Afterlife

29

Had it not been for Marcus' incredible strength, Santino would not have been able to keep pace with him and Connie as they weaved through the hectic crowd towards the exit. The crowds growing much denser as they closed in on the exit, making it hard to move at times. It also didn't help that every step Santino took sent just as much pain flowing through his leg as the last, making it even harder for him, personally, to push through the crowd, but rather than worry his friends with his condition, he simply bit his lip and pushed the pain to the very back of his mind, allowing him to devote more of his attention towards their escape, rather than towards his own personal needs. Originally, Marcus had planned on just carrying Santino on his back to make things go faster, but there was a higher risk of being noticed that way, rather than by just having Marcus hold up the majority of Santino's weight, so he could put as little pressure on his injury as possible. So in the end, they ended up going with the safer of the two options, but all of that would need to change when they finally managed to push through the exit of the hall, and into the open air of the outdoors.

Nearly every individual member of Dunland's group had this very same reaction upon seeing the horror that was unveiled before them as they stepped out of the hall, completely unaware of what they were about to see once they did. Many of them had seen violence before, but even what they'd just witnessed inside, paled in comparison to what they were seeing now.

Hitori must have planned for the situation where a few of the leaders escaped the building, for he also made sure to have another couple groups of his and the Commander's allies stationed outside to pick off the stragglers.

The entire city was in utter chaos as group leaders, along with any of their individual members who dared to protect their leaders were mercilessly gunned down by snipers and sharp shooters, or taken out by hand, by the foot soldiers that the Commander had also provided, leaving the streets crowded with even more fallen figures than the count had ever managed to reach inside the building. Each one of them covered in either their own or the blood of their comrades as they lay there breathing their last, in the bloodstained streets of what once had been a peaceful and beautiful city, now reduced to one of violence, blood, smoke, and death.

Connie, lifted a trembling hand to cover her mouth in shock, as tears began to stream down her gentle face at the gut wrenching image she saw before her. She could have never imagined that human beings were actually capable of something this horrible... no matter their reasoning behind it... nothing could justify violence of this nature, or any for that matter.

Marcus, who had seen some of war's brutality in his past, as a member of the Roman army, was not quite as shocked by all this as his comrades were, but it still saddened and angered him to see innocent people... some of which had never done a wrong thing a day in their lives, slaughtered without so much as a molecule of remorse apparent on the faces of any of their attackers. While Santino, who had been emotionless for so long, couldn't help but shed a single tear at the image before him as his face held a look of extreme hatred for Hitori, and everyone of the traitorous IPs who'd aligned themselves with him.

'We don't have time for this.' Santino then finally thought to himself as he quickly wiped away his tear saying, "We need to move, now." Then, glancing over at Connie quickly, he realized she was probably in too much of a trance to move so much as a single inch. In order to amend this issue, he then shifted his weight to his good leg, so he could stand on his own as he released his hold on Marcus' arm and added with a nod of his head in Connie's direction, "Carry her."

"But what about you?" Marcus asked as he checked to make sure Santino had stable footing and that there was nothing nearby that could potentially cause him harm.

"I'll manage, just go," Santino added urgently as he waved Marcus away, gesturing for him to hurry up and collect Connie so they could get moving, as he gently prodded his injured leg.

As Marcus was busy lifting Connie onto his back like a father might for their small child, Santino attempted to gage how much pain he'd be in for if he tried to walk on his own. Wincing and grunting softly as he attempted to put his full weight on it for a moment, sending a sharp pain shooting through the muscle that forced him to lean his weight back to his good side to alleviate the pain, leaving his leg with a burning ache as the muscles tried to repair themselves once more. 'Well that's not going to work,' he told himself.

Before he could so much as think of attempting anything else, Marcus returned to his side, and began preparing himself to lift Santino's weight once more. Santino looked at Marcus for a second before saying, "You can't honestly think you're going to carry both of us."

"As things currently are, I don't see as how I have much else of a choice," he replied, "besides, Connie weighs all of a baby bird's weight, and I'm only offering you an arm to lean on anyways. So stop arguing and lets get moving."

Santino made an unamused face when he realized that Marcus not only had a good point on every statement of his argument, but that he also didn't have a good reason to refuse his help at the moment anyways. So rather than argue with him further, he simply grabbed hold of Marcus' arm once more, using it for support as they then began making their way through the crowd once more.

In order to avoid being easy targets for the snipers and sharp shooters, they tried to stay hidden within whatever remnants of the crowd that was left standing as they made their way towards the outskirts of the city. Unfortunately, even though they did manage to avoid the sights of the shooters and make it out of the most populated area of the fight and into the more quiet sections of the city, where there were only some smaller fights going on, they hadn't completely avoided being seen all together. Two of the Commander's soldiers had taken notice of them, and sense they were the highest priority kills of the day, especially in Santino's case, they decided to follow them in hopes of getting a better chance of taking them down when they would have less of a chance of being interrupted.

"We're almost there," Marcus said as they neared the city's edge. Ahead of them they could see where the cobble stone of the streets began to fade into forest floor, every step allowing the horrifying sounds of the bloodbath they'd just escaped to fade into the distance as they pressed onward. Unfortunately for them, however, it was at this moment when their two shadows, who'd been following them all this time, chose to strike... and since Santino was distracted by his own physical pain, he hadn't noticed their presence as he would have before, so it took all three of them by total surprise when an unseen force rushed them from behind, as the first of the attackers rammed full boar into Santino's back, forcefully separating him from Marcus as he added in a strong shove at the end to ensure that Santino wouldn't easily regain his balance, forcing Santino to fly forward a few feet before landing face forward on the ground.

Santino released a short yell of surprise, followed by a audible grunt of obvious pain as fell forward into the ground, wincing harder than he ever thought was possible as he felt a nearly unbearable pain shoot through his leg as it slammed into the ground as well. Before he even had a chance to recover himself enough to so much as lift his head, the attacker was on him again, quickly pulling Santino's hands behind his back to restrain him. Then, pulling out a dagger from his belt, the man then smiled, chuckling slightly as he said triumphantly, "I've got him! The highest priority of the day!"

Santino rolled his eyes slightly at that comment as he grunted and gritted his teeth in attempts to push through the pain as he considered his next move, and it was at this moment, that a memory arose... one that provided a possible answer to his current dilemma. He then quickly calculated the action he would need to take to pull it off and figured that it was possible, even in his current condition, but it wasn't going to be pretty.

Yelling out in pain as he did so, Santino then rapidly whipped his legs up behind himself, and grabbed hold of his attackers neck with his ankles, catching him off guard. Then bringing his legs back down in another rapid motion, the man flipped backwards off of Santino's back and landed painfully on the ground behind him, gripping his neck as he felt forced to cough in order to get his airways back to normal. Once this was done Santino then wheezed painfully, clutching his injured leg as he rolled over onto his back and sat up, looking down at his wound, where a large blood spot had started to spread across his pant leg. 'Damn! Must have opened the stitches,' he thought to himself before quickly looking up to see what his attacker was doing, only to find that Marcus had already rendered the man unconscious. Offering them a small moment of relief before their hearts jumped once more when they heard Connie exclaim loudly, just before a shot rang out causing all of them to freeze in shock as their minds tried to come to a reasonable conclusion as to what had just occurred.