Hey guys. Once again, I apologize for the wait. Man, even though my college classes lately have been relatively stress-free and easy, all I feel like doing when getting home is just do whatever homework I have and then relax with some games or reading up on new manga chapters (Bastard! is one awesome manga. I highly recommend it). That and for a little while, I had a bit of a case of writer's block. That really sucked.
Thankfully though, finals are over with so now I have the winter off to focus on this fic.
Here's the new one though. Hope you enjoy.
Chapter 16
The Mephisto stayed in place before Dante and Saeko, seemingly sizing them up. Deciding to go with what it believed to be the weaker of the two, it aimed its deathly thin finger at Saeko. While it had guessed right in her being the weaker one, it had certainly underestimated her as when it fired its finger, Saeko was quick to bring up her sheathed sword again to deflect the finger to the side.
Almost immediately afterwards, she pulled her sword out from its sheath and tried to slice the finger clean off. However, the finger retracted just as the sword was about to make contact and so Saeko only chipped off a small part of it. If the Mephisto felt pain from the graze, it didn't show it, instead flying right at Saeko. It was cut off from its course by a short volley of bullets courtesy of Dante.
Dante paused for a brief second before letting loose another burst of gun fire, forcing the demon to break into zig-zag pattern. The Mephisto soon found itself hard pressed to dodge as it unintentionally ended up moving straight towards the devil hunter himself and Dante decided to welcome its close contact with Rebellion. Pulling the huge sword off his back, Dante took a lightning quick swing at the Mephisto. The demon managed to stop itself and pull back a bit, narrowly avoiding the sword, but a small part of its shadowy cloak paid the price as it seemed to just disappear as a result of the strike.
However, while it was able to escape relatively unscathed from Dante's attack, it didn't anticipate Saeko charging at it from behind. By the time it did, Saeko had already swung her sword sideways, the blade passing right through its cloak and actually making contact with the Mephisto's flesh.
However, while it was basically the demonic version of a big bug, the Mephisto was quite resilient, proven when Saeko's sword only dug into its flesh a few inches rather than the blade going cutting completely through it.
Saeko had anticipated the demon to be tough, but not for its skin to be this hard and so she had to exert a bit of effort in drawing the sword back out. As soon as she did, she ducked immediately, the Mephisto swinging its tail out from under its cloak at her.
It raised a finger to strike Saeko before she could move again, but Dante wasn't about to let that happen. Pulling out Coyote-A, he blasted the demon right in its back. The blast definitely took it by surprise and due to the close proximity of the shot, most of its cloak was now gone, leaving its vulnerable body open.
Dante backed up a bit, glancing only briefly at Saeko. "All yours," he said. He hadn't been kidding when he told Takashi earlier on the roof that he wouldn't play savior all the time and now he was planning to demonstrate that with Saeko here. He just hoped that she would understand.
Apparently, she did as she nodded once in understanding and proceeded to launch herself at the demon, hoping to hit it before it can continue to move. Unfortunately, the shotgun blast hadn't stunned the Mephisto for long and it began to raise its finger once more as Saeko neared. Out of pure instinct honed by her sword training from over the years, Saeko raised her sword and using the hilt of it, knocked the Mephisto's finger to the side as it was about to extend. Immediately afterwards, she slashed upwards at an angle with as much strength as she can muster in hopes of cutting into the demon deeper than before. She turned with the swing to put as much of her body weight into it as possible as well and it seemed as if this paid off as the sword sunk in the skin of her demonic foe more than before by a considerable amount.
The Mephisto certainly seemed to be feeling the pain more this time than the first as well for it began to writhe a bit as it struggled to pull away. But when it tried, Dante walked up and kicked it down hard, the demon cracking the floor as it slammed into it.
Despite the damage the kick did, the Mephisto was persistent in trying to get back up, but it didn't get too far along in its struggle when Saeko stabbed it dead center in the back with her sword. The stab had pierced its skin a bit, but the demon still tried to move, causing for Saeko to raise her sword and stab again in the same place. It went in deeper than before and apparently the wound was deep enough to make the Mephisto stop struggling as fiercely, but she knew that given the chance it would make its move so Saeko stabbed again and again, the Mephisto moving less time.
