Hey there guys, hope you all had a nice Christmas and Happy New Year! I know I did. Man, this has been a very relaxing time for me and if any of you are in college and thus are waiting for the next semester to start, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. Feels nice just to chill and not worry about much for now.
And now let's get on to the chapter!
Chapter 17
The group had gathered in a more isolated section of the mall's food court, wanting to keep a good distance away from the other survivors. For a few past moments, they had been discussing their next course of action. "Okay, I can understand that things are going bad with those other guys, but is leaving the mall really gonna be a good thing?" Rei asked.
Saya looked at her. "It's much better than staying here. We've been attacked by demons twice now and they made it in here without even trying. You saw how much trouble they gave us and there was only a few of them total. Waiting around for a possibly larger wave would be suicide."
Lady nodded at her words. "She has a point that you can't possibly deny," she said to Rei, who looked like she wanted to say something, but then decided not too. Lady smirked a bit at now being able to steer this conversation towards something else. "Alright then, now that we can all see that leaving is the best option, first thing first is where exactly should we go? Are there any other places in the area that we can hole up at for a while?"
Everyone in the group except for Dante as he didn't know the city, began to think a bit on that question. And it was a good question too. There weren't many places left that could be qualified as a good place to stay. The demons have already shown that even the largest and most fortified of places such as the mall can be easily broken into. A fact that brought up more questions to them: how did the demons find them so quickly? Were they tracking them for some reason? If so, how? And if not, then why is it that they, the group, end up in places that seem to naturally attract demons?
But for now, they chose to put those questions to the side until they actually think of a place to go to first. Takashi was the first of them to speak. "Well, there's really no place left to stay at for a while. All we can do at this point is just move around from place to place."
Saeko nodded at what he said. "Komuro-kun is right. This mall may be the most fortified place around, but it did us no good. Our only option is to stay in places for short periods of time before moving on. Unless we can find a way out of the city or help arrives, that is."
Everyone else pondered this for a moment. "So then I guess we should stick close to the residential areas right?" Kohta asked. "If we go deeper into the city, then we're just going to encounter more of Them, right?"
Lady crossed her arms under her breasts, her eyes closed in thought. "That is true. Getting closer to the downtown area would be a big risk with all of these zombies around. And if they are like those demonic ones Dante encountered then things are really going to be bad for us."
Dante sighed. "So, it looks like we're stuck between a rock and a hard place, huh? Go any further into the city and we're gonna be hacking through those 28 Days Later rip offs all day, but if we just keep to the residential places, we're not really going anywhere."
Lady was about to make another comment when a crash of sorts rang out. She let out a groan, her patience having been pushed far past its limit now. "God damn it, what now?"
She stomped off, fully intent on giving the mall survivors a piece of her mind if it turned out to be them that was causing the ruckus. However, her anger dissipated as she passed by the bed store and saw the survivors there, talking amongst themselves. Asami was there in the center, apparently trying to get herself back in control and restore the confidence she had in herself earlier.
"Ah Lady-san!" the young policewoman said.
Lady nodded at her. She looked over the whole group, making sure they were all there. Everyone was accounted for. "Did you just hear-?"
"A crash?" Asami replied, to which Lady nodded.
"Yeah. We really need to check it out. After everything we've all been through so far, we can't just sit around and wait for something to come to us now," Lady said.
Asami blinked a few times before nodding almost enthusiastically. Lady couldn't really blame her for the eagerness; having been unable to lend a hand earlier must have really made her feel helpless so this chance to do something must be like a godsend to her.
Dante, Takashi, and the rest of the group were now right behind Lady too, having followed her as soon as she had started walking off, but didn't say anything since they thought it best to remain quiet for now. At least until now. "Hey, anyone else plan on helping?" Dante asked the mall survivors.
They all looked taken aback a bit by his sudden question to them. They looked around amongst themselves for a moment before looking back at him. "I'll go with you guy to check it out. I feel like crap for not doing anything," a guy with short, light hair and a slight goatee said.
Dante and Lady turned to look at him, glancing over his build. The guy wasn't that tall, maybe a few inches shorter than Takashi and with a bit more of a stockier build that was hidden a bit by a jacket, but he looked like he could pull his weight. His cargo pants also gave them the slight hope that he may possibly be former military given their color, but they weren't betting on it given that people nowadays wear them quite a bit. And even if he was former military, the guy's glasses made the two devil hunters think he was a desk person. "What's your name?' Lady asked.
