July 22, 2175
11:45 P.M.
Jack initiated his body-strengthening Ikanami as he hurried out of the basement, hoping he wouldn't have to engage in any confrontation here.
"I need to get in the open soon," he thought, his heart racing. He gripped his splint and was about to pull his left hand free when an officer emerged in front of him, his gun at the ready.
He aimed at Jack and was about to pull the trigger. Jack blocked the muzzle of the gun with a small Kana chunk, preventing even a spark. He manifested a Kana arm and jerked the gun out of the officer's hands, then threw it away.
The officer wasn't taken aback. He straightened up and pulled out the dagger that was fastened on his belt. He rushed forward to attack Jack.
As he slashed, Jack blocked it with his splint. The blade was snagged in it. Jack moved his arm, using the blade's edge to cut his hand free from the splint. He lifted the officer and threw him against the wall with a boom, rendering him unconscious.
Jack moved his fist around to drive away the numbness in his left hand, then continued his journey to the open.
He reached the staircase and started to pounce up to the ground floor. A few officers crossed him in the middle.
He pulled out the railing of the staircase and bashed them hard with it, the various iron spokes of the metal piercing through their various body parts. Jack smirked—just a few more steps to the ground floor. His heart raced as he jumped through.
He caught the shadow of a group of officers standing at the end of the staircase on the ground floor, lying in wait for him to come up so they could ambush him.
He smirked and lifted them all up with Kana arms, gripping their arms tight and rendering them immobile. He slowly brought them closer to him.
"Wh- Wha—why are you doing this?" one of the five officers asked. The voice sounded familiar—it was the officer that had escorted Jack inside.
The thing the officer said earlier crossed Jack's mind.
"Yeah. Dead don't need medicines or hospitals. They need graveyards, and they'll get one as they get buried in the rubble."
"Dead don't need hospitals or medicines, so me, someone living, will be taking that. And since they need graveyards, I will create one under the rubble—for you too," he said, his teeth gritted.
Jack pulled out Kazekiri and slashed off the heads of the other four officers. He lifted the officer higher and broke all his limbs with Kana hands, then tossed him off the staircase.
A loud thud and a groan echoed from below as the officer struck the floor. The fall was too short to kill him; he just lay there, groaning in pain.
Jack turned and headed upstairs. As soon as he reached the ground floor and turned, he saw the commander standing at the center, about a hundred men around him in a line, turned toward Jack, their guns at the ready.
"Row 1, fire in 3, 2, 1," the commander counted. The officers got ready. Jack enclosed the officers in the front row in Kana slabs, enclosing them in an airtight barrier of Kana energy.
As soon as the commander counted zero, the officers opened fire. The bullets didn't reach Jack, of course, but the sparks from the muzzle set off the explosive mixture of the air in the airtight barrier around them that was cast by Jack.
There was a deafening explosion inside the barrier—it was over in an instant. As the flame and light subsided, all that was left inside were lumps of flesh and bones.
The commander's smug look faltered a little, but he didn't lose his composure.
"Breaking off one of your arms just to infiltrate the hospital for supplies, venturing in the face of death all alone. How foolish and naive. I don't know what stunt you pulled there, but I think it's probably related to your Ikanami.
Are you another one of those advanced Ikanami users? Well, doesn't matter. The prey walked right into the trap, boys. Make a sieve out of him," the commander said, a mad smile creeping across his face.
"Woah, don't shoot. Unless you wanna get blasted like them," Jack said, pointing his fingers at the lumps of flesh beside him. "As soon as I came, I opened the fuel valves. One little spark from your little toys and boom. So how about you lie those little guys down?" Jack said, his fingers tracing the bloodstained sharpness of Kazekiri.
Fear began to seep into the people standing in front of him, their eyes darting to the double-edged sword they were holding in their hands.
"What bullshit is that?" the officer on the rightmost side said out loud as he pulled the trigger. Jack quickly enclosed him in a Kana barrier like before. The officer shot. The sound of the explosion shook the walls. Jack waited for the moment to be over, and after the blinding flash and deafening sound vanished, he faced the commander again.
"See? That's what I was talking about. I think you'd all rather struggle than go out like ants caught in a cracker," he said, a smirk crossing his face as he enjoyed the look of despair on his enemies.
No sparks—that's what held him back. He couldn't even go around bashing them on random walls because it had the risk of causing sparks in the wires running through them. The building would go thundering down on him if he did.
"Attaaaaaaaaack! Don't wait around. For Earthlings! For Earth! For Humans!" the commander bellowed, his voice full of fear and uncertainty. Yet the shout encouraged some morale in his men.
The officers around Jack unsheathed their daggers and started toward him. Twenty humans. Jack enclosed the blade of Kazekiri on the sides with Kana energy—not by supplying energy through it, but by covering it with Kana slabs, functioning like a makeshift sheath to prevent sparks due to clashing metal, and still leaving the sharp edge out to deal killing swipes as well.
Jack took position. One of the officers jumped at him. Jack blocked his strike with his katana, tilted it to the side to make the attacker lose balance. As the attacker bent down because he slid off Jack's sword, Jack thrusted his knee into his ribs. The officer choked, and as he jerked up, Jack drove his katana through his neck.
Another two officers started at Jack. He dodged their attack, grabbed one of the officers' armed hands and drove his dagger into the other, then withdrew it using the officer's hand to slit his throat. He then took the dagger from the officer and threw it at another officer's head—the blade pierced through the helmet, impaling the officer in the head.
Jack straightened up. The remaining officers were now attacking him together. No more stray prey, huh? Jack thought. He redistributed his energy throughout the body to the safest extent before the high-consumption form.
Power coursing through him, he dashed forward and punched one of the officers. He flew from the impact, smashing against several other officers. They fell down in a lump, and as they straightened up,
Jack picked them up and enclosed them in a Kana hand. Like insects caught in a fist, he crushed them in an instant and went off to finish the remaining four officers.
The officers were intimidated. They started running upstairs. The commander stood there frozen, then moved toward Jack and pulled out two daggers from his belt.
A bad matchup for Jack, who had just basic proficiency in katana—in general too. A double-dagger user has a certain upper hand on a sword user unless the sword user is using two swords or his sheath too to block.
Jack's eyes were steady now, blood and adrenaline coursing through his veins and Kana energy wilding like fire around and inside him. He sheathed Kazekiri, his eyes locked onto the single opponent in front—one he would take his sweet time beating up.
The level of concentration was immense. All Jack could see was the enemy in front and the daggers that were ready to drink his blood at any time.