Well, the new college semester just started this week so I will be putting out new chapters later than usual. Ah, sure hope I can get through this semester with relative ease; the break felt too short to me. Oh well.
Anyways, here is the next chapter!
Chapter 18
Dante and Lady knew instinctively that if they didn't take out the demons now, things were really going to get ugly. Dante readied Rebellion as an Assault charged its ways towards him, letting out an ear-numbing roar. Dante winced at the volume of it. "Ouch. Can't you tone it down there, you wannabe lizard?"
Naturally, his sarcastic question went unnoticed by the one it was addressed to as the Assault pulled back its shielded arm and took a massive swing at the devil hunter. Dante blocked the hit with the flat side of his sword and pushed the demon back, only for it to launch another punch as soon as it regained its balance. Dante smacked the fist aside this time and responded with one of his own punches. The attack landed hard against the demon's jaw, knocking back a bit.
However, its two brethren took this moment to jump in now. One came at Dante directly while the other leapt into the air. The one on the ground went in low, intent to take out Dante's legs with a quick swipe at them, but Dante moved to the side to avoid it. however, the one above choose that exact moment to come crashing down on the devil hunter, who brought up his sword to try and stab the incoming demon. But the airborne Assault had anticipated Dante's counter and had raised its shielded arm ahead of time to block it. Its feet struck Dante on the side of his head and it actually ended up knocking him down.
But Dante didn't stay down for long though for the as the Assault landed, he spun on his back to get back up, one foot hitting the demon in the process. The Assault was stunned from the hit and so was unable to avoid the leg sweep that Dante did with his other leg right after that. Upon getting back to his feet, Dante immediately went for the kill by trying to bring down Rebellion and lob the Assault's head off. The key word being tried as halfway through the swing, the one already close by and the one he knocked back earlier made their way into the fight by trying to tackle him. Dante was able to stop his swing and respond quickly enough to one, but the other managed to get through his hastily put up defense and crash into him.
But it didn't push him back far for Lady chose that particular moment to step in, unloading a volley of machine gun fire into the Assault's side. Since it was so focused on Dante just now, the demon hadn't expected Lady and so was helpless against the short but relentless gunfire. Blood poured out of the bullet holes as the Assault staggered back from Dante, a roar emitting from the wounded demon.
The noise the Assaults had made earlier when they appeared had already drawn the attention of a small group of Them, but the pain-filled roar just now served to have more slowly begin to make their way towards the devil hunting duo.
"Shit, we can't afford to drag out this fight otherwise, everything demonic or dead here will just come towards us," Lady thought as she heard the moaning of the now approaching undead.
She looked back at the Assault she just shot in time to see Dante kick it further away from him, interrupting its roar. Pulling out the Coyote-A, Dante quickly charged the shot and let loose before the Assault could regain its balance. The demon didn't have a chance to make another sound as the charged shot blew a good portion of its head right off. The Assault fell to the ground dead, its blood spilling out from the fatal wound.
At this, the other two Assaults, having recovered, let out a quick war cry and one charged at Lady while the other reared back its arm and shot out what appeared to look like huge seeds right at Dante only for him to shoot them down. But this was what the Assault wanted as its brethren made it past Dante, who was quite close to Lady, and to its target. However, while Lady may not be as fast as her comrade, she was considerably more agile than most humans, a fact that she demonstrated by somersaulting over the incoming demon. The charging Assault, having not expected this, went tumbling forward into the ground, leaving itself exposed as Lady took aim with her machine gun. The Assault didn't have a chance to get back up as Lady unloaded every last bullet into it, killing the demon.
At the same time, Dante, tiring of dragging this out, charged at the remaining one as fast as he could, his speed exceeding the Assault's reaction speed. With a slight grunt, he brought down Rebellion, cleaving his would be foe clean in two. Blood poured out of the two halves as they plopped to the ground.
"About time you actually started to get serious a little," Lady commented as Dante shook his sword to get the blood off, "normally you mess with them."
Dante shrugged. "Well, considering this mess I figured to hell with it right now." He looked and noticed the zombies that were very close by to them. "We already beat down the Assaults, and they just barely reached us? Christ, they're slow."
Lady rolled her eyes. "They're zombies. What did you expect?"
"Well, there are other demons around. Let's put down this fuckers fast and go take care of them," Dante replied.
Lady smirked. "Thought you'd never say that." And the two opened fire at the oncoming undead.
