Ito Ai: A New Dawn

A Black Hummer rolled up in front of Ai's demolished home. Three people hoped out carrying heavy bags as they made their way into the wreckage. Ai, Yasuhide, Mai all climbed down the ladder to the bunker sealing the hatch as they did. "Ai! Your face!"

The first thing Shizue noticed was Ai's now black eye. "Mom, it's fine. It was self-inflicted."

"What do you mean self-inflicted!?" Shizue was confused. Why would her daughter want to get punched in the face?

"When we went to leave we had two cops show up. I acted out the damsel in distress so that we could get the jump on them. In order to do so, I had Mai hit me so it looked like I was about to be r*ped. Only to have the so-called r*pist run away when the cops showed up." Ai explained.

"Then the cops?" Seiji asked.

"Dead. I killed one, Ai killed one, and both Ai and Mai killed a bunch of thugs outside the pharmacy." Yasuhide replied.

"What…?" Shizune was shocked. She started to wonder if they went out to just commit murder.

"Dad come here a second please." Ai noticed her mother's reaction to the whole thing and knew this really could not continue like this.

Ai brought her father over to the side and lowered her voice. "Dad we need to do something that will put mom in danger..."

Seiji frowned but decided to keep listening to what Ai had to say. "Explain."

"We need to do a controlled situation where mom will have to deal with someone who she will have no other choice but to kill. I don't want her to have to go through such a thing so soon but the sight of a first-type machina is enough to know mass death will be in front of us soon. And mom will need to get over the shock of this type of thing quickly. Just like Mai did tonight." Ai explained.

"I see… Alright, but you and I will oversee it and if your mother is not able to pull the trigger, I will." Seiji said coldly. He did not like this idea but what Ai said made a lot of sense. Widespread death and famine will soon be upon them and being too nice will end up getting one killed.

"That's fine and trust me. I have ways to make the one we have do this not do anything to mom besides ruff her up a bit. After I ice up my eyes and rest for a while, I will go and find our training tool. You should also talk to Uncle about this as well and see what he wants to do for Aunty. Anyway, it's training time." Ai said as she looked back in everyone else's direction. "As you all know it is pouring out. The buckets upstairs have gathered water. Everyone should strip down to where they are most comfortable and come up topside. We will be doing our practice public bathing."

Everyone looked at Ai with a troubled expression. But Ai ignored it, took off her bandage around her eye and her arm, and then stripped down to nothing. She put her hat back on and grabbed a towel and wrapped it around herself as she went topside. Mai quickly followed suit. Although blushing she did not care since everyone around her was family to her. Seeing the two youngest taking the lead, the adults all looked at each other awkwardly before following suit.

Topside Ai was under a partial overhang using a bowl of water to wipe herself down. Mai was behind her washing her back. "Your wounds are beginning to heal. We will need to make sure we sanitize them after this which will hurt."

"I know. But it's fine. I would rather not get an infection. Although we now have medicines to fight infections, I still would prefer not to waste any." Ai said as she caught eye of her parents and Mai's parents all making their way topside.

They all seemed to have stripped down and followed her and Mai's example of just covering up until it was time to wash. Mai and she had already placed their towels to the side in a dry spot because they did not want them to get any wetter than they already were. Her mother and Mai's mother both came over to where they were while the two men walked behind a broken wall. "Ai, Mai cover up more..."

"Mom, it's the apocalypse. If I cover up, how will I get clean? To be honest I am surprised that you two stripped all the way down. Anyway, just get used to it. We will have to do this a lot in the future." Ai said as she soaped up her arm as far as she could. The wound on her shoulder was nowhere close to being healed.

Shizune let out a sigh as well as did Kazumi. "I do not know how you two trained these past few months but for Mai to also be so used to this is a letting unsettling..."

"Mom, I took showers with Ai in order to get used to it. Plus to me, everyone here is family so it's no big deal." Mai explained as she finished washing Ai's back.

"By the way Mom, tomorrow you will be going out with me and dad. It is your turn to do some live training." Ai said suddenly.

"I… Do you think I am ready? I mean, I just started training and barely know any moves." Shizue felt nervous about going out. She had good reason to since three times they had made expeditions out to gather resources and three times things happened. The first time Ai killed a cop, the second time they ran into a machina where AI was heavily injured, and this last time, they went and killed more cops and thugs. So now Shizune had no idea what to expect.

"Whether you are ready or not is not does not matter. It is how you deal with the situation at that time that you will learn to know what to do." Ai answered.

"Fine, I will just follow what you say." Hearing her mother's answer caused Ai to feel as if some of her stress had lifted off her shoulders.

The four girls sat and chatted and after a while they completely forgot they were in public exposing all, for all to see. While they chatted Seiji and Yasuhide were also having a serious talk.

"And that is what she has planned for tomorrow. What do you think?" Seiji asked.

"This is some serious ruthless training but it would push our wives to make decisions that they normally would not do or try to avoid. As long as it is in a controlled situation it should be fine. But where is she going to find such people to do this training?" Yasuhide knew how cunning Ai could be. Just from how she presented herself and acted in front of those cops. He lured them in so easily that they even dropped their guard down without much thought.

"I have no idea and it will probably be best not to ask." Seiji said with a frown. "I guess I will head back down."

"Right behind you. The girls should be just about down as well."

After bathing, Mai and Shizune helped clean and rewrap Ai's wounds before everyone turned in for the night. The next day Ai woke up early and got dressed. Yasuhide was the only other one awake at the time. "Ai can I talk to you?"

"Hmm? yeah, what's the matter?" Ai asked as she bit into a stale roll.

"The training you plan to give your mother, are you sure about this?" Yasuhide asked.

"It is the only way. For someone like my mom who is way too nice, she would never be able to kill unless her life is on the line. This is a good thing in the old days but now that the world has come to an end it is no longer a trait one can have. Just like yesterday where you were apprehensive about killing the cops, you still did it in the end. My mother is weak at this time so she needs to be in a controlled environment where she can kill someone who is attacking her and if things go south, she'd have someone there to protect her. This was a decision my father and I decided on. I hate to say it but I think Aunty should also go through this training. But that will be left up to you to decide. All I know is that I want my family to be ready for anything." Ai knew what she was doing was very wrong. But she saw no other way about things. This was the only time she could train her mother in these things to prepare her for later on.

"I will think it over. " Yasuhide gave his thanks before going topside to begin his training.

Later that morning Ai was standing inside a partially collapsed house looking at the young man in front of her. This young man was roughly twenty-five years of age. But around him were nothing but dead bodies and the young man himself was covered in their blood. "You killed your whole family huh?"

"Hahaha! So what! Just hearing their screams were enough to make me feel as if I had gained freedom! You have no idea how much they tormented me when they were alive. But now. Hahaha! Thanks to the world-destroying itself, I am now able to be free!" The young man shouted at the top of his lunges.

"Well, it's too bad you met me. I tell you what, I will not kill you if you do a job for me." Ai said raising the pistol in her hand causing the young man to shrink back.

"Wha-what if I say no?" The young man stuttered. With the pistol turned on to him he did not dare move. He dared to kill but he did not dare to die.

"If you say no you will die now or you can do as I ask and live, pick."