Akira chuckled at Reia's reaction, but not wanting to get his ass kicked, did not pursue any further and took this win while he could.
Reia facing the wall was lightly banging her head up against the wall, trying to think of a way to get back at Akira.
*
'I'm at a loss.' Reia gave up as she could not think of a way to 1-up Akira without it backfiring.
'I don't want him getting ideas either.' Reia also did not want Akira to get mixed messages and although she trusted him, she did not want that kind of attachment when anything could happen.
"Reia, I'm done."
Reia flinched, waking up from her thoughts and quickly turned around.
Akira in his new clothes wore a long-sleeved t-shirt with an under top going up to his neck. Red lines went down the arms of the t-shirt and small lines on the neck of the under top. For pants, Akira had chosen a pair of cargo pants that also had a belt of pouches similar to Reia's but only this time it had red accents. He had also gone for a pair of fingerless gloves and some normal black sneakers.
Akira looked at Reia confused as there was a small red mark on her forehead and was wondering what she was doing this whole time.
"What the hell did you do to your head?" Akira had guessed she was agonising over how to get her revenge.
"I-i uhhh, nothing." Reia covered her head, internally screaming.
'REIAAAAAAAA, why do you do this to yourself?' Reia's cold and confident image was crumbling in front of her eyes with each passing moment.
Akira chuckled to himself as Reia who had always been so unapproachable was being adorable and was a scene that no one thought could be possible.
'Who would've thought Reia, a person known for being heartless, is just a normal girl.' Akira knew Reia was far from normal, but to see this side of her was a steep contrast to how she acted in the military.
"Anyway, we should get a move on, we spent too much time here." Akira shook his head while picking up his bag and weapons.
"Can I use my sword to cut out the part of the brain where you saw me act like this?" Reia's persona changed as she turned while pulling out her sword.
"No, I need that to see more of this cute Reia, plus I don't think you need to hide it, it's not like we are a part of the military anymore. You could say we are free." Akira, not batting an eye at Reia's actions, continued to make sure he had everything.
"I-i, you bastard!." Reia went red again as now she felt completely exposed and for someone who had always been keeping up the image of a cold leader for years, found it hard to give it up.
'Akira really is in for hell when I can think of something to use against him.' Reia, not wanting to back down, was determined to get back at him.
"Quiet, otherwise you will attract the mutants." Akira got worried for a moment and quickly looked to the front of the store. Luckily no mutants had heard them, but it was also a small wake up call to their situation.
"S-sorry." Reia instantly calmed down and even though they had a relatively easy time, anything could happen and being reckless was just stupid.
"We are fine, but we can't play around anymore, we need to find a place to stay." Akira started to scope out the front of the store to see if it was safe to walk out.
"Well, what kind of place should we look for?" Reia had a few ideas, but they needed to actually find the places.
"I thought about just an apartment near a place with a lot of supplies, so that way we might bump into one of your members." This also allowed them to see if there were any groups of survivors in the city.
"Let's do that but we have to be careful as other people could have the same idea." Knowing staying near a place with supplies would be ideal, but that also led to the potential of people fighting for the supplies.
"There are also the rebel forces, I can see them already being a hassle, so let's try not to reveal we are military otherwise we will get shot on sight." Akira thought that the rebels, an anti-military group, would take advantage of the situation and rally people together and take over places with lots of supplies.
"That will be hard since our guns are custom made for us, just be grateful Echo when making them did not add the logo on the gun so we might be able to come up with an excuse." Reia did not like the odds of blending in as a pair of people with high tier guns screamed military.
"We will find out when we get there, let's get moving and this time we will try to go by roof." Not wanting to risk drawing attention to them, they decided to go the safer route. This also allowed them to save more essence and recover the lost essence from the joint attack.
"Shouldn't there be a back door?" Reia looked around the storage room looking for another door.
"Oh right." Akira felt a little stupid for not realising sooner.
Reia walked to one of the corners of the backroom behind one of the shelves and found that there was a door that led to the back of the building.
"Looks like I found our way out." Reia opened the door to the alley but when she did was greeted with a mutant lion.
The mutant Lion growled and because of its size, Reia was not able to see its full body.
Reia slammed the door shut and started to run away while grabbing Akira by the arm, pulling him along.
"Wha-." Akira was about to ask what Reia saw but then the lion destroyed the back wall answering his question before he could ask.
Reia dragged Akira to the front of the store before letting go and stopping.
"Kill or run?" Reia was fine with either way but preferred to run to save essence.
"Let's just run." Akira also thought that it was better to save their essence rather than fight an almost elephant-sized lion.
The lion smashed through the next wall forcing Reia and Akira to run out of the store.
Upon running out to the street mutants were already running in their direction. Akira, noticing an alley across the road, grabbed Reia's hand and ran towards it. The lion was now out on the street and the clothing store they were in started to collapse to the ground.
The lion roared, attracting all the nearby mutants to the street they were on.
Akira and Reia ran into the alley and climbed up a metal staircase that led to the roof.
"Why the fuck is that lion so big?" Akira was shocked by the size as all the mutants they saw were only slightly bigger than their respective race.
"It's like the massive mutant I ran into before, but this time it's an animal." Reia got flashbacks to the massive human mutant she ran away from.
Looking over the edge to see what it was doing a smaller lion mutant had run-up to the massive one and started to get absorbed into it.
"Wait so the massive mutants are just an accumulation of the same race?"
Reia's comment was rather terrifying as there were millions of people in the city meaning the number of massive mutants would be large.
"We need to go!" Akira, not wanting to hang around to find out, ran along the rooftops followed by Reia.
After the lion finished absorbing the mutant, it jumped up onto the roof of the building. However, when it landed, the roof of the building caved in on itself causing the lion to fall back down.
Reia and Akira despite their situation got a little chuckle out of it as it was funny to see the lion struggle to stay on the roof.
"Akira, try shooting it, so the corruption could start eating its body." Reia figured he may as well let it slowly die while they run away.
Without saying a word Akira turned around quickly and changed the magnification on his sight and aimed at the lion that was getting up from the ground.
Firing a burst of bullets Akira hit the lion directly in one of its glowing green eyes. The corruption started to eat away at the lion slowly and with how big its body was, could take hours before it had any effect.
However, thanks to one of its eyes being shot, it caused the movement of the lion to be a little awkward.
"Now let's hope it dies." Akira holstered his gun and caught up to Reia who moved up a little.
Once again just like Reia, they made it to a street where they could not jump across and were forced to jump down or take a risky jump to the building to their side. The street below had mutants rushing through the streets making their way to where the lion roared. The buildings beside them, although close enough for a jump, were just too far apart for them to do it confidently.
"Shit, what do we do?" Akira was unsure what to do as the lion mutant was getting closer and they had about 20 seconds before it caught up.
"Akira, look ahead of us, there is a different kind of mutant on the other side of the road from us." Reia looked across and saw a mutant who had the figure of a normal person, but was covered in the same substance.
The mutant looked up and saw Reia and Akira standing on top of the roof.
In only a few seconds the mutant's legs glowed green as if it was charging up and jumped into the air, appearing right in front of Akira and Reia.