It wasn't until she had stabbed it nearly ten times that the Mephisto finally stopped moving entirely, letting out a piercing squeal of sorts before finally dying. A green liquid that Saeko supposed was its blood slowly began to leak out of the wounds it suffered.
A moment passed in silence as Dante walked towards the demon's corpse and nudged it, just to make sure it was dead. As he did so, Saeko let out a deep breath that she wasn't aware she was holding. Then she nearly fell to one knee, but Dante saw it coming and steadied her before she could fall.
"Thank you," she said to him, a little tired. Stabbing the Mephisto was rather exhausting, especially given how hard she had to do it in order to puncture its deceptively tough skin.
"Good job kid. You've killed your first demon. You really crushed him like a bug," Dante said, snickering a bit at the lame pun he just did. Saeko, although tired, couldn't help but chuckle a bit too.
A moment later though, the two grew serious. "Now let's see how the kid is doing," Dante commented. He looked off in the direction that Takashi was in, determining this fact from the noise he was hearing. "You alright?' he asked Saeko.
She stood to her feet. "I'll be fine. Let's go." And with that, they both went off to join Takashi and the others.
As they did so, Takashi was still dealing with the Mephisto and having a slightly hard time. After the first hit he had landed on it with Gilgamesh, the Mephisto had apparently wised up and was keeping its distance. Kohta and Saya were providing gun support from afar, but the Mephisto was proving to be cautious, keeping a good distance away from the duo as well. While Kohta was helping a lot thanks to his gun skill, Saya wasn't fairing too well even with instruction from Kohta on how to accurately aim the gun.
"Damn," Takashi muttered. He was trying to land hits on the demon, but he was at a disadvantage here being a hand-to-hand fighter while the Mephisto was built for range. A bad match up that Takashi immediately recognized.
His mind was furiously trying to process how to approach his opponent when out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kohta gesturing with his thumb, pointing to Takashi's right. It took a few seconds to figure out what he meant, but when Takashi did, he nodded quickly, in case the Mephisto could somehow understand that a plan of sorts has been made.
He immediately rushed at the Mephisto, or at least that's what it seemed like at first, when Takashi cut to the left. The second he did that, Kohta and Saya opened fire to Takashi's right, more specifically, right next to the Mephisto. The demon, sensing the incoming bullets, moved to its right… right into the path of Takashi.
It seemed to realize what was going to happen next as it tried to maneuver out of the way, but Takashi was faster than it, something that worked against it right now as Takashi lashed out with a fierce punch straight to the Mephisto's head. The attack connected even as the Mephisto was able to duck under it a bit, Takashi's fist slamming into the upper part of its bug-like cranium.
The hit knocked the Mephisto for a loop, the demon practically sailing across the room, but it pulled off a mid-air recovery and turned its attention to the ones that it believed to be responsible for the successful ploy: Kohta and Saya.
"Uh oh," Kohta muttered, a little bead of sweat on his head as the Mephisto seemed to actually glare at him despite its never-closing bug eyes. It stayed in place for a brief second longer before launching itself at the two gunners on the floor above.
"Oh shit!" Takashi yelled, not expecting it to move so fast when focused. He leapt as high as he could, hoping to intercept the Mephisto before it could reach Kohta and Saya, but the two, while more than surprised at its blinding speed, still had enough of their wits about them to open fire at the oncoming demon.
The intense hail of bullets that they unleashed struck the Mephisto hard, most piercing through its cloak while others struck the demon itself. This assault successfully stopped the Mephisto long enough for Takashi to appear above it, fist cocked. The gauntlet worn crackled briefly with demonic energy before Takashi brought his fist down on his target. The fist hit home and the Mephisto was knocked into the floor hard, ruining a good portion of it beyond any repair.
The impact was strong enough to destroy whatever remained of its cloak, leaving the demon completely vulnerable. However, that didn't mean it was incapable of moving. The Mephisto began to scurry away, covering a rather impressive distance before Takashi landed. "Oh no you don't," he said, lunging for it, but just as with the Blitz earlier in the day, this Mephisto proved to be more spry and intelligent compared to others for as soon as Takashi was about to get it, the Mephisto suddenly jumped, just barely making it over Takashi's head. But that was it all needed as the half-demon shot right under it, yelping in surprise as he skidded across the floor.
