[10-15] The Docks

[Kenpachi Zaraki]

As the survivors trekked away from the crumbling ruins of the census building, Nanaki’s thoughts were elsewhere. Karl Jak had given them no time at all to mourn their dead before ordering their exodus toward the shipyard under the pretense that worse things would be coming for them. The battered beast suspected it could just as easily have been the blood and grime smeared on his previously pristine suit that spurred him toward escape. The executive had never shown much affinity for empathy. 

As they left the disintegrating body of their fallen comrade to dissipate into the night, Red and Abner shared a sullen glance. His sagging face briefly contorted in surprise as he eyed the feline, eventually settling back into melancholy. “Your eye,” he said, a small smile punctuating his gloom. “She’s with you.”

Nanaki tilted his head in confusion, the ex-trooper retrieving a large shard of broken glass from the rubble and holding it helpfully at eye-level. The flickering light of the carmine cat’s flaming tail illuminated the crystal fragment as it displayed his own image. To his shock, his milky right eye now shone a bright blue, untainted by the partial blindness that had previously afflicted him. Christa. Their momentary union had left her signature upon his countenance, a permanent reminder of the woman he'd failed. 

“She died like she lived,” Abner mused, head hung. “Kicking some bastard’s ass.” The words were meant to bring some semblance of levity to the situation, though immortal Prime-status or not, it was difficult to watch a companion fade away before you. Nanaki could sense the storm brewing within the scruffy soldier, his trembling hands telling volumes about his emotional state.

The crimson Prime remained silent, limping his beleaguered body after the rest of the fleeing squadron. Ultimately, the deaths had not changed their goal, though he could think of little else despite the pressure of Karl’s insistence. Barring the gravity of the woman’s death, something arguably more tragic hung over the hobbling panther. He and the gunslinger had shared headspace, allowing him to feel the full burden of her pain: Katia. The smug shyster dragging them across the island was the sole informant who could offer information of her whereabouts, the only person able to force anything more than a self-satisfied chuckle out of the man being Christa herself. 

“Ah, I see that Fangs and Ginger have been holding the fort. Wonderful,” Karl said breaking Nanaki from his introspection. He gestured toward a smallish boathouse along the water, scarlet flashes shooting up sporadically from the rooftop. The group could barely make out a pair of silhouettes beyond the veritable sea of blighted creatures surging toward the waterfront.

The scarlet predator stared silently at the abysmal scene spreading across the shipyard, eyes unblinking. Among the swarm were all manner of foes, from simple corrupted humanoids to towering titans of taint. Overhead, Nanaki could make out swarms of winged horrors, resembling a somehow more hellish depiction of mythical harpies. Before he could rightfully comment on the events, a loud crack split the air as one of the larger flying terrors was forcibly separated from its wing, sending it plummeting downward to crush a handful of walkers below. The falling fiend seemed to offer no distraction, the ghouls continuing to surge toward the waterfront. Red caught sight of Abner hefting the fallen gunwoman’s bloodstained rifle, ejecting the spent casing and loading another pair of bullets. The look on his face was pure “fed up”. 

”We’ll need a… diversion," Nanaki heard the hulking rotknight to his right rumble. The revolting warrior’s face was smeared with blood, bits of flesh clinging to his rusted armor. He was sure that he’d rather not find out what the aged warrior had just consumed. "I intend to show these worms how a son of Barbarus dies. Who will stand by me?” 

Red’s eyes slowly closed, his thoughts casting back to his fallen comrade. Though his mood was solemn as the curtain closed on the gunslinger's life, he could not labor in melancholy forever. As her sad symphony settled to silence, he already knew what her answer would have been. 

“Fuck it,” the beast declared, a hint of the blonde’s signature gruffness evident in his voice. “I’m in.”

721 words. More to come.