As this went on, Takashi had easily disposed of the demonified zombies. "Sure hope that they won't get any stronger overtime or something. The fact that they're already tougher than Them is a bit unnerving as it is," he thought.
He snapped himself out of his thoughts though as he quickly began to make his way over to where Rei and Saeko were, ready to help them out. However, that didn't happen for he then sensed an attack coming fast at him. He heard it too.
Looking behind him, he was very shocked to see a Mega Scarecrow rolling right at him. He swore loudly at the sight and proceeded to roll out of the way. He was able to move in time, but only barely, the huge demon just barely missing his legs.
Takashi got up as fast as he can as the Mega Scarecrow came to a skidding stop right after missing. It slowly stood to its full height and turned to face the teen, who looked up at it nervously, remembering his first encounter with one and how hard a time he had just trying to dodge. "Please don't let this be a repeat," he muttered.
No sooner than the words left his mouth did the Mega Scarecrow attack. It lashed out with one of its huge arms at Takashi, who quickly leapt over it to avoid. Its blade soared underneath him, but the Mega Scarecrow proved to be quite fast with its attacks as it suddenly brought its other arm to hit Takashi.
Takashi, still being airborne, knew he couldn't dodge in time so he settled for raising his arms in defense, praying that the Gilgamesh gauntlets would be enough to guard. The massive blade of the demon crashed into him with great force, knocking Takashi tens of yards. He crashed into the ground hard and skidded across before he came to a stop. Groaning in pain, Takashi got up quickly and spared a very brief glance to his gauntlets. They didn't have a scratch on them. He sighed in relief, but the feeling was very short lived for the Mega Scarecrow pressed on the attack again, two of its arms spinning at blinding speeds before suddenly the blades on them flew right off and at the young high schooler. Takashi ducked under the first and evaded the next one by rolling to his right.
Immediately afterwards, Takashi rushed the giant demon as fast as he could, fists clenched tightly. As he closed in, the Mega Scarecrow tried to swipe at him again, but Takashi slid under it and then jumped so that he was at eye level with its head. Takashi then lashed out with the fiercest left hook that he could do, his fist connecting hard with the demon's face. Thanks to the extra power that Gilgamesh granted him, the punch was actually strong enough to make the demon stagger back several feet.
Taking advantage of its dazed state, Takashi rushed it again, only this time instead of a punch, he struck it from underneath with a solid kick, the force of it knocking the Mega Scarecrow a few feet into the air. It made an unintelligible sound as it crashed unceremoniously into the ground, making the area shake a bit from the weight.
Takashi would've smirked a bit if not for the fact that when he put the demon on its rear, he noticed a group of Scarecrows heading straight for the entrance to the mall. Which was where Rei and Saeko were.
"Oh shit!" Takashi yelled, not caring if it drew the attention of every zombie in the area. He was about to run over there to stop the Scarecrows, but then a huge blade shot past him, making him take a small leap back in surprise. Looking back at the Mega Scarecrow, he noted that one of its arm had just stopped spinning while two more arms began to spin as it slowly got back up. Takashi warily brought his fists up. He wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.
As all the fighting went on, Saya, Alice, and Shizuka were currently in the mall, getting the mall survivors up to speed on the situation. Needless to say, the group was not very pleased by the turn of events and Saya was getting tired of them. "Enough! Listen, we all have to get out of here now! If we don't then those zombies are going to eventually bust their way in and there's no escaping then!" she practically roared.
"But surely we can just hole up here! It's not as if they can bust through the store's gate!" one shot back.
Saya rubbed her forehead, sighing tiredly; things were tiring enough as they are and the mall survivors weren't helping matters now. "The gates won't hold Them at all. They'll just knock them down after a while and then there really will be no place left to run and you will all end up being food for Them. Do you want that?" she tried to say as calmly as possible, figuring it'd be best to do so than yell at them since that definitely wasn't getting through to them.
The group now looked uncertain. "Well…."
"Say, where did that police lady go?" Alice asked, looking around. Zeke, who has been unusually quiet for a while now barked in confirmation, looking around a bit too while Alice held him in her arms.
Everyone blinked a bit; they just realized that Asami wasn't there. "Come to think of it, that guy isn't here either," Shizuka pointed out, looking around as well.
Saya sighed, this time out of sheer frustration. "God, if it isn't one thing, it's another…" she muttered.
She retracted that statement a bit though when at that moment, Asami and Hiro came around the corner, carrying a bunch of stuff in their arms. They huffed a bit in exhaustion. Whatever they had gone around to get must have been a bit tiring.
