Ito Ai: A New Dawn

Chapter 80: Mutation Part Five

As the days passed and Ai slept, the radiation storm outside continued to drench the land in radioactive particles. Mai and the rest were getting a little nervous about the amount of radiation built up in the soil. If it continued as it was, the land would become an uninhabitable zone for humans. Although they were safe underground they would not be able to leave any time soon.

Mai was also becoming worried about Ai since she could not even inject a needle into her skin anymore. Even a knife could no longer slice her skin. She had to spoon feed Ai to drink water with vitamins in it, just to keep her hydrated. Luckily Ai was reflexively swallowing it all.

The first couple of days Mai would check her blood and every time she did check the number of red blood cells dropped each time until finally the day before she could no longer draw blood from Ai, Ai's blood had turned purple instead of red. But at the same time, Ai's fever had also started to slowly drop. Mai was relieved at this but she still feared for what would happen to Ai when she woke up. Mai wondered if Ai would be completely changed or would she be the same old Ai. A lot went through Mai's head and the stress of it all was making it hard for her to sleep. She had bags under her eyes. But she was also not alone in this. Eiji also hardly slept and only leaned his head against Ai's cot not willing to leave her side. 

Mai had tried to console him many times but he still blamed himself. He even vowed to end his own life if Ai did not come back as Ai. Mai had one hell of a time trying to calm him down. But by the middle of the second week, Ai's eyelids finally twitched causing both Eiji and Mai to cry out: "Ai!"

"Uhg Why are you two screaming!?" Ai slowly opened her eyes feeling groggy and rubbed them gently. 

"Thank god Ai, you're finally awake!" Overcome with emotion, Mai hugged Ai tightly.

"Why are you Oh, right, I fainted huh. Let me tell you I had the weirdest dream. Some kind of weird purple monster was trying to take over my body. I of course was not going to let it have its way! I mean I had my trusty howa with me so I shot it to death." Ai said nonchalantly but the looks on both Eiji's and Mai's faces were full of surprise. Ai looked at them both, confused as to why they were giving her such looks, and asked: "What's with you two?"

"Ai, you have been in a coma for almost two weeks with a fever and you have some changes to your body." Mai said slowly, her lips quivering. She was desperately trying to hold back her tears.

"Changes to my body? I didn't grow a dick did I?" Ai quickly patted her crotch with her hand and let out a sigh of relief when she found that there was no extra baggage down there. Her actions made Eiji burst out laughing. He couldn't hold it in. Even Mai couldn't help but smile at the way Ai was acting. "So how did my body change?"

"It's best to show you. But I am not sure if this is the only change." Mai said as she took Ai's wrist and the scalpel from the table and used all her strength to stab Ai in the arm. Ai was shocked and was going to yank her hand away but decided not to since she knew Mai would never hurt her. She watched in shock as the scalpel bent on impact.

"This?" Ai stared at the spot that was just hit and did not even see a red mark never mind a cut. 

"As you can see, your skin is so strong it can not be injured from what I can tell. Well not by this much force anyway. I am not sure about the rest of your body. We do have an idea of what caused this change though. We were lucky and it was caught on camera. Yoshi played it back in slow motion and found that some kind of purple liquid shot out of the mutant and onto your finger seeping into your open wound. What this purple stuff was, I do not know. And from the blood samples I had gotten before your skin changed completely, there was some kind of purple cells in your bloodstream that were mutating your red blood cells into purple ones. Even the color of your blood has changed from red to purple. During the time I was drawing blood from you, your wounds were healing at a speed visible to the naked eye." Mai explained.

"Would have been nice if it healed my left eye then!" Ai complained and then rubbed her stomach. "Anyway, is there any food I feel like I haven't eaten for weeks."

"Ai are you not worried?" Mai asked, her voice trembling once again as tears welled up in her eyes. She was worried that Ai might just drop dead or change into someone completely different due to this change to her body.

"What can worrying do about what has already been done? If anything this may be a good thing. But I do have to ask one thing. Why is Eiji here?" Ai looked down at herself who was only wearing a hospital gown and then glared at Eiji.

At this time Eiji felt very wronged. He had done nothing wrong! Why was she glaring at him!? Luckily Mai cut in and explained: "He is under quarantine with you. I still can not let the two of you or myself out of here. Until I know for sure this thing is not contagious in any way." 

"I see. Well as long as he did not try anything funny while I was asleep." 

***

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