1
Four months before
With its sudden disappearance from the world, the mana had taken away not only most of human technology, but more importantly anything that mankind had built in over five hundred years in terms of society, civilization and culture.
It was like waking up from a dream.
Accustomed to have it all, most of mankind, relying on the power to have anything with no effort at all, and finding itself having to rely only on its own strength, had lost the right path, surrendering to its lowest instincts.
Everything had crumbled on itself, and almost two years after the fall of all guarantees there was no light on the horizon, with crime, lawlessness and law of the strong still dominating all over the world.
But more than anything else, as usual, men had sought someone to hate, on which to pin the blame for what was happening, and the relief valve, as expected, were them again: the Norma.
In truth that distinction was completely useless at that point: with the disappearance of the distinguishing tracts between humans and the supposed subhuman, there were no longer any visible differences, but the old traditions, in spite of everything, had not died.
It looked as if time had gone back to the Stone Age, with some kind of collective madness in which a suspicion, an accusation, even a word in bad faith dictated by envy or jealousy, was enough to cause real disasters, with violent lynchings and summary executions.
Not that the Norma, those that had existed prior to that sort of apocalypse, had disappeared; and indeed, it was precisely because of this that the situation had degenerated so much.
Harassed, persecuted and ghettoized for centuries, many Norma had seen in the disappearance of the mana an opportunity to make up for all the wrongs, and had formed armed gangs that preyed upon human settlements, killing and plundering, only to later receive the same treatment in a perverse killing game that already cost the lives of countless people.
Humans killed the Norma, the Norma killed the humans, with both factions tearing themselves up as rabid animals, looking for hypothetical dissidents, traitors and infiltrators.
The Empire of Misurugi, if possible, was even worse off.
With an imperial family decimated and the crisis that had begun just within its borders, social tensions and anarchy exploded as nuclear bomb, and the ancient, glorious capital was now a pile of debris, where bullies, robbers and looters domineered.
Venturing there was really dangerous, so most of the settlements that had been painstakingly built in all that time had been placed in other regions, especially in the hinterland, protected by forests and mountains.
This however did not prevent the bands of raiders that scoured the area to do whatever they wanted all over it, and for the survivors it was very difficult to efficiently protect the communities.
Luckily there was someone who refused to hole up in his refuge, not caring on what happened outside it.
One night, not far from the old imperial road leading to the capital, five robbers were partying around a fire, quaffing beer and singing as loudly as they could, happily examining their latest booty.
One of them, so drunk that he couldn't stand up, ventured into the middle of the low bush to relieve himself, but just as he lowered his trousers a mysterious, apparently minute assailant wrapped a garrote around his throat, strangling him before he managed to scream; a moment later, his companions in the camp heard an unmistakable noise behind them, raising their hands immediately.
"Don't make a move, or I'll burn your brains!" said a voice, feminine and pleasant, but currently incredibly threatening. "Get up slowly!"
One of them tried to grab his gun, but a bullet in a shoulder immediately convinced him otherwise, and then their leader, a hulking brute with an eyepatch over the left eye, obeyed the order along with his companions.
Before him there was a piece of sheet metal that served as a makeshift mirror; so, when he had the opportunity to look inside, he was so amazed by what he saw that he burst out laughing.
"This beats everything!" he said, turning around. "What a surprise! None other than Princess Sylvia came to visit us. "
"Do not take a step!" she ordered, her gun firmly pointed at him. "You are the ones who have robbed the fields in the region, do you?"
"We can reach an agreement," the leader calmly stated. "We made a good haul. We could split it quietly, and there is plenty to satisfy everyone. "
"Stolen goods. From people who needed it to survive. "
"This is just a point of view. If you're not strong enough to defend your stuff, you cannot be surprised if someone steals them. "
Sylvia was not surprised by such an egoistical point of view; perhaps because, in the past, she was not so very different from them.
"It's because of people like you that this world cannot recover."
"Look who's talking, you fucking Norma's friend!" another bandit spat out, and it was only by a miracle that Sylvia was able to keep her cool and not make a hole in his forehead.
"Leave here all that you have stolen and leave."
"So, in this case, where would be the difference between you and us?" Asked the chief.
"I do not keep anything for me. This is the difference. "
Unwisely, Sylvia let her guard down, and the boss immediately took advantage, throwing at her face a mixture of sand, ash and embers, and blinding her just enough to allow him and others to get a hold of theit weapons.
However they did not have time to shoot her, because someone, hiding in the bushes, fired, leaving one of them dead on the ground with a bullet lodged into his ear. His companions then fired, but Sylvia was already hidden behind a tree and quickly returned fire, initiating a furious gunfight in which two other people soon joined in, an eighteen years-old brunette and a young man, both protected by bulletproof vests.
