Supervillain Idol System: My Sidekick Is A Yandere-Chapter 532: Resistance V1 (Part 4)

As the vine crossed the halfway point.

Then—only then—Don moved.

Not far.

Just enough.

He shifted his weight sideways, boots sliding across rubble as the vine screamed past where his chest had been a moment earlier. The ground shook as it struck—KRRRAAAASH~—the impact drowning the crater in a choking cloud of dust and shattered debris.

The shockwave rippled outward, flinging loose stone and bodies alike.

And Don jumped.

He vanished into the cloud.

Above, Pyro and Starboy both reacted at the sound.

Pyro twisted mid-burn, flames sputtering as his eyes dropped to the crater. "Don—?!"

There was nothing there.

No movement. No silhouette. Just rolling dust and collapsing debris.

Pyro hesitated.

"Don’t you dare stop!" Starboy snapped, voice hoarse as he drove a beam straight through an incoming vine—BOOOM~—and followed it with a brutal punch that sent another recoiling. "Keep going! Don’t lose focus now!"

Pyro clenched his teeth and forced himself to turn back, fire pouring over the sprout’s tip again. It burned. Slowly. Too slowly.

Starboy hovered beside him, chest heaving. Blood crept from his nose, thin and slow, dripping down to spatter against his knuckles. His hands shook when he clenched them, vision blurring at the edges as exhaustion bit deep.

’Dammit...’

’At this rate—.’

The dust below shifted.

Something moved.

The vine rose again.

But it didn’t rise alone.

Don was on it.

His fingers were buried deep in the vine’s side, arms locked tight as the massive limb hauled itself upward with renewed force. His boots dragged grooves through its surface before he pulled himself higher, teeth bared as he slammed a fist into it—hard enough that the vine reacted.

Don felt it.

The tightening.

The way the mass under his grip constricted and writhed, fibers knotting as if trying to crush him loose. The vine surged upward faster now, thrashing in uneven snaps as it tried to shake him free.

Don climbed.

He hauled himself over the crest of it and drove his weight down, using the rise itself to carry him. Vines snapped upward in response, but they were late—too late—as Don launched himself skyward in a violent blur.

He passed the tip.

Pyro’s eyes went wide.

Starboy’s breath hitched.

Don didn’t stop.

He cleared the full height of the sprout and kept going, body cutting upward until he hung meters above it all—arms spread, chest heaving, blood and dust streaked across torn skin.

"MOVE!" Don roared.

Pyro and Starboy didn’t question it.

They broke away instantly, blasting sideways as Don’s ascent finally stalled and gravity caught up to him.

He didn’t fall.

He pulled.

Telekinetic force wrapped around him, arresting his drop and dragging him into position directly above the sprout’s crown. The air bent around him as he steadied, eyes locked on the mass below.

Then he cut it.

The force vanished.

Don twisted and punched the air above him—BOOOOM~—the released blast hurling him back down like a fired shell. Wind howled around him as his body inverted, one fist already drawn back, every ounce of stored energy coiling tight.

He dropped.

Fast.

Straight toward the sprout.

As Don came down like a fired shell.

Starboy and Pyro were already moving—hard acceleration, bodies angling upward and away as fast as their powers allowed.

The air bucked violently as Don tore past the height they’d occupied a split second earlier, the pressure snapping against their senses like a physical shove.

Then he hit.

The fist landed square on the tip.

For a fraction of a moment, nothing happened.

Then the explosion bloomed outward—BOOOOOM~—a vicious, compressed detonation that obliterated a massive section of the sprout’s crown in one violent release.

The outer layers ruptured first, fibrous matter shredding apart as translucent green fluid sprayed outward in heavy sheets.

Beneath that, denser internal growth split open, torn wide as the force punched inward and kept going.

The energy didn’t stop at the point of impact.

It traveled.

A brutal ripple tore down the length of the sprout, the structure shuddering as if struck by an internal hammer.

The surface split from the ruined tip downward—meters at a time—an ugly, widening seam ripping through layered flesh and vine.

The crack didn’t run clean; it tore unevenly, exposing thick cords of growth inside that snapped and recoiled under the stress. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Vines exploded outward in every direction—CRRRRAASH~—whipping wildly as the force destabilized them. One of the lower legs—the same one that hadn’t fully healed—buckled outright.

Its mass folded inward with a wet, grinding collapse, the sprout dipping hard as its weight shifted off-balance.

For a breathless second, it looked like it was done.

Then the whole structure lurched.

The remaining vines reacted in a frenzy, movements no longer measured or coordinated. They whipped toward the falling side, coiling over and through one another, braiding together into a dense, writhing mass. The joint they formed slammed into the ground and nearby ruins—BOOM~—anchoring just enough to halt the fall.

The sprout sagged.

