"I can't believe I'm going out like this, as a veteran survivor…" Tatsumi was dread and depressed as he patiently waited for his demise.
His body had become impassive moments before when he realized his fate, but it was not yet his day to die again just yet.
"Tatsumi." Teru's voice came thickly as if he was behind a wall, bouncing from side to soft side, that's when it dawned on him that that he wasn't being swallowed or chewed, he was simply resting inside of the disgusting saliva filled mouth of the beast, apart from the teeth at his waist, he hadn't felt anything else, and this Akugami wasn't even breathing on him anymore.
"It's dead?" He thought.
Slowly he opened his eyes feeling the thick saliva through his shirt, he wanted to scream his lungs out but became afraid he'd get some in his mouth, so instead he placed his hands on the tongue and tried pushing himself out, it wasn't working- there was no grip inside of the mouth of an Akugami, once inside of the mouth, that was it.
It was obvious that anyone at all unlucky enough to end up there wouldn't be able to escape on their own.
Several more attempts yielded the same results, and panic swept in his chest like a hammer, regardless of if he wasn't being eaten or not, his ass was sticking out, and he remembered witnessing some extremist creeps back in his future, f**k, Tatsumi became terrified of what could happen, not to mention another could appear and simply bite off his lower body.
Tatsumi started kicking in frustration and worming miserably as the thick liquid around him caused him to develop a sudden and deadly case of claustrophobia, the walls of the monster's mouth suddenly felt smaller, crushing his lungs and squeezing the entirety of his body, then suddenly he felt his feet being tugged, and slowly, he was removed from the nasty mouth of the beast.
Pulled out of the slime he sat speechless on the floor looking at the Akugami with a sword stuck in the dent of its head as more thick filth slowly dripped from his torso.
His lungs burned as he breathed rapidly, it's as if he'd been holding his breath for hours.
He was about to be eaten by an Akugami and had accepted death to the point where his body felt dead.
On a side note though, it looks like either Teru or Yukiyo had killed the Akugami, that was always a plus on their part, once you killed one you'd never forget the feeling, it really did feel like killing a god.
"Tatsumi, get the hell up we gotta go!" Teru clamoured to snap him out of his train of thoughts quite suddenly, that's when he realized that his friend had been yelling at him all along, he simply wasn't in a right space of mind to hear anything other than his own breathing and thoughts.
"What's with the shouting!?" Tatsumi squealed on the top of his voice still gathering his breath and thoughts haphazardly.
A vein bulged in Teru's forehead as he looked at Tatsumi being pathetic all of a sudden, this really wasn't the time. "Damnit Tatsumi more Akugami are coming!!" Teru barked back, pointing to a trio of them, with one especially larger than the others.
Oh… well, s**t.
He struggled to his feet and grabbed a bag he had been packing from the aisle earlier.
"I can't believe I've already been saved by Teru again, he's one hell of a guy after all huh?" Tatsumi quickly thanked the gods, realizing the lengths Teru had gone through in his previous life.
They ran into another room where Teru locked the door and ushered them further in, it was the store room Tatsumi was thinking of later, he had heard in his previous life that someone had discovered something in there worth a thousand swords, as to what that something was, he hadn't the foggiest idea, only that if it was compared to a weapon then it was a weapon itself, right?
Mr.Kiki's store was in actuality very big, several rooms were spread throughout the building with the front being called a shop, it was probably somewhere between a hundred to two hundred square feet.
"The storeroom..." Tatsumi mused and immediately began checking the shelves, he didn't know what weapon it was nor why it was so envied in the time of an apocalypse, but if he could get his hands on it then he would be much more capable of protecting all the people he would eventually find back.
"That door isn't gonna hold if they don't give up." Yukiyo exhaled in frustration.
"You two seem calm enough, but yeah, the Akugami saw us enter this room, so they won't stop until they can prove for themselves that we're not in here, and since thatvis the one entrance and exit, were basically trapped." Tatsumi almost pouted upon searching the first two of three shelves and finding nothing at all that could be called a weapon by his standards.
"How do you know that they're gonna keep at it?" Yukiyo made an attempt to touch Tatsumi but quickly retracted her hand while her forehead went blue from disgust, it took him a few seconds to realize that he was still dripping with monster slime but his realisation cleared the misunderstanding as well as made him sigh, also disgusted at his own appearance.
"Hurry up and get that filth off you we have a little time and, I have a plan," Teru turned to Tatsumi. "Get your damn mind sorted man." He growled.
"He's right, I'm not thinking straight right now." Tatsumi trailed away, slipping out of the heavy t-shirt then taking off his pants.
He noticed two bright blue eyes in his peripheral and smirked. "She's totally checking me out- ' He trailed off again.
