Chapter 25

They were in the process of securing the house. Setting up more of those strange UV lights, illuminating everything in their path in a bluish-purple neon glow. In the living room, the blood splattered on the walls, ceiling, and floor lit up like a Jackson Pollock painting. The intruders were wearing black masks, over which they appeared to be wearing some sort of special goggles to filter out excess radiation as they combed each room, handguns at the ready.

Unbeknownst to the Hunters, they themselves were being hunted by a monster of a completely different breed, stalking their every movement, listening as they spoke in a language they believed their quarry could not understand. They'd seen the supernatural before. Killed cultists with access to mystical powers. But these men and women, brave as they were, had never encountered a being quite like this.

Nothing they had trained for could have prepared them for what was in store.

Thirteen in total. Seven in the house, six still manning the perimeter. Occupants are armed with UV flashlights and semi-automatic handguns unknown caliber.

"Back hallway clear!" she heard one of them call out in Mandarin. "I'm moving up."

One of the Hunters began to approach the lion's den, coming dangerously close to the basement door. As he reached out for the doorknob, that's when she made her move, silently exiting the closet directly behind him before wrapping the piano wire she had in her hands around his neck and jerking back, sending him to the ground. The man was dragged into the closet by a pair of psychotically strong arms, kicking and gasping for breath as he gripped desperately at the piano wire. With a swift jerking motion, his neck was snapped, and the body dumped with the coats.

One.

She took her hatchet and exited the closet, shutting the door behind her.

"Suzaku...are you there?" a woman whispered as Akane braced herself against the corner wall. She watched as the beam from the UV flashlight being projected onto the wall opposite her got progressively smaller. The moment she saw a gun come around the bend, she grabbed it, spun out of cover, and brought the hatchet down into her next victim's neck. The woman gurgled and choked as Akane pulled it from her neck and brought it down on her head next, getting sprayed with red in the process.

Two.

She dragged the body into the hall out of sight and shut off the second flashlight, same as she did with the first. Akane quickly began field stripping the corpse, relieving the dead Hunter of her weapon. She quickly inspected the gun. A Glock 19 with custom laser targeting system and extended mag release.

Akane grabbed a spare magazine off the corpse before placing it between her teeth. She then checked around the corner, spotting another enemy slowly making his way through the living room. Once his back was turned to her, she snuck up behind him, ax in her left hand, Glock in her right, mag between her teeth.

A rickety floorboard gave away her position moments before she could strike. The Hunter spun around, his gun meeting her ax as she knocked it from his hands; he swung with a haymaker, only for Akane to drop low, driving the ax into his thigh. He howled in pain before dropping to a knee. She shoved the barrel of the gun against his head and fired, sending a round clean through his skull.

Three.

"Shots fired on the first floor!" someone shouted in Mandarin.

Another woman appeared from the second-floor stairs. Akane opened fire with the precision of a seasoned marksman, successfully nailing her in the shoulder and forcing her into a retreat.

"Fuck, I'm hit!" the woman shouted. "She's in the living room!"

She quietly cursed under her breath before running for the nearest piece of cover. Two more enemies appeared as she slid across the wooden floor, gliding on a puddle of blood behind a large bookcase. Quickly checking her ammo, she noted that she still had eleven rounds left with the extended mag. Checking around the corner, she saw two enemies in addition to the one she wounded in the shoulder. The moment the first stepped past the bookcase, she put a round in his leg, dropping him to a knee which she followed up with two rounds in the gut to put him out of commission.

Holding him by the neck, she fired on the two remaining enemies in front of her, nailing the man on the left three times in the chest while the woman she wounded earlier ran for the kitchen. In total, she fired seven shots, bringing her down to four. She placed one more in the temple of her meatshield.

Four.

Then one more in the head of the Hunter, whose vitals somehow managed to go unpunctured as she headed for the kitchen.

Five.

Akane picked up pursuit of her wounded quarry, following the trail of blood all the way to the kitchen before bracing herself near the entrance as she reloaded, releasing the mag in the gun before replacing it with the one between her teeth.

It was right as she placed the second mag in the gun when the wounded Hunter tried to pop out of cover and fire. Akane grabbed her wrist and smashed the butt of her weapon into the woman's wounded shoulder. She cried out in pain, losing her weapon in the process, before grabbing Akane's gun as she tried to aim and beginning a furious struggle with her.

Akane pushed her all the way back into the kitchen with monstrous strength her adversary was clearly unprepared for, a psychotic smile on her face as she slammed the wounded Hunter into the fridge. Her opponent countered with a knee to the ribs, successfully dislodging the weapon from Akane's grip. She countered by headbutting the woman in the nose, releasing her grip on her hands, and allowing Akane to drive a thumb into her bullet wound.

She screamed in pain as the psychotic girl pulled her away from the fridge before jumping up and latching onto her head with her thighs, displaying Olympic-level dexterity and acrobatic ability as she sent her opponent flying head over heel before slamming onto her back. Akane quickly righted herself and grabbed a steak knife off the kitchen counter. As the woman attempted to stand up, she delivered a roundhouse kick to her face, sending her adversary back onto the ground.

She descended upon her with the steak knife, pinning her enemy down and driving it towards her neck. The Hunter tried desperately to block, but her wounded shoulder was giving out. As the tip of the blade slowly descended towards her neck, she began to panic.

"Wait! Wait! Please!" she cried.

"Shhh. Shhh." Akane responded as the blade slowly sank into her victim's neck, her eyes wide with psychotic glee. As the steak knife descended to the hilt, her enemy finally went limp, finally off to dreamland in the big bed in the sky.

Now slightly winded, she took a moment to catch her breath and wipe the sweat and blood from her brow.

