Seeing the Bunny Triplets sent a shiver down Hiro’s spine. As they had before, the bunnies had set up traps for passing Survivors, the moaning bodies adding to an already gruesome scene in Bryant Park. The biggest of the three held the boy bunny in his arms, while the teenage girl stood a few feet in front of them, her ears twitching in curiosity upon seeing Hiro and Bianca.

The bunny teen tilted her head as she took Hiro in. “Look who it is. You brought a friend.”

I should have come with Samuel and Valeria, Hiro thought as he sized up his opponents. Valeria could snipe from the distance; Samuel and I could handle things. Juan too.

He thrust his arm out, as if to stop Bianca from rushing forward, yet she was already on the move. Fast as ever due to her boosted stamina, plus the Pink Bull she had taken, Bianca rushed to the right, and managed to leap over the teenage bunny’s first ear attack.

“Fun!” the teenage bunny shouted, glee in her voice.

Kiss or Slap? KISS!

The biggest of their opponents cocked his chin forward and sent his rabbit ears directly to the ground. They came up like long tendrils with minds of their own as they tried to strike Bianca.

“Careful!” Hiro called to her as he summoned his phantom cats.

~Kore nani, kore nani, kore nani, kore nani, kore nani, kore nani, NEKO!~

The cats unleashed, Hiro moved ahead as he took a rip off his vape pen.

He exhaled a cloud of red smoke and directed it at the Bunny Triplets. It spread over them just as a pair of razored rabbit ears zipped toward him. He jumped to avoid them, and slammed into an overturned table in the process.

Hiro moved out of the way again as the ears ripped through the metal of the table. He used {Bounce} to get out of range by landing on a gazebo. He popped a Poison cartridge in, and fired off a blast from his katanas as his cats all raced in.

True to her promise, Bianca was doing a hell of a job of distracting the Bunny Triplets. Her shield’s fuzzy pink tentacles flapped all around her and her flying hammer whisked in and out, beating back bladed rabbit ears and doing damage, especially once it struck the largest of the three.

The biggest bunny monster staggered, his health bar taking a cut as he repositioned himself with the crippled boy now on his shoulders like Tiny Tim.

It was comical in its own murderous, maniacal way, the image breaking Hiro’s focus for a moment. The absurdity of it all hit him as Bianca battled masked Hunters in pseudo BDSM outfits and doing so while wielding a fuzzy pink shield the threads of which were fighting razored rabbit ears amidst yowling phantom demon cats and Legend of Zelda energy blasts from Hiro’s katana.

He blinked this thought away as he focused his attack on their smallest opponent.

Hiro knew he was spamming the skill and he didn’t care. He wanted these Hunters dead, he could see wounds on them now, and see their health bars starting to sink.

He would cheat to win if he had to.

“Wait!” Came a new voice. Hiro nearly fired his next shot at his feet as a hand grabbed his ankle. He glanced down to see one of the Survivors that the Triplets had used as bait, his lower half mangled and crushed. “Let me help. I’ve been waiting for this. My… Roulette Skill. Lethologica. It will kill me. I’ve been waiting…”

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Hiro looked down into the man’s pleading eyes. “You don’t have to—”

“Hiro, what the fuck!?” Bianca called as she started to feel the pressure.

“Let me help!” The injured Survivor brought the same hand that he had used to grab Hiro’s leg to his temple. He clenched his eyes shut, and started trembling.

A great twist of light formed around his head like a halo as the downed Survivor opened his eyes. The light poured from his pupils, completely bathing the Bunny Triplets with its power.

Hiro didn’t know what was going to happen, but he certainly didn’t expect to see the Bunny Triplets’ ears all drop to the ground. The Bunny teen staggered forward with confusion.

It was the only opening they were going to get.

“On me!” Hiro shouted to her as he rushed forward hoping to seize on their opportunity, one given to them by a dying Survivor’s strange power.

Hiro blasted the crippled bunny kid off the bigger one’s shoulders with {Blade Whirlwind}. This cut deep into the boy’s health bar as the phantom cats all turned toward what would be an easy kill.

[A Hunter has fallen.]

The Bunny teen wasn’t going to go down so easily, however.

Even if she could no longer shoot her ears out, she was able to hoist them up and swing them around like a blade, which she did just as Hiro neared her. He dove to avoid them and came up with a {Blade Whirlwind} that staggered her, the teenager’s health bar at the halfway point now.

“You’re dead!” the crazed Hunter said as she pointed a finger gun at Hiro.

Pew!

Hiro barely had time to register what she had done as the teenage bunny girl fired her finger gun at him, forcing him to fly backward. It could have been fatal had it not been for his duct tape armor, which absorbed the brunt of the attack.

How Hiro had managed to get his arms up in time to block it was beyond him, but he went with it, once again hoping to spam her with {Blade Whirlwind}.

His focus shifted as Bianca tossed her hammer at the biggest of the triplets.

It hit the hulking Hunter in the head and instantly returned to her hand. She was just stepping to the side once again when one of his tentacle-like ear blades came alive and exploded toward her neck, where it tore through Bianca’s lower jaw and came out the back of her head.

The girl didn’t even have a chance to scream as the tentacle whipped her to the ground.

Angered, shocked beyond belief, and quickly realizing that the two opponents that were left had regained their powers, Hiro triggered {Lupine Shift}, the rapid transformation shredding his duct tape armor.

As the bunny girl fired at him with her finger gun, Hiro dropped to all fours and raged forward toward her, who cried out in shock as he drove his claws into her arms and took a huge bite out of the side of her face.

[A Hunter has fallen.]

Ravenous, everything flashing red, lupine Hiro crushed her in his grip and tossed the Bunny teen aside as he moved to his last remaining opponent. He grabbed one of the bladed ears and used it to wrap around the big man, the sharpness cutting into his chest as Hiro put on the pressure. Leverage allowed Hiro to bring the Hunter down onto his side, get on top, and slash at him again and again with claws as Soul Essence poured into his chest.

[A Hunter has fallen.]

The hunger came. Hiro fought the urge to feast and failed against the animalistic nature of his transformation. The world around him blurred as frenzy overcame him, one that soon dissipated, leaving Hiro lying on his back and gasping for air.

You have new followers!

“Fuck you…” Hiro finally regained control of his body. He staggered to his feet and wiped blood and viscera from his face.

A glance around told him the Bunny Triplets were dead, but they weren’t the only ones. “Bianca.”

Hiro lowered his head after he took in her mangled body, the damage the Hunter had done.

There was no healing from that.

He felt like screaming at the sky, at the boats hovering over midtown Manhattan. Hiro swallowed the thought that this was his fault. He knew this was the case, but he also knew that they had made the decision together, that she had egged him on in her own way.

“Never again,” he said as his eyes fell upon her fuzzy pink shield, Bianca’s hammer gone.

There was something else. While the two of the Hunters had faded, the Bunny teen was still there, her absent gaze fixed on Hiro, her hand glowing and shaped into a finger gun.

Hiro’s phone buzzed and he hastily checked the message from his Companion.