"Contra is a title awarded to a superior shinobi (ninja) possessing almost super-human drive and ability while excelling in guerrilla tactics."
A Marine Contra crashes through the window of a burning skyscraper and bolts down its collapsing corridors, "let's attack aggressively!" Dilapidation permeates the interior along the war-torn walls; debris coats the ground like a smoldering grey sheet. Smoke suffocates the hallway in a lingering haze inhibiting visibility. He rappels down a dysfunctional elevator shaft into the sub-basement, then hightails through the subsequent sewer tunnel. Several rapid reverberating taps in the water draw nearer; phantom-like silhouettes wearing pale porcelain masks appear in the darkness.
The Contra vaults over the obstructions in his path while casting genjutsu (illusionary techniques) to hinder the Anbu (Special Assassination and Tactical Squad). He scales the pipelines and jumps over the sewer canals evading the sharp projectiles hurling at him. A shinobi slashes at his legs; he dives over the cold steel, then kicks the cloaked figure into the canal. Balancing on his palms, he sweeps one leg after the other beneath his torso, tripping a kunoichi (female ninja) before she can bisect him with her blade. He spins on his shoulders, swinging his legs back around, and knocks the kunoichi down a drainage pipe.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!" A blazing inferno erupts from the Anbu captain's mouth like a flamethrower; a volley of steel rain rushes out of the shadows in tandem.
The scorching heat soars against the Marine Contra's combat uniform. He draws a knife from his inventory, cork flips over the fireball, then deflects the incoming kunai and shuriken. He lands on a suspension walkway and dashes for the generator room. While sabotaging the hydraulic pressure controls, an alarm blares inside the facility, initiating the containment protocol. The Contra ducks; a kunai sails over his head, then destroys the terminal.
Another kunoichi attacks; a brief skirmish ensues. The Contra parries and evades a vicious onslaught until he deflects her blade into the control panel, electrocuting the assassin. He roundhouse kicks the kunoichi out an adjacent reception window and escapes through a closing sluice gate. The Anbu resumes pursuit as the lights fade at the end of the maintenance tunnel; however, the water-tight barrier closes, sealing them in darkness.
"Damn you to hell, Malkhaz!" the shinobi rages. "Earth Release: Seismic-"
A cloaked figure seizes the shinobi's hands, "no! You'll destabilize the tunnel, idiot!"
"What do we do now!? We're stuck here with those things!"
"I'll disembowel that whore with my bare hands if... no—WHEN we escape this shit-hole, don't cha know!"
Deep growls and sibilant screeches turn to psychotic screams and wails echoing in the sewers bearing down upon the Anbu.
"Defensive formation E1M1! Ranged jutsu (skills/techniques) and weapons on standby!" the Anbu captain orders. Shifting shadows with bio-luminescent eyes appear in the dark, "all right, let the rotting bastards have it; I want nothing but ashes remaining!"
Jimi leans against the sluice gate, gasping for breath. He uses the momentary respite to secure his helmet over his shoulder-length red hair before retying his boots.
Approaching snarls and groans escalate to a loudening rumble and banshee-like shrieks. Jim flees like a bat out of hell up a winding tunnel struggling to find a way out. Straight ahead, a suspension walkway hangs above a bottomless cistern. Water streams into the abyss from the outlets flanking the narrow path. Red sunlight radiates on a ladder at the cistern's radius, indicating his ascension from the darkness. He sprints down the walkway, blurring over a series of one-hand seals.
"Lightning Release: Synergistic Sabre!" A galvanic hue surges around Jim's knife. He cuts the suspension cables with a swipe of his arm, then leaps towards the ladder. The platform bends and deforms; pale, disfigured, blood-soaked arms and tentacles reach from the dark, but the bridge collapses. The glowing eyes and flailing limbs wither into the void.
Near an industrial district, a sewer grate lifts, dragging over. Jim pulls himself onto the cracked pavement; he sits against a concrete traffic barrier, then adjusts his glasses. An ominous wind howls through derelict skyscrapers; rusting metal creaks within the ruins like a groaning restless spirit. Remnants of a raging inferno wither into crackling embers. Twilight casts its foreboding shadow over the war-torn metropolis as an eerie stillness smothers the atmosphere. The stench of death and burning flesh lingers in the air. Charred skeletons litter the seared streets while corpses drift in the boiling canals.