"Tamaru Hiro," he answered as he stood up, scratching his head.
"Alright then, thanks for volunteering. Now let's get moving," Lady practically commanded.
The group, Asami and Hiro now included, all nodded and they began to make their way out, but then one of the other mall survivors called out to them. "Hey, wait! What about us?" he asked.
Asami turned around to face him. "Ah, sorry, but for now, it'd be best for you all to remain here in this store. Wandering around might be a bad idea right now."
Dante nodded at that logic. "And in case of emergency, you guys can just bring down the gate so that no one can get in."
"And no one will be able to leave either," another survivor muttered.
"Well, hey, at least you'll live right?" Dante rolled his eyes. These people sure were damn hard to please. "Besides, if things are fine, we can just come back and open up the gate for you. Simple as that," he said. And with that, the group all walked away.
"Glad to finally be doing something. Being with those guys is fucking infuriating," Hiro said, something to which Lady grunted to in agreement.
"If you don't mind me asking, are you by chance former military?" Lady asked.
Hiro chuckled. "Nah, I'm just your every day twenty one year old slacker. I'm not old enough to be former military."
"Really now? You sure look the part," Dante said with a smirk, poking fun at how Hiro looked older than he said.
Hiro huffed. "Hey, I'll have you know that many fucking people have told me I look my damn age."
Dante stifled a laugh. "Sure. Whatever helps you stay cool."
"Could the two of you knock it off?" Saya practically growled. She couldn't believe how lax they were being. She could understand that Dante was more than a match for Them and the demons, but she still wondered if it would kill him to be more serious about the whole thing now that things were looking bad. Again.
Dante put up his arms as if to calm her down. "Touchy," he muttered.
"I heard that," Saya shot back.
Takashi sighed, but he had a smile on his face that no one could see since he was at the front of the group. Although Dante could be less of a jokester during these kind of times, it did bring a sense of normalcy to the group that he is sure wouldn't be if Dante and Lady weren't around.
It wasn't much longer until they got near the main entrance of the mall. The glare from the sun outside made it hard for anyone to see as it shined through the glass. Even Takashi and Dante were having a bit of a problem seeing. But while they couldn't see, they could hear and they could something, or rather multiple somethings now, coming from beyond the doors of the mall. When they adjusted to the light, they looked and the group fell deathly silent at what they saw.
Right outside the mall was a huge group of Them walking around, a good bunch of Them right up against the glass doors, banging into it, which would catch the attention of more of their undead comrades and lure them towards the entrance.
"What the fuck? Just what the fuck?" Hiro muttered.
"How did they get past the barricade? There's no way they could have muscled their way through it!" Lady said aloud.
Alice merely took a step behind Shizuka and the others, Zeke held in her arms. "What are we going to do about Them?" she asked.
"Well, we can't just let Them pound away," Takashi replied to no one in particular, his eyes not leaving the decaying faces of the zombies.
They fell silent once more, the only noise being that generated from the constant slamming of the undead into the glass. "Pretty tough glass," Kohta commented.
"Glass doors are built sturdy nowadays so that people looking to burglarize places like this won't be able to get in by smashing through the door," Saya said, "looks like it's working to our advantage now."
"Well kid, that still doesn't mean we should just leave them be," Dante said as he turned around.
"Where are you going, Dante-san?" Asami asked.
He pointed up. "Through the hole Sparky made so that I can get out there. Better than going through the door there and risk letting them get in," Dante replied before continuing on.
"I'll come too," Takashi said as he followed after Dante.
"Me too," Kohta added. He hefted his machine gun. "I can take out some of Them from above."
Rei narrowed her eyes a bit as she tried to see something off in the distance behind the undead. "No, wait. Wait, something's up," she nearly muttered.
Everyone stopped and looked at her. Takashi approached her and looked in the same direction she was looking in. "See something wrong?"
Rei was silent for a few seconds before answering. "Could have sworn I did."
"Well, I'm not gonna wait around to see if there is something there, not if I can just get it on the end of my sword," Dante said before resuming his walk. That is, until he and the others heard noise from outside that didn't come from the zombies in sight.
"Did… anyone just hear… blades?" Hiro asked, unsure of how exactly to describe what he had just heard. It had sounded like steel against the ground. And it was happening frequently.
"Ah shit," Dante muttered.
As soon as he said that, demonified zombies made their way onto the scene, coming from an unknown way into the area. Just like before, they were part Scarecrow, their limbs disfigured into blades that looked like it could slice through flesh like tissue paper. Some that had the blades in placement of a leg would leap over the barricade rather than come from wherever it was that the other zombies, both normal and demonifed, had entered.