"What is all that?" Shizuka asked, pointing at what they had in their arms with a curious expression on her face.
"Some things we got from the sports stores," Hiro answered. Sure enough in his arms were quite the array of baseball bats, a golf club or two and a bit more. Asami carried something to similar to him, although she did have a few hockey sticks in the pile she was holding up.
"Here," Asami said as she then began to pass out the bats and hockey sticks. Hiro followed her lead and handed one to Shizuka and Saya as well.
"And just what the hell are we going to do with these?" one of the mall survivors asked.
"We're fucking leaving this place," Hiro said sternly.
The mall survivors looked at him as if he just grew a second head. "Are you out-" one began, but Hiro cut the person off.
"I should be the one asking you that! Look guys, there's a huge bunch of them right outside the damn doors and they are itching to just get in here! I don't care how many their friends," he gestured to Saya, Shizuka, and Alice, "take down because there will only be more! And I don't know about you guys, but I don't want to be their damn supper. If I do die trying to escape though, then at least I won't go down without a fight."
His slight outburst seemed to strike them hard and after a moment of consideration, the mall survivors slowly began to take their pick of sports equipment from Hiro's and Asami's arms.
"Wow, you're a really good persuader!" Asami whispered to him.
Hiro chuckled sheepishly as he stood next to her. "I couldn't help it," he whispered back.
"Well? Are you all ready to go?" Saya asked after noting that everyone, even the elderly couple, had a weapon of some sorts. Even Asami, who already had a gun, had a metal baseball bat for close quarters. Hiro did as well. Saya still had her gun, but now also a hockey stick while Shizuka had a golf club. Alice on the other hand had no weapon; they didn't want her to have to get involved in the fighting.
Hesitantly the mall survivors nodded their heads at Saya's question. "I just hope you know what you're doing," one said.
Saya sighed. "Well, if it goes wrong, just be happy that our deaths will be relatively quick." And while that statement didn't help boost their confidence, they began to move out.
Back outside, Rei and Saeko were still fairing quite well, albeit not as well as they did in the beginning. While pretty athletic for high school girls, they didn't have as much stamina as Lady, who has been fighting demons for years now and so they were beginning to tire out as the number of Them was finally getting to them. They had a few bruises and cuts from close calls they have had such as when they were actually grabbed by one of Them and were wrestled to the ground rather roughly. It was a predicament that they had escaped in their own little ways, Rei stabbing the one that grabbed her right through the forehead. Despite the blood that trickled out from the entry hole, it was still a relatively clean death compared to the one Saeko dished out on the zombie pinning her down. She had placed her sword in between her and even maneuvered it right against its throat and immediately pressed as hard as she could against it. The neck had proven to be strong in comparison to the rest of its frail body so it took Saeko pulling back and slamming the blade into it several times to cut the head off, something that resulted in a good bit of blood getting on her clothes.
Thankfully though they were not bitten and Kohta was still giving them support from the roof, shooting down any approaching stragglers so that they would only have to worry with a few at a time. The girls were currently standing back to back, two zombies coming at each one. Saeko readied her sword while Rei did the same with her gun.
Both waited until the zombies shambled a bit closer before striking. with one swift movement of her arms, Saeko brought her sword up diagonally, slicing through the jaw and upwards of the one on her left. Once her blade completely passed through its head, Saeko immediately focused on the other one and brought down her sword at an angle, slicing through its head in a manner similar to the zombie she just killed only from the opposite direction.
Saeko took a few steps back, but nearly slipped in doing so. Looking down, she noticed how much blood there was surrounding them. The undead that she, Rei, and Kohta have struck must have really been bleeding out afterwards for the ground to be this wet. "This is bad. The longer we fight, the more stamina we'll lose. Not only that, but killing more of Them is actually proving to be a bad thing; the blood will just make us literally slip up," she thought.
While Saeko was busy thinking things over, Rei had just struck the two coming at her. She lunged straight, gun held straight out in front of her at a bit of an upwards angle. She stabbed one right through the eye and as the bayonet on the gun slid out of the now bloody hole, Rei kicked the body back as it had begun to fall towards her. Right after that, she was quick to repeat the same attack on the other one.
She huffed in exhaustion. Even though the bodies of Them were now rather frail, stabbing Them was still tiring especially when done so many times already. Although she didn't know it, Rei was thinking along the same lines as Saeko right now.
She began to turn around. "Hey senp-," she began to say, but then as she fully turned, she saw a few Scarecrows not even several feet away from them. "Look out!"