The once distant growls that could have given nightmares were now right behind the door, and the Akugami began clawing and beating against it, the thought of being eaten quickly resurfaced- causing Tatsumi to trail away in thoughts again. "Tatsumi, if you keep this up you won't make it another day." He heard Yukiyo's voice pulling at his mind, she had said it to keep him alert but the words caused some tears to come to his eyes, those were the last words she told him in his last life before she died.
'Well s**t man, don't let Yukiyo die, fight on or win trying!" He rebuked himself. "Stop being a wimp!"
"Sorry, it won't happen again." He replied while emptying several stored away gallon bottles of water on himself and quickly roaming around the large room for something to wear rather than to go through the trouble of washing off the saliva from his clothes and then putting them back on wet.
Having heard the plan moments prior, Tatsumi searched the room until he found a box of clothes and immediately dug in.
He dressed as comfortably as he could- all things considered, finding a red elbow sleeved 'don't hurt me' T-shirt with black stripes on the sleeves, and black track pants with red stripes to the side.
"Mr.Kiki had good taste." Tatsumi mused, and he was about to close the box when his eyes caught something else. "Why's this one in here, I thought that he'd put the best on display." Tatsumi kept musing, but he was on point with everything happening around him, inside of the box he had found katana, an exotic looking one too, it seemed more stylish than practical, adorned with two red dragons stretching from the tip of the holy to the base of the handle where their mouths locked it.
He was finally focused, or so the others thought until they noticed him open and close the box a few more times, evidently pressed against a finding, in reality he was wondering wether he was going to bother even checking the sword, but in the end he did.
The Akugami crashed against the door shaking the whole building and growing louder and more violent as the seconds passed. "Tatsumi, whatever you're doing, do it now!" Teru shouted as the monsters started a relentless pounding on the iron door, causing what felt like a continual earthquake to shake them without pause or break, almost toppling over the tall shelves.
"Get ready." Tatsumi Stood from the box, serious all of a sudden as he pulled his hand from the inside, coming out with a red and black Katana, even the blade was black, and the weapon itself seemed to give off a vibe of blood-thirst.
The noise stopped, and their hearts started dancing against their rib-cages when a claw ripped through the steel door and retracted. "W-W-What the hell was that?" Yukiyo asked slowly. "That wasn't an Akugami, was it, It's too big right?" She whispered.
She was not the only one, Teru was just as shocked. Were there more than one kind? Can they actually handle that one? What if they're all like that one, what if the ones they've been seeing are just babies? Questions kept popping up in his head this can't actually be happening!
"Guys! Focus, the plan hasn't changed." Tatsumi half-shouted at them, a few seconds later all three of them flinched when the door was suddenly smashed in, bending halfway and flying across the room and hitting the wall so hard it cracked.
"We, we can do this, there's three of them, and three of us, the odds are in their favour, but we can do this, I have faith in Tatsumi and Teru's abilities, as I do in my own I know we can!" Yukiyo tried convincing herself, although she'd just seen a reinforced door smashed across a room, she had to build confidence somehow.
The Akugami wandered in, sniffing the surroundings like hounds. Sweating from a sudden fear of dying, the girl gripped harder to the weapon in hand, she didn't wanna die there, if fighting is the only choice she had then she'd do it to the best of her ability. "I'll do it the best I can!"
After the third one entered, Tatsumi stood from his position, behind that Akugami with his mind calm and his resolve steeled.
They had all climbed to the top shelves in waiting. It was an ambush attempt, with the same Katana he took from the box before, Tatsumi jumped from hiding tossing two dumbbells with enough precision that they hit the ones in front in their heads and sunk the weapon right in the closest creature's head, maroon blood sprayed up against his hand as the beast cried out loudly in agony, swaying it's big hands around and destroying the shelf Tatsumi was just on before falling on its face, and after the breath left its body there was a change that he felt but did not notice, little did he know...
The other two Akugami slowly turned around to him with deep-throated growls that caused the hair on the back of his neck to stiffen.
And they started walking back to him rather quickly as he easily pulled the Katana from the dead Akigami, standing on guard instead of running as planned "Do it now!" He ordered, and that's when the other two sprung from their hiding places.
Seeing them suspended epically in the air he had to admit that he felt proud of how fast they were learning, he also chose this opportune moment to have a flashback of their plan.
"So what's your plan?" Tatsumi asked Teru.
"Use their anger against them like that one you killed yesterday, it was much more dangerous when it was composed, slower, but much more dangerous, because it was composed." Teru grabbed a stored away marker and a piece of random cardboard and began drawing out what he meant. "We're gonna need something that can deliver a good hit, like my kick yesterday."
"I see, so you're using your kick as a premise then…" Tatsumi nodded, it was a good plan, that way they had minimum interaction with the monsters.
