Akugami

13. Red-Eyed.

"Where there is death, Akugami will gather, and whereever Akugami are gathered, death will soon follow." Is what Han had said, but his words now revealed that truth that nobody wanted to hear.

Before anyone had been the wiser; with each person caught in one distraction or another, they hadn't realized that the beasts were closing in on the caravan, they were too numerous to count, and it filled everyone with dread everyone the lightning brought their numbers to mind with its bright flashes, they came like a flood of bodies, choking the exits in their stealthy approach.

Han being the first to panic after witnessing his entire caravan of troops get wiped out by a single teenager with glowing red eyes, picking up one of the assault rifles closest to his feet, dragging it from the corpse of the headless man that once owned it and kicking the body away from himself all while on the verge of screaming his lungs out and then raising that gun and aiming it at the closest Akugami he could see, all the while shaking from the sight of it the creature's harder than a tree in a tornado, with visible fear contorting his expression into something almost inhumane.

"Hey what the hell man, you'll only kill us faster if you shoot at them!" Teru snapped at Han, grabbing the gun out of his hand quickly and turning around to the women in the back of the truck and gesturing for them to keep quiet, to which they all nodded back to him, it was good that they listened instead of started screaming, that would have been the end of them all.

"Let's go." Tatsumi turned quietly to Yukiyo, taking her hand and walking slowly away from the Akugami and toward the truck, making as little movement as they needed to keep the creatures focus on the corpse's. "Have you ever driven a truck before?" He asked her as they reached the side of the truck, and Yukiyo froze, she really hadn't, she'd been limited by her father to cars and the occasional bike.

"Can I say no?" She looked at Tatsumi repentantly, hugging his hand and taking slow steps with him.

By the time the two of them had made it to the truck's door, the blind from the back had already been quietly pulled down, and everyone inside was dead silent; some even praying for their lives, to what though Teru who was looking at them couldn't guess, he'd discarded any religion he could have taken up as soon as the world began ending.

What "God" would allow this to happen to their creation?

Tatsumi helped Yukiyo into the driver's seat, pointing at Han to get on the roof, which he did without question; Han wasn't partial to Tatsumi at all, he'd seen the kid kill all his friends in the blink of an eye, to him, Tatsumi was just another terrifying monster, so he'd do what it took to stay on his good side, not to mention he'd been dead all evening.

Tatsumi saw the distrust on the man's face, but to him that meant as much as ants used to mean before they all disappeared, so he turned back to Yukiyo before taking forever to close the door as silently as he could.

"You got this, right?" He asked her with much concern, seeing her scan the dashboard, look at the clutch system and then rest her hand on the gear stick... Yeah... She definitely got it.

She inaudibly released a sigh before looking back at him. "How hard could it be?" She asked nervously. "A truck is just a bug car with overly complicated gears, no biggie..."

Teru poked his head through the back window at them. "Anytime now would be great Yukiyo." He hastened them to do something before their spot was completely compromised.

"It's on you now Yukiyo, start the engine and go, and don't stop until we're in Ketchup Town, no matter what arises, were not stopping." Tatsumi ordered her seeing Han take his place. Just above them through the sunroof.

"I'm gonna need your help, againn, Ravana." Tatsumi spoke to his resident; it was his first time starting the conversation where he knew she'd react, and it came with bitterness in his heart, he was not at all pleased with, grumbling about it as he was taking his position on the roof of the truck beside Han, who had strapped himself to the roof with his grenade launcher in hand.

"We're gonna have a long talk when this is over, Tatsumi." The demon chuckled in his head.

"Hey kid, you're gonna need this." Han lturned to Tatsumi, handing him a pair of night vision goggles, similar to the pair he was wearing, had the Akugami not been busy fighting for body parts they'd have already noticed them with the amount of movement they'd been doing, but thank goodness for dead people.

"I, don't need that garbage, just do your part, and I'll do mine." Tatsumi frowned in response to Han's half concerned gesture, pushing away his hand and unsheathing the katana; holding up the weapon and releasing a steamy breath as merely grasping onto it filled him with adrenaline and burning power. The adult aimed at the first obstacle in their way and tension started to rise as the Akugami began drawing closer to them.