Saeko snapped out of her thoughts at Rei's shout and looked up in time to see the nearest Scarecrow move towards her, rearing back its blade arm. Saeko silently cursed; how could she have been so caught up in her thoughts to not notice them?
She raised her sword in time to block the Scarecrow's blade as it tried to cut her. At that moment, Rei moved right next to Saeko and stabbed the Scarecrow as hard as she could. She felt the bayonet tip plunge into the Scarecrow's side and it let out a bit of a yell to signify this. But it wasn't enough to stop it and the Scarecrow pulled back, a bit of the black blood that it has be shown to have leaking out a bit from the wound. It reared back its arm again to get some payback, but then a torrent of bullets from the rooftop struck it all over its body, new holes appearing.
The volley of bullets kept coming until a few seconds later, the Scarecrow's body lost too much of its blood and died. The girls were relieved that they had avoided that one and looked up to the roof briefly to see Kohta nod at them, which they returned, very grateful for the assist. Kohta himself was thankful for that as well. If Rei hadn't yelled, he would've still be shooting down the zombies coming from the opposite direction. He pulled out the spent magazine and put in a fresh one; the Scarecrow took the bullets he had left in the previous one just to kill. Kohta didn't want to imagine how many bullets total it would take to get rid of the rest.
But he didn't have to worry about that too much, for more of Them appeared and much to the surprise of Rei and Saeko, who readied themselves against the approaching Scarecrows, the demons seemed to let out what they supposed was a growl and actually turned to focus on Them. The Scarecrow, while weak for demons, proved their superiority over the zombies by quickly cutting Them down, bodies hitting the ground almost immediately.
"What are they doing?" Kohta muttered to himself, witnessing this from above. He wasn't exactly complaining about this turn of events though; meant that he could conserve ammo here.
"Hirano-kun!" The voice took Kohta by surprise and he nearly fell back. Looking down, he saw Saeko and Rei looking up at him. "We should go right now! Leave them to kill each other!" Saeko yelled up at him.
"What about everyone inside?" he asked.
"We'll get them out right now, but we can't stay here any longer!" Saeko said back.
Kohta looked at them, seeming almost hesitant, but a second later he nodded in understanding. Quickly gathering up his supplies, Kohta stepped onto the edge of the roof and looked down for a good place to jump. He noticed a dumpster nearby and it didn't look like the height distance from the roof to it was that bad, so steeling himself a bit, Kohta jumped off the roof and onto the dumpster. The landing wasn't exactly what he had in mind though as he slammed into the dumpster lid butt first, eliciting a loud grunt from him and he rolled himself off of it.
"You alright?" Rei asked as she and Saeko approached him.
"I'm fine. Let's just go get the others. The demons and zombies are too busy focusing on each other right now to head for the door," Kohta said and he motioned to the mall doors with his head, his arms a bit busy carrying his stuff to point.
The girls turned to see and sure enough the area in front of the mall doors was practically empty. A few zombies did linger by it, but the noise the Scarecrows were making with their little killing spree was drawing Them away.
Without another word, they made to the doors, but they didn't even get a dozen steps towards it before the doors burst open. Out of the mall came the mall survivors with Saya, Shizuka, Alice along with Zeke now on the ground by her, and Asami leading the way. Saya turned to see the zombies being cut down and practically flung around by the Scarecrows and while she was definitely surprised by this, she wasn't going to that let bother her. She looked back to the group and saw that they was now quite reluctant to move at the sight of the demons nearby. "Well? Don't just stand there! Let's move!" she snapped at them, not caring if the zombies and demons heard.
That snapped them out of it and they all quickly began to move forwards and away from the danger. "Takagi-san!" Kohta said happily. That drew hers and the groups attention and they slowed down for Kohta, Rei, and Saeko to come catch up.
"Good job thinning the numbers," Asami said, in awe of how little zombies there were now compared to earlier.
"Damn good job," Hiro muttered, noticing the bodies and its contents spatter all over the place.
"Praise them later!" Saya said before the trio could respond to Asami's and Hiro's compliments. That got them moving again. "Where are Dante and Lady? Or Takashi for that matter?" she asked while they moved.
That suddenly made them worry. "Shit, we forgot about them!" Kohta exclaimed.
"Don't worry! They'll be alright… right?" Alice said uncertainly.
"Of course they will," Shizuka said cheerfully, "they'll come back to us." She hugged Alice close to her a bit, unknowingly adding some extra weight to the young girl as her huge breasts now practically sat on top of Alice's head.
