That Time I reincarnated as an insect-Chapter 75 - 74: SOMEONE HAS TO PAY!

Where the Gold Eats Through Bone

Zza didn’t remember forcing her body off the floor. She didn’t remember the moment her knees locked or the moment her claws dug into the shifting metal beneath her. She just realized she was standing again, shaking so hard her shell rattled, staring at the thing Buzz was becoming.

Gold spilled from every new line in his body like heat squeezing through cracks in a dying forge. Smoke rose around him in thin curls, soft, lazy, almost gentle. A strange quiet settled across the chamber, a calm that felt less like peace and more like breath held before something awful.

Buzz didn’t lift his head.

Zza stepped closer.

"Buzz...?" Her voice scraped out barely above a whisper.

His body twitched once. A small, sharp spasm that looked wrong. His wings lifted a little, stiff and trembling. His fingers curled in a slow, careful motion, like someone was testing the joints.

The hive murmured through the walls, a soft vibration, a hum that crawled into her ears and settled behind her teeth.

*Stand back. The weapon stabilizes.*

Zza’s claws curled tight enough that the tips cut into her own palms.

"I’m not standing anywhere," she growled, every word shaking. "He’s not your weapon."

The hum deepened.

*He is forged from what you abandoned.*

She almost laughed — bitter and hysterical and exhausted enough to echo.

"You think we abandoned him? You think he asked for any of this?"

*A forge accepts what enters.*

A pulse of gold flickered through Buzz’s ribs, crawling over his shell in long streaks. His breathing sounded different now. Too steady. Too slow. Like someone else had claimed the rhythm and was deciding how much air he deserved.

Zza took another step.

Her body screamed at her. The cut across her back bled warm, thick trails that dripped down her leg. Her ribs felt like loose gravel. She tasted metal whenever she inhaled too deeply. Still she moved.

His head lifted at last.

Not all the way.

Just enough for her to see his eyes.

There were two layers — Buzz’s brown flickering faintly beneath a thin, molten film. The gold shifted, sliding across his pupils like oil. Every time the brown tried to push through, the gold swallowed it.

He looked at her without really looking.

Zza’s breath hitched.

It was like staring at him through a cracked window that someone kept painting over.

"Buzz," she whispered, reaching out even though her hand shook like it wasn’t hers. "Come back. I’m right here. Come back."

His mouth opened.

*z...zza...*

The sound ripped itself out of him like he was dragging it through metal.

She moved closer in one desperate, shaky step.

His body snapped upright.

Zza froze.

Something about him — posture, balance, wing position — shifted too cleanly. Too suddenly. She felt her insides go cold.

Buzz didn’t move like Buzz anymore.

He moved like something wearing his shape.

The hive’s voice drifted into the chamber again, softer than before, almost pleased.

*The weapon rises.*

Zza stumbled forward anyway.

Because fear didn’t matter if he was still inside there.

She braced her claw against his chest.

"Buzz. Don’t let them take you. Don’t let them bury you. You hold onto me. You hold onto who you are."

His body trembled.

A flicker of brown surged behind the gold.

*z...zza... help...*

"I’m trying," she whispered fiercely. "Just don’t disappear."

The gold flared.

Buzz jerked violently.

A crack split through the metal restraints around him as his wings tore free without warning. Shards of molten steel clattered across the chamber, ringing like bells dropped from a tower. His whole frame shook, spasms rolling through him in waves.

Zza reached up, trying to steady him.

Buzz slammed his claw into the floor.

The impact shook her off her feet. She hit the ground, sliding on her side until she crashed into a pillar that hummed under her weight.

Buzz rose slowly, dragging his claw out of the floor. The metal around it flowed up his arm like the chamber itself was feeding him.

Zza watched with growing horror.

The hive whispered through the walls, almost warm.

*Integration increases. Stability firming.*

Buzz’s wings flared wide.

Each feather-edge glowed with thin lines of gold, overlapping in patterns she didn’t recognize. His legs straightened with a crack, joints shifting into alignment too perfect for anything alive.

She pushed herself up on shaking arms, breath slipping out in little ragged bursts.

"You’re hurting him," she said, voice breaking. "Whatever you think you’re making — you’re killing him to do it."

*He is no longer required to think.*

Zza staggered forward. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

"You think he needs permission to think? He thinks anyway. He survives anyway. He keeps going even when everything tells him to stop."