As he quickly got back up, Takashi could've sworn the demon was laughing at him. If it was, it didn't do so for long as Kohta and Saya had made their way down and were unloaded on it. That is, until Saya ran out of bullets. "Damn it!" she muttered, reaching into her pocket for some more bullets that Kohta had the foresight of giving to her before coming to Takashi's aid. But while she had been improving slowly with her shooting as the fight went on, she didn't have any experience reloading at the any sort of speed approaching Kohta's reload speed and so in her haste, she dropped most of the bullets.
Cursing, she tried to make a move for the bullets now rolling across the floor, but then Kohta ran out of ammo too. The Mephisto, having been scurrying around to avoid the bullets, stopped, pleased that it had a chance to attack now. A darkness began to surround it, its cloak beginning to reform, but before it could get too far, Takashi showed up next to it in the blink of an eye and kicked it hard in the side. This effectively stopped the return of the Mephisto's cloak and knocked said demon down.
Dazed but certainly not down, the bug-like demon pulled itself together as fast as possible, once more resuming its scurrying away tactic. However, it did not anticipate something being thrown from the floor above. A gun with a bayonet attached to it flew down and due to the height of the drop, it built up enough speed to actually pierce clean through the back of the Mephisto. Takashi looked up to the second floor. "Rei!" he practically exclaimed, seeing said girl on the second floor letting out a sigh, evidently happy at being able to hit the intended target.
She took a quick breath and nodded to Takashi, a smile on her face. Takashi returned a smile of his own and then focused his attention on the hurt Mephisto. It cried out in pain from being stabbed all the way through and it tried to move, but found itself unable to move much; the bayonet was rather large and the weight of the gun it was attached to was taking its toll on the demon's small, frail body.
"Not so tough now, huh?" Takashi muttered as he approached the helpless demon. The Mephisto made a sound that could have possibly passed for a squeal. Takashi flinched a bit as the loud noise hurt his ears, but did not slow his pace until he got close. The Mephisto looked up at him when he was less than a foot away, but it didn't do so for too long for at that moment, Takashi raised his right leg, the grieve crackling intensely during this movement. He held his leg in place for the briefest of seconds before bringing down in a wicked axe-kick so strong that when the grieve made contact with the demon, its skull practically exploded from the force of it. In fact, Takashi almost yelped a bit and moved back as the Mephisto's green blood spurted out from the now ruined body.
"That… was nasty," he muttered under his breath. He then turned to look at Kohta and Saya. "Thanks for the help." He gave them a smile.
Kohta grinned, trying to puff his chest out to look cool. "You're welcome, but next time, make sure the demon doesn't get too close to us," Saya complained from where she stood next to Kohta, but she had a small smile on her face that said she wasn't actually mad.
Takashi chuckled sheepishly before looking back up at Rei. "Thanks."
She laughed a bit. "No problem."
They shared a smile, but it wasn't long before the little moment was ruined by the sound of clapping. "Not bad." Dante was walking towards to Takashi, Saeko following behind him.
"Where were you at?" Takashi asked.
"We got tied up with one of its buddies," Dante simply explained.
"And after killing it, we came to help Komuro-kun, but Dante-san insisted on staying back to see how you did," Saeko said, her statement knocking the grin off Dante's face.
"You just had to tell him, huh?" Dante muttered.
"You were watching the whole time?" Rei asked incredulously as she came down the nearby stairs. "How come you didn't help?" She leveled her best glare at Dante, but he didn't seem affected by it.
"It's alright Rei. I know he hung back," Takashi said, stepping in between the two. He turned to Dante. "You wanted to see if the others and I can deal with demons."
The devil hunter chuckled. "I told you so on the roof. Glad to see that you were listening."
Takashi opened his mouth to speak, but didn't when he and the others heard gunfire. "What the fuck?"