"Glad to know you all care." The group turned to see Dante and Lady walking straight towards them as though they weren't in such a deadly situation still.
"Lady-san! Dante-san!" Shizuka said happily, sounding a bit more happier when she said Dante's name. Some noticed this, Dante included, but decided to focus on the matter at hand first.
"Alright, we can save the talk for later. For now let's just get out of here," Lady said. Seeing Dante and Lady again had lifted their worries a bit and so the group agreed to it for now.
"But what about Takashi?" Rei asked when they started to move again, all of the group having their sports weapons raised defensively.
Dante spared her a glance. "He'll be fine. He's kinda like me: too damn stubborn to go down. I can that much about him."
"I can vouch for that part," Lady said with a small smirk.
However, while this brief exchange occurred, one of the Scarecrows that had a blade on its leg had noticed them leaving and so had begun to creep it way towards them in silence when they were simply standing a moment ago. And it chose this moment to attack. Jumping high into the air, Dante and Lady didn't notice its shadow until it could be deemed too late.
A mall survivor, a pale young man, happened to be unfortunate enough to be under its shadow. Noticing it, he looked up and screamed when he saw the Scarecrow just above him. He was silenced forever though when the Scarecrow brought its blade leg down, impaling the young man through his face. This alerted the rest of the group.
The mall survivors began to scream and panic, nearly rushing off on their own and unintentionally getting in the way of the fighters of the group, that being Dante, Lady, Rei, and Saeko. Asami, Hiro, and Saya were trying to get the group under control while also making sure they were all a good distance away so that at least one of the fighters could deal with the demon, but the mall survivors weren't listening. Alice stayed to the side along with Shizuka. Zeke moved in front of Alice as though to defend her, indicated by him snarling at the demon.
"Shit!" Kohta muttered. He was trying to get a good shot at the Scarecrow while it was busy trying to get its leg out of its victim's face, but the mall survivors were running around wildly, obscuring his line of fire. Lady was having a similar problem. Dante was tempted to move forward and slash the demon down, but he didn't want to risk accidently hitting someone else as a side effect.
Rei and Saeko were the closest to the Scarecrow though and they tried to muscle their way past some of the petrified mall survivors, but when they finally did, it was too late. The Scarecrow had just gotten its blade out of the guy's face, the body crumpling to the ground. The demon then turned to face the girls.
Rei and Saeko immediately tried to attack it before it could do so to them, but unfortunately, the Scarecrow's attack speed was much greater than theirs. Without any kind of warning, the Scarecrow went into some kind of deadly spin, its blade leg sticking right out to cut the girls down. Rei, the closest to it, was about to be hit by it.
Rei, knowing that it was too late to avoid, steeled herself and waited for it to come, but was startled out of this sense of resignation when Saeko suddenly ran in front of her and pushed her out of the way. As Saeko did so, she also tried to move in the direction she shoved the girl to avoid the blade as well, but it was too late for her. The Scarecrow's leg made contact with her lower back at a bit of an downwards angle. Saeko screamed slightly in pain when the blade cut across her lower back a bit.
"Senpai!" Rei exclaimed. Getting back up, she quickly grabbed the now falling Saeko and pulled her away from the demon. But the Scarecrow had finished its spin and began to move towards them again.
But it didn't even get a few steps before a huge blade came out of nowhere and impaled it right through its stomach. It let out a cry of pain as on instinct it started to struggle to get itself off the huge blade.
"Die, God damn it!" a voice cried out. The blade was pulled out of the Scarecrow and before it even knew what happened, it was shoved through it again, this time getting the head. Its black blood spew out as the blade was quickly pulled out again.
As the Scarecrow slowly fell down nearly in two, the mall survivors stopped panicking enough for Dante, Lady and everyone else to see who just killed it. Standing behind the corpse of the demon was none other than Takashi. He glared down at the Scarecrow, his grip tightening on the huge blade still in his hand.
He had gotten it from the Mega Scarecrow when he beat just a while ago. It had been quite the hard fight, the huge demon proving to be highly resilient even with Gilgamesh boosting his strength, but Takashi had been able to take it down after getting under it and ripping off one of its legs, a feat that had proved to be harder than expected, but worth it as not only did it seriously hurt the Mega Scarecrow, but it also robbed it of the little mobility it had to begin with. After doing that, he had jumped on top of it after it fell down from the imbalance it now had and he unintentionally struck it with the explosive punch known as Shock. The strike, while not on the same level as Dante's, was enough to completely obliterate the Mega Scarecrow's head. As the body had begun to deflate as the black blood flowed out from the stump, one of its blade shot out to impale Takashi, but he caught it before it could even scratch him. After which he noticed the group being attacked and led up to now.
