Corporal Mako Shiratori had not expected the assault to go to shit so quickly. Really, it was guaranteed to get mucked up somewhere along the line, but nobody had expected four nobles to take the field. Against all odds, Mako and her company had managed to join up to the safest location there was with so many vampires around: three squads of the Moon Demon Company.
Perhaps she would survive this after all.
Admittedly, she had her doubts when the initial announcement of the Nagoya attack spread through the ranks, since even on the defensive, the JIDA was outmanned in terms of quality (though not quantity, her mind traitorously whispered. They had plenty of cannon fodder to throw at their attackers). To regain so much territory in one operation, against enemies that were pushing their defenses already, seemed monumentally ambitious, even for the Hiiragi clan. And despite the likelihood of death, it wasn't like Mako could stay behind.
She did quite literally sign up for this.
Besides, she had others who were going who needed all the help they could get. Cadets, fresh out of Basic, given generic enchanted weapons that could injure a vampire, but not kill one as the cursed weapons did. Mako wasn't able to keep all of them alive.
But damn if she didn't try.
Eyes roving about the dangerously open road, Mako took a glance behind her, grimly satisfied to see nobody was lagging behind, even the squad of youngsters carrying their injured with them. Satisfied, the corporal returned her sight to the road, and saw a smudge of white that urged her hand to creep to the hunting knife at her side. (It was not enchanted, or cursed, or effective in any way, but it had been her mother's hunting knife, and any weapon was better than none should she be disarmed).
As the vampire unsheathed its blade, Mako slowed to the back, gesturing for her living cadets to do the same. She knew from experience that the more space between a human and a much faster creature, the easier it was to move after a vampire begins its first strike. The younger soldiers needed every advantage they could get, and frankly so did she. Mako hadn't kept herself alive for eight years by not paying attention to what killed her comrades, after all.
And though Mako couldn't imagine any vampire foolheaded enough to charge three fully armed squads covered by foot soldiers, the creature did just that. The vampire blew past Sergeant Narumi's squad with nary a glance, and Mako felt deep in her gut that they were not dealing with an average Sanguinem guard.
Seeing the vampire, surprising her with the appearance of a youngster, slog doggedly though Colonel Goshi's smoke nudged Mako to move closer to aid in any way she could, pointing at her cadets to stay put. However, the guard makes it though the illusions faster than she expected, and the corporal had the misfortune to be directly in his trajectory. There's no way Mako could survive a head on blow from a vampire, blocked or no. So she does the logical thing.
She ducks under his swipe, and stabs him in the foot with her enchanted wakizashi.
The vampire growls: a guttural, animalistic sound that shivers her marrow. She is barely able to avoid the hasty swipe of unsheathed claws as she leaps out of his immediate range as fast as she can. Mako crouches, heart hammering, and watches as the vampire guard yanks her blade out of his foot, tossing the now-snapped blade off to the side. However, Mako's gamble to save her own hide offers the distraction needed for Colonel Jujo to hammer him back into the ground.
This time the vampire stayed down.
The cry for a cursed gear user to finish the job echoes about the street, and the vampire twitches at that. Beyond Mako's expectations, he lurches to his feet, limping as fast as he can down the road with a fight in his stance and a warning growl behind his fangs. Seeing the rear guard form ranks and her cadets joining them, charging straight in the path of an injured, but still dangerous vampire, Mako reacts. She moves.
Boots pounding into cracked asphalt as she sprinted down the road, the corporal gets as close as she can, keeping to the side of the vampire, and unsheathes her hunting knife: an un-enchanted, non-cursed, completely ordinary keepsake. She lines up the shot, and throws it.
Mako hears the wet squelch and startled, watery gag that indicates her blade hit home. She's relieved to see the hilt protruding from the side of the guard's neck. He yanks it out with desperation, the serrated edges catching and tearing into his neck like teeth. but by the time his healing reconnects the severed ends of his esophagus and arteries, the soldiers are upon him. Blindly, the young vampire lashes out with the flat of his blade; the angle was bad, but the force behind it sent them sprawling.
Mako's heart skips as one of her cadets hits the ground, head cracking on the ground next to her discarded knife.
Rushing over, Mako quickly checks his vitals, opening his eyes and shadowing her hand over them. Sighing, she thanked whatever luck exists that he was only concussed. By the time she looks up at her stubborn enemy, he was being defended by the young Moon Demon squad, and Sergeant Hiiragi was being questioned by Sergeant Narumi (What on earth did she miss?). Lulled by the absence of the vampire as it fled and content to keep guard over her young subordinate, Mako simply watched the interrogation, absentmindedly picking vampire neck skin out of the serrated corners of her mother's knife.
Whatever negligible peace could be found on a battlefield was cracked as the distinct whump whump of helicopter blades rent the chill air. Hurriedly, Mako hoisted the cadet up and ran towards the elder Hiiragi's squad.
She fought there, over the dying cries of Squad Narumi.
She lived.
She wanted to keep living.
When Abaddon rose from the chains that speared Mako's last living subordinate, risen from the betrayal of the JIDA, Mako ran. She had little tethering her here, with the chaos and blood wrought by her superior, people she was supposed to trust with humanity's survival. And she saw all that awaited her in the army was death.
Mako ran.
Mincing out a living in the streets would be incredibly difficult, but there was a forested area nearby that the urban-preferring Horseman did not wander. The corporal had recently raided a derelict police station for arms and ammunition; she even managed to dig out an old kevlar vest to use. Mako thanked her mother once again for teaching her how to shoot and taking her hunting. It would likely save her life, however long her life expectancy might be in this situation.
Holstering her newly-acquired gun, hiking her backpack strap further up her shoulder, Mako began the long hike to an old suburb reclaimed by nature.