CHAPTER 94: THAT’S NOT YOUR HEART, THAT’S YOUR KIDNEY

Mika tilted his head, his expression suddenly distant, as though pondering something trivial. He lifted his hand to his chin, fingers tapping lightly.

"Now...as for what I should do with you..." He murmured aloud, like a teacher considering what to do with an unruly student. "Hmm...I really don’t know."

The man’s body trembled. His legs gave way even after he finally stood up, and he collapsed fully onto his knees, staring up in sheer horror.

"The game is over now." Mika continued, his tone flat, bored. "She figured it all out. Clever girl, but...in the end, that just ruined everything. Now it’s boring. There’s no point in continuing something when all the secrets are spilled, is there?"

He sighed dramatically, as though inconvenienced.

"But at the same time..." His eyes narrowed, glittering in amusement. "I don’t just want to kill you, either. That would be too...dull."

The man’s lips quivered as his breath came in ragged gasps.

"S-Stop." He begged, voice cracking. "You don’t have to do this! You can just...just let me go. I don’t even know why you’re doing this. There has to be some kind of misunderstanding! I’ve never even met you before! We, we have no connection!"

Tears welled in his eyes, spilling down his cheeks. His words became frantic, desperate.

"If you let me go, I’ll leave! I’ll disappear! You’ll never see me again, I swear it! Please, please—" His voice cracked into sobs. "I’ll do anything. Anything, just let me live..."

But Mika didn’t even look at him. His hand still rested against his chin, his eyes staring blankly off into the air as though the man’s pleas were nothing more than background noise.

"What should I do..." Mika muttered to himself again, his voice lilting with false contemplation. "What should I do..."

Then, all of a sudden, his eyes lit up. He snapped his fingers. "Oh! I’ve got it."

The man froze, dread twisting in his gut. "W-What are you going to do...?"

Mika’s grin widened as he leaned closer, his words smooth and sharp like a knife.

"You were the one boasting earlier, weren’t you? About how...nice it felt to force yourself on a woman. You even said the part you loved most was when their heartbeat went still beneath you." Mika chuckled darkly. "You smiled when you said it. You relished it."

The man’s face drained of all color. His stomach lurched. His voice cracked in terror. "Wh-What..about that...?"

Mika’s grin grew even sharper.

"Well." He said lightly. "I thought...why not try it for myself? Why not feel how your heartbeat feels when you’re the one being forced upon?"

The man’s jaw dropped. His eyes bulged with horror when he heard that horrifying statement.

"N-No! No, what are you talking about?! I-I’m a man! You...you can’t...you can’t do something like that!" He shook his head violently, panic rising in his voice. "J-Just kill me instead! I’d rather die than suffer that kind of humiliation!"

Mika’s smile abruptly dropped, twisting instead into a look of disgust. His lip curled.

"What are you talking about, you fucking idiot?" His voice was sharp, cutting. "Do you actually think I’d touch someone like you?" His face twisted further with a look of repulsion. "As if...I’m not into men."

The man blinked, trembling, his fear mixing with confusion, while then Mika chuckled again.

"When I said I was going to force myself on you...I didn’t mean that. But at the same time..." His voice dropped to a whisper, the corners of his mouth curling upward again. "...I am going to shove something deep into your body, so it’s not too far."

The man gulped. His breath caught in his throat. His eyes darted wildly, but the meaning of Mika’s words twisted through his mind like a venom he couldn’t spit out.

"W-What...what do you mean by that?" He stammered, horrified, unable to comprehend.

But Mika didn’t answer. He only smirked, letting the silence stretch, keeping the man in a state of desperate confusion.

Then, without another word, Mika stepped off the boat and onto the platform. He walked up behind the man and, with sudden brutal force, seized his neck in one hand and yanked him up like a ragdoll.

The man choked, his legs kicking helplessly as Mika’s grip tightened around his throat. He looked up into Mika’s face, and his blood turned to ice at the sight of that amused smile still painted there.

"P-Please!" He rasped, his voice breaking in terror. "Please, let me go! You don’t have to do this, you really don’t! I’ll do anything, anything! Just don’t, don’t do this to me!" Tears streamed down his face, his words choked with sobs. "Please! I beg you!"

Mika ignored him. Instead, he slowly raised his other hand into the air. The man’s eyes went wide, locking onto it in petrification. His breath caught as he realized something unspeakable was about to happen.

And then, in one swift motion, Mika slammed his hand into the man’s mouth.

