Chapter 56

Head (首, Kubi) is the 56th chapter of the Parasyte manga series, written and illustrated by Hitoshi Iwaaki.

Overview
''While Gotou begins his own assult on the Military, Migi tries to convice Shinichi to leave. As all of Yamagishi's squadron are killed, he is left to fend for himself, though he's quickly killed as well. Gotou then confronts Shinichi, and makes a promise, to finish him off someday soon.''

Summary
Gotou looks over the bodies of his latest battle and recalls Reiko Tamura's questions about why parasites existed, concluding that he himself had been made to fight. Outside, Migi tries to persuade Shinichi to go, but he refuses to leave until they know Gotou has been taken care of. Migi tells him there's no point in staying since the humans are winning. Hirama and others watch from video as the main hall is cleared out, but aren't getting video from Yamagishi's squadron.

Inside, said squadron hears a commotion from further down the halls. The other soldiers radio in to Yamagishi about an extremely fast parasite immune to shotguns, and he wonders if this is the "five-in-one". He then tells his platoon to stay put and fire once they see the parasite.

Gotou passes the corner and they have a standoff for a moment. Several extra eyes then appear in his face and the soldiers frantically shoot him, only for him to dodge by rebounding off the walls and tearing them apart. He moves into another room and the surviving members of Yamagishi's crew follow him in to see his inhuman body. As they shoot him, he jumps easily out of the way. He then skewers two soldiers on his arms and uses them as human shields. Though one begs for the others not to shoot, they write him off as dead anyway and blast Gotou while backing out of the room.

Unnerved by their last opponent's strength, Yamagishi shoots a pair of grenades and tells the rest of his squad to fall back and head to the roof. He thinks on how the parasites turned the man-made building to their own nest and used it to their advantage. As they move, Gotou continues taking out the retreating soldiers.

Yamagishi eventually reaches the roof and realizes that he's now alone with Gotou, the other soldiers already dead. The two of them begin to have a tense discussion, Yamagishi questioning how he's capable of fighting like that. Gotou reveals that he has gaps in his armor, and shows a pair of bleeding bullet wounds in his side.

Yamagishi shoots Gotou. However, his arm becomes a metallic shield allowing the bullets to bounce off harmlessly, and he continues talking despite being shot at. He then leaps out of the way of Yamagishi's grenade, stating that he can dodge bullets by reading the wielder's movements, and concludes by slamming into Yamagishi.

Hirama and Shinichi, along with the rest of the police, look up towards the roof after they hear the explosion.

Dying, Yamagishi asks what Gotou is. Gotou tells him he's just a wild animal. The soldier then considers that he should have tried bringing a flamethrower.

The outside crew have finished the evacuation of humans and cleared out the parasites. Yamagishi's head then falls out of the sky and lands at their feet. Gotou lands as well, and Migi lightly hits Shinichi in warning as Gotou confronts him. The parasite realizes that Shinichi played a hand in the battle happening, and decides he should kill Shinichi to deal with the "unfinished business".

Hirama shoots him in the chest. However, it has no effect aside from convincing him to leave and recuperate to kill Shinichi next time. He leaps high into the sky, easily escaping. Hirama asks what he could have wanted with Shinichi, and Migi worries that they'll die the next time they meet Gotou.