FIDES
AKANE
Faith was what kept Akane going. It was all she ever had, really.
At first, it was faith in her father. Despite her mother's disapproval, he would always tell her stories about their ancestors, about how their family protected the Tokugawa from all comers. Akane went to sleep dreaming of ancient warriors—most of whom were probably fictional.
When he died, she clung to the honor he had taught her like it was a lifeline. She cried herself to sleep every night, wishing for the world to right itself.
After four years, there wasn't much faith left in her. Getting ridiculed for your beliefs by everyone—including your own mother—would do that to you. On the first day of middle school, some of her “friends” cornered her and decided to start beating her honor with a baseball bat.
She came out of that stronger than before. Her faith became stronger than steel, and she started truly embracing her family's legacy, rather than just paying lip service. She got a sword—well, one was given to her—and started training. At first, she just did kendo, but after Derek's debacle with the wrestling team, he suddenly had a lot more free time on his hands.
So they started doing missions.
A sword wasn't much use against a gun-wielding opponent smart enough to use range to his advantage, but they were slaying monsters, not people. Against a dumpster dog or an alley crawler, a sword was actually more effective than most firearms.
Akane trusted her training. She trusted her sword, she trusted her skills, and now she trusted her powers. She trusted Laura and her tactics—she had proven herself an able commander. She even trusted Ling, although half the time it seemed like she had to bail her out of trouble.
But most of all she trusted Derek.
He had never led her wrong, not once. Oh, in the short term he made mistakes, same as anyone else. He was too trusting for his own good, which had led them into trouble before, and he wasn't forgiving enough when someone tried to double-cross them. But she had never thought he was trying anything less than his best.
That was what kept her going, huddled in a small artificial cave under the street, waiting for their reservoirs to replenish.
“This isn't going to work forever,” Ling said. “I'm screwing with the ground too much. It will give soon.”
“When?” Derek asked, taking deep breaths to recover his energy.
Ling shrugged. “Hard to tell. I don't really have enough experience. Call it three more times, up and down.”
Derek nodded. “Then we'll have to make do with that. Akane, any luck getting a signal?”
She shook her head. Ling had created a small tunnel, only a couple inches wide, directly above her in hopes of getting some cell reception. It wasn't working, but then phones were rarely designed to work underground. Even the super phone Lori had given her for her birthday wasn't up for the task.
He clicked his tongue in annoyance. “Fine. We'll do this the hard way. Ling, take us up whenever you're ready.”
She muttered something mutinous, but fell into horse stance and moved her arms up in a lifting motion, as if she was physically pushing them to the surface. There was a loud grinding sound, undercut by a noise similar to mud flowing, as they slid upwards. As light began to peek out from the top of the dome, Derek reactivated his shield, bathing them all in soft blue mist.
The screamers noticed them the second they rose from the ground. They immediately started peppering the shield with lasers. The attacks were weak, but there were lots of them. Derek wouldn't be able to hold the shield for more than a few minutes.
Akane activated her speed just as Derek released his barrier for a moment. That split second was more than enough for her to get out and start attacking the screamers with her sheathed sword. She used her speed sparingly, reserving it for when Derek flickered his shield again.
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Fighting screamers, even ones with such a dangerous power, was actually almost ridiculously easy. They didn't learn from their mistakes, didn't seem to have any plan other than “attack.” There were the defensive ones like Kat to worry about, which seemed to retain some measure of intelligence, but those were very rare. Not to mention that if you so much as looked at a “defensive” screamer wrong, it switched to “aggressive” and stupid, and never switched back.
After two minutes, the shield flickered again, and she ran back inside. Before Ling had a chance to lower them underground again, every light went dead, all at once, like some massive switch was flipped.
Akane didn't know the cause, but she knew an opportunity when she saw one. She tapped Derek on the shoulder and he let his shield fall completely. In the darkness it would only make them a target.
“Prioritize the singers,” he ordered. “Ling and I will handle the screamers.”
Akane nodded and headed off in the direction the singers had been last. She still couldn't see very well, but her eyes were slowly adjusting, and she was still better off than the infected angels.
They tried to swarm her, but she was able to keep them at bay with wide two-handed slashes. She was tempted to unsheathe her blade and carve her way through the horde, but Derek wouldn't like it, and she still didn't know what had killed the lights again. They could come back at any moment.
So the moment she saw a clear path through, she activated her speed and took it.
She killed the first two singers on a single pass, but the next cluster was too far away to reach before her reservoir ran out. So she let her speed fade and rushed them normally. The first one, a glowling girl maybe a couple years younger than her, punched at her clumsily. She dodged without any real effort, and quickly skewered her through the heart, then spun away, taking her blade with her.
The second singer, a thin young man with gray skin and a shaved head, glared at her, still singing that unearthly tune, and tried to grab her. He had much better aim than the others. Akane couldn't tell for sure in the darkness, but he might have had normal eyes, which would explain it. Was he even an angel?
She wasn't able to get her sword around in time, but long experience had taught her the solution to that problem. She flicked one of her knives at his eye, eliciting a scream of pain, and stepped forward to take off his head.
But singers were smarter than screamers, if only barely. This one dropped to the asphalt, dodging her strike by a hair's breadth.
She cursed and jumped back a few steps, instinctively putting distance between them. That was a mistake. She could have finished him right then and there, but she was sloppy.
To her surprise, his next move wasn't to charge her. It was to rip the knife out of his eye.
He gripped it tightly in his hand, ready to use it against her. It was one of the double-bladed ones Maria had gotten her for her birthday, so it was cutting his hand pretty badly, but he didn't seem to notice. He just advanced on her still singing, his remaining eye cunning and alert.
A knife might not sound like much against a sword, but it all depended on how you used it. A sword had obvious advantages in reach, but at the same time was harder to manipulate. An experienced knife-wielder was sometimes more dangerous than a swordsman, especially if they knew where the important arteries were.
Not that it really mattered. Super speed would more than even the field. At full power, it would seem as though he was standing still, and Akane would be able to slice his head as easily as pulling a dandelion.
She rushed forward at full speed, sword ready. They hadn't measured her speed in a while, but she was moving at least twenty times normal, with a mind to match. Nothing and no one could hope to compete.
And yet he did.
A foot away from the singer, a field of light sprung up before her, just a soft glow, and she felt the sharp, tingling and burning sensation she recognized from her mission to North Island a few months ago. It felt like diving into a fire, and the more she pushed forward, the more it hurt. She veered off, let her speed die, and eyed the singer warily.
She knew that feeling. It was the very distinct pain of weaponized radiation—in this case, light, used as a sort of defensive wall.
She had grown sloppy. There wasn't enough light for the screamers to utilize, but there was light, and apparently the singers were more powerful. But still, he shouldn't have been smart enough to use his powers like that.
This wasn't a singer. At least, not like the others. This one seemed to have retained all his intelligence. A “defensive” singer. Laura had thought there might be some, but they hadn't seen any until now.
Where had this one come from? He wasn't like the others. Even the defensive zombies had never been smart enough to directly counter her abilities before. This was someone well-trained and experienced in using his powers. Did that mean—
Her brain was forced back to the matter at hand when the singer rushed forward, brandishing her knife.
She readied herself, falling into a defensive stance.
She had faith.