Chapter 25: Hitting The Books Part One

"Urp!"

"Mai swallow it back do not take off your mask! Just close your eyes. We can leave, there is nothing here for us." Ai quickly rubbed Mai's back and took her hand leading her out of the room.

"Was that what I think it was?" Seji asked.

"Mmm… They turned to cannibalism in such a short time. My guess is they did not have a food stock at all. This is a normal thing. At least we ran upon such a scene early so you now know what to expect in the future." Ai looked up at the sky as soon as they exited the house. She stretched her arms up over her head and let out a sigh.

"Ai, you got blood on your face." Shizune came over and began wiping Ai's face. She showed no signs of disgust which made Ai happy. Her mother did indeed change after the things she had to go through lately.

Although Ai's clothes were still covered in blood the group of six chatted happily as they walked down the street. Some people who seemed out of sorts would pass by but stay as far away as they could and lowered their heads. A lot of this had to do with Ai being covered in blood and the bloody ax she had resting on her shoulder while the other part was the two shotguns that Seji and Yasuhide were wielding as they walked.

"Ai where are we going anyway?" Mai asked.

"Hmm.. a two street loop in both directions. I want to make sure the vicinity is safe. We will go out once per day and expand our safety zone. Eventually, we will need to make a trip into the city to get to the police station if it has not been overrun by looters already." Ai explained.

"That's right, we never made it to the police station last time due to the machinas… Hey, Ai, is it possible to capture one of those things?" Mai wondered if it was possible to keep one in captivity. Just knowing their habits and attack patterns would be of great help.

"This was actually a plan I had. In my past life, they had captured many first type and second type machinas for people to train against. Before I died we were slowly turning some of their techs into useful things. Like artificial limbs or other body parts. I, myself back then had been researching artificial eyes. I wanted to create an artificial eye to replace the one I have now. But in order to continue that process, I will need to get some medical books, books on science and engineering, and books on robotics. These three subjects are very useful. Mai you will be studying with me." In her past life when she lost her eye, she wanted to make an eye that could be used to see things differently allowing her to know when a machina was close and detect it from miles away. But all her research was on her body when she died. Turned into nothing by the laser beam that disintegrated her body. She was close to achieving her goal but she had no one at the time to help with the medical procedure. She hopped maybe now, with people by her side she can accomplish this task. She actually never thought she would lose the same eye in this life but this made things easier for her to finish her research.

"You want to make an artificial eye for yourself?" Seji asked. He felt bad because he was there when her eye was injured and he couldn't do anything at the time to stop it.

"Mhm. And I will need Mai to help me put it in since it will require attaching it to the nerves of the old eye and some other sensors that I will be attaching to the brain. Although this will take a few years, it will still come in handy. We will need to get a stock of laptops as well for writing programs and medical equipment." Ai had it all planned out. She figured if she could spend enough time on research she could definitely make this happen. And if things went really well, she could even make weaponized prosthetic limbs. She would not mind chopping her arms and legs off to attach something that would allow her to survive.

"I will do whatever I can to help! You lost your eye because of me. So no matter what I have to do, I will do it." Mai said seriously. She had always felt guilty about Ai's eye being hurt because of her. But now she had a chance to make up for it. She would make sure to help Ai build whatever it was she needed to build.

"Then I will need you to learn about the medical portion of things. Since I will need you to do the operation of installing and hooking up all the sensors to my brain. Are you still willing?" Ai stopped walking and looked at Mai.

Without wavering in the slightest, Mai answered: "Yes! As long as I can help you Ai, I will learn everything."

"Okay, we will capture animals and trash humans for you to practice on then. The next street up has a library. Let's go there first and get the books we will need." Ai responded causing everyone to look at her.

"You want to capture humans as well?" Shizune was completely dumbfounded by Ai's words.

"Mmm… if we are going to kill them anyway, might as well make the useful, no? Of course, we will only capture those who are bad. " After Ai answered, everyone had the same thought. 'Didn't you already tell us everyone was bad!?'