The elevator opened onto the barracks. It looked empty with almost no one else in the whole of the room. Jason wasn’t sure if he could even find the room that he claimed if he wanted to. Him and the giant woman calling herself Hanshi stepped off the elevator. She started walking towards the center of the room. The few people left around watched the two of them with the look of wild animals in their eyes. They must have been here for the last month, descending into lunacy as their resources ran out. Jason followed after the woman, taking in the room and its inhabitants. His eyes adjusted to the low light environment eventually. He finished taking in the cavernous room and turned his eyes back to the woman, making sure that she was not trying to do anything sneaky. She hadn’t proven to be dangerous yet, but ultimately, he didn’t know who she was. His eyes traveled up her legs, wrapped in the black latex-like material that the ARMS’s clothing was made out of. It was tight fitting and reflected the small amount of light in the room in such a way to accentuate her curves, especially the form fitted material around her rear. Jason’s eyes paused there as he followed her to the center of the room, running directly into her when she stopped.

Jason stumbled backwards embarrassed. Hanshi chuckled as she turned to face him, “Well if you wanted a feel, you could have asked.” He looked away from her, trying to hide his face. “Awwww. so cute,” she reached out and ruffled his hair. “There’s nothing to be ashamed off. Look at all these guys who’ve come to get a feel,” she said pointing to the people who had encircled them.

Looking to the surrounding people, he saw that they were naked and gaunt. They moved like zombies, shambling ever closer to them. Their smell was no better than their appearance. Had they washed since being here? More over, had they slept in their own filth? A second, closer look later, Jason noticed blotches of a dark dried substance that was spattered across many of their faces and torsos. He might have believed it to be mud, but there was none to be found here. It had to be blood. Their bodies were littered with scratches and wounds, but there was too much for it to have come from their own bodies. A shiver went through his body realizing that they had turned to cannibalism.

“Sorry to disappoint boys, I’m not edible. He’s nice and juicy though,” she said pointing at Jason. She blew him a kiss with a smile, turned, and calmly walked out of the circle, sensually swaying her hips.

His jaw dropped at her actions, but he didn’t have time to say anything. One of the of attackers grabbed hold of him, latching on to his shoulder. Their grip wasn’t strong enough to hold on to him. All it took was a twisting of his torso and a move forward. As he did he followed through with a kick to the person that had grabbed him, sending them to the ground. He had hoped to make a hole for him to escape, but he had neglected to account for the several other people. All of them jumped on Jason and attempted to pin his arms and legs down.

Jason had believed that the rule was that they were not allowed to attack each other here, but it didn’t seem to be the case. Hanshi had walked away and seemed like she wasn’t going to help him. Was this her plan all along? The people clawed at his clothing, some of them attempted to bite through the material. They were finding it very difficult to make any headway. He struggled against their weight and tugging at his arm to get his hand to his hoodie pocket. After an eternity of time passed he got to his ARMS. Without thinking about it, he triggered it. A blade shot out through his hoodie, into the skull of one that was kneeling over Jason’s head as they attempted to pull his clothes from him. All the attackers stopped what they were doing. All eyes were on the blade piercing through the face of a now dead comrade. Their body slumped forward embedding the sword deeper into their brain.

The blade of the sword disappeared. Jason moved the sword from his pocket and reactivated it in front of him, twisting it so that the flat of the blade was perpendicular to the center line of the body falling onto him. The sword plunged into the body. Blood poured out onto Jason and ran down the blade covering his hands and arms. It took all Jason’s might, using his sword, to toss the corpse at the attackers, freeing the blade from the body once more. Before the attackers could recover and realize what was going on Jason rolled backwards up to his feet. It was then that he paused. This time he’d killed a person. Not a giant furocious bug. Not an animal. He’d never killed another human before. He could feel the blood on his hands and the dripping of the blood on the floor seemed to echo and grow louder. His sight went blurry and time slowed.

Jason stood in a daze looking at the Human he had killed. His posture was slack and his sword was just barely held at his side. If he was only did not drop it out of habit and instinct. Time dragged. The world went black. He heard a distant sound. He tried to focus on it, but his mind refused him. Then the world came rushing back. The sound he heard was Hanshi prodding him to wake up, “Personally, getting eaten by these guys is your choice, but they’re not my type.”