The raiders, refusing to flee and abandon their booty, defended it to the last man, dying one after the other without achieving anything, though.
The fight over, everyone relaxed a bit.
Cautiously, Sylvia took a few steps forward, making sure that every enemy was truly dead, and after a while two other girls appeared from the surrounding bushes.
One of them, armed with a rifle, slacks tightly secured at her waist by a belt and a white T-shirt topped by a bulletproof vest, was tall and slender, the chiseled physique like the one of an athlete, or a professional soldier, brown, short hair and blue eyes, a little darker than Sylvia's; the other one looked slightly smaller, but no less athletic, long dark hair in a ponytail and green eyes, and dressed in a less masculine way, perhaps even too feminine considering the place, which increased her figure's elegance.
"Congratulations for the aim, Ashley," said Sylvia holstering her gun. "So it's true what I heard about the Arzenal's Norma."
"Compared to the dragons I fought against, these were just scum." Spat the brown girl.
Sylvia looked around, noting the large amount of supplies stacked around the field.
"As usual," she sighed. "Food, weapons and ammunition."
The dark haired girl came up to one of the boxes to inspect it, when suddenly the boss, with just a scratch, made his move, grabbing her and quickly pointing a knife to her throat.
"Stop right there!" He ordered before Sylvia and Ashley could raise their rifles. "Drop your weapons! Immediately! Or I swear I'll cut her throat! "
The two girls looked at each other, then, grumbling, obeyed, throwing both the firearms and the knives in their belt.
"Just as I thought" he laughed. "This is the problem of you whore friends of the poor. You cannot help but defend each others. "
"Really?" a dark, almost frightening voice answered then. "What makes you think that I cannot defend myself?"
In just a moment the girl broke free from the lock, and firmly grabbed the man's arm, dislocating all three joints; then, while he was still screaming, she came up from behind him, and with a determined move and a sharp 'crack' she twisted his head, leaving him dead in the mud.
Then, after making sure he was dead, she knelt before the body, clasped her hands in prayer and murmured some words, tears falling from her eyes.
"One day you'll explain me how can you do it, Mayu" Ashley smiled. "You'd be even able to totally kick that whore Elektra's ass."
"Control your language, Ashley. Have respect for the dead. "
"Do you think they showed respect when they robbed, raped and killed hundreds of people?"
"She's right, Ashley," said Sylvia instead. "If we get used to kill indiscriminately too, we wouldn't be better than them."
In that moment, a pained gasp caught their attention; the first robber to be wounded was still alive, and was trying to crawl away.
Sylvia quicklu reached him, forcing him to turn and pointing her gun between his eyes.
"Please don't kill me!" Pleaded that one, literally pissing himself.
"Where did you steal all this equipment?"
"We ... we have not stolen anything! When we arrived the village was deserted! "
"What village?" Asked Ashley
"Dolkin! Dolkin Village. It was horrendous. ... Someone or something had swept everything away. There were dead everywhere. We took what we could and we ran away.
I swear it's the truth. "
Sylvia looked into his eyes, gauging his fear; then, holstering the weapon, removed her boot from his chest allowing him to get up.
"You have ten seconds to disappear. If I see you again in this region, next time I will aim more carefully. "
Without a second to lose the poor man ran away faster than light, and the three girls, each carrying what she could, returned to the road, where they found an impressive vehicle waiting for them.
It looked like a cross between a truck and a combat vehicle: resting on three axles each with four wheels, each of whom was almost double the thickness compared to a normal wheel; it was protected all around by a thick armour, so strong that not even an anti-tank missile would be able to pierce it.
If the defensive system was top notch, the armament was outright terrific, with small openings to shoot from inside, smoke generators, and most importantly a pair of machine guns with multiple rotary barrels, one fore and one aft, positioned on fully rotating turrets, and a third turret armed with eight SAM rockets. That kind of monster would have been able to enter any fortress without sweating, even the most impregnable.
Countless lights and headlights to pierce even the most complete blackness completed the whole picture.
On the front, decorated with floral motifs, there was a psychedelic graffiti forming into just a name: Bulldog.
"Take it easy Ruka!" Ashley cursed toward the young brown-haired girl quietly chewing gum, leaning against the armor. "There's nothing to do here!"
"We're in a bad mood today. May I suggest a good cup of tea? "
"Stop Ruka, today is not a good day," said Sylvia, loading the two boxes she was carrying with her in the rear
"Nice hunt." Said Ruka
"And you couldn't ever imagine what's in that field. Tomorrow we'll send a van to retrieve everything. For now we'll bring this with us. "
"Aye-aye, boss."
After work the four girls ended up in the rear compartment of the vehicle, furnished as a camper and equipped with every comfort, including a large dining table on which they unrolled a map of the region.