Having already made all preparations for a quick escape. Yukiyo quickly turned the key in the ignition. Feeling the vehicle shake violently before flipping the switch for the headlights and stepping on the gas, as further distraction, Tatsumi and Han threw out several grenades as far out as they could causing the creatures to become somewhat confused as noise suddenly erupted all around them, but the ones closer to them remained focused on the truck as it began slowly building speed.

With the truck in movement, almost all of the Akugami started turning toward it; explosions up ahead of the truck created a fiery wall in the forest of monsters, pushing them back and clearing a path as the truck gained more speed, and soon after the explosions had erupted, the path was already being filled again with Akugami, and shortly after that, with no time at all passed into the escape attempt, Akugami started hitting the sides of the truck when the women began making noise, despite Teru trying his best to keep them as silent as possible.

"If they keep hitting us like this, it's gonna topple over!" Yukiyo yelled trying her best to avoid hitting as much as she could, but the mere amount of them was impossible to dodge with a truck full of people.

"Hey baldy, you deal with the ones in the sky!" Tatsumi shouted an order at Han, starting to stand in an unnecessarily dramatic pose as he readied himself.

"What about the ones that're in front of us!?" Han snapped back at him. "If I stop shoo-"

"Do as I say!" Tatsumi cut him off, with a snarl that he heard even above the monsters rising shrieks; looking down on him with bright crimson eyes just as a bolt of lightning rolled across the clouds above, feeling the light shower beat against his body at that building speed, Tatsumi took in a lung full of air before placing a pair of military issued shooting glasses with light tint over his eyes to protect them.

And unable to now see the color of his eye, but smart enough to listen, Han swallowed down his fear of the teen along with any questions and started aiming at the Akugami in the air.

"Be honest Tatsumi, you love this rush of overwhelming power, don't you..." Ravana stated, rather than ask, and a small grin overtook his lips revealing abnormally tall canines as he did admit it, but not verbally.

Ignoring the question any further, Tatsumi bent his knees, crouching and taking off ahead of the truck, resulting in Han releasing a shriek, the teen was moving at such such speeds that everything else looked slow in comparison.

At that point, Teru and Yukiyo were seeing him as nothing more than a blur, passing across the truck, pushing back Akugami and leaving blood and shrieks in its path, they didn't know what to make of it, to them it looked like a supernature being was on their side, clearing a path, they couldn't see him clear enough to make out that it really was Tatsumi skipping across Akugami like a monkey racing through tree limbs.

Both of them were completely speechless, but they made the connection soon after, after all they'd seen it before; when Tatsumi killed all those fake soldiers.

Still, being familiar with something like this, it only caused rivers of questions to appear, nothing about that was normal.

“This is all very impossible, to think about logically, monsters of unknown origins was a starter, but now there's also myself being reincarnated, demons as well, and on top of that is this global chaos, I feel like I've been dragged into some kind of twisted writer's imagination… it's all a big f****d up nightmare.” Tatsumi starts to trail off, whilst efficiently stepping on the Akugami, slicing across their faces and into both eyes, before kicking at it toward the other, clearing the path in a slow speed motion, even having the time to wonder at the raindrops flying across his field of vision. “This is nothing short of amazing!” He mentally exclaimed. "I do love this, I love this feeling of being in control above these bastard creatures, after suffering so much because of them, I now have this feeling of being the apex, even in the face of these abominate beings, I am above it all, I am a whole different level if powerful, and I can feel it, more power; so much more is just beyond this!”

As Tatsumi began to fall deeper and deeper into a power craze, a wicked grin crept up on his lips as he continued slashing across Akugami. More maroon blood splashed him while his devilish smile morphed unto chuckles, the feeling of being greater than any adversity he could think of, was absolute freedom he'd never felt before in either of his lives.

Soon though, Tatsumi's consciousness faded, and Ravana was in control again.

"Keep dropping your guard like this, and I might be tempted to keep control... but you're so weak, so there's be no point." She frowned, seeing only one Akugami remaining before the road.

"Let me show you how its done, pay close attention Tatsumi, this is the power you now wield!" she laughed, lessening his weight in mid-air and landing on the hood of the truck before taking off at the sole monster, and then with movements faster than the human eye could possibly imagine to follow, the Akugami was sliced into a falling pool of blood and chunks causing her to release a satisfied smile and chuckle before the truck caught upntobher and she landed on the hood again.