Jim reloads his sidearm and pulls back the pistol slide. He presses a second magazine release on the weapon, then catches a cylindrical cartridge ejecting in front of its trigger guard. A brilliant sapphire hue radiates through his brown skin. Jim's chakra flows from his hand into the magazine; nevertheless, it reaches but a third of its capacity. As he re-inserts the cartridge, a receiver in Jim's ear emits a constant hiss obstructing his thoughts.
Jim places his index and middle finger on the device, but static renders the message inaudible. A hoarse gurgle akin to a low whisper/wheezing draws Jim's attention. He readies his sidearm; three shuriken slip between Jim's fingers. He focuses on the shambling footsteps, then sends the shuriken whizzing at the approaching silhouettes.
Speeding afterimages of metal, bolstering with chakra, whirl through the air before impacting soft squishy flesh. The silhouettes disappear in the smoke with three audible thuds. The lurching footsteps are numerous, a persistent stagger drawing closer; Jim backs away, aiming his pistol. The shadows outnumber and close in on him, but he vaults over the traffic barrier concealing himself in the smoke. He creeps past the abandoned military vehicles towards a nearby government refuge. The forlorn building holds its structural integrity despite bombings from a previous war.
Jim pushes a steel door; its rusting hinges screech, then grind until it jams. The gap is too narrow to squeeze by; debris inside prevents the door from opening further. A reflection in a cracked window steals his attention; the creature's horrifying appearance unnerves him as it crawls from an overturned truck.
Cyst-like bumps cover the creature's disfigured body. Its slimy flesh oozes down its skull and glowing eyes like wax. Its face is indistinguishable from the rest of its neck, aside from its slack jaw and teeth. The smell of its rotting flesh makes Jim's stomach churn which is all he can do to keep himself from vomiting. He regains composure, aims, and fires.
The round pierces the mutant shinobi's flak jacket. It flies backward, hitting the asphalt but gets right back up as if nothing happened. The mutant charges out of the smoke like a wild animal; Jim adjusts his aim, then shoots the mutant's knee severing it. Momentum overturns the abomination, tumbling it in the air.
The mutant crashes through the window; Jim shines a flashlight into the building, wondering, 'where did it go!?' Regardless the mutant shinobi becomes the least of his concerns; the low-pitch growls from the sewers escalate to undying moans of the damned echoing around the streets. Everywhere, dozens of glowing eyes appear in the smoke, moving closer and focusing on him. The eyes are in the skyscrapers, highways, armored vehicles, and ruins; faint groans soar to a perpetual blaring of deranged screams and phantom-like wails.
The mutants emerge from the smoke like out of a child's nightmare. Their wounds are visible from afar: the bite marks on their bodies, the varying stages of decay, and gouges large enough to disturb a combat medic. Some are missing limbs, on fire, drenched in blood, or dragging themselves along the ground with their entrails hanging out.
It horrifies Jim what's become of the military. His former brothers-in-arms stampede after him; he dives back through the broken window before the thickening hordes can overwhelm him.
Jim's flashlight unveils the mutants charging from the darkness; he empties his handgun's magazine, kneecapping the nighest discernible contours. They force Jim into taijutsu (hand-to-hand combat); he evades and redirects each assailant leveraging their inertia against them. Jim studies the mutant's movements and mannerisms; their lack of variety, coordination, or strategy questions any semblance of intelligence or lack thereof.
Although the inhuman and additional extremities add a degree of unpredictability, repetition and clumsiness nullify these factors by telegraphing each of the mutant's attacks. Jim spins on his palms knocking the abominations away with a torrent of revolving kicks. He topples the remaining mutant with a scissors takedown, switches to his handgun's secondary firing mode then blasts a hole through its head.
Jim sprints through the lobby as more mutants stampede through the corridors after him. He slams a nearby security gate; however, something crashes through an adjacent window tackling him. It bites at his throat with its scabrous teeth, but he escapes using the Body Replacement Technique. Jim reappears, sweeps the mutant's knee, swings his heel back into its thigh then crushes the mutant's skull with a 360° ax-kick. He thrusts his heel into its face heaving the abomination back out the window.
