Corpse March

Chapter 29

Kuroko revs her motorcycle engine as she catches up to the train. The cold nighttime wind stings her eyes but she barely feels the pain. 

“All units disengage, I’ll take it from here.”

“Wait. Something’s off. They’re not using Magitech weapons.”

“We have our orders.”

“I said WAIT!”

As soon as she’s close enough, Kuroko suddenly leaps from her motorcycle onto the top of the rearmost train car. Her shoes make loud thuds as she lands. Loud enough to announce to the people inside that someone’s here. 

“ON THE ROOF!”

She hears the orders being barked from below. A second later, bullet holes begin to open all around her. Kuroko does not hesitate. She conjures a bundle of string connecting her to the edge of the roof before jumping off the train’s side. Kuroko uses the strings to swing herself through the train window and into the train car proper. Her bombastic entrance is met with a mixture of confused and frightened expressions. There’s a moment of silence, then it’s shattered into a million pieces. 

Chaos erupts. Bullets are fired, but none of them hit Kuroko. Not really. Every bullet that would have hit her is instead instantaneously stopped by a yellow aura made of seemingly hard light. A faith shield. The only thing more popular than the Guard spell. Unlike the guard spell, a faith shield is active at all times, even without the user’s attention. But also unlike the guard spell, the consequences of overusing it are more taxing than just a few bruises along the arm. As Tsumugi’s troops unload magazine after magazine onto Kuroko, she simply sits there and absorbs it all. 

Deafening silence blankets the train car as the last of Tsumugi’s troops run out of ammunition. As she stands up to her full height, she towers over her prey. Someone screams.

Garrote

Monomolecular wire manifests around their necks. From there, Kuroko lets their animal instincts do the rest. The instant they turn their head even to the smallest degree, they cut themselves on the wire. Too little, too late, they realize what’s happening right as their throats are slit. One by one, they fall to the ground, grasping at their necks, trying to keep the blood inside of their bodies but it’s no use. Like cockroaches, they kick their feet in a feeble attempt to stave off the darkness creeping in around their eyes. And then, like candles being snuffed out, they lie limp, lifeless, and Kuroko clears out the first car of hostiles. 

Kuroko’s fingers tremble as she wipes the blood off of her cheek. They tremble not from the horror of what she’s done, no, they tremble from the strain of using her magic to such an extent. She’ll have to be a little more careful with how she clears out the train cars from here. Gunshots ring out as the troops in the second car shake off their horror and open fire on Kuroko. 

The first bullet lodges itself into her cheek. The only reason it didn’t pass all the way through her mouth is her flickering faith shield. The second and third hit her stomach unimpeded, however. She stumbles slightly, but catches herself on the seats. This is bad. Making a hasty getaway, Kuroko jumps out the window, taking a full magazine and one of the bloody assault rifles with her. Before her body hits the speeding ground, she conjures a bundle of string connected to the train car’s roof and uses it as a tether as she runs along the train’s side wall and onto the roof. She hears someone barking orders down below. Something about watching their six. Kuroko will have to be very careful about how she proceeds from here. 

First, she conjures a web made of imperceptibly small, fragile threads that fills up the second train car. The threads break as the girls below walk into them. Like a spider sitting at the very center of its web, Kuroko feels every single vibration, every single step, every single breath the girls take. And with every thread that breaks, she gets a clearer and clearer radar of where her enemies are. She moves on to step two. Kuroko jumps the gap bridging the first car to the second car. Her shoes barely make a sound as she lands. 

“What was that?”

She hears someone say. Before anyone can answer, Kuroko fires off a shot through the roof, directly at a blip on her radar. The person that it used to be suddenly stops moving.

“FALL BACK! FALL BACK!”

It’s useless. The more they run, the better she knows their exact location. Cold and mechanical, she unloads shot after shot into the blips. A few of them try to shoot back in Kuroko’s general direction but that too is pointless. All they hit are the stars above her head. Kuroko keeps firing until they’re all dead. 

“SHE’S ON THE ROOF!”

For the last train car before she reaches the cockpit, she simply shoots out a small hole the size of her fist into the roof, retrieves a grenade from her back pocket, pulls the pin, and drops it in. The explosion shatters the windows from the inside out. Kuroko swings around the train’s side and slips inside through a broken window. There are no survivors left standing. And as for the ones on the ground, she quickly finishes off with a shot from her rifle. When she fires, all that she feels is the recoil. 

She stays still for a moment. Just to come to terms with what she’d just done. To realize the gravity of killing so many people without so much as hesitating. Why? Because she was told to. That is all it took to kill all these people. Someone paid her to. A few months of Kuroko’s rent, that’s all these lives are worth. There really is nothing cheaper than a human life, is there? Yet, if they were any more expensive, would anyone pay Kuroko to take them? Does a world like that exist? One where no one has to die? She doesn’t know. But if it does, she would like to see that place. Her hands tremble even more. Not now. Not now. Just a little bit more.

She turns her attention to the cockpit, remembering that her job isn’t done just yet. Kuroko tosses the empty rifle to the side and tries to wrench the door off the wall. It gives easily. Too easily. Waiting for her on the other side is a small girl, no older than eleven or twelve, holding a pistol, aimed right for her. POP. She barely manages to take cover behind the door. POP POP. More bullets glance off the metal door as the girl unloads shot after shot, keeping Kuroko pinned. At the tiny slit where the door meets the ground, she sees the shadow of the girl in the muzzle flash advancing. Fascinating, so that’s her game. She’s unusually intelligent for her age. 

Kuroko kicks the door shut. The force of which would be enough to crush even a grown man into a bloody pulp. But, with an almost preternatural instinct, the girl dodge rolls out of the way, just in the nick of time. Unfortunately for her, she’s forced to dodge into a corner. Her feet don’t even get to touch the floor. Kuroko’s hand flies out and pins the girl by the neck to the wall. She squirms pointlessly, though not without surprising strength. The girl tries to empty the rest of the clip into Kuroko’s body but she catches her hand and twists. The gun drops to the floor.  

Identify

Fascinating. So she does have physical enhancements bestowed upon her. Not very powerful ones, but they are there nonetheless. More interesting are her eyes. They’re imbued with the Sorcery of Clarity. At this level… It practically means if there’s ever a question of whether she can see something, that answer is almost always yes. It’s like she’s constantly under the effects of an extremely powerful ‘Perfect Strike’ spell.

“You’ve got good eyes, girl.”

“KH–!”

Kuroko doubles the pressure on her neck. Her eyes look like they’re on the verge of popping out of her head. She feels a little pity for the kid, but not enough to stop. BANG. A gun goes off but too little too late, Kuroko’s faith shield is active once again. She doesn’t even feel the bullet. Kuroko raises her head to look at the source. A terrified looking girl is pointing an AK-47 at her. 

“Stop the train or the girl dies.”

The girl’s expression goes from fearful to horrified. More than likely, the gravity of the situation finally settled into her stomach. She hangs there in limbo, as if delaying the inevitable is going to change anything. She’s on the verge of accomplishing her goal but, of course, it’s not that simple. It never is. The girl Kuroko was choking out makes her move.