But it didn’t go down.

Don was wrenched to a stop where the split ended, boots digging in as resistance surged back against him. He stood there, half-crouched, surrounded by ruin—what remained of the tip above him torn open like a flower forced apart too early.

The structure looked wrong.

The upper portion gaped wide, layers peeled back and folded outward. Thick, vine-lined "petals" hung open at uneven angles, inner surfaces wet and translucent, stretched membranes clinging and tearing as they tried to draw back together.

Viscous green fluid dripped in heavy strands, pooling and sliding down the exposed interior. Corded growth pulsed faintly beneath the surface, already beginning to crawl back into place.

Don’s hands shook.

They were slick with the stuff—green and semi-clear, clinging to his gloves and forearms. It dripped from his sleeves and splattered against the split surface below. His chest rose and fell hard as he looked down, jaw tightening.

"...damn it."

It hadn’t fallen.

Worse—it was healing.

Slow, yes. But undeniable. The split edges were already drawing inward, fibrous matter knitting back together in ugly layers.

Starboy and Pyro dropped in fast, hovering beside him at the break in the structure. Both stared down at the same sight.

Starboy spoke first.

"We can’t beat this thing," he said, breath shallow, words forced out through exhaustion. His face had gone pale despite his effort to keep his posture firm. His hands trembled when he clenched them, blood still trailing faintly from his nose. "We’ve held out long enough. Let’s get out of here while we still can."

He didn’t look at either of them when he said it.

Pyro didn’t answer right away.

He turned his head instead—eyes tracking toward the distance where the other fight still raged. The second sprout loomed there, its body scarred now—several vines missing entirely, others hanging half-burned. Charred streaks scored its surface where focused energy had torn through it.

Dr. Gadget’s mechanoid stood before it.

The machine was battered.

Dents marred its armored shell, especially along its arms. One clawed hand hung partially deformed, two of its thick prongs bent out of alignment. Sparks spat intermittently from a damaged joint, showering the ground beneath it as one leg moved with a stiff, uneven hitch.

But it was still fighting.

Pyro’s jaw set as he watched the exchange—beam against vine, metal against flesh—neither giving ground.

Don didn’t answer Starboy right away.

A system prompt slid into view instead, stark and intrusive.

00:30 LEFT

It lingered just long enough to be seen—then the battlefield scan dropped out entirely. The layered overlays vanished, range markers and threat lines dissolving until only beastshift remained.

The world narrowed.

Through beastshift, the sprout looked different. Less like a single organism, more like a mess of overlapping shapes and densities. Don could see through parts of the split he’d torn open—not cleanly, not precisely—but enough to tell what lay inside.

And it made his breath catch.

The interior wasn’t hollow.

Clusters of mass were packed within the vine’s core, uneven and misshapen, arranged in ways that felt wrong.

Some were dense and heavy, others slack and malformed. They reminded him of organs—human organs—fused together in irregular bundles, threaded through with smaller vines that burrowed into them and disappeared from sight.

But those weren’t what froze him.

Deeper in, half-obscured by layers of growth and interference, were shapes that were unmistakable.

Human silhouettes.

Some twisted—limbs bent at angles that made no sense, torsos warped by invasive growth. Others looked disturbingly intact, suspended within the structure, vines connected at the spine, neck, and chest.

Beastshift couldn’t tell him if they were alive. It couldn’t show breathing, or heartbeats, or neural activity.

But it didn’t matter.

Don doubted it had mattered for a long time.

The longer he stared, the harder it became to separate vine from flesh. Beastshift gave him outlines and density, but not clarity. The deeper layers blurred together, interference thickening the closer he tried to focus, as if the structure itself resisted being understood.

That resistance was what scared him.

"Hey!"

Starboy’s voice cut through it.

"What the fuck are you thinking about now?" Starboy snapped, hovering closer despite the tremor in his arms. "We’ve done okay—are you suicidal or something?!"

Pyro glanced over from the distant fight, flames still rolling from his hands as he kept half an eye on Dr. Gadget’s mechanoid. "Yeaah..." he added, slower, more measured. "I think we’re done here. If anything, we help Gadget. All three of us plus his mech—we can definitely win over there while this thing heals."

Don didn’t answer immediately.

He counted instead.

’Twenty-five seconds left.’

Beastshift strained as he pulled his gaze away from the interior and followed Pyro’s line of sight. The mechanoid was still standing, still fighting—but battered.

Don nodded.

Once.

"No," he said. His voice came out rougher than he expected. "We leave the area. Starboy’s right. We’ve done enough."

Pyro stiffened, lips pressing thin. He didn’t like it—but he saw it. The way Don’s shoulders sagged. The way Starboy’s posture wavered despite his effort to look solid.

Neither of them were elite graduates.

Pushing harder now would just get them killed.