[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 742 - Parasitizing Claire

Deep within the G-Virus's genetic code, the impulse rooted in the most fundamental drive of all living things had completely consumed the simple desire to feed.

For a G-creature, consumption ranked far below propagation.

Its gaze locked onto the pool of blood.

Claire.

No.

In the G-creature's perception, that was not Claire.

That was a... perfect vessel.

A host whose genetic sequence matched its own at an extraordinarily high level. One capable of carrying the next generation of the G-Virus.

During the battle just moments ago, the blood that poured from Leon had surged into Claire's body through her wound, transforming her into a Mutant with a genetic profile nearly identical to his own.

It had allowed the G-Virus to complete its most bizarre act of genetic identification.

Match confirmed.

Leon was nothing more than a male creature now, driven by the most primal instinct that existed.

Faced with this perfect vessel, it moved.

That grotesque, terrifying body dragged its heavy steps forward, closing the distance to Claire one step at a time.

"No — Leon! Stop!"

Chris's scream had cracked past coherence. He wanted to rush forward. He didn't dare.

He stared at Leon's right arm, mutated into a massive talon. Stared at the eyeball spinning wildly on his shoulder. He knew, one step closer and he'd be torn to shreds before he could blink.

All he could do was watch helplessly as that monster, that former friend, closed in on his sister with a thread of life left to her.

"What is he trying to do?"

Ada caught Chris by the arm before he could act on impulse.

But what was unfolding before her had already blown completely past her understanding of biological weapons.

She made the rational choice not to interfere.

Leon stopped beside Claire.

He crouched slowly, and that enormous eyeball examined the perfect "vessel" from close range.

Claire's breathing had grown so faint it was barely there.

The bloody hole in her chest where the lance had punched through kept welling with blood, her life draining away at terrifying speed.

One more minute and she would be gone.

"Save her... Leon... save her..."

Chris dropped to his knees.

This hardened man broke completely.

He didn't even know who he was begging.

Leon — or the monster Leon had become.

Leon slowly raised his left hand, still human in shape.

He aimed it at his own chest.

Hiss,

His fingernails drove deep into his own flesh, then tore downward.

Skin and meat split open.

Something writhed beneath the blood and tissue of his chest cavity, pushing up a bulge the size of a fist.

It grew larger. Larger.

Then it tore through skin and muscle by sheer force.

An "eyeball", slightly smaller than the one on Leon's shoulder, but rawer, more alive, covered in blood-red nerves and slick tendrils, was wrenched free from his chest.

A G-Larva.

If the host's genetics were a perfect match, a biological child, or in Leon's case, a near-identical genetic profile caused by having transformed Claire into a Mutant, the G-Larva would grow inside the host, eventually bursting out through the chest, killing the host and maturing into an independent G-creature.

If the genetics didn't match, the host's immune system would violently reject it.

The result: neither host nor larva could survive independently. They would fuse into a grotesquely deformed, agonized symbiotic creature, what was known as a G-Adult.

Fortunately, Claire had already been transformed into a Mutant.

"No... what is that..."

Chris stared at the still-twitching eyeball, and his stomach turned inside out.

Ada had gone deathly pale. She finally understood what Leon intended.

Parasitism.

The most absolute form of genetic seizure imaginable.

She'd heard William Birkin speak of it.

Leon cradled the G-Larva in his left hand, mucus still dripping from it, and slowly moved it toward the bloody wound in Claire's chest.

This was the only way.

Use the G-Virus's power to repair a body standing at the edge of collapse.

The price: Claire would no longer be a pure human. And if her body couldn't perfectly accommodate the larva, she and it would fuse into something even more grotesque, even more agonized than what she already was.

"No! Stop!"

Chris understood now. This wasn't salvation.

It was transformation.

His gun came up on instinct.

Not aimed at Leon.

Aimed at Claire.

He would not let his sister become a monster like that.

But just as his finger moved toward the trigger, he looked at her face.

Every trace of color had gone. Her lips had turned bluish-purple from the blood loss.

She was dying.

Live on as a monster.

Or die completely as a human.

The choice pressed down on Chris's chest like something physical.

Time stretched until it was unbearable.

He thought of fragments, small moments, the life he and Claire had shared,

The G-Larva drew closer to her wound.

Ten centimeters.

Five.

His finger trembled.

Pull the trigger: she dies as Claire Redfield.

Don't: she might live. But she might not be Claire anymore.

"Chris."

Ada's voice was barely above a murmur.

"Let her live."

"You have to believe hope exists."

CLANG!

The assault rifle slipped from his hand and hit the floor.

He closed his eyes.

Two burning lines of tears broke from the corners of this man's eyes.

He had made his choice.

In the instant he stopped fighting,

The living G-Larva touched Claire's wound.

Like a parasite that had finally found its home, those slick tendrils coiled instantly around the raw flesh at the wound's edges. Then the entire "eyeball" drove itself inward with a single violent thrust.

Claire's chest, already still, already silent, arched violently upward.

"AAAGH —!"

A shriek tore out of her throat. Not a sound any human should be able to make.

Every vein across her body surged beneath the skin, dark bluish-black, writhing like earthworms gone frantic.

The hole in her chest was sealing itself shut at a visible rate, new granulation tissue forcing its way closed, knitting her together by something that had no right to be called healing.

The instinct to propagate had been fulfilled.

Leon's mutated body swayed. The massive talon dropped limply at his side. The eyeball on his shoulder went dark.

The G-Virus's power was receding fast.

He raised his head slowly, and those eyes, human again, found Claire convulsing in agony on the floor.

He had saved her.

In the most brutal way possible.

THUD!

His body gave out. He hit the ground hard.

Extracting the G-Larva had burned through an immense amount of his strength. He needed to recover.

Kill Alexia, and there was no saving Claire. Save Claire, and Alexia couldn't be finished.

An impossible choice. No good answer on either side.

At the far end of the banquet hall, Alexia climbed out of the pit she'd been smashed into and watched it all.

In those blood-red eyes of hers, the fear was gone.

What had replaced it was something far worse.

A morbid, burning fanaticism.

She had seen it.

A new direction of evolution, entirely new, and even more extreme than Veronica.

➤ Next: Alexia's Confusion