7 The undead

Jamal rose his hand to tell Natasha not to move, [ Since we don't know yet what are those things, it would be too hazardous to attack in first] he seemed to tell without speaking a single word. Thus, they stayed there observing their opponents in silence while being ready to take action when the time comes. However, it passed more than two minutes and the two undead were still immobile, rather it seemed that they were in the middle of an odd transformation. The black veins kept going up from their chests and their faces were becoming paler and paler like a real dead corpse.

After less than five minutes, when their transformation finally stopped, they suddenly jumped on Jamal and Natasha so quickly that if it was other normal people, instead of them both who were well-trained, for sure they would have been crushed. They rapidly dodged aside from the mortal attack, they rolled onto the floor and quickly got on their feet ready to fight back.

It was Natasha the first one to react, she moved forward and kicked hard on the back of the neck of one of the undead criminals who, then, fell loudly on the ground with his neck distorted causing the head to make an odd angle with the rest of the body.

Jamal took down the second one too by stabbing him twice on his face followed by a punch on his neck making the criminal go join his fellas on the floor.

" It seemed that despite being very fast when attacking their defenses they are really poor," Natasha said proudly.

" Don't drop off your guard " Jamal said cautiously while keeping an eye on his surrounding but especially on the two unconscious bodies.

" Do you really think they will get up again? " Natasha shrugged as she said, " you shredded the face of this one and I literally destroyed the neck of the other one. They definitely won't get up again ".

Although he was thinking that what she said was logical, Jamal couldn't get rid of the weird sensation he was feeling.[ It could not end so easily after comparing to what happened after they died for the first time ] he told himself. As if to confirm and give rights to his doubts their bodies started to shake up on the ground, they got up on their feet again, even though their wounds didn't heal rather it seemed that they became stronger, even the dark veins which were covering their bodies became darker.

Indeed they were faster than before, even Jamal could hardly dodge their attacks in time, However, he, anyway, managed to push them away, he firstly stepped back to avoid his head being crushed by shredded face's punch from the left and broken neck's from the right, then he grabbed the arm of the one on his left, turned, and threw him down with the same judo technique as Natasha's used earlier. With a kick in the belly, he pushed away Broken neck now on his back and finished by trampling the shredded face's head.

" You see! Never drop off the guard I told you, what would you have done if they had attacked you instead of me? " Jamal said when he reached Natasha after he neutralized the enemies thinking that they were defeated.

Natasha's seemed to be caught elsewhere, her face changed into a disappointed expression when she sighed and replied, " well, we will figure it out now. They are coming again " then she pointed toward the two undead. " Are they immortals or something?! " Jamal yelled after watching standing up again.

That time, it was Natasha who attacked them first however they just ignored her while she was running toward them to focus all their attention on Jamal.

" What the heck is this! They don't even want to fight me! " She complained while she was running back to help Jamal.

One more time they achieved defeating the undead but once again they stood up. They kept fighting like that for more than an hour without finding out a way to definitely kill them and they also noticed that the more they were defeated the faster they stood up the next. Although they were still ignoring her, Natasha was struggling to follow the rhythm, despite her tiredness, until she was hit by the elbow of a shredded face and got pushed away to fall off heavily on a wooden box and even broke it.

" Don't come! " Jamal yelled from the other side of the factory, " There is no need for you to come over ".

Natasha felt like these words were more hurtful than all the bashes she took in her whole life. It was not like she was very wounded, just some little bruises. For a long while, she felt disappointed as her mind was running wild trying to interpret the sense of his words, and each she came to the same supposition [ that's how he thinks about me, just a dead weight he has to carry] soon her started to be overwhelming, [ Liar! I thought you trusted me. You're a liar. I thought you finally acknowledged my strength and myself ], she suddenly realized, when she noticed that the metal bar in her hand was crooked, that she has had a rise of aggressivity.

By reflex, she tried to pull herself together, and only after she calmed herself that her ideas started to become clear, she started to think about what Jamal meant by " there is no need for you to come ", she firstly remembered that was what he used to tell her every time she would try to convince him to bring her in his patrol, he almost said the same thing before Matteo suggested him to go with her, [what does that mean?] she thought [what did he want to tell me?]. While she was wondering about it she suddenly remembered something else Jamal had said to her earlier, when they were at the control post " I had the feeling that it was crucial for you to come ".

Then she immediately understood.