"Well, I don't get it, if someone kicked you, wouldn't you turn to them?" Yukiyo asked confused.
"You're right Yukiyo," Teru sighed. "But take into account both times we faced the Akugami, and what each attack triggered." He pointed out quickly
"I'm not getting it, both times they tried to kill you." Yukiyo frowned tapping her foot. "You're not making sense."
"When Teru kicked that one in the head yesterday. It didn't even try to eat him, it flat out tried to squash his ass." Tatsumi said, drying himself with some old cloth.
"But when I stabbed that other one moments ago, it only tried eating me, and don't forget that both of them died from stabs to their heads-" Teru explained before Yukiyo interrupted.
"So they have a weakness, that soft spot in the mould of their otherwise impenetrable skin that you told us about before right?"
She gasped loudly, finally piecing it together. "s**t, I shouldn't have even been asking this…"
"The top of their heads, the very centre of their skulls; I suspect it has a flaw, primarily like the human skull in fact, and if we can strike that spot precisely every time we face one, then we shouldn't have any problem as long as their numbers don't outmatch ours too drastically…" Teru paused
"Assuming it's like the human skull, then the skull cracks open and the blade goes in once we stab it right… right?" She laughed. "And once we can get it everytime… then…"
"-Goodbye monster" Tatsumi growled, ending his convenient flashback.
Teru and Yukiyo simultaneously attacked, Yukiyo's weapon pierced the soft hide at the top of the Akugami's head and the creature stopped dead in its tracks instantly swinging is hands at her "It didn't go deep enough!" She wailed and sucked beneath the hands.
"Then force it down!" Tatsumi snapped.
The Akugami opened its mouth crying and it's tongue whipped out at everything that moved, it spun and shook like a bull, breaking shelves like cardboard, but Yukiyo grabbed on to the sword's handle, and with all of her strength, pushed the steel blade further into the Akugami's head, and a second later; just as planned, it collapsed quickly as streams of blood escaped its mouth and wound.
"Damnit!" Teru shouted from the back of his target. "This one has a shell on its head!" He shouted again trying to stab other parts of the armour before the Akugami did something odd; it stood on both hind legs and started walking backwards.
Teru grabbed hold of the swinging lightbulb above him, sliding along the shell-head and falling to the ground as the creature's back smashed against the wall causing the whole room to thunder and shake violently.
"That fucker was gonna squash me, that makes two of em try'na squash me now!" He squealed while running back to the others, he grabbed hold of my Yukiyo's and ran out of the storeroom with Tatsumi glaring at the beast before following shortly after.
Tatsumi was following behind them when he stopped in the aisle labeled as blades.
He grabbed a couple of things quickly stuffing them in his already packed bag. "Come on!" Teru shouted out to him, not stopping, or letting go of his cousin as they went out through the smashed window.
Running in the middle of the road turned out to be a dumb move to say the least, an unsurprising six other Akugami came chasing after them, they had to turn into an office building.
They were still in the business district of the town.
"Haa~ that was too close," Teru whispered, wiping sweat from his forehead, they were all silent for a few minutes as they tried to evade the Akugami that followed until they ended up on the fourth floor, turns out, there were more Akugami in there too, "They're everywhere..." Teru whispered as they passed yet another cluster of monsters.
Tatsumi opened a door and ushered them in then closed it slowly, the creeks that it made didn't give any of them peace, and then they kept their ears at the door listening as the Akugami slowly passed by slowly.
They all released the breath they'd been holding the whole time after which Teru placed his forehead in his palm before tugging a fist full of hair and turning to the others "Getting out is starting to seem impossible, we can't face a group, and they don't seem to travel in singles like I first thought." He sighed then Yukiyo and Tatsumi did the same exhausted sink to the ground.
"Don't worry, Teru, we'll get out of this, I'll make sure of it... they might seem it, but you've killed one already so you know, they're not Invincible."
Looking down at the katana he had been holding tightly, Tatsumi started admiring the sheath it was in.
"Akuma No Akame Ju… that's an unusual name for a sword."
"What does it mean?" Teru asked.
"Curse of the Red Eyed Demon." Yukiyo replied when Tatsumi didn't.
"Could this really be the one?" Tatsumi thought out loud before his head snapped to a turned table at the window. "There's someone else in here."
"What, How can you know that?" Yukiyo inquired silently
"I don't know, I just ... Know." He said, confusing his own damn self as he stood from the door and quietly walked to the table.
"You there, it's OK, you can come out." He called to the person behind the table, who despite being discovered remained silent.
Peeking around the corner of the table, his throat went dry though when he came face-to-face with the mouth of a gun.
How'd you find me?"
Aksara