"Let's go before more decide to come," he said as he dropped the massive blade. This snapped them out of their thoughts at seeing him and followed him as he quickly located the big gap in the barricade and ran out.
As soon as they did, they immediately took note of over a dozen zombies loitering about the area, but they were too far to be of concern right now.
"Just keep moving everyone," Takashi said. After saying that, he slowed down so that he was next to Saeko. "You alright?"
She nodded. "I'm not losing that much blood so the wound isn't too deep," she responded.
Takashi sighed in relief. "Better get it checked out though when you get the chance. Better safe than sorry," he said, getting a nod from Saeko.
They all kept running for a while before they had to stop in order for the mall survivors to rest a bit. Takashi and his group were just fine in terms of stamina, mainly due to a bit of adrenaline in some of their cases.
"Oh god, oh god…" one of the mall survivors kept muttering, "just what do we do now?"
"Well, I'd suggest you all get to some kind of safe zone," Lady suggested, actually hoping that she won't have to be around them any longer.
"And just where the hell do we go?" one snapped.
"Don't know. Your best bet would be maybe a harbor or some high point. Surely there has to be some kind of rescue effort going on," Lady replied.
"But still, where-?" the guy began.
Hiro interrupted him. "Look man, she doesn't know, but she's helping us as best as she can so just shut up," he snapped.
Lady flashed Hiro a brief smile, glad to know that one of the mall survivors was actually nice and on her side.
The guy grumbled, but didn't say anything else to them. "Well, looks like we better get going. Staying around like this isn't exactly a good thing," Hiro then said to Lady and the others.
"You sure?" Takashi asked. He and the others didn't know Hiro too well and no one could really blame them, but he felt that he may miss the guy; it was hard to come across someone who didn't give them crap half of the time.
Hiro looked back to the mall survivors, who were still resting up a bit. "Yeah. I think if we don't go now, these guys will be too damn scared to move from this spot afterwards."
"You got that right," Saya muttered, remembering how stubborn they were in not leaving the store.
Then a kind of awkward silence descended upon them. A moment later, Hiro broke it. "Well… take care of yourselves, I guess."
"Yeah. You too," Takashi said.
Hiro nodded and then turned to the mall survivors. "Come on guys, let's go."
"Already?" the guy from earlier asked, evidently scared to go to the nearest harbor or something.
"You want to wait around for more zombies or demons?" Hiro asked.
That question was all it took to get them slowly get up and start moving. As the group began to walk off, Hiro stopped real quick after noticing Asami staying behind with the group. "Yo, police lady, are you coming with us too?"
Asami, who was silent for a while due to catching her breath, looked up at him. "Uhhh, should I?"
Hiro rubbed the back of his head. "Well, not to pressure you, but it would be nice to have you with us. Since you got a gun, it would probably keep all of those noisy bastards quiet and calm."
Asami looked torn, her sense of duty compelling her to stay with the mall survivors to watch over them, while there was also another part of her that had gotten quite close to the lively and determined group that Takashi pretty much led in the very short amount of time that she knew them.
"Uhhh, well… you see…." Asami, usually the talker despite her very easygoing and sensitive personality, didn't know what to say.
A few moments passed as she contemplated what to do before Kohta nudged her. "Asami-san."
"K-Kohta-kun?" she asked, wondering what he wanted to say.
He seemed emotionless for a brief second before flashing her a small smile. "You should go with them. Someone with authority should keep an eye on them."
Asami's eyes widened at his words. Everyone else raised an eyebrow at this too. They may not know what exactly went on down at the mall while they were busy with everything else, but after Kohta had helped her out by handing her the gun to control the group, they seemed to sense something between the two.
Asami opened her mouth to speak, but then shut it before opening it up again afterwards. "Okay," she said with a small smile of her own.
Kohta nodded at her. Asami then turned to face the rest of the group and bowed. "Thank you very much for all of your help! Asami couldn't have made it out of there without you guys!"
The group smiled at her. "Ah, don't sweat it. Just make sure to give them all a kick in the ass to keep them in line," Dante said with a smirk.
Asami giggled at his words before looking a little solemn. "Bye." And with that she turned to face Hiro. "Let's go."
Hiro merely nodded, not really having anything to say now. He gave a little wave to the group and the two took off running in the direction of the mall survivors. The group watched them leave, not moving from their spots until after the two were out of sight.
