Ch.27 : Cut the Bloom

Scene 1: Overrun

They come.

Not like an army — like a bad memory. Twitching. Bent. Puppeted.

The Bloomed Ones flood the lair, dragging limbs like sacks of meat. Some move fast. Some crawl. Some whisper.

Gift hears it first.

A voice from the crowd. Not a growl. A plea.

> "You left me, son... I only wanted to protect you."

His father's voice. Exactly the same.

Gift freezes. Blade wavers.

And then — a clash of ether.

Jakku spins, parries the creature that almost took Gift's throat. Back-to-back like muscle memory.

Jakku: "Snap out of it."

They push forward. Fluid. Clean. Ether meeting rot.

Matthew joins in with fire — his breath burns hotter than before. The spores hiss like oil.

They're winning.

Until Reen.

Still leaning on a rock. Still half-healed.

A Bloomed One limps toward her — mouth wide. Familiar eyes. No weapon in reach.

She doesn't scream.

She grabs it, yanks a blade, and cuts its head clean off.

And then — she eats it.

Why an instinct. Her gut feeling and she did it.

Not symbolic. Not metaphorical. Flesh to teeth.

The others stop mid-fight. Eyes wide.

Reen swallows.

Her body glows faintly. Then reverses.

Her scars fade. Her bones reshape. Youth returns.

She stands tall. Taller than before. Beautiful. Terrifying. Whole.

Gift and Jakku — despite themselves — feel something. A pulse.

Jakku (horrified): "...Did she just…?"

Matthew: "What the hell is going on?"

No time to process. The Bloomed Ones press harder. The group retreats to the base of a fractured stone pillar.

---

Scene 2: Maiku vs. Bloom Avatar

Maiku doesn't speak.

Momonato does.

His movements change — loose, unpredictable, like a vine in wind.

He bends backward, forward — limbs cracking and re-growing.

Two more arms sprout. Then six. Then eight.

Maiku adjusts, hits hard — shoulder. Chest. Jaw.

But every strike heals faster. Smarter.

Momonato dodges more. Counterattacks cleaner.

Maiku (thinking): He's feeding off pain. Learning me.

A punch lands. Momonato shifts. A counter-punch lands harder.

The rhythm is turning.

---

Scene 3: Reen's Vision

Reen stares into the swarm.

Then — one of them stops. Still. Its face flickers — not in flesh, but memory.

Her brother.

He speaks through the Bloomed One's mouth, as if borrowed.

Reen's Brother : "He's not growing. He's anchoring. Kill the core. Cut the root."

She gasps — the air tastes like dirt.

The lair isn't just a base. It's alive. Feeding him. Holding him. Energizing him.

Reen : "Guys this base is energizing him."

Jakku : "How!?"

Reen : "Cause, haven't you noticed everything here is plant related like an organic override."

Matthew : "Hmmm that's true."

Gift(thinks to himself) : "Wow she's really pretty now."

Jakku tells Gift to snap out of it.

Gift : "True though, hmmmmm there must be something keeping it up."

Matthew : "Ummm....guys let's focus on these guys please."

---

Scene 4: Jakku's Gambit

Jakku hears her.

He doesn't argue.

He tosses Gift a spare dagger, nods to Matthew.

Jakku: "Hold them."

He takes off — sprinting through the lair's tunnels.

Spores cling to his clothes. The air thickens.

He draws his blade. Not for enemies — for survival.

---

Scene 5: Momonato Cracks

Maiku stops holding back.

He digs deep. Sky-Fire pulses through his skin.

One clean strike. A dragon-fist blow to the ribs.

Crack.

Momonato reels — not from pain, but from surprise.

He staggers. Laughs again — but it's not joy now. It's fear wearing a smile.

And then he splits.

From the wound bursts a bloom — not of flowers, but of pure infectious rage.

Spores erupt — raining like ash.

The air blisters. The ground cracks.

Maiku walks forward. Into it.....

Eyes unblinking. Heart on fire.

---

Final Lines:

> "Jakku, somewhere deep inside the rotting heart of the lair, raised his sword against the bloom."

> "Maiku, drenched in rage, stepped into a bloomstorm and didn't blink."

> "And from above… the sky began to fall."

To Be Continued…

Narrator

This chapter wasn't about survival. It was about revelation.

The Bloom isn't a disease — it's a mirror. It shows what you fear, what you regret, what you buried.

And in Chapter 27, the mirror shattered.

The lair became a battlefield not just of fists and flame, but of identity. Of instinct. Of betrayal — from flesh, from memory, from the self.

Gift faced his father's voice — the voice that shaped his sword hand. Jakku fought beside him like breath and heartbeat, keeping him from drowning in the past.

And Reen… she transcended. Not by spell, not by training, but by doing the unthinkable: embracing the enemy's flesh. Chewing through her weakness. Becoming something beautiful and terrifying in the same breath.

A symbol? No.

A warning.

Reen is not the same anymore. Neither is this war.

Maiku, meanwhile, danced with a god who wouldn't die. Momonato — monstrous and mutating — wasn't fighting to win. He was fighting to evolve. To understand Maiku. Every punch became data. Every bruise a lesson.

And yet — Maiku cracked him.

Sky-Fire boiled the bloom.

But it's not enough. Not yet.

Because the lair is alive. The battlefield is a womb. A feeding system. Every stone, every root, a part of something bigger — something that doesn't want to be cut.

And somewhere inside it, sword raised, Jakku is about to try.

The heroes are still fighting.

But now… they're also changing.

And change is always the first sign that something is about to die — or be reborn.