Immediately, they all sprung into action, all of them heading for the stairs as they heard screams now. Dante made it up the stairs first, followed by Takashi, Kohta, Saya, and lastly Rei, who had pulled the bayonet and gun out of the Mephisto's smashed corpse as quickly as she could when the shots were heard.
They all ran towards the source of the gunfire, only to visibly flinch in worry when it stopped suddenly, only for the sound of an explosion to rattle their ears a second later. The only one who seemed perfectly calm at this was Dante. "Well, looks like we didn't have to worry."
"What? Why do you say that?" Kohta asked him, for Dante had suddenly stopped running, the action making them come to a halt as well.
Dante was about to respond as he rounded a corner to where the shots and explosion came from, but didn't for when he did make the turn, someone all but flew right at him. "Whoa!" Dante said, completely taken off guard by this. It was so sudden that he actually stumbled back a bit. In his arms was none other than Shizuka.
"Ahh, Dante-san, you alright?" she asked, her expression, which Takashi and the others got a look at, went from rather scared to concerned.
He laughed it off as he regained his balance. "Ah, don't sweat it. What happened?"
"This happened," Lady said, approaching them from where Shizuka had apparently come from, a smoking machine gun in one hand and what appeared to be the remains of another Mephisto in the other. The Kalina Ann was slightly hanging off her right shoulder, indicating that it was used just recently. Behind her stood Alice and Zeke. She unceremoniously dropped the body onto the floor. She looked at Dante and Shizuka and quirked an eyebrow. "Am I interrupting something here?"
At first, no one got what she meant until they looked at the two and noticed how close they were to each other, Dante with his hands almost around Shizuka and vice versa due to how hard she had crashed into the man. Shizuka, realizing this, immediately let go, mumbling out apologies, but Dante once more waved them off. Lady watched this scene with a hint of amusement while the others chuckled, Alice laughing at them outright almost. Even Zeke seemed to be chuckling by the sound of his bark. Some of the mall survivors, presumably the ones that screamed, slowly appeared behind Lady at that moment.
"Is it dead?" one asked nervously.
"It is. Clearly." Lady turned to face them, all traces of amusement gone.
"Damn it, ever since you people showed up, this kind of shit never happened!" another yelled, having quickly regained his wits now that they were out of danger again.
"And? What's next? You want to say that these zombies are around because of us too? Demons would have shown up eventually and most likely would have tried to kill you all. Just be thankful that we're here," Lady stated, more than infuriated by these people. She knew that most people didn't know demons existed and when they found out would try to deny it, but not like this.
She turned to Dante. "Next time this happens, you stay with them." She pointed to the mall survivors.
"You plan to pay me to do that?" Dante joked, not able to resist poking a little fun at her for money. It's been quite some time since he's had to pay her and now was a good time to get away with wrecking things without paying. Granted, it was like a damn apocalypse right now, but it never hurt to have humor.
Lady rolled her eyes. "You wish. If anything, you should be compensating me for having to stick with them all the time."
"And you! You said help would be coming, but you lied to us!" The group turned to the mall survivors to see that they were now focusing on Asami, who had apparently been at the back of the group.
"What's going on?" Rei asked.
"She lied to us about help coming. Her police buddy is dead," Dante answered stoically.
She and the others certainly got thrown for a loop by that. "So help isn't coming then," Kohta muttered.
Lady didn't comment, instead focusing on the crowd of people verbally assaulting Asami, who had her head down. Lady didn't doubt for a second that right now Asami was feeling utterly useless. The mall people were definitely not helping her feel better.
"Enough!" she yelled, "she may have lied to you all, but you should fucking thankful that she did! Because she lied, you were all able to keep calm and work things out despite some disagreements, but if you had known the truth from the start, there's no doubt that you all would be insane by now out of fear."
Her words shut them up fast, especially due to how harshly she said them. Some of them seemed to sober up a bit at what she said, others seemed angry, but regardless of how they felt, they were all silent and mellow now and that was good enough for Lady at the moment. She nodded to Asami, who flashed a grateful smile in return.
Turning back to the group, Lady spoke again. "Let's go."
Saya raised an eyebrow. "Where?"
"Out of this mall," Lady replied.
That got a reaction out of them. "Leave the mall?" Takashi said, "why?"