*He will follow instruction.*

She almost snarled.

"You have no idea who you’re dealing with."

The hive didn’t reply.

Buzz lifted his head fully now.

His eyes locked onto hers.

No hesitation.

No confusion.

No flicker of recognition.

Just gold.

Zza felt her heart splinter.

"Buzz..."

He moved first.

Fast.

Too fast.

The chamber blurred around him as he lunged, golden claws slicing through the air. Zza dove aside, rolling under the swing, feeling the wind of it skim her shell. She scrambled to her feet, but he was already there, cutting off her path, claws raised.

"Buzz, wait—!"

He didn’t.

He swung again, faster, precise, enough force behind it to tear her in half if she miscalculated by even the width of a breath. She ducked, slid beneath him, claws scraping the floor. Sparks flew as gold metal dragged across metal.

He pivoted without thought.

Without pause.

She ran.

The chamber shifted ahead of her — a wall folding down, a gap opening, a floor rising — as if the hive wanted a clean chase. Buzz followed effortlessly, movements smooth and terrifyingly efficient, like the room and his body were linked by a single thought.

Zza dodged a collapsing ceiling plate, rolled under a rising pillar, slid across a slanted platform that tilted under her weight. Her lungs burned. Her vision blurred around the edges. Her back throbbed where the filament had sliced her earlier.

Buzz closed the distance.

His claw grazed her shoulder.

Heat seared through her shell.

She screamed, stumbling.

He advanced.

"Buzz, stop!" she cried, voice cracking. "It’s me!"

*z...zza... zzzaaa... z—*

His body seized up.

He trembled violently.

The hive hissed.

*Remove deviation.*

Buzz lunged again.

Zza dodged by instinct alone, her legs barely responding, her breath a broken rasp. She tripped. Fell to one knee. Her claws pressed into the floor as she fought to stand.

Buzz approached slowly this time.

Measured.

Control reclaimed.

His wings folded behind him in symmetrical lines.

His gaze held her with cold precision.

The hive whispered through him.

*Eliminate interference.*

He raised his claw.

Zza’s chest tightened. Her vision wavered. Her fingers shook. Her whole body felt hollow with fear and something deeper — grief.

Because he wasn’t choosing this.

Because he would rather die than raise his claw at her.

Because his voice had been begging for help even as his body obeyed something else.

She lifted her chin.

Her voice trembled but didn’t break.

"You want to kill me, you do it fighting yourself."

Buzz hesitated.

A twitch.

A spasm.

A flicker of brown flicking behind gold.

*z...zza... please... run...*

"I’m staying," she whispered.

He lunged.

She braced.

And the world split open.

A blast of sound ripped through the chamber — a deep, vibrating roar that didn’t belong to the hive, didn’t belong to Buzz, didn’t belong to anything mechanical or refined.

It was wild.

Raw.

Alive.

Buzz jerked sideways mid-strike, slammed into a wall as something massive crashed through the chamber’s upper shell.

Metal shrieked.

Walls buckled.

Light burst as sparks showered down.

Zza shielded her eyes, coughing as dust and metal flecks rained over her.

The ceiling split apart.

A hulking silhouette dropped through the opening, landing with a weight that shook the entire chamber.

Zza blinked through the haze.

Her heart lurched.

Standing between her and Buzz — towering, scarred, furious — was a creature she thought had vanished when the Queen died.

One of the **Scarab Sisters**.

But different.

Cracked shell.

Burned wings.

A patch of gold fused into her side like a scar from the newborn war.

She looked half-dead.

She looked ready to kill anything that touched Zza.

The Sister’s voice rumbled, deep and broken.

"So this is where they put him."

Her eyes fixed on Buzz.

He rose slowly, gold dripping off him like molten venom, wings spreading.

The Scarab Sister cracked her neck.

"You’re fighting me first, pretty boy."

Zza screamed, "He’s controlled — don’t hurt him!"

The Sister didn’t blink.

"I’ll try to keep him alive."

Buzz lunged.

The Sister lunged.

The collision shook the entire city.

And Zza watched, terrified, bleeding, trembling, knowing the moment she stepped in, she’d have to choose — save Buzz from the Sister, or save the Sister from Buzz.

Either way, someone she cared about would break.