EP.2 — A Mountain of Corpses, A Sea of Blood (7)
The mercenaries couldn't say a word.
All they could do now was fidget with their newly empty hands, stealing glances at someone.
That someone was Ash.
His cyan optical sensors flicked back and forth between Jack Five's head rolling across the main floor and the mercenaries who had somehow survived, and then he let out a low electronic hum.
"Everyone, leave this place. Anyone who shows their face again will not be let off as easily as you are now."
The tone was so detached it felt almost cold. And yet, precisely because of that, it carried an unshakable weight.
As if on cue, the surviving mercenaries bolted for the lobby, stumbling over themselves.
Their frantic footsteps faded fast.
Silence settled once more over the main stage, thick with the stench of blood and gunpowder.
"Whew. You scared me there. I didn't expect them to start shooting each other."
The first to break the stillness was Siren, her voice edged with exasperation. She shook the blood from her blade as she surveyed the corpse-strewn stage.
Not many of them had died by the sword, though.
"They were mercenaries who'd swarmed here lured by credits. It was probably the first time any of them had even seen each other's faces."
Zero shrugged in reply to her words.
"Well, it worked out well for us."
Ash nodded.
"The opening act was a success. But it's not over yet. The ones on the main stage were nothing more than a hastily assembled force, no?"
"That's right. There will still be members of Memoryphilia's organization left somewhere in this building."
"Organization members, hmm. Roughly how many does Memoryphilia have?"
"I don't know the exact number, but well over a few hundred. That said, they're scattered all over right now to seal off the roads, so there shouldn't be many left here in Inferno."
"Then there's no reason to hesitate."
Ash's cyan optical sensors turned toward the dark passage behind the DJ booth.
"Let's move at once. Swift and decisive."
At his declaration, the five swordsmen silently tightened their grips on their blades. A sharp, lethal aura gathered around them once more.
The staff-only passage was long and narrow.
And unlike the lavishly decorated main stage, its walls exposed a grotesque tangle of pipelines and power cables.
The orange work lamps studded across the ceiling flickered erratically, illuminating what lay beneath them — and each time they did, the shadows of the six swordsmen moving through the corridor stretched long across the walls.
They had been sprinting down the passage without a sound when, at some point, they began to slow.
It was because Ash, leading the charge, had eased his pace.
He came to a complete stop before the corner where the passage bent ninety degrees, staring into the darkness beyond it.
"This is the fastest route to the private rooms, yes?"
It was a question he had already asked before.
Zero found it strange, but he nodded without hesitation.
"Yes, that's correct. It's a staff-only entrance, so it also connects to the VIP lounge. We can bypass the security systems, too. But why do you ask—?"
Ash, who had by now raised one arm to bring the entire party to a halt, answered with his gaze still locked on the far end of the corridor.
"It seems our opponents had the same idea."
"Pardon? What do you mean—?"
Before Zero could finish, Ash spoke on.
"There are enemies past this corner."
Ash's electromagnetic sense was clearly picking up dozens of presences stirring at the far end of the corridor.
And their bearing was a far cry from the pathetic mercenaries they'd faced earlier.
Their movements were, unmistakably, organized.
At Ash's words, Siren closed her eyes and activated the vibration-detection sensor she used for exploring the Outer.
Her cybernetic ocular implant hummed faintly as it picked up the subtle tremors running through the walls and floor. Presences were shifting beyond the corner.
"There's quite a lot of them. And they're barely moving. If I had to guess... they've set up a defensive line and are waiting for us."
Ash nodded at her analysis.
"My thoughts exactly."
Zero, caught between the two of them, looked back and forth.
"You two — what can you see? I'm getting nothing over here."
It was, in a way, only natural. He couldn't wield an energy sense at will the way Ash could, nor did he carry the detection sensors that Pathfinders were required to wear.
Ash chose action over answering.
He turned his head to look back at his companions.
"What matters most to us is time. So we cannot abandon this route. That leaves only one option."
"A breakthrough."
At Siren's words, Ash nodded.
"We cut through them."
A breakthrough against defenders entrenched in a narrow corridor. They would almost certainly be armed with firearms, which would make the task twice as hard.
As the tension slowly mounted, Ash spoke.
"Zero. You will stand at my side. From this moment, you and I will serve as the shield."
"Understood."
"Next, the three swordswomen and..."
Ash's gaze came to rest on the wolf-masked ninja.
The ninja bowed his head.
"Please call me Second."
"...Second, you will take the flank."
"Yes, Sir Ash!"
"Understood."
Finally, Ash's gaze fell upon the remaining two ninjas.
"You two will keep the widest possible field of view and guard against any unforeseen variables."
At those words, the ninjas wearing the rabbit and rat masks nodded.
In an instant, the six swordsmen had formed a single massive wedge.
A hardened point to absorb the enemy's assault, keen wings to carve away both flanks, and a solid rear to seal off any surprises — a classic breakthrough formation.
"Remember this: neither too fast, nor too slow. We move as one. All of you, hold that thought above everything else."
At Ash's admonition, everyone nodded in unison, then each took up the position their role demanded.
Once he confirmed they were ready, Ash squared his steel blade and spoke quietly.
"Then — let's go."
With those few short words, six shadows burst into view all at once. The first thing to greet them was a scream.
— They're here! Open fire!
A storm of bullets rained down on them.
There was nowhere to run.
The cramped corridor had become a massive gun barrel in itself, spewing endless crimson flashes as it hurled a hail of rounds at the oncoming figures.