"Those are the ones you were telling us about?" Rei exclaimed to Dante.
He didn't reply. "We better get moving."
Takashi and Kohta, a little startled by the appearance of these new zombies, just nodded stupidly a bit before Takashi got serious, a sudden change that Lady watched from the corner of her eyes and approved of. Takashi turned to Hiro. "Go back to the others and let them know what's going on. Get them moving to somewhere else. We're going to make a run for it."
Hiro raised an eyebrow. "But what about the whole thing with the store gate?"
Takashi looked him dead in the eyes, something that made Hiro unconsciously take a step back because of how serious he looked. "I kinda doubt it would last long against the blades of those things."
Hiro looked through the glass and at the approaching demonic zombies' bladed limbs, noting their size and sharpness. "Right," he said before taking off.
"I better go with him. Someone is going to have to keep an eye on them after all," Saya nearly growled out, not liking it, but knowing she has to be there since she is the most logical person.
"Yeah. Okay," Takashi replied.
Saya grabbed hold of Alice and called for Shizuka to come with her too since they weren't ones for fighting.
Takashi saw that the only people remaining were himself, Rei, Saeko, Kohta, Dante, and Lady. "Let's move." They all broke into a run to get to the center of the mall where the Blitz had entered only to stop suddenly as they observed the hole in the ceiling. "How are we going to get up there?" Takashi thought.
No sooner had those words crossed his mind had Dante leapt high into the air and out the hole. Takashi and the others, excluding Lady, gaped a bit at him. "Come on kid, don't let me outdo you," Dante nearly snickered before taking off.
That snapped them out of their stupor. Lady hefted Kalina Ann off her back and took aim at the side of the hole. A grappling hook shot out and latched itself onto the edge of hole. "One of you, come with me," she said, nodding in their general direction.
Much to Takashi's surprise - and most likely to the surprise of Rei and Saeko as well – Kohta stepped forward. When he was close enough, Lady wrapped an arm around him and he did likewise. Another second passed by before Lady hit the switch on her Kalina Ann to bring them up.
"Now it's just us," Takashi noted aloud. He looked at both Rei and Saeko before blushing lightly. "Er, you might want to grab hold of me," he said a little sheepishly.
The two girls did so, their faces tinted a little red. When Takashi felt them grab on tight, he wrapped his arms around them and took a deep breath, hoping that he could make the jump. If not, that would be rather embarrassing .
He crouched down a bit before jumping as high as he possibly can. Rei let out a sharp 'whoa!' at the speed of the jump. Saeko was as surprised as Rei, but she hid it better, her eyes only widening. Takashi himself seemed surprised, but he wasn't about to let anyone know that.
He landed on the ledge of the hole with as much grace as he could muster, having never done this before. Dante, having watched the hole thing from the edge repressed his urge to chuckle. Laughing at Takashi's expense could wait for later.
He walked over to the ledge of the building and took a look down. The zombies were now all crowded around the doors to the mall. The demonic ones were still some distance away, moving as slowly as their normal brethren. The only ones that seemed to be exceptions to this were the ones with blades replacing one of their legs, being able to skip rather than shamble.
"Holy crap," Kohta muttered, getting a good look at the number of Them.
"They sure came here fast," Lady commented, walking next to Dante.
Dante snorted. "And they're about to leaving to. To Hell anyway." And with that, he jumped right off the roof and into the swarm of Them below.
Right before landing, he pulled out Rebellion and lobbed off a few heads with a flick of his hand. Kicking another one away, he reached into his coat with his left hand and pulled out Ivory and put a bullet in another zombie's head.
"He sure doesn't waste time," Rei commented.
"And neither can we now. Komuro-kun, we should give him a hand," Saeko said.
Takashi nodded, grabbing hold of the girls and dropped off the ledge, landing away from the zombies to avoid being swarmed. "You alright?" he asked the girls, to which they nodded.
Letting go of them, he summoned Gilgamesh so that he wouldn't have to worry about the zombies trying to bit his hands or shins. At the same time, Saeko unsheathed her sword while Rei hefted her bayonet equipped gun.
Meanwhile, Kohta remained on the roof, moving his machine gun into place while Lady also leapt from the roof to help out. She rolled as she landed in order to avoid the brunt of the impact as she was human after all. Getting up quickly, she whipped out two pistols and began to unload on the nearest zombies, her bullets hitting dead center in the forehead. It was only a few seconds more before the ground was littered with the blood and brains of the undead. But there were still many more to go.