"Time to get moving," Takashi said calmly.
"Ah, Busujima-san, let me look at your back," Shizuka said as she saw the cut Saeko had.
"Oh, don't worry about it for now. We can wait until we get to a building to stay in for a while," Saeko replied.
Shizuka was about to insist on doing that, but then looked past Saeko at Rei and froze. A few seconds later she started to laugh, but tried to stifle it. Dante and Lady looked at the busty nurse, trying to figure out what made her start laughing. Everyone else though ignored her laughter, Takashi deciding to take the time they were spending talking to speak with Kohta and Saya on what exactly they should do next. Alice was busy tickling Zeke for being brave and Saeko was merely sitting down now while Rei was simply off in front of Shizuka, looking off in the distance whilst thinking of something.
"What's up?" Dante asked Shizuka, wonder what tickled her funny bone. Shizuka didn't speak, instead pointing to something. Dante looked quizzically at her before looking at what she was pointing at. When he did, his eyes widened before he started laughing too. Lady observed what got their attention and she shook her head. "Good grief," she muttered, but she had a small smile on her face, apparently amused.
"Something wrong?" Takashi asked, he and Kohta and Saya finally taking note of their laughter. Dante pointed at what he was laughing at and the trio looked. Almost immediately, Saya shook her, unable to believe what she was seeing. Kohta and Takashi on the other hand, were having reactions that only made Dante and Shizuka laugh harder. Kohta's face was turning as red as Dante's coat while Takashi placed one hand over his nose to prevent a nosebleed while keeping his other hand near the hem of his shirt in case the blood rushing to his face decided to head down to a certain part of his lower anatomy and make him pull his shirt down to cover up.
Alice and Saeko snapped out of their thoughts and looked at the five of them questioningly. Slowly, the two turned their gaze to where their friends were looking at and Alice immediately joined Dante and Shizuka in laughter while Saeko tried to stifle a chuckle at the sight before them: Rei. She had her back turned to all of them as she appeared to contemplate something. However, had she not been thinking so hard she would have noticed earlier what the group is noticing now: when Saeko pushed her out of the way of the Scarecrow's attack, she had landed hard on her rear, tearing part of the back of her skirt right off, exposing her firm, shapely butt for all to see. The white panties she had on clung tightly to her rear, only making it all the funnier to the group who were now laughing at her unintentional indecent exposure.
"Uhhh…. R-Rei…" Takashi mumbled out hesitantly, completely unsure of what to say. When she didn't respond, he spoke again. "Rei!"
That got her attention this time. "Huh? What?"
Takashi tried to look away, but found his eyes wandering back to her ass every time. "W-well... uhhh…. You see…" he tried to think of a way to tell her without making her feel more embarrassed than she already will be, but he couldn't find the right words to say. The others weren't exactly helping him, being perfectly content to go on with their laughter.
However, divine intervention seemed to kick in, sparing Takashi from having to tell her. A breeze passed through the area and immediately Rei felt a difference when it hit her. She felt that part of her legs didn't feel the breeze that much while her butt felt the entirety of it. She turned her head as far as she could and look down at her butt and froze when she saw her state of wear.
Dante and Shizuka started laughing even harder at Rei's expression while Takashi felt himself turn redder than he already was. At the increase in their reactions, Rei immediately turned around so that she was facing them now while placing her hands over her exposed rear.
"Wha- whe-?" she stuttered out.
"Probably when I pushed you," Saeko responded, a hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter now. "It is fortunate that no one noticed until now."
At those last words, Rei, although very embarrassed, did feel a bit better; at least it was just her group that saw and not the mall survivors too otherwise, she die from shame.
Alice, laughing far too hard, accidently stumbled over to where Saeko was now standing and tripped over a small rock. Losing her balance, Alice stumbled forward and accidently grabbed hold of the cut part of Saeko's shirt. Alice then fell and her weight and momentum resulted in her tearing off a good portion of Saeko's shirt. The awkward angle that the shirt tore at not only showed off Saeko's lightly toned stomach, but also a bit of the underside of her left breast, covered up by a purple lace bra.
The reaction to this was immediate. Dante's and Shizuka's laughter grew, Shizuka's more than Dante's to the point that she had to use him as a crutch to keep herself from doubling over. Lady was now chuckling and Saya looked torn between looking annoyed at the sheer ridiculousness of the scene or following Lady's example. Rei, despite her embarrassment, couldn't help but snicker at Saeko now, feeling that it was some sort of karma striking back at her.