"Gruuk! Gaak!"

The man gagged violently, eyes bulging in horror as Mika’s fingers pried his jaw apart. His mouth was forced wide, the sound of bones cracking filling the air as his jaw gave way under the inhuman pressure. His scream came out as a strangled gurgle.

"Ahhh! Gwaa! Nhhaa! Ahhh!"

Mika then forced his hand deeper, pulling his mouth open grotesquely wide until his teeth and tongue were fully exposed, writhing helplessly. The man’s broken jaw hung at an unnatural angle, agony flooding his senses.

...But it only got worse.

Mika’s eyes turned sharper, his grin stretching wider, as the hand that held his jaw suddenly drove deeper.

"Gwak! Guuk! Aahhhk! Ghhhh!"

He felt every inch of it, every bone-cracking, flesh-tearing inch, as Mika’s arm sank further and further inside.

His ribs strained as the hand pressed deeper, until finally, horrifyingly, it reached inside his chest.

He could feel it. He could feel Mika’s hand inside his body, pressing against his lungs, brushing past the frantic thud of his heart.

In response, the man’s legs kicked wildly, thrashing against the ground as though he could somehow shake off the horror of what was happening.

His throat was stretched grotesquely wide around Mika’s arm, torn and bleeding, each desperate gasp for air caught and strangled by the intrusion that reached down deep into his chest. His eyes rolled, tears and spit dribbling down his face.

Mika, however, looked as calm as someone standing in the sun, as if he wasn’t elbow-deep in another man’s chest cavity. He tilted his head thoughtfully, his voice unnervingly casual.

"You know..." He began. "Your blessing is really fascinating. Super strength, enhanced endurance, a body tough enough to shrug off wounds that would kill anyone else instantly...But it’s also a blessing and a curse at the same time."

The man gargled incoherently, blood bubbling up his throat. His eyes begged for mercy, but Mika didn’t stop.

"Normally..." Mika continued, ignoring his suffering. "A broken jaw like this, an esophagus torn to shreds, an entire arm shoved down the throat and ripping through the organs..." He grinned, twisting his wrist ever so slightly, making the man convulse in agony. "...would kill anyone immediately. But you? No, no...you still hang on. You still live."

His eyes gleamed in the dim light, voice dipping into something darker.

"And that...that makes it a curse, doesn’t it? For you, at least."

The man’s body shook as Mika leaned closer, whispering into his ear almost intimately.

"It truly is a bad time to have such a strong body." His smile grew wider. "But for me? Ohhh, for me, it’s a blessing in disguise. Because it means..." His lips curled as he locked eyes with him. "...I can play with you longer. Much longer."

The man tried to shake his head, his eyes wide with terror, but the hand inside his body made even that movement stiff and weak.

Mika then tilted his head down, concentrating. His fingers flexed inside the man’s torso as though feeling his way through a darkened room.

"Now then." He murmured. "Where is it? Where’s your heart? Hm...everything in here feels so similar."

His fingers brushed organs, tearing tissue as blood spilled down the man’s chest, seeping from his mouth in thick streams. The agony of his insides being groped and rearranged made him twitch uncontrollably.

"Ahhh! Gaah! Guuik! Hhan!"

Then suddenly Mika’s hand tightened around something and in response, the man’s eyes went wide in horror. His body convulsed violently.

And with one brutal pull, Mika yanked his arm back, dragging something wet and fleshy out of his torso. He held it up to the light, smiling as he inspected it.

"Ahhh...what do we have here?" He asked, turning it over in his hand. Then he frowned. "No...no, this isn’t the heart." He smirked, eyes narrowing. "This is the pancreas."

The man’s mouth stretched open in a strangled, broken scream, blood spraying out like a fountain as he shook his head weakly.

Mika tsked. "What a pity." He tossed the organ aside with a casual flick, where it slapped wetly against the platform.

Then, without hesitation, he shoved his hand back into the gaping wound, plunging once again into the man’s broken body.

"Gwaakk!"

The man gagged, eyes rolling as he tried to scream. His hands clawed weakly at Mika’s wrist, but the strength in them was gone.

"Let’s try again." Mika mused. "Another chance to fish it out." His fingers clamped down. The man jolted violently, blood spraying from his mouth.

And then Mika pulled, tearing another organ free.

"Gwoook!"

He lifted it, bloody and steaming and his smile faded into a look of mild disappointment.

"Oh. The kidney. Hmph. I don’t need that." He let it fall, splattering beside the pancreas.

