Akugami

10. Worldwide Catastrophe.

While Yukiyo and Mai had remained out of sight from the Akugami, Teru was in a pinch, he was regretting his words from earlier just about as much as a boar regretted entering a jaguar's line of sight, "What the hell am I doing?" The teen questioned himself bitterly. "I wasn't ready for this yet!" He spat up a small blotch of blood, but did he even have a choice, did it matter if he was ready or not?

Regardless of his readiness he had no say, if he didn't move he would be killed, his muscles were burning and his head pounding, thankfully none of the Akugami had been angered to the point of sudden rage otherwise he feared he'd have already been crushed or mauoed, in fact, they all seemed rather laid back and relaxed in their pursuit, almost as if they could sense he was weakened. But, they were trying to eat him nonetheless, and that was always going to remain a problem, while Tatsumi was challenging the Shell-headed Akugami a small distance from him, Teru was up against two regulars, Tatsumi's situation was still worse, but he had help; Teru didn't.

Teru finally managed to get on one of their backs, but before he could strike its head, the other one attacked him forcing him to jump above that one's hand and turning mid-air to try landing on it, stabbing the first one's head and driving his blade deep beneath the skin Teru gave out a long growl of satisfaction as its blood sprayed him like a garden hose soaking his while self from head to toe instantly, but before his still weak body could get a chance to recover an ounc of strength, the other one grabbed him with its other hand, if there was a time to worry, it would have been then, he simply didn't have the strength now and to make the situation even worse, both his hands were stuck in the creature's grip while it raised him high and opened its mouth beneath his flailing feet.

"This...This isn't happening!" Teru snapped. "I'm not getting eaten!" He screamed in anger, and then with that thought raising adrenaline in his blood, he focused on his shoulders; then with two shifts and a twist and his left shoulder dislocated with a painful click while he start wriggling downward to the Akugami. "There!" Teru grit his teeth as pain captured his side, but he was resolute not to die like this.

Falling out of the Akugami's hand and onto its teeth Teru jumped over the creature's head just before its mouth was snaoped locked onto his feet and then with another cry plunged the blade in the beast's head leaving it to shriek loudly as he yanked it free then stabbed the wound again for good measure. "I can't keep this up though." He jumped from the falling creature's back and clumsily landed on his feet, stumbling backwards and falling out of complete exhaustion.

"At least I'm not dead.. At least." Teru placed his hand on his chest as the fight replayed in his head before he held on to his shoulder and readjusted it with a grunt.

On the other hand, Tatsumi was being extremely sadistic in his approach to his own enemy "Cry you bastard!" The raven haired teen shouted, and Teru started looking around trying to find exactly where he was, but his head snapped back to the van that was being attacked by the last Akugami, thinking little of Tatsumi's situation and assuming he could take care of himself, Teru forced himself to sit up, and then to stand all while beads of sweat rolled down his face and leaving his normally neat hair sticking to his forehead, he would always complain, but he'd never stop fight his condition and denying his reality until he was at full health once more.

"One more time." Teru whispered to himself, gathering all his strength and running at the distracted Akugami that was out to get Yukiyo and Mai, he jumped up on it's back and wasted no time at all attackng its weak spot with a downward stab to the head.

The monster was caught off guard and shrieked as it felt its life slipping away faster than it could grasp on to it, it stood upright shrieking and stepping backward, and at a major loss of strength Teru lost his grip of the Akugami's wound and fell hard to the ground along with the monster, knocking the air right out of his lings and killing the momentum he had been building all along, the teen then gasped aloud when it fell inches beside him. "s**t," Teru swore and opened his eyes wide staring in the sky. "I'm all outta juice."

He really couldn't move at all, he felt absolute exhaustion incomparable to anything he'd ever experienced before, he was putting stress on a wound that would take months or even longer to heal, a cracked skull wasn't something to have shaking around, he knew it too, but he hadn't the option, if he didn't fight he'd die, that was evident from the very moment the Akugami first appeared, but all that said, he still needed to be upright, if another Akugami came at him now he'd be watch for sure.