He looked down his arm at his sword and then around himself. He was surrounded by his attackers once more. He breathed in a calming breathe and lifted the sword, resting the blade on his shoulder. His feet spread into a more stable stance. He didn’t know what he was doing. He’d seen something like this in movies and hoped that what he was mimicking was good enough to survive this. His left hand grabbed for his dagger. He thought that if one weapon was good, two had to be better. The crazed inhabitants of the barracks looked on seeing that this kid had multiple things that they could take from him and it made him all that more appealing of a target.

The sword’s blade sliced through the air at the attackers. It missed all of them, but Jason’s goal wasn’t hurt them. It was to get them to scatter. He hadn’t foreseen that trying weilding a sword like he had would throw his balance and make it hard to recover, leaving him open and vulnerable. It didn’t take long for both he and they to figure this out. The attackers backed away on a swing and then right after jumped in. Jason had just enough of an advantage over them on a whole that he could shift a step and stab one of them in the back while using them to black off another the first time. The second, he missed the stab. The next time, they grabbed onto his left arms and tried to drag him down. Several of the other jumped on his back and grabbed at his legs, trying to get him back to the ground while avoiding being in the path of the sword.

Seeing his only option was to impale the attacker who had his other arm, Jason flipped the sword to a reverse grip and jammed it into the chest cavity of one, freeing his left arm. Without a second thought he quickly switched the ARMS dagger to a sheath mode, took the sword in both hands swung as hard as he could at the neck of another. A clean slice through. This was enough for most of the remaining to back away from him, but those that were at his feet were unaware of what had occured or didn’t care. He pierced through the brain of one. The other let go immediately. They tried to get up and run. it was to late for them. Jason severed their spine with a slash across the back.

Four remained . Jason breathed heavily, tired from fighting off these deranged humans. Without warning, one charged at him from behind and speared him to the ground face first. The impact knocked the wind out of him and causes his already tenuous grip on his sword to slip. It skidded across the floor away from him. The one that speared him held him down as the other tried to rip his clothing off of him. He could feel them dig into him, but nothing gave way so far as he could make out. He also had another horrible feeling, the feeling of the man who pinned him having impure thoughts. He fought as best he could, but in his current situation he didn’t see any more ways out. On the other hand he didn’t understand why they were not able to tear him apart yet. It wasn’t a comforting thought that something was protecting him, but he didn’t know what, because it meant that whatever it was could fail at any moment.

“Oh boys,” the feminine voice of Hanshi called to the captors. “If you want a piece, why not try to come get it,” she said teasingly. She was standing at an angle to show off her curves to them and slapped her ass.

The 4 attackers looked to her, let Jason go and began walking towards her. Their minds were not on eating her, but on fulfilling another primal urge. Jason got to his feet as the last of them were just past him. He grabbed furthest one back and slit his throat. One turned back attack him once more, but Jason ducked under his attack, grabbed his sword from the ground. As he was come back up, his sword passed through the lower legs his opponent, leaving only 2 more left. The next one Jason went to confront tried backing away running. Normally he’d have let this person go, but he was no longer in his right mind and didn’t care. These people were violent animals that needed to be put down in his mind. Jason slashed at the fleeing man and caught his jaw, slicing it clean off. The man could still live so Jason swung again, severing an artery in man’s neck as he nearly cut through his neck, but Jason’s lack of skill failed to make a clean cut twice on this person. It didn’t matter. Nothing would keep the man would experiencing a painful extended death now.

All that remained was the final attacker still on his way towards Hanshi. Jason dragged the sword along as he walked just fast enough so that he’d catch up to him just as he’d reach Hanshi. The tip scraped along the ground making a terrible noise. Had the other man not been crazy he would have sure ran in terror, but he didn’t. He was too enthralled by the curves of Hanshi that promised pleasure. Hanshi turned towards the man. The man raised his hands to grope her and bury his head in her breasts. It was the last thing he’d do. And the final vision that he must have seen was the blade of Jason’s sword sliding between her cleavage covered in his blood. Jason had lanced the man from the back angling the blade to kill him, but not hurt Hanshi. With that he slid the sword back out and let it hang at his side, looking through Hanshi, as the man he’d slain sloughed to the ground.

“Never knew a man that liked surprise blood flows. I think I know why now,” Hanshi said flirtatiously.