Takashi took note of the still approaching demonic ones and figured that it'd be best to take them out now before they get closer and prove themselves a hassle. Charging at the closest one, he cocked back his fist and unleashed a fierce straight right at the demonic zombie's face. It slammed into it with such force that it almost sounded like a grenade going off. But all the punch did was crack its face in a bit.
"Man, they really are more durable," Takashi muttered, having expected it since Dante told him and the group so. He just didn't expect the difference to be this much. Good thing for him, he didn't put that much strength into the punch, so it was good to know that they were still relatively weak.
The now hurt zombie raised its blade arm and tried to bring it down on the teenaged half-devil, but Takashi blocked it with his gauntlet before kicking it away. He threw another punch at its face, but apparently, the eating of a Scarecrow not only made it stronger, but also a bit smarter as it seemed to sense the impending attack and begin to move to the left to avoid it. however, it wasn't fast enough as Takashi's fist crashed into its face, a sickening crack ringing out.
The undead staggered back and it was unable to recover as Takashi unloaded a quick three hit combo on it, making sure every attack was aimed at the head. With every hit, its head looked worse and worse as Takashi was hitting harder now, but the last punch finally did the demonic undead in as Takashi was able to actually punch a hole in its head, something that would definitely kill a person, demonically empowered or not. As the body slumped to the ground, Takashi surveyed the other approaching ones, noting that the next one coming had a blade for a leg. And it seemed to be moving very fast now. "Now this will be problem," he thought.
Meanwhile, Rei and Saeko, as much as they seemed to not get along now, were fighting alongside one another. Rei stabbed a zombie with her spear-like gun before kicking it hard. The zombie dropped to the ground dead, a small hole where its brain was at. As soon as it hit the pavement, Saeko moved forward and sliced off the head of the one behind it.
"Tell me again why we're out here," Rei said as she moved back from a somewhat lunging zombie.
"The glass doors to the mall may be reinforced, but given time they will shatter. We can't allow Them to continue pounding away on the doors. And if those demonic ones are as strong as Dante-san says, we can't allow them to get any closer; the doors wouldn't hold under their strength," Saeko calmly replied despite the situation.
She walked forward slowly, taking up a defensive stance as she was slowly being surrounded by a few of Them. Looking over very briefly to where Dante was, she saw him bring down Rebellion in a vicious yet masterful diagonal swing down on a zombie before bringing it back up in to slice the head off another one and then spinning around to cut down a few more. The last swing didn't slice off all of their heads as they were all of differing height, but the ones that did survive the attack were put to rest by quick shots from Dante's handguns.
Saeko couldn't help but admire his swordsmanship in that moment and was even a bit inspired by it. Forgoing her defensive posture, she moved forward and brought down her sword in a diagonal swing just like Dante. The sword easily cut through the deteriorating flesh of the nearest undead, its head now rendered two. Moving away from it, Saeko faced the one to her left and once again imitated Dante's attack by going for its head with an upwards swing. The zombie's fate was the same as the one before. And lastly, she spun around, coming face to face with two more zombies. She swung her sword once more and sliced cleanly through the neck of one while the other one, a taller one, merely got cut across its right shoulder.
Saeko prepared to strike it down, but then a shot rang out and the tall zombie dropped. Turning around, Saeko looked up to see Kohta smirking a bit, apparently enjoying this chance to shoot down Them. Kohta gave a nod and Saeko returned the gesture and both continued on.
Dante, having watched this amidst fighting, whistled. "Looks like I won't have to worry about teaching her after all." He backhanded a zombie, the force of the blow destroying its head easily. "Now how about we crank this up a notch?" he said to himself.
Lunging forward, Dante swung Rebellion with one hand, cutting down a few of Them and immediately after the swing, he lashed out with a kick to another's head. Blood spilled forth from the head as his foot met with it, but Dante ignored it and instead pulled out Ebony and picked off several approaching zombies.
Not too far away from him was Lady, who was spraying bullets into the heads of the surrounding zombies with deadly accuracy. She spied Dante out of the corner of her eyes and had to keep herself from sighing. "He just doesn't know the meaning of restraint," she thought, but not in an unpleasant way. In fact, she thought that Dante's tenacity in some cases proved to be very useful when in situations like this.
"I better try harder too," she commented to herself.