"Six..." she quietly murmured.

Wait...only six, she realized. Akane was missing one. A sound coming from the living room caught her attention.

"Sasha? You still with me?" a nervous voice called out in Mandarin, the sound of footsteps slowly drawing closer to the kitchen.

She smiled from ear to ear. Akane would recognize that voice anywhere. After all, she heard it talking her beloved's ear off almost every single day at school.

Akane yanked the bloodied knife from her last victim's throat before grabbing her gun off the floor. She waited near the entrance to the kitchen for the right moment to strike before driving the blade into the back of her last enemy's knee.

He screamed in absolute agony before crumbling into a heap on the ground, dropping his gun in the process. Akane kicked the gun to the corner of the room before planting her foot square in his gut. She descended on top of him, her knee planted into his chest, knife against his throat with her left hand, gun to his head with her right.

"Pull off the mask," she demanded in Japanese. "Now!"

With a trembling hand, the Hunter pulled off his mask and goggles, revealing none other than Ryuji himself. She couldn't help but notice he wasn't quite as fearless as he looked before. His knee cut open and bleeding—a knife and gun to his head.

Staring up into the soulless eyes of a woman coated in the blood of his comrades.

"Okay, Ryuji. Now you and I need to talk," Akane insisted while twisting the gun around on his forehead. "I want to know what you and your dad are doing here trying to kill my man."

"Y...your man?" Ryuji stuttered in fearful disbelief. "That's why you just killed all my friends? Do you seriously not have any idea who that monster really is?"

She thought about it for a moment. "Welllll, he was down in the basement eating the corpse of Nijio-senpai. So... I'm sure that's gonna come up sooner or later." Again, she just pressed the gun to his head. "But now that Senpai and I are a couple, we can spend forever getting to know each other's deepest darkest secrets. Right now, I'm more concerned with the present conversation. Which is you telling me exactly what I want to know."

"Go to hell, you psychopathic bitch!" he shouted at her.

Akane rolled her eyes before placing the gun against his crotch and firing. Ryuji screamed at the top of his lungs, nearly cutting himself on the knife still pressed against his throat, before breaking down into fits of agonized sobbing.

"Now, are you going to tell me what you're doing here, or am I gonna have to shoot the other testicle?"

"We... we're Hunters of the conspiracy!" he wailed.

She glared at him in confusion. "The what now?"

"The Conspiracy. It's... it's a global organization tasked with bringing down the Kin of C'thadra."

"What are you talking about? What's the Kin of C'thadra? Start making sense!"

Now he was the one who looked confused. "You...really don't know what's going on here? Like...at all?"

She groaned in frustration before pressing the gun against his crotch and firing again. Ryuji screamed, at which point she shoved the barrel of the gun in his mouth, pointing it up towards his pallet.

"How is it my Senpai is friends with you? Everything you say just pisses me off."

At that moment, the radio on Ryuji's hip queued up, and a voice began speaking in Mandarin.

"Ryuji, come in! My son, are you there?"

A sadistic grin spread across Akane's lips as she stared down at Ryuji's pale, trembling face.

"He sounds worried," she commented, the gun still firmly in his mouth. "You should answer him."

He reached down for the radio, whereupon she jammed the gun into his mouth harder.

"Slowly. No sudden movements."

Her warning was well received. Ryuji very slowly pulled the radio from his belt.

"Now, place it up to where I can speak and hit the button."

The radio chimed, indicating it was open for her to talk into.

"Am I speaking to Mr. Taiso?" Akane asked in perfect Mandarin, causing Ryuji's eyes to bulge.

"Who...who is this?! Identity yourself!"

"Me? I'm no one special," she responded again in Mandarin. "I'm just the one pointing a gun to your precious son's head." Her aura turned murderous as she switched to Japanese. "You bastards shot my beloved Senpai. You hurt him. Now I feel like making you listen while I shoot his brains out the back of his skull."

"Wait!" his father responded from the other side in Japanese, clear distress in his voice. "We can reach an agreement. Please, just... don't kill my son."

"Here are my terms," she spoke in a demanding voice. "I want every single one of those UV floodlights switched off. In addition to the headlights on your cars. After that, I want the remaining six of you to come into the house unarmed and start breaking every single UV lamp you have down on the first floor. I'll be waiting with your son on the second floor. If any of you go anywhere near the basement, I'll kill him. Are we clear on that?"

There was silence on the other end.

"Well? What will it be? Your son is losing a lot of blood right now. I give him another twenty minutes. Thirty at the most."

"How do I know my son is still alive? Let me talk to him."

She cocked back the hammer of the gun, letting him hear Ryuji's audible murmur of fright.

"I'm going to count to five, and then your son gets turned into another pretty mural on the floor."

"Alright! Alright!" he responded angrily. "I agree to your terms."

"Wonderful. Once the floodlights are off, you can come in and start working on the ones downstairs. If I hear anyone come in before the floodlights are off, your son dies. If anyone goes near the basement, your son dies. Are we clear on that?"

"Perfectly clear," he growled in anger.

The line went dead.

"Can he still hear us?" she asked Ryuji.

He shook his head frantically. Her psychotic smile returned.

"Seven."

The gun went off, and his brains painted the floor. Akane stood up and began gathering ammo. She fully expected the remaining six Hunters to come in armed to the teeth, after which half of them would no doubt promptly head for the basement to kill Caleb while the other half went upstairs to rescue Ryuji. In fact, she was counting on it.

In the meantime, she'd be getting prepared. While they spent precious time killing the floodlights, she would set up traps and wait. One way or another, none of these men were leaving here alive. Akane made a promise to her beloved Senpai, and she planned on keeping it.