But Takashi's and Kohta's were by far the most severe. Kohta's face was turning so red that it was a bit of a miracle that he didn't faint. Takashi, still with his hands over his nose and near the hem of his shirt, was desperately trying to look anywhere but at either of the girls.
Alice quickly got up and began to apologize to Saeko, who currently had her arms folded across to cover up. Her face was red from embarrassment and she kept on shrugging off Alice's apologies, saying that it was okay, but it was clear that she was feeling rather flustered. Zeke was running circles around Alice barking happily, indicating that he too found the scene to be quite amusing.
"Damn, this group sure knows how to provide entertainment," Dante said as he began to slowly stop laughing.
But while they were busy enjoying themselves, some of Them had finished eating the Blitz. Shidou's eating of it had caused a bit of noise from inside the dumpster, attracting some of his fellow undead towards it. At first, they just kept smacking into the dumpster, but eventually when enough got together, they smacked it so hard that, combined with the unbalanced weight of Shidou and the partially eaten corpse of the Blitz inside, had caused the dumpster to fall over and send Shidou and the corpse falling out.
The fall hadn't deterred the undead Shidou's eating at all and some of the zombies around him joined in. Now they were done and already changes had taken place. The changes made to their bodies differed between one another in terms of severity, but for the most part, the seven zombies that took part in feasting alongside Shidou had taken on a more mangled looking version of the Blitz's strong, but lithe arms. Others had grown a bit taller and leaner, their pale skin stretching and even tearing to reveal their rotting muscle tissue.
But while they were relatively normal, Shidou had taken on the most change due to feasting on the Blitz more than Them. He had grown taller too by about five inches, but it would be unclear to anyone if he had torn his skin for his torso had some of the rocky skin that made up the Blitz's torso. His left arm looked longer to match his new height while his right arm had looked like the mangled new arms of his new demonified zombie comrades. His face looked narrower as well, his jaw looking like it was stuck halfway between looking normal and looking like that of a Blitz's.
The changed Shidou let out a distorted growl, his voice a combination of his own and a Blitz's. He couldn't hear anything save for the slightly distorted moaning of the demonified zombies around him. He looked towards the sky for a moment before he began to take a lumbering step forward.
Meanwhile, all around the city, battles were being waged. Demons, now apparently knowing that the zombies have begun to attack and eat them, have begun to make their own move against Them as well. Assaults could be seen in the downtown area, crushing massive scores of Them underfoot as they let out roars that would attract more to them. It would only be a matter of time until the numbers became too much for them.
In the more residential areas, Scarecrows and their larger brethren, the Mega Scarecrows, were lumbering about, cutting down any undead that they came across. To add to this, Mephistos and even a few Fausts that have just recently shown up in the human world have started to phase through the walls of houses, killing anything that they came across, be it Them or people that were still alive and hiding. Some neighborhoods were soon completely covered with blood and entrails and more as the demons were quick, brutal, and efficient in their seemingly random search.
But it wasn't only the demons that were making a move now for all the noise going on, be it from the demons or from the alive humans that they came across, was driving Them around all over the place, intent on making a meal out of whatever was drawing Them.
A war of sorts was erupting between the demons and the undead. And it was escalating quickly.
And there we go! Damn, over 7,000 words long! Definitely a new record for me! Not only that, but this chapter officially concludes the whole mall event, which I am sure happy over; the mall survivors were annoying me and I wrote what they said too!
And please oh please to anyone reading this that is sad over Asami leaving, please don't hate me! I have my reasons (which I hope to reveal soon)!
Now on to move on real quick, chances are I won't start writing the next chapter for a few weeks or so due to my new semester. That and I am currently debating with myself whether or not I want to do a one-shot before that. So I apologize in advance.
Now moving back to a more positive note…. Well there really is nothing for me to say other than thank you to everyone who has been reading this fic so far! Special shout out to Panther-Strife, Tensa Zangetsu 17, and Ultimate-Zelda-fan! And also to: Panther-Freedom02, Ranma Uzumaki, Dark Vizard447, Kamen Rider Ebon, Funeral of the Fallen Musician, Kwonkicker, kingdomlily, Jet Black Jr, Silber D. Wolf, ZidanReign, GREAT CELESTAL-DRAGON, Mickj6, Dragonwars50, Hypothetical Spiritual Entity, and anyone and everyone else who has ever reviewed or favorite or just simply read this fic! I know that this thank you is long over due, but Thank You!