Laying there trying to muster more strength, Teru heard Tatsumi scream again, followed by the Akugami shrieking and the ground shaking as it seemed like the beast was about to start rampaging, he couldn't imagine what Tatsumi was doing that could have been working against that monster when its one weakness was covered and protected by an impenetrable shell on its head.

"The morning sun shines upon on my body, it's rays penetrate my skin and bring a quickly forgotten warmth back to me, I'm only human after all, I have limits like everyone else." Teru takes the time he's given to be a poet for the first in his life as he is kissed with sunlight from the horizon before them, and then he smiles at the irony of his actions. "We weren't meant to fight these things, why not just stay still and be eaten by them?" He questioned himself. "Right now, I just wanna go back to sleep, right here where I lay, I'll just close my eyes, for a bit, just for a little while." He begins losing consciousness.

"Hey Teru, get the f**k up!" Tatsumi called out to him coldly. "Don't go spouting bullshit like that, if we don't fight and kill them all, we will die by their jaws, by their claws, wether it's slow or fast deaths, we're gonna die painfully, and I don't wanna f*****g die, so we're gonna fight and survive!" Tatsumi used an old cloth he'd placed on his person to wipe the thick blood from the blade and then sheathed his katana then he clasped his fists dragging his elbows back and assuming a squat and then screaming to the sky. "It's fight or die, and we all have to make it, I won't lose a single one of you, so live you bastards,Teru, get the hell up, we're leaving." He called again, and Yukiyo came running to Teru with a blushing smile plastered on her face. Still confused, Teru looked to the side of the motel and gasped when he realized that the Akugami was walking away while toppling to it's sides.

What the hell!?

"What the hell's it doing?" Teru queried shocked. "Why's it ignoring us?" He asked again not even waiting for a response for his first question.

"It's blind, I dug it's eyes out because I couldn't get under the shell on its head." Tatsumi looked at him. "So we should go before it starts depending on its.. other senses." He concluded in monotone, not even sparing them any other glances as he opened the door and sat shotgun in the van.

At that point it was obvious to Teru, even more so than before, obviously Tatsumi had changed, in the space of three days they had all changed, going from regular achievers and overachievers in his and Yukiyo's case, to survivalist amateurs, but Tatsumi was different, he wasn't like them, he was supposed to be just a delinquent who would need time to adapt like they did, they were just teens after all, just kids, but every time he looked at Tatsumi he couldn't help but see a veteran survivor, from the way he talked to the way he acted, he seemed to know more than he was letting on.

"He's definitely changed, there's something different about him." Teru mumbled to himself, "dunno what though."

Since the motel, they had been been driving for at least two hours, Tatsumi had kept it in the back of his mind, but a city had survived for a long time before getting overrun, he was going to get them there before the first wave after initiation; so far they'd seen the regular Akugami, and that was fine, but he'd seen the Shell-headed Akugami as well and that worried him, those weren't supposed to appear for another three months with the first wave, similarly the winged Akugami weren't discovered until almost a year after the first wave, and yet those two variations appeared within the first two days, he was worried, it seemed like the past was changing his future because of his actions, or maybe it wasn't his fault at all.

Either way it was still cause for concern.

The road had vehicles lined off on the side and in the middle, some were burnt to nothing, others crashed and destroyed, and some had been evidently torn up by Akugami. "Just, how far does this go?" Mai asked, looking at Teru beside her. "I thought that we'd be able to get help outside of Salt Springs, but do you think… hey do you think it could be a worldwide thing?" She asked, but nobody answered her, Teru and Yukiyo hadn't thought about that before, but Tatsumi just didn't want to think about it then.

