"I want to say we save her, but I also don't want that extra burden of having to look after someone.
"SOMEONE PLEASE HELP!" The woman screamed while running through the underground parking lot.
"Tch, she is screaming so it's only going to attract more mutants." Akira cursed the woman as what she was doing was only going to make it worse.
"We could save her and then leave her, but I feel like that might be too cruel." Reia realised that saving her and leaving her right after would break her mentally.
"I couldn't care less what happens to her, so it is up to you." Akira pulled out his carbine making sure it was fully loaded.
"Seeing as it's only 3 or 4 mutants, why don't you show me the effect your corruption has on them." Reia figured it could be a good opportunity for Akira to show off. This was also a way for Reia to avoid confronting the woman.
Reia was willing to leave people, but she wasn't going to make the end of their life miserable and although she can be cold, she wasn't cruel like Lou or Akira who only value people close to them.
"Fine by me, but I see you trying to avoid the woman, just remember to not let that kind heart get in the way." Akira knew how Reia was as on many occasions during missions she would rather capture the enemy than kill if she could.
"I know when or when I can't be nice, I have been in the military much longer than you, should hear the stories I had back then." Reia, being a member of the military for many years, had quite a reputation.
"Yeah, I know the lonely queen of the battlefield, I heard them all." Akira was aware of the brutal stories of Reia where she massacred squads by herself.
Akira left the room as he said this since the woman was getting rather close to the office.
The name had brought back memories for Reia of how she stood alone covered in the enemy's blood.
'Let's hope I'm never like that again.' Reia wasn't proud of the version of herself back then and was glad she has changed since then.
*
Akira walked out of the office, approaching the small group of mutants.
The woman that was running wore a white shirt which was covered in dirt and a pair of black jeans. She had long black wavy hair and grey eyes. Many cuts and scrapes were along her arm as well as some holes in her clothes.
The woman saw Akira and a flash of hope appeared in her eyes as seeing a member of the military meant they had a weapon.
The woman ran towards Akira in hopes that he would protect her from the mutants chasing her.
Akira took a deep breath before aiming his gun toward the mutants. The woman panicked for a moment as she was directly in front of them and thought he was going to shoot her as well.
Akira fired a few bullets each, all just barely missing the woman and hitting the mutants behind her. Akira had hit a human and raccoon mutant in the leg causing them to tumble to the ground. This caused the bear and squirrel mutant behind them to trip over allowing the woman to gain more distance.
The woman finally reached Akira and she quickly hid behind him.
"Let go." In a cold voice, Akira told the woman to let go of him. The woman flinched but she let go as she realised that It would hinder him from fighting.
Akira holstered his gun, then pulled out his dual black blades and the red lines on the swords began to glow red. Just like Reia, his blades had a small lightning effect surrounding the blade as more essence was poured into them.
The Mutants were back up already running towards Akira in rage with the raccoon and human mutant falling behind due to losing a leg. The corruption on their body was a red mist which covered where Akira shot, slowly eating away at their body.
Due to the mutants also being dead, the pain of your flesh being eaten by the corruption did not bother them and kept moving towards Akira.
Akira sprinted towards the first 2 mutants and charged one of his swords with lightning.
The mutant bear leapt at Akira for a bite while using its claws to scratch him. Akira's sword was now fully red and using it to block the bear's attack, it ended up biting the blade. Akira discharged the lightning causing the bear to fall over paralysed.
The blade light dimmed, and hot steam was coming off the blade indicating that it was on a cooldown.
During the bear's attack, the squirrel ran around Akira and jumped at him from behind. Without looking, Akira used his second blade which was infused with his corruption essence and sliced the squirrel in half. Akira had just missed the core, but that did not matter as the corruption on the squirrel's body began to consume the core.
The raccoon and human mutant caught up, but the corruption had almost reached their body.
The bear was starting to recover from the paralysis and began to get up from the floor.
Akira, sheathing his swords, pulled out his carbine and fired into the bear so the corruption could start eating away at its body, since the bear's body was bigger it would take longer before the corruption was effective.
Akira switched to lightning then fired at the human mutant and managed to shoot the core with no issues. The raccoon mutant, however, was able to move better than the human mutant which made it harder to hit.
Akira began to move back slowly as the raccoon mutant charged at him. The bear was now up on its feet and the corruption had eaten a portion of its face making it unable to bite anything.
Wanting to conserve his essence, did not fire at the raccoon but waited for it to jump at him like the squirrel did.
The raccoon jumped at Akira with desperation as its body was now getting consumed by the corruption and knew it was close to the core.
Akira holds his carbine with one hand and uses his other to pull out one of his swords. Stabbing the raccoon in the mouth, Akira skewered the raccoon and pushed the mutant to the ground, killing it.
Before Akira could pull out his blade the bear had jumped at him. The bear's jaw was swinging as the corruption in its face was close to consuming the jaw. Other parts of the bear had deep holes and as time went on the corruption started consuming more.
Akira jumped away leaving his blade stabbed into the ground with the melting corpse of the raccoon.
"Tch, still not dead." Akira was hoping his corruption would have killed the bear by now.
Aiming down sights Akira using more corruption essence fired more bullets into the bear. This time with more corruption eating the body, meaning it would eat the body at a greater pace.
The bear tried to move but due to the eating of the corruption, its legs started to fall apart making it disabled. The bear tried to growl doing everything in its power to move, but all it could do was helplessly stare until it died.
Akira walked past the bear a few metres away just to be safe and pulled out his sword from the ground.
"That was only 4, if I wasn't trying to conserve my essence that would have been done much quicker." Akira did not like how long it took to kill 4 of them and since they only have a limited amount of essence, he had to be careful how much was used so he didn't exhaust himself.
"Thank you, so much." The woman who had been hiding behind one of the few cars came out and got on her knees bowing.
Akira looked at the woman coldly, feeling a little bit of remorse for leaving her, but they could not let anyone else come with them, so she had to be left behind.
Reia walked out of the office who had been watching from the window.
Akira turned to walk away, and Reia caught up walking beside him.
"Wait, please take me with you, are you not meant to be the military that should be helping us." The woman could not believe it as the person that just saved them was walking off.
"Who do you think caused this? We are all on our own, military or not, we saved you because we did not want you to attract any more mutants. Now run along and find your own way to survive." Akira turned his head looking at the woman directly in the eyes.
The woman began to cry reaching her hand out but was unable to say anything.
Reia bit the bottom of her lip as it was difficult morally to leave her, but it would be impossible to protect her and would literally be dead weight.
Akira and Reia took a fire exit that led to the outside, leaving the woman behind in the underground car park.
"Please, don't go."