And through that storm, six blades ignited with light.
— Crack! Crack-crack!
From the instant they appeared, Ash's sword moved at an impossible speed. It deflected the pouring bullets, twisting through ever-shifting arcs without pause.
The rounds ricocheting off Ash's blade struck the corridor walls and ceiling, scattering small bursts of sparks.
Zero, however, could not do the same.
He had not yet reached Ash's level, and so he had to accept a measure of damage.
That "measure of damage," to be precise, was the kind of severe wounds that would have killed an ordinary human several times over.
— Thud-thud! Splat!
Bullets punched into his body from all sides, tearing flesh away.
And then it regenerated.
The gashed wounds and punctured holes were already knitting themselves closed.
A humanoid deflecting bullets, and a ninja marching forward through an endless cycle of regeneration — the wall of steel and flesh the two of them created planted an indescribable terror in the hearts of Memoryphilia's members.
"Th-those insane monster bastards!"
So this was what death creeping closer felt like.
The terrified members pulled their triggers faster and faster. But all of it was in vain.
By the time they realized it, the sword formation led by Ash and Zero was already upon them.
At that moment, Ash roared.
His cry was like a clap of thunder.
"NOW!"
It was the signal.
The six swordsmen who had until now silently absorbed the baptism of gunfire while closing the distance exploded into speed all at once.
Six blades led by Ash drove forward like bolts loosed from a bow.
"What the—!"
The man standing at the very front of the members was cleaved in two. The one behind him lost his head.
That was the beginning.
Ash and Zero pressed ever forward, forward, cutting, tearing, and shattering everything that stood in their way.
They were like ravenous wolves that had plunged without warning into a flock of sheep.
The members who had built the defensive line were now nothing more than a panicked flock.
They scattered screaming or tried to fall back, but the barricades they had erected across the narrow corridor offered no escape route in any direction.
It was then that Siren and the wolf-masked ninja, assigned to the flanks, surged into action.
Moving in the wake of Ash and Zero's relentless advance, they rained sword strikes upon the left and right flanks they each held.
"Aaaagh!"
"Kraagh!"
Necks severed, hearts pierced.
At the same time, they matched the vanguard's stride and kept pressing forward.
The two ninjas guarding the rear had not forgotten their duty either.
They cut the throats of those scrambling to raise their guns from the wreckage of the formation, or hurled shuriken at anyone who threatened them with a raised muzzle.
A massacre.
It was nothing short of a massacre.
Barely a minute had passed since Ash had cut down the vanguard?
Most of Memoryphilia's members — who had been so certain of their victory — now lay cold and lifeless across the corridor floor.
Amid that hellish carnage.
One member, fortunate enough to have been positioned at the very back and still clinging to life, shouted out.
"D-don't come any closer, you monster bastards!"
Half maddened with panic, the man's wildly darting eyes swept in every direction before he yanked the bundle of grenades at his belt free and pulled the pins.
Then he hurled them blindly toward Ash's party.
— Ping! Ting!
The grenades sailed in along long, high arcs.
A couple of them were struck mid-flight by shuriken fired like streaks of light and dropped straight out of the air — but one was not.
Ash's optical sensors flared at the sight of it.
"Zero! Get back!"
Ash shoved Zero — swinging his blade right beside him — out of the way, then seized the collar of the member standing directly ahead and hauled him up off the ground.
"Wh-wha—?"
Using the hoisted man as a shield, Ash twisted his body toward the direction of the blast.
— KRA-BOOM!
An explosion far more violent than anything before it rocked the narrow corridor.
The ceiling lights shattered in a cascade of sparks under the shockwave, plunging the passage into instant darkness. But before long, the red emergency lights flickered on, bathing them all in crimson.
"Kh— cough! Fuck, which crazy bastard—!"
Amid the chaos that had bloomed in an instant, someone spat out a stream of curses. Then he looked around — and suddenly found himself staring up at a pair of cyan optical sensors gazing down at him from above.
It was Ash.
"Aa— AAAAAH!"
Ash flung the unrecognizably shredded corpse aside and brought his blade down on the man who was frantically, tremblingly raising his gun.
The flash came before the man's finger could reach the trigger.
— Shff!
A razor-sharp slash carving through the darkness.
The man fell without even finishing the scream on his lips.
And that was the end.
Acrid dust and the stench of gunpowder.
The corridor, left with only the coppery reek of blood, held no living enemy any longer. The red emergency lights merely blinked on and off over the gruesome scene of corpses piled wall to wall.
Ash flicked the blood from his blade and turned to his companions.
"Is everyone all right?"
Zero nodded at the question.
"We're fine."
"...You're certain you're all right?"
At Ash's doubting tone, Zero gave a shrug.
With the motion, several of the bullets lodged in his abdomen were pushed outward and dropped to the floor.
"As you can see, perfectly fine."
If he said so himself, Ash had nothing more to say on the matter.
So he turned to Siren instead.
"And you, swordswoman? Any injuries?"
"Nope. I'm fine."
Her exploration suit was torn in several places, blood seeping through the gaps — but Siren simply nodded as if it were nothing worth mentioning.
Having confirmed his companions were safe, Ash gave a small nod.
"Good. Then let's go meet this Maestro and finish what we started."
There was no reason to delay any longer.
Ash's party crossed the blood-soaked corridor and headed for the VIP lounge. Their unrelenting footsteps rang through the silent passage as, little by little, they vanished into the darkness beyond.