Nightfall settled over Raccoon City. The streets below grew quiet and tense, but on a rooftop above, Saki kept herself moving. She practiced swordsmanship for hours, her odachi cutting clean arcs through the air as she cycled through the motions of her self-taught style. Her breathing came steady, her amber eyes sharp with focus. Finally, a familiar ding chimed from her watch.
New Skill Acquired
Swordsmanship: Grants greater precision and power to your swordplay and corrects flaws in your technique. Strength increased by 5 when holding a sword.
Saki paused, nodding in satisfaction. With a small smile, she sheathed her blade and tore into a Slim Jim, casually chewing as the silence of the night stretched on.
Then it came—screaming in the distance. The guttural, hollow moans of the undead carried through the air, mingled with the heavy dragging of bloated flesh against pavement. Saki stretched her arms overhead, her joints popping, and her smile widened into something almost feral.
"Finally," she muttered, licking the salt from her fingers. "I was getting fucking bored. Time to see what I can do."
Without hesitation, she vaulted off the roof, sliding down a rain gutter in a fluid motion until her feet hit the street with a thud. Her heart quickened as she sprinted toward the chaos, the city around her beginning to drown in terror.
When she arrived, she spotted a small group of police officers desperately holding a defensive line. The undead pressed against them in droves, rotting bodies clawing and snapping with hunger.
"There's too many! We need to fall back!" one officer shouted, panic cracking his voice.
"We can't—we're surrounded!" another yelled, firing wildly into the horde.
From the shadows, Saki drew her bow and let arrows fly. Each shot was precise, skewering the skulls of zombies one after another. With every clean kill, she thinned the swarm's center, carving gaps into the horde and giving the embattled officers a chance to breathe. The men glanced around in confusion, unsure who their sudden savior was, but they didn't waste the opportunity.
Once the undead were scattered and less tightly packed, Saki smirked, slinging the bow back into her inventory. Her hand gripped the hilt of her odachi, and with a single smooth motion, she drew the blade free.
The steel glinted under the dim streetlights as she surged forward. With a sharp cry, she cut into the horde, her strikes fluid and merciless. Her blade cleaved through rotting torsos, severed limbs, and split skulls clean in two. Blood and gore sprayed across the pavement as she moved, her expression alive with adrenaline. Each swing was precise, calculated, but carried the raw power of someone unafraid to throw herself headlong into the chaos.
The officers could only watch in stunned silence as the strange girl carved through the monsters like a storm of steel, her presence turning the tide of the battle in an instant.
After finishing off the last zombie, she looked at the stunned officers with shining amber eyes and a feral grin. Without a word, Saki dashed across the street and, in a blur of acrobatic movements, climbed to the top of the nearest building before vanishing into the night in search of more prey.
Her first stop was the mayor's home. Silently, she pried open a window and crept through the darkened halls, her every step cautious and deliberate. Once she confirmed that the mayor's daughter was alive and unharmed, she slipped back out the way she came, exhaling a quiet breath of relief.
Her next destination was Kendo's Gun Shop. Perched on the roof, she peered through the windows and confirmed the safety of Robert and Emma. Another sigh of relief escaped her lips before she finally checked the status of her first mission.
The quest tracker now read:
Zombies Eliminated: 12 out of 50
She frowned, muttering, "Shit, really? It felt like more. Oh well, night's still young."
Glancing at her familiarity percentage, she noticed it had risen to 5%.
"I guess ten zombies get me 5%. So once I hit fifty, it'll reach 25%."
With that estimation in mind, she resumed her hunt through the city. But as she scoured the streets, she found no more undead. Her eyes narrowed in thought before she remembered: at this point in time, the Arklay Mountains should still be crawling with infected. And if the events of the Outbreak games were real here, then the zoo might also hold something worth checking out—specifically, Titan.
She decided to head for the zoo first.
Approaching the gates, she heard a ding from her watch.
New Sub Mission: Slay Titan the zombified elephant and the three zombified lions.
Reward: $2000 and Aya's set of infinite kunai and 5% familiarity.
Saki laughed, the sound sharp in the quiet night. "So Aya's never-ending amounts of kunai became an infinite ammo weapon? Works for me."
Boldly, she stepped through the zoo gates, disturbed to find them unsecured and wide open.
"How the hell were the zombified animals in this place not a problem in the events of the actual story?" she muttered, scanning the shadows. "Then again… maybe this is where that giant sewer gator came from in Resident Evil 2."
Moving through the zoo on high alert, she cut down stray zombies with efficient, brutal strikes, never slowing as she made her way toward her true target. Rather than wait for Titan to find her, she decided to draw him out directly.
She headed straight for the performance arena, recalling from the games that even in his undead state, Titan still responded to the familiar music that played when he performed. Climbing into the control booth, she rifled through the tapes until she found the right one, slid it in, and hit play.
The cheerful jingle rang out, echoing through the empty zoo. A few seconds later, the ground began to shake with heavy, thunderous stomps. Titan was coming.
Saki tightened her grip on her odachi, her heart pounding with anticipation. Smashing through the booth's glass window with the hilt of her sword, she vaulted out into the open air just as Titan barreled into the arena, trumpeting furiously.
The zombified elephant was a nightmare made flesh—massive, rotting, one tusk broken but the other still sharp and deadly.
Saki didn't hesitate. As he charged, she leapt high into the air, spinning mid-flight and sinking her blade into his thick hide. She slid down his body with controlled precision, carving a burning line of steel through his flesh. Titan let out a guttural roar—something that might have been rage, or simply the hollow sound of an undead creature incapable of true feeling.
Titan thrashed and charged again, attempting to gore her with his tusk or flatten her underfoot. The ground shook violently with every step, but Saki was faster. She darted aside, then launched herself into the air once more, bringing her odachi down in a brutal arc.
Steel met bone with a sickening crack as her blade cleaved deep into Titan's skull. With a final roar, the beast collapsed, the light in his undead eyes extinguished