Witnessing something even more unbelievable than before, Yukiyo and Teru looked on in total shock; believing what they saw, and then doubting their eyes right after, he'd killed that one differently, he even sliced through the bones and skull.

Turning back on the main road at last, Yukiyo floored the military vehicle speeding over the last hill before seeing a sign that said (You are now five miles closer to the town of ketchup.)

"We actually made it." Teru laughed out, pressing his cheek on his cousin's while shaking her by her shoulders and saying a happy "thank you." But Yukiyo hadn't heard a thing he'd said, she was still too shocked at what she had seen Tatsumi do and was still lost in thought, taking glances at him on the shotgun side of the hood; this didn't go unnoticed by Teru, but he decided to ignore it for the time being.

So he around and entered the small door then announced the good news to the women before sitting beside Mai, she took that moment to quickly wrap her hands around him, burying her face in his chest and sobbing wordlessly.

And looking down at her with a very little confusion, he used his thumb to wipe her fresh tears before lifting her chin and looking her in her eyes.

"We made it, so why are you crying?" he asked, wiping away more tears as they slowly strolled down her face.

She opened her mouth in a delayed response, before answering; "What if they're there too?" His eyes narrowed, of course he understood, he was thinking the same.

He sighed of exhaustion, looking at her with soft comforting eyes and finally hugging her back. "Mai, there's no doubt at all that they are there as well, but we don't have to worry about that just yet, we're going there because it's on the way to Ramen City, all we'll do is rest and then we're gone in the morning, If anything comes up I'm sure we'll be more than able to handle it." He gave her a small confident smile seeing her tears stop, and then he cupped her cheeks mouthing; "it'll be fine" to her and flashing her his trademark smile again.

Overwhelmed by the bubble of protection he'd put her in, Mai held on to his half dried collar, pulling him closer to herself and slowly pressing her lips against his.

And getting lost in the feeling of something normal while forgetting about everyone that's been watching them, he held on to her shoulders, running his hands down her sides and resting them on her legs.

She moaned in his mouth, deepening the kiss before one of the older women in the truck cleared her throat prompting both of them to smile frustrated, before breaking their kiss and looking away with burning faces.

"We're going to ketchup, right?" A pink haired girl asked as soon as the two seemed okay again.

"Yup." Teru answered cheerily.

"I've been there a few times recently, so um..." She derailed from her explanation, looking away from his gaze after she caught him staring almost intently.

"Yeah, so you're saying you know the place?" Yukiyo asked from the driver's. "Come on then, I could use some help; never been there before." She smiled, looking back for a sec before returning her attention to the road.

"Wow, what a distance." Teru started musing as he looked at more plains outside. "If we'd tried making it on foot, we'd all be dead for sure, especially seeing that army of Akugami we left back there."

At his mention of Akugami one of the adult women gasped loudly causing everyone to look at her, and Teru started probing her features with a questioning look instantly.

“Hmm, she's older than I am, that much I know for a fact, she's dressed like she was at a party, either that or she's a hooker.” He thought whilst staring.

“Her makeup is all over the place, and her eyes look swollen; probably from a lack of sleep, or just a lot of crying, or both,… what's with her green hair though, what a weird colour, though there's a pinkette right beside her… she is all messed up but I can still see the appeal, she's really pretty.” He kept admiring the woman while Mai continued to turn red beside him.

“Even though she's older, I wouldn't m-holy-crap-her-BREASTS, THEY'RE MELONS!” Teru's mouth suddenly hit the floor.

He had to force himself to stop looking when he realized that she had noticed his eyes locked on her breasts and was trying and failing to adjust them in the tight spaghetti strap blouse.

"Um, what'd you call them? " She asked him anxiously after regaining some composure.

"We call 'em Akugami." He replied, looking back at her breasts shamelessly, until Mai's elbow hit his fractured rib causing him to wheeze.

"Akugami..." She repeated, looking down on her bruised hands and sobbing while tears fell on her tanned skin. "Do you have any idea... just how accurate you are?"