477. Blooming flowers, 6

(Myls)

I understand that Blume is also blaming herself deeply for what happened.

But both of us are turning our spiteful feelings into fuel. Bitter fuel.

A little further into that country, we had to do something about Zeslinry.

Blume told me she couldn’t keep her body alive like that much longer. I had to choose now...

I cried again, and pushed the time of departure back as long as I could.

I couldn’t leave her in these grim wastelands to rot in earth.

When it really was reaching Blume’s limits to prevent her decay, we found it.

A reasonable place of rest.

A city overrun with big red flowers.

Something nice to look at and wander into.

Blume told me they were called Helianthus Prado red. Red sunflowers basically. They were looking nice, that’s all that matters. Almost.

The wind has turned really cold lately. These sturdy looking flowers don’t seem to care. They might be evergreen, or ever red.

We unpacked Zes’s almost dead body. Some kind of mould overruns her hair and the top of her head. It was Blume keeping everything she could in check inside, from a distance.

She still stank of death.

Blume peeled some of the rot on my arm and used it on Zes for something.

Nightmare’s last gift to me, to remember her by. A different kind of mould, eating slowly my skin and flesh...

We buried Zeslinry there. In what was a park in that city.

And Blume did what I asked of her with all of that...

Blume was careful around Zeslinry’s head, and spread a weird mould over all of her. She worked her magic...

When the grave was filled, Blume stood up and looked at me, a little more severe than I wished she was. But it’s done.

B - When the right time comes, she will come back.

The right time will be after Magenta blows up to dusts.

When I come back for her...

M - Will she remember me?

B - She’ll be like a new rose. Slightly different, but mostly the same. Of course she will remember you.

We walked to the end of that street, crushing the red flowers with every step. They stood back up behind, resilient.

We’re both still feeling grim.

B - You don’t have to go for this fight Myls... She will come back someday nonetheless now.

M - Magenta would still be above our heads... I would never feel safe. Don’t try to talk me out of this.

Blume’s face has thorns and leaves growing onto it, and mixing into her skin and hair.

She’s changing slowly, discarding her human appearance like an obsolete disguise.

This demon gradually sheds its guise...

~

We buried Zeslinry far in between two apocalyptic rains from the sky.

It still is attacking.

But now we know.

We know what to look out for and when.

When the pink star rises over the horizon like a little sun. Later that day, when it’s above, it will rain.

These new attacks of dissolving rain are weaker than the first strike.

Blume understood it really gave everything it got into that first blast back then. And it was deliberate.

B - It will regain strength. Probably faster.

M - It wants all of us dead...

B - I don’t think so. More likely just Rose Blume.

M - You mean Rose? Then why is it still attacking?

B - It means the both of us, Rose and I. It sees me as the same threat, and it rightfully should. I’m... I am Rose Blume as well.

M - If you say so...

I don’t really care what she calls herself. But it seems important to her.

They share the same existence like a couple, even now. And to our enemy’s eye, it’s the same existential threat.

Well. It’s right to consider her a threat. Because Blume is really pissed off, and it shows.

Her body slowly discarding the pretence of human look is just the tip of the iceberg.

She eats everything now. Through her mouth and with her thin roots-like-filaments that she can spread.

She’s gathering energy. As much as she can and as rapidly as she can...

My plan is more simple, though I also need her help for that.

Somewhere between the Arctic and the Indian and Pacific oceans, there must be a nuclear weapon still working after all these years and previous wars.

There must be a nuke still usable as a weapon somewhere on Earth, and especially around where we are.

We will find it with her sharper senses.

And we will use it against that thing out there!

Because as a human, I’m pissed off too.

So I will nuke that god into a great firework.

That will be my middle finger raised to the skies, and all the gods still looming over us.

~

My arm has grown oddly stronger now that the black mould of Nightmare runs along the muscles lines, underneath my skin.

That thing has transformed in an unexpected way. It didn’t just eat me.

I was not happy though, when Blume told me what this really was.

B - It was her survival instinct in that moment of panic. For a brief moment of humanity ironically. To reproduce. That thing is, well, some sort of spores from her, growing out of you. It’s kind of like your child to you two growing there.

M - She... Impregnated me?

B - In a very non-human way, yes.

I was feeling sick just looking at that stain now.

M - Does that mean... She will grow back entirely if I let her?

B - A being-like-her will grow, but it won’t be Nightmare or anything like her. What is there is mostly the T.I. equivalent of some of her genes. It’s a primitive form of life that aims to become somewhat like her. She didn’t have time to think this through you know. It was just a dying instinct. It’s just mould regardless.

I thought about it.

M - Will it kill me? Can you kill it?

B - Not necessarily, and most likely yes.

Discussing further with Blume, I understood that this mould was still evolving and learning as it grew along me.

It could become anything. Not necessarily a new span of a being-like-her like that bitch. It could become more like Blume, or something else entirely.

And if one thing was obvious to me, it was that a human body has limitations they all gleefully infringe...

All of them. And Rose used to as well, with and even without Blume’s help.

They were able to use their powers from that poorly known energy, to make their body go beyond what humans normally can. They are playing the best of both worlds.

Now’s my turn I thought.

Now’s my chance to grow a little beyond.

Under Blume’s watch, I can.

Nightmare’s last gift won’t bear any fruit. It’s already changing into something that better suits me. Something I want.

Put it in daiûa terms, I made a deal with it, unknowingly even. That blooming new nightmare...

Give me physical strength and agility like they have, and in exchange, you can keep living along with me. I won’t purge you out like the disease you are.

I don’t know where the intelligence of a mould born from a nightmare can start or be, but Blume translated its intention for me.

B - In a protein way, it said yes, and let’s get along, shall we?

~