Lady looked him dead in the eyes. "Earlier today, a Blitz attacked us and just now, judging from all the noise, it looks like it wasn't just me that got attack by a Mephisto." That made them all share a look. "We've been attacked twice today and within a very short time frame too. That right there should tell you all that things are going to escalate."
That got them all thinking. "That's true. And while the survivors are mellow now thanks to you, chances are they will just start up again the next time demons come," Saya mused out loud.
Lady nodded at her point. "Exactly. And if we stay here and more demons come, we run the risk of accidently destroying the blockade we have up outside should the fight spill out of the mall. That'll just make it easy for the zombies to march their way in."
"One thing after another," Kohta muttered.
"So leaving the mall may not be such a bad idea after all," Saeko surmised. She looked at Lady. "But that just brings up another question: where would we go?"
Lady pondered that for moment. "I don't know yet. It's not as if Dante and I are familiar enough with this area to know where to go."
"So I guess that means it's up to you kids to figure that part out," Dante said.
"Great. And I was just beginning to like this place," Takashi said after a sigh. His sarcasm got another short chuckle from everyone.
Meanwhile, outside of the mall, the zombies that circled around the barricade were beginning to focus their attention on the mall. For a while now they have been hearing much noise come from the place, mainly due to the fighting that went on inside earlier. At first, they did not do anything, remaining the same as before the noise occurred: circling aimlessly around the area. But during Dante's battle with the Blitz earlier, the attack from Pandora had not only blown off the demon's head, but the beam also traveled and blew off a good portion of the barricade as well. However, due to the distance and angle, Dante didn't notice it as he left to dump the Blitz, leaving it open to Them. But they didn't enter then because the only noise they had heard after that had come from Dante's disappearing footsteps and themselves.
But that was then. Now, with the recent noise, the undead were aware of those inside the mall and so they began to circle the barricade with the intent to get in. It wasn't very long before they found the way in.
And on the street that Dante had dumped the Blitz's corpse at, another wave of Them was approaching, walking without any real purpose down the street. Had Takashi and the others been there, they wouldn't have recognized a majority of the zombies, but they definitely would have recognized several: some of Them were students that had been on the bus with Shidou. One of them was the boy, Tsunoda that said he didn't like Takashi all that time ago on the bus. The zombie next to him was the girl, Yuuki Miku, who had used her well endowed figure to get the group's way into Souichirou's home. And in front of them stood none other than Shidou himself, now a zombie.
The group moaned collectively, walking in a straight line down the street. No noise was present so there was nothing to distract them. However, some walked a little faster then others and so some of Them were knocked to the side. This was the case with the zombified Shidou when the undead Miku accidently bumped into him from the side, causing him to stumble into the side of a dumpster. The same one that Dante had dumped the Blitz in.
When the undead Shidou bumped into it, the lid flew open briefly and due to the lack of balance the zombie teacher had as well as the momentum from the light bump, he got halfway into the dumpster before the lid closed on him, pinning him on the waist. However, Shidou was still within reach of the Blitz's corpse.
When the lid slammed shut on the zombie, it caused the one of the Blitz's legs to fall from its previous position and hit the dumpster. That alerted Shidou to something being there. Reaching out with his arms, Shidou grabbed hold of part of the dead demon and pull himself closer to it until he was completely inside the dumpster. Then Shidou began to feed.
All right! Wow, 4,329 words (excluding this, of course)! And I thought the last chapter was long, but this took the cake.
Thank you to everyone who has been favoriting this fic! Every time I would open up my email and see that people are still favoriting this fic makes me so extremely happy! It makes me glad to know that people are really enjoying this.
Anyways, things are going to be heating up even more for the group very soon! Man, I'm just throwing crap at them all the time now that I think of it, but then again, this is a zombie/demon apocalypse.
Okay given how long this chapter took me to do, chances are the next one will take up even more time, so there is most definitely no way that it will be done before Christmas. So in that case, Merry Christmas to you all! And should the next chapter prove to take longer than I think it will and I end up not posting it by the end of December, then let me also wish you a Happy New Year.
Thanks again for reading and please be sure to leave a review.