"They said they took all this stuff from the village of Dolkin" Sylvia said pointing at the map. "But they also said that when they arrived they found it already attacked and destroyed."
"So," speculated Mayu. "There may be another gang plundering the settlements in this area?"
"If the story is true, I'm afraid this is not just about that."
"He's right," said Ashley, "What raider would assault a village without stealing anything?"
Sylvia looked up at Ruka.
"How much would it take to get to Dolkin?"
"With the Bulldog, I'd say about two hours."
The four girls eyed each other, and reached a consensus without having to speak, nodding.
"Let's go then"
...
Dolkin already existed before the Apocalypse, as the day the Mana had gone was dubbed, and among all the villages of the region it was definitely one of the most well-defended, with its makeshift walls of debris, its watch towers and its heavy weaponry.
It could be reached from a narrow, vurcy road, deliberately shifted to prevent sudden assaults, and the Bulldog, not being a champion of agility, had some trouble reaching it.
Sylvia and her companions weren't surprises to find the access door destroyed, but when, slowly, their tank passed through the door, terror appeared in their eyes.
In those years, all four of them had seen horrible things, but what remained of Dolkin was beyond imagination.
Everywhere there was destruction and death.
Now-extinct fires had destroyed almost everything, turning the houses of wood and stone in crumbling piles of debris, and the air, full of a terrifying silence, smelled of death.
The fire had not gone easy on the bodies either, and the few that had not been burned to the bone appeared to be mangled beyond recognition.
The four girls had to force themselves to not look away, and when, fully armed, they came down from the armored vehicle, the smell was such strong that they almost threw up.
"Oh, my God." Ruka managed to mutter.
It was not possible.
It was not human.
Who could have ever conceived such a monstrosity? To what lengths human folly so long repressed by the conditioning of Embryo could get?
Sylvia tightened her hands around the gun, trying to control the anger she felt inside her.
"Let's survey the are. See if we can figure out what happened here. "
"I swear that if I'll find the fucker who did all this I'll wreck his shit!" Cursed Ashley, moving towards the old town hall along with Mayu.
Sylvia and Ruka instead walked along one of the streets that lead away from the square, but it took only a few minutes of inspection to realize that there was nothing in there, but most importantly no one to save.
Whoever had done it, had been careful to cover his or her tracks, leaving no survivors; the fires had also seen to that.
Yet, every draft, every whistle, every movement was seen by both girls as a warning, and both nerves were on the edge.
Sylvia bent down, picking up a wooden toy covered with mud and ash, so charred that it turned to dust in her hand when she tried to lift it. Nearby, lying on his back, there was a charred body, surely the owner of the doll.
"Bastards." She growled.
"Hey, look," said Ruka pointing at the heavy door, apparently boarded up, of a basement across the street. "Maybe there's still something useful there."
At that moment the research of supplies was not even in Sylvia's mind, but nevertheless she still wanted to check out what was in there, so she and her partner came down the stairs.
In front of the door there was another body, too charred and unrecognizable; probably that poor thing, a woman for sure, had desperately tried to save herself by getting in there, unfortunately finding it locked up with a bolt, which had sealed her fate.
To take out the bolt Sylvia was forced to shoot it, and only by putting all of their strength into it she and Ruka managed to open the heavy door, partially melted and warped by the flames.
It looked like an old warehouse, with rows of crates stacked and almost forming a labyrinth; lights, powered by a fuel generator like all the other systems, still worked although only intermittently, creating shadows that with their appearance and disappearance furthered weighed on their nerves.
Amongst the silence, Sylvia and Ruka went deep in the big room, the damp ground crunching under their boots, their fingers on the trigger, ready to shoot.
Suddenly, looking around, Sylvia noticed something, some sort of movement in the darkness. She thought it was an illusion, but then she and her companion heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps.
"Who's there?" she said, sure to have seen something.
Ruka returned quickly to the door blocking that exit while Sylvia pursued the fugitive, which, knowing to be trapped, stopped moving.
The girl continued to walk in silence, carefully taking each step, until ragged breaths reached her ears.
Turning a corner, she found a girl crouched on the floor, maybe a little younger than her, eleven or twelve years old at most, the long red hair all wet and disheveled, and an expression absent and terrified at the same time, wearing torn clothes; she was wounded, too, although most wounds were mere scratches and bruises.
"Don't be afraid," she said sheathing her gun again. "I will not hurt you."
The little girl didn't seem to have noticed her, keeping her eyes down almost as if dazed, and then Sylvia approached her carefully, trying not to frighten her further.
"Are you ok? Who has done this? "
"They have eaten them," she murmured. "They have drunk their organs."
"What are you talking about? What happened here? "
But she still did not answer, curling up even more, and Sylvia held her trying to comfort her.
"Don't worry. You're safe now. "