A zombie made its way towards her in what Lady guessed was its version of a lunge. She easily sidestepped it and tripped the undead and as soon as it hit the ground, she blasted its brains out. But she didn't stop there. Turning around to a somewhat large crowd of Them, she hefted Kalina Ann off her back, smacking aside a zombie that was to her right with it in the process. Taking aim at the group, she fired off a missile at Them. The zombies let out one last groan before it struck, the resulting explosion being so large and powerful that Lady nearly felt it in her bones. But she shook off the feeling quickly as pieces of the zombies flew near her, forcing her to take several steps back.
However, she bumped into another zombie coming from behind, but before it could move to grab her, Lady grabbed hold of its arm and shoulder tossed it, taking advantage of its poor balance. Letting go of its arm afterwards, Lady raised the Kalina Ann and slammed the butt of it into the undead's face with as much force as she can muster. It took serious damage from the hit, but it was still moving, prompting Lady to hit it again, this time around being the killing blow.
Taking a step away from the body, Lady spared a brief second to look around. The numbers of Them have dwindled considerably thanks to her efforts as well as everyone else's, but that didn't change the fact that the entrance they were using to get in was still there. And apparently, the entrance was being forced into becoming larger as for every one of Them Lady and the others seemed to kill, three or four more seemed to approach them.
Looking back on the group's decision to come out and thin the numbers, Lady thought that it was a very good move for there was no doubt that the mall doors would have crumbled under the sheer numbers. But she noted that it may have been a bad move too for they were running a serious risk here. Lady could tell that while they were fine now, it wouldn't be long before she, Rei, and Saeko would grow fatigued. Kohta would run out of bullets eventually, although from the sounds of the shots ringing out, he was doing a good job so far on conserving ammo. And eventually even Takashi and Dante would grow tired from the numbers should things proceed as they are.
"Shit, this really is starting to get bad," Lady thought. She may have the Kalina Ann to wipe out large crowds of Them, but Dante had much more options available to him and easily had more stamina than anyone else in the group. If he gets tired then their chances of getting out of here alive and not bitten drop considerably. Granted, that would take some time to happen, but it was still a risk, one that was becoming more of an inevitability at the rate zombies kept appearing.
"Please just don't let the noise attract any demons," she muttered.
Lady then got her mind back onto the matter at hands and picked up from where she left off, the zombies having shifted their attention to Dante, Rei, and Saeko as Lady had ceased making noise a moment ago. But she certainly wasn't silent anymore. Running over to where Dante was, Lady opted for her machine guns rather than her handguns in this situation. Not wasting another second, she sprayed the nearest bunch of zombies with bullets until they resembled a gory version of swish cheese.
"Finally finished up in your corner huh?" Dante commented from where he was.
"Oh shut up and focus on them," Lady retorted, getting a snicker from Dante.
But the cheerfulness he seemed to feel suddenly vanished as he blasted a zombie in the face and looked right behind it. "Lady?" he called out, still shooting at the surrounding undead without shifting his gaze.
"What?" she replied, focusing on the zombies from their rear.
"Looks like we just got some party crashers," Dante said.
Lady looked over her shoulder to see what he was talking about and was rewarded with a sight that didn't please her one bit. "I just had to call it, didn't I?" she thought.
Too far away to be of worry at the moment, but close enough to be seen was a Mega Scarecrow, shambling its way towards the mall. To its sides were a small group of Scarecrows, who were lumbering towards them at about the same speed as their larger brethren.
But then a roar rang out from another direction. Dante and Lady immediately looked in the direction it came from, having killed off the zombies closest to them for the moment. At first, they saw nothing, just the barricade off in the distance, but not even a second after noting that, three Assault came leaping over it.
A loud thud occurred, alerting everyone else to their arrival now. Even the zombies seemed to stop going after Rei and Saeko and slowly shift their attention to the Assaults. But the Assaults ignored Them and instead had their sights focused on the devil hunters. One growled out before they all began to charge at the duo.
"Well, this looks bad," Dante said.
"More than bad," Lady said.
And with that, the devil hunters quickly prepared to greet the new arrivals.
There we go! Man, looks like I was right; the chapters are really getting longer. Makes me wonder how long they'll be getting once I really do get close to the end.
Anyways, as you can see, the shit has really hit the fan, at least more than before if that were possible. And all I can say is that if you think it's bad now, it'll actually get even worse soon.
I hope you all enjoyed the chapter. Please be sure to review too.