Chapter 55

Parasyte (寄生獣, Kisei-jū) is the 55th chapter of the Parasyte manga series, written and illustrated by Hitoshi Iwaaki.

Overview
''Uragami and the squadron he leads makes their way through the building, killing Parasites. When they run into Gotou, their attack methods are left ineffective. As Gotou kills the squadron, Uragami is the only one to escape. In the conference room, Mayor Hirokawa is surrounded by soldiers. He begins to berate the human race and calls them the monsters, becoming more aggressive as he talks. The soldiers eventually kill him, revealing he's a human.''

Summary
Uragami is pushed to the front of the group of soldiers just before they come across another man. He attempts to plea for his safety, but Uragami tells the men around him to shoot. One accidentally does so, blasting holes in the man's hand. He simply stares at it before fleeing. The soldiers quickly catch up and shoot him, and he staggers before dying at Gotou's feet, who comments on the high effectiveness of their bullets. Although Uragami initially finds being pushed to check annoying, he immediately realizes the danger he's in and flees screaming. His minder follows after him.

Unfazed, Gotou tells his opponents to follow him to an open room. Half do so, while the other half are sent to the assembly hall in pursuit of other parasites. Gotou smirks, stating he wanted to take them all on.

Elsewhere, the policeman catches up with Uragami, only to be shocked when he called Gotou obviously inhuman.

The platoon fires at Gotou simultaneously. However, he doesn't bleed or collapse, and when they stop firing they hear clinking sounds coming from him. He then swings an arm, throwing a line of bullets fast enough to puncture a soldier's skull. Gotou continues to move the rest of the pellets into his arms and swings them both, punching through the team and breaking windows. However, many of the soldiers survived due to their body armor. One shoots him to no effect, and he declares he'll finish them off in thirty seconds.

The policeman from earlier forcibly directs Uragami back to the soldiers with a pistol.

In the assembly hall, Hirokawa stands alone as the soldiers surround him from a distance. He gives a speech, extolling the benefits of parasites and telling the humans that they should be using their ability to kill to help preserve the biosphere by reducing the rest of the human population. However, the soldiers refuse to listen, calling him a monster. He becomes enraged at their moral hypocrisy as well as humanity's in general, and calls them parasites.

They shoot him down. Although they immediately begin to celebrate, they notice that his head doesn't change, and realize that he was human. Gotou then jumps through the skylight and muses on how odd Hirokawa was for a human, as well as the fact that Reiko Tamura had made plans for him.

The police-murderer duo finally returns to the mutilated remains of the soldiers killed by Gotou, while the battle between the assembly hall soldiers and Gotou rages on. Uragami takes the opportunity to shoot his minder with a discarded shotgun and run for freedom.

Trivia

 * This is one of the few chapters where neither Shinichi or Migi are present.