[ He is winning time for me to find out how to finish them ]. At that moment, she felt shameful and culpable for having doubted on his words and insulted him as a liar, on the contrary, he trusted her so much that he put his life on the line in order to permit Natasha to figure out a way to end those undead bastards for good. However, even though she knew his intention, she still couldn't find any single idea. [Come on Nat', an idea. How can you get rid of those undead bastards?]

She suddenly lifted her head as she heard something weird from the battlefield. What she saw was even odder, it seemed that Jamal managed to burn the two undead but what frightened Natasha was that the flames didn't stop them. It became even worse, what resulted was that he couldn't fight them anymore since flames completely covered their bodies while the undead, on the other hand, could attack him at their ease.

Things turned out to be really difficult for Jamal.

[Oh god! At this rate, he will be crushed or burned. Or in any case, he might die unless I do something] Natasha panicked, in her thoughts when she saw Broken neck burning Jamal's belly as he was dodging his fist. Jamal fell on his knees and immediately got up on his feet but it didn't change the fact that the fight was going worse for him as he couldn't stand straight anymore, she guessed that he was tapping into his last stock of stamina and strength to still continue. [He'll be killed! He'll be killed! He'll be killed! Because of me, Jamal might die, because of my weakness. Why can't I do a single thing for him even though I promise him to be his pillar, to share every drop of his pain? In the end, I couldn't do a single thing to protect him, I'm really a failure] Natasha to cry slightly.

However she couldn't bear the idea of giving up, she would not let it happen without fighting. [If he might die, I would rather die with him as well]. With all her determination she picked up her knife and propelled herself with all the strength left in her legs and stabbed Broken neck so violently that in the movement she also knocked Shredded face. She slammed them both on the wall. She quickly removed the knife and went standing in front of Jamal, between him and the undead.

" I'll protect you no matter what, even if it costs my life," She said with all her resolve.

Jamal fell on his butt and held his belly. He sighed while fighting against the pain in order to give her some hint, " you still don't get it... only a special person with special capacities... can kill them definitively... there is no one more special than you " he grunted " So let's go... get rid of them once and for all ".

She turned to ask him how could she finish them when she had only a super strength when she saw Jamal smile. A smile that Natasha never saw before, a smile of pride. He was proud of her even though she didn't do anything.

[What is it? Something is strange?] the atmosphere seemed to have, moreover there was like a weird in sensation in her body.

Her sight was drawn to her right hand. She looked down and saw a quite long Japanese sword; a katana in the place was the knife, furthermore the blade of the katana was wholly covered by flames. She looked up again to Jamal and it was almost as she could hear his thoughts " Well! Go finish them, my special one ".

When they stood up again, the flames have already extinguished from both the undead corpses and the katana. Natasha didn't give them the time to get ready for the coming fight. She jumped high toward them, swung her swird and killed Shredded face by cutting him off on two pieces from up to down before she set foot on earth.

And once she landed, she rotated not elegantly like a ballet dancer but rather fiercely like a tordano and with a vertical swing of her katana, she cut Broken neck off in two pieces.

From there an odd black fluid started to flow out from the pieces of the bodies, and when it touched the ground it immediately evaporated into a minuscule black cloud.

After she made sure they have definitely died, Natasha didn't care so much about what was happening around her. She ran toward Jamal who was opening his arms with a large smile and without thinking she threw herself on his arms and she hugged tight him like she never did before. " I'm so relieved, I thought I may lose you. Thank god " Natasha's face was buried in his chest which caused cries were suppressed.

" I know, but in the end, you did well. You don't know how much I'm proud of you," he praised her while he was patting her head.

As she was about to start asking a lot of questions about what happened, Jamal stopped her quickly and order her to burn Edna's body with the pieces of bodies of the other two men. Natasha understood the urgency of his request and hurried herself to do as he said, she even found that she was no more scared about the dead corpses, moreover, she felt like this creepy task was no more as disgusting as before.

After she finished, they left the factory and she headed with Jamal to the hospital to go treat Jamal's wounds.

" Where is your katana? " Jamal asked after he noticed its absence when they arrived in front of the emergency department.

Natasha smiled proudly, took her knife, and started to move it before Jamal's eyes as if she was about to do a magic trick. Suddenly flames appeared on the blade which grew longer and it transformed into the katana. " I'm counting on you to teach me how to use such a weapon correctly, okay? " she said with a cute smile on her face.