Back in his body went the arm, wrist-deep again in blood and ruin.

The man sobbed weakly, gargling through the blood that poured freely from his mouth like a faucet. His face was pale as snow, lips trembling as more tears streaked his face.

Mika, meanwhile, hummed lightly, as though this were all an amusing game.

"What about this one?" He tugged, and another organ came free. "Hmm. Spleen." His expression crinkled. "Not what I wanted." He tossed it.

Another plunge...Another pull.

"Ah, intestines. Far too messy. Not interested." He pulled them all out and flung them aside like scraps.

And over and over it continued. Mika would yank out a piece of the man, inspect it with childlike curiosity, frown, and discard it.

The man’s body shook violently with every rip, his mouth endlessly leaking blood, his vision dimming with each passing second.

Finally, after a long sequence of this grotesque trial-and-error, Mika’s hand brushed against something different.

Something that quivered faintly beneath his fingers.

His eyes lit up. His lips parted into a wide grin. "Ohhh..." He whispered, his voice full of delight. "I found it. I found it."

The man’s body jolted, a shudder running through him and Mika did not pull the heart out, not yet. Instead, he tightened his grip ever so slightly, feeling the faint pulse tremble against his fingers.

"Strange, isn’t it?" He said. "Even now...after everything I’ve done to you...after every organ I’ve ripped out, after all this pain..." He gave the faintest squeeze, enough to make the man’s entire body shudder violently. "...your heart isn’t panicking."

He leaned closer, his blood-smeared lips curling into something disturbingly serene.

"It’s calm. Still. Serene. Not frantic, not wild, not desperate. Just...quiet. Like a lake with no wind."

The man’s lips quivered as though he wanted to speak, but no words came. Only more blood spilled down his chin. His eyes, once wide with fear, looked hollow now, empty.

Mika’s voice softened, lowering to a whisper as though he were confiding a secret.

"I think I finally understand. When you said you loved that stillness...when the heart doesn’t race...when everything just stops..." His grin widened. "...you were talking about this moment, weren’t you? This feeling. When life is balanced on the edge of nothingness."

He studied the man’s face, those deadened eyes, and chuckled lowly.

"Yes. I see it now. You’ve already given up. Your eyes are already dead inside. You’re not fighting. You’re waiting."

For a moment, the silence between them was heavy, broken only by the sound of dripping blood splattering onto the platform below.

Mika then inhaled slowly, savoring the weight of it. Then his smile sharpened.

"Well...I suppose it’s about time I pull the plug, don’t you think?" His tone carried a mocking gentleness, as though granting a final mercy. "That’s probably what you want, isn’t it? For this to finally...end."

The man’s body twitched faintly, but his eyes said everything. There was nothing left in them.

No fight. No resistance...Only the hollow acceptance of someone already gone inside.

Mika’s expression flickered into something almost tender. He locked eyes with him one last time and whispered:

"Rest well, then."

And with that, he pulled the last sign of life out.

The man’s body convulsed violently as Mika tore the heart free from his chest. Blood sprayed out in a steaming torrent, his body collapsing like a marionette with its strings cut.

"Badump! Badump!...Badump!"

In Mika’s hand now was the organ, slick, trembling weakly for its final beats. He stared at it, fascinated, his smile twisting wider.

"Yes...here it is. The proof of it all. Your heart." He chuckled softly before he squeezed

"Squish!"

The heart ruptured between his fingers, bursting into pulp and spraying warm blood across his hand and face, while his smile never wavered as he let the crushed remains slip through his fingers and splatter onto the ground below.

Only then did he release the corpse. The man crumpled like a discarded doll, collapsing onto the platform with a wet thud.

Bam!

His torso was nothing but an open, hollow cavity, empty, gutted, stripped of every organ Mika had plucked from within him.

Around him lay a grotesque display: heaps of organs, shattered bones, torn muscle, pools of blood soaking the stone until it looked as though the entire floor had been painted crimson.

And at the center of it all was Mika, who stood staring down at his own hand with clear irritation and disgust.

His fingers were slick, drenched not only in spit and blood from having shoved his arm deep into another man’s mouth, but also streaked with the foul smear of intestine he had torn free.

The thought that some trace of the man’s filth might be clinging there made his lip curl. That, of all things, was what annoyed him, not the carnage spread across the ground, not the shredded bodies or the rivers of gore.

The irony of it was almost comedical: surrounded by death, his only real complaint was that his hand felt dirty in the worst possible way...