Chapter 23: Beginning A New Way Of Life Part Two

Hearing Mai's complaint made everyone laugh. Everyone quickly stripped down to minimal clothing and began bathing in the rainwater that was in the rain collectors they had setup. There was no embarrassment this time, they all just wanted to be clean. After cleaning up, Ai decided that now that she could move her arm a little better she would take a look around the area. "I will scout out the surroundings a bit and see what the damage is like. And try to get a rough number of the first type machinas that are in the area."

"Ai will you be okay?" Seji asked. He felt a little reluctant to let his daughter go out into the unknown.

"I will be fine. Right now since the wave has passed, humans will be more likely to be the enemy than a machina. Only a few would have stayed behind for clean up. My second objective is to see how many humans are alive in this area. It would be best to have as few as possible..." Ai's voice trailed off at the end but everyone understood what she meant. She was going out to hunt down those who could be deemed as a threat to them.

"Just be careful. If anything happens even if you are being chased by hundreds of those machines, run here so we can fight them all together." Yasuhide's words surprised Ai. she never thought that he had put her in such a high position that he would rather die fighting with her than to have her die sacrificing herself.

"Yes, listen to your uncle. We are all one family now. So no matter what we will go through everything together." Kazumi followed up.

"Ai..." Mai came forward and tugged on Ai's sleeve.

"No!" Ai already knew what Mai was going to say. Although Mai was well trained at this point, She had yet to fight a machina yet by herself.

"I can't just keep hiding here soon or later I will run into one of those things! What will I do if I am alone at the time and get caught off guard and end up dying?" Mai protested.

Ai let out a sigh and nodded her head. Mai was right. She couldn't protect everyone by keeping them confined. "Then let's do this. We will all go out. But you must listen to my words. Do not speak loudly even if you see something like a mangled corpse. A single peep could cause a swarm of machina to jump on us. If you must talk, talk in a low whisper that only we can hear, got it?"

"Commander Ai, your orders have been received!" Seji joked causing everyone to laugh. Ai rolled her eyes and laughed along with them. In her past life, this was never possible. Everyone kept to themselves things like love and family were nothing but a pipe dream of the past. But now, she at least had family who wished to dive headlong into danger with her by her side.

The group got ready and equipped themselves well. Each one had a pistol and Ai gave the two sets of bulletproof vests to her mother and Kazumi. They were the least trained out of the group and her mother was still healing from her rib injury. Luckily they were not as bad as they had thought. Ai had made sure they were wrapped very tight so that they wouldn't move. Shizune complained but did not ask for them to be loosened, she knew that it was the only option. In the future things like enduring the pain from injuries as they traveled would be commonplace. At some point, Ai knew the resources around the house would dry up and they would need to move on. so this was good training for them as well.

"Ai where are we headed?" Seji said as she helped Ai move a large boulder on top of the hatch to their bunker, disguising it so no one would be able to see it.

"It's still early in the morning so most groups are not moving yet, or are too afraid to move due to the first type machinas. I suggest we head to a police station to see if it is still intact and void of people. If we get lucky we will be able to harvest a big stash of weapons. Besides food and water, weapons are essential. I wouldn't mind an automatic weapon." Ai explained.

"And while we are traveling we will be looking out for Machina and what else?" Seji knew what Ai was about to say but he wanted to be completely clear on what they were in for.

"We will also clean up any unsavory people we come across. So be ready to shoot at any time. But if possible kill them with a melee weapon." Ai said bluntly.

Seji let out a sigh even though he knew it, it was still hard for him to take in. Surprisingly though when the others heard this they did not reject the idea. Especially Shizune who seemed to tighten the grip on her pistol when Ai mentioned killing.

"Before we leave you all need to remember the rules I said before and also some new rules. If someone gets within a few meters of you and you do not know them, they are an enemy and need to be dealt with. Always keep your voice low in order to not attract the attention of those around you, especially machina. And lastly, keep your masks on, otherwise, you may catch some weird diseases with all the dead bodies lying around." Ai, paused for a second before adding. "One more… If you feel the need to puke swallow it down."