Instead of answering her, he turns on the radio, at least it shouodnt be to the point where the stations were destroyed yet, at least, and as he suspected it was working, and the first thing that caught their ears was a reporter saying; "-unidentified and presumably terrestrial creatures-"

Tatsumi turned it up, and the vehicle turned to absolute silence as they all began to listen attentively.

"-as of now, scientists have yet to identify the origin of this Global crisis, and world leaders have been making preparations to join heads in an attempt to try and solve the problem faster, in hopes of putting it to an end as quickly as possible.

"…Since the sudden appearance of these monsters it's been unofficially confirmed that more than half the world's population has been wiped out in just under forty eight hours, and it is said that thousands of cities worldwide are unresponsive and entire countries have gone black, the Prime Minister's office that governs our country; Broccoli, has been quiet so far as it seems that the minister himself may have been killed in the initial attacks Saturday, so we currently have no information and have been hmgiven no directive as to who's the one or are the ones in charge of our country, the Western Pizza, and the northern Almond country governments have since recalled most of their military power and…" The reported paused and they heard other voices on air for a few seconds before the woman clears her throat and releases a long jittery sigh.

"People of Broccoli country, th-this news just in, it is now confirmed that the bunker holding all the heads of our country was attacked last night, and there haven't been reports of any survivors …Shit, that's our entire government overnight…" She stopped again cursing a few more times as the static in the radio gave off feedback. "We have also been informed to notify the surviving public that the, Broccoli military, has now taken control of the country in attempts to suppress the threat, and that mass countermeasures are underway to strike back against the uh... Monsters, the military, is also in the process of recruiting new soldiers willing to give their all for their county's survival in this; it's darkest of days, the headquarters is in the heavily fortified military city known as Ramen where they claim to have already completely eradicated the monster threat from the inside and are in the process of expanding to accommodate more persons able to make the journey there, our scientific sources here state with certainty that the monsters have been gathering in open areas and are more likely to attack with vigour out there, so it's advised that residents and citizens stay indoors and only venture out if it's safe to do so, or not at all if possi-" The transmittion breaks away into static leaving the van silent again.

Tatsumi was surprised to hear that, half the population already?

How was that even possible?

And they'd already begun forming hoardes too… what?

And another thing, in his past life the government had put up a fight for years, this was becoming too complicated too fast, he couldn't think properly, the appearance of first and second wave Akugami, and what's that about Ramen city? There wasn't even such a place, he was wondering if he'd been incarnated into his old self or a completely different version of reality, he'd been exposed to Akugami and now a demon so he wouldn't rule out anything else at that point. "Ramen city is fortified…" He mused, no doubt he'd be going there, if they could survive the initial stage and kill out the Akugami then chances are they were strong enough to endure the first and even second wave of Akugami.

"This is happening worldwide..." Mai, spoke up, breaking the silence after Tatsumi's musing. "Is it even possible to survive, knowing that there's probably hundreds of millions of them out there maybe even billions?" She asked frightened. "We're all gonna die." Mai sat back and placed her face in her palms and closing her eyes. "We don't have a chance in hell against monsters that can make entire countries vanish overnight." While Mai was there bringing down everyone's mood Yukiyo suddenly hit the brakes causing Teru to scoot forward, hitting Tatsumi's seat with a grunt.

"Teru.." Tatsumi called behind him.

"We're gonna need a bigger vehicle." Yukiyo whispered, putting the van in reverse and stepping on the gas while looking back.

It was already too late and after a gasp she hit the brakes again, cursing under her breath and holding onto the steering with both hands as sweat began dripping down her forehead "Tatsumi... wh-what do we do?" She asked terrified.

Open spaces do attract them, and they were in a giant highway opening that stretched for miles, suddenly surrounded by dozens of Akugami that had been gathering, including the crazy Winged ones and a lot of armoured ones as well.

"…What do we do…?" Tatsumi repeated Yukiyo's question, gripping the handle of the katana and looking at Teru and Mai behind him.

"Isn't it obvious?"