Cannibalism
"Hato, when was the last time you had meat?" Kaito asks, staring down at the soldier sprawled out on the ground. He's younger than either of them, his uniform absorbing the blood leaking out from the dent in his head. His eyes are wide open, staring forever at nothing.
Hato counts the days on his fingers. "Hmm, it had to be around that time Kisei and Kikuo sneaked out since they brought back a couple of rats. So… A month ago? Two months ago?" He guesses, dropping his arms and shrugging.
Kaito shakes his head. "No, only the kids ate that. There wasn't enough for everyone," he reminds Hato. "When was the last time you or I had meat?"
"Since last yeah, I suppose, when you caught that dog with the broken leg." He doesn't see the point of this; there are no animals anywhere in sight, and thinking about food won't make it appear. If anything, it will just remind them that both Kaito and Hato have been surviving off nothing but boiled bamboo shoots and foul smelling water for the past week and a half
Kaito doesn't respond immediately, continuing to stare down at the Fusion boy. Flies have begun to close in, buzzing around his head and landing in his thick black hair. It won't be long before the smell of blood and death attracts bigger scavengers such as birds, or worse, the pack of dogs that frequent this area. Hato and Kaito are both good fighters, but there's only so much they can do against desperate animals.
Hato shifts on his feet, vigilant as always for any sign of life among the decrepit buildings and waits for Kaito's signal to continue moving. He's becoming restless standing here out in the open with a dead body at their feet.
Kaito kneels down to unstrap the soldier's duel disk. He fiddles with the back, popping it open and removing the tracking chip. It's too small to snap with his fingers, so he sets it down on the tarmac and taps it with the tip of his metal bat until it breaks. He shoves the duel disk in his pack.
"You trust me, right?" Kaito asks, and Hato is stunned at the question. Rarely does Kaito doubt himself or even ask for Hato's input about ideas. Hato has never minded this; Kaito has survived out here far longer than he has.
"With my life," Hato answers, meaning it completely. He owes Kaito everything, and even if they're partners in this, Hato will never forget the things Kaito has done for him.
"Take out that plastic bag you always carry." It's for emergencies, but Hato does as requested. He opens them and holds them out for Kaito, not blinking when Kaito unsheathes his knife to cut open the soldier's shirt.
Kaito gives a final, almost hesitant, glance back at Hato and gives a warning. "I've never done this before. It's going to get messy." He cuts into the soldier's chest. The boy was already dead so he didn't bleed like normal, but as Kaito hacks, the body does begin to leak. Kaito should be using gloves, Hato thinks to himself, but he keeps it to himself. They deal with blood all the time.
Kaito soon hits the ribs and sternum. "Which organs are safe to eat?" Hato asks. He knows about animal organs, but would human ones be different? Kaito only shrugs, then gestures to Hato to move closer with the bag. Kaito hasn't broken the ribs yet; instead, he digs under them with his hands.
The work is gruesome, but Kaito pulls out a few squishy-looking organs and deposits them into the bag. They're heavy, which means they're full of meat. Kaito stops after harvesting something that looks like a liver and a kidney.
"We'll test them on ourselves first before giving them to the kids," Kaito says, wiping his hands and knife on a clean patch of the soldier's clothes. "Just in case we get sick or something."
"We're going to also have to come up with an explanation on how we've found meat after so long." Hato knows this isn't going to be a single occurrence. If they find that they can eat this okay, then it'll be another source of food.
It's… unmoral and wrong, but it'll prevent the hunger pains and eventual starvation.
They're becoming more and more like monsters every day that passes.
(Perhaps Academia is right about them.)