Duel-wielding kunai Jim approaches the mutants rushing down the hallway at him. He sidesteps a marauding mutant, cleaves its vertebrae, then back-kicks it over a guardrail.
Jim wall-flips over another mutant, lunging at him and drives both kunai into its jugulars before kicking it down a flight of stairs.
He slices through the next mutant's abdomen spilling its intestines on the floor. Jim impales the mutant's heart with the kunai, slashes its throat with the other, kicks the mutant's legs from underneath it, then sends the mutant tumbling down the stairs into the previous mutant with a turning side-kick.
The hoard breaks through the gate flooding the halls like an endless stream. Jim sticks explosive tags to his kunai, throws them, and chains a set of hand seals.
"Kunai Shadow Clone Jutsu!" The kunai becomes a sharp metal cluster piercing flesh and bone-like needles, skewering pin cushions. Jim rushes through another door, then kicks a wall locker down in front of it. Disfigured limbs and tentacles breach the narrow window on the door, forcing him to step back. He rips a grill from a ventilation shaft, then slides into a basement bumping into a janitor's carcass that swings like hanging meat from a rope near the rattling basement door.
Sections of the door bulge and splinter; dust puffs from its frame, threatening to separate from the wall. Jim wastes no time shimmying through an adjacent sliding window. The mutants swarm into the basement, biting and tearing into the dangling decedent. A hand reaches through the window brushing against Jim's heel. His eyes narrow at the rotting arm reaching for him and the abomination grabbing at him.
The mutant crashes into a dumpster in a cold, uninviting gap between decrepit buildings. It peaks over the edge; a laser inches towards the mutant's forehead. Jim releases the trigger; ionized chakra surges from the prototype weapon.
The mutant's head explodes like a balloon full of blood. Skull fragments and brain matter fly everywhere; its body slides back into the dumpster as Jim's smoking pistol cools. After activating the dumpster's compacter, he walks away from the building arming the explosive tags with a couple of hand seals. Jim pauses; a neon sign brightens on a billboard, 'Andrade's Pump n' Dump Fuel Depot!?'
"For fuck's sake!" with mere seconds until the explosive tags detonate, Jim sprints down the alleyway. He runs up the side of a wall, side-flips over a group of approaching mutants, then aims—with each shot, their skulls splatter like overripe watermelons. He grabs a wall-mounted flagpole, drives it through the remaining mutant's face, and takes cover.
The explosive tags on the kunai detonate, igniting the accumulating gas. Flames engulf the fuel depot; debris, then burning bodies fly through the windows landing on the fuel tankers and gas pumps. Explosions erupt onto the streets obliterating the mutants cramming into the building. Ash and debris fly everywhere, covering Jim in a shroud of darkness. A dense mass slams between his shoulder blades, knocking him to the ground. He rolls over, then fires at a smoking head and torso, trying to take a bite out of his leg like a quarter-pounder.
The mutant's eyes shoot from their sockets, and its brain catapults in the air like a champagne cork. The final superheated bolt of chakra obliterates the remainder of its skull. Blood pours from the mutant's shoulders like a fountain. Jim kicks the headless torso away, yet it begins crawling towards him. He scrambles to his feet, rips a piece of rebar from a ruined concrete wall then stomps on the torso to restrain it.
Blood gushes from its shredded neck as he applies pressure on the headless torso's back; Jim drives the rebar through its heart and pins it to the ground. Realization presents itself like ice water running down his spine. The now headless mutants stand and continue lurching after him. He backs away, clamoring at the sheer absurdity that befalls him. A hand grabs his leg, almost tripping him. He tries pulling his ankle from the torso's seared clutches, but a damp squishy mass impacts the top of his helmet.
Jim's eyes widen as blood drips down the sides of his helmet; the headless torso's brain slides off Jim's head, plopping on the ground. At his wit's end, he severs the torso's hand and pries its smoldering fingers from his ankle, yet the hand continues grabbing at him. Jim chucks it off in the distance; a faraway shriek follows, shattering glass, but his attention lies upon the approaching headless mutants. He clasps his hands, forming the snake hand-seal.
