leg up and kicked Mio clean off her feet. She flew five meters across, landing with a thud.

[-246 HP]

[HP: 1,294/1,540]

Get up. Get up or they’ll swarm you.

Over her head, more streaks of blinding light made their way. Gunshots—that’s what they sounded like. She’d only ever heard them online. Her teeth were rattling, ears numbing.

Mio found her feet.

The bigger one was still alive, dozens behind still swarming.

She stepped forward with her right foot, the planting creating a crack in the floor, then flung the sword straight at the larger Husk. It punctured it, leaving a gaping hole. Punctured eight, ten, twenty—all at once.

"Can."

He amassed into her palm like nothing.

It suddenly clicked. Can could be used as a boomerang of sorts, and judging by their fragile durability, Mio could probably use her fists. Old school style.

And more importantly...

[Unallocated Points: 30]

Thirty points. Unallocated since the Bureau assessment, since she and Kaito almost died fighting the golden daemon.

She’d been saving them. For what? An emergency worse than this?

Fuck it.

Half into STR, the other half into AGI.

[Points Allocated]

[STR: 17 → 32]

[AGI: 18 → 33]

[Unallocated Points: 0]

The feedback was immediate. The surge was felt through her arms, forearms, down to her fingertips. A weight she didn’t know she’d been carrying—gone.

A Husk lunged at her. She ducked easily and punched it in the gut. Its mouth sputtered up black goo.

Gross.

Before it could retaliate, Mio brought Can up its throat and out the top of its head.

[Level Up: 17]

The bloom didn’t get absorbed. She let it float.

Three more rushed her from the left. She flung Can straight through them—one, two, three—then turned to face the ones coming from behind.

A Husk swiped at her face. She slipped under it, drove her knuckles into its chest. Ribs cracked. It flew backward into two others.

That’s new.

Another one leapt. She caught it by the throat, squeezed, tossed it aside like garbage.

"Can."

He materialized in her palm. Three blooms drifting where the skewered Husks had fallen.

She threw him again. Five more. Called him back. Punched through the gap. A Husk swiped—she ducked, cracked her fist into its jaw. It spun and dropped. Another leapt at her back—she caught its arm and threw it into a third.

Throw. Recall. Punch. Repeat. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

[Level Up: 18]

The AGI sang through her tendons, each dodge instinctive. The STR made each hit final.

"Wow, Mio-san."

Was that sarcasm?

Mori’s thermal bullets stopped. The airpod came out. She pocketed it.

Mio kept killing. Kept letting the blooms float.

The swarm kept coming. More spilling down from the upper floors, replacing every one she cut down. Endless.

"What are you doing? Isn’t absorbing the entire reason we’re here?"

Showing you I’m not dead weight.

Forty bodies now. Fifty. The blooms piled up around her, glowing softly, drifting like lanterns in the dark atrium. And still more Husks pouring in.

She stopped in the center of the blooms, chest heaving, Can dripping black. She was grinning.

"Want to see something cool?"

Mori tilted her head.

"I’ll bite."

Pon wasn’t restricted to Reservoir. She could use it as easily as draining bloom. And sacrificing a few thousand blooms for tens of thousands—that was the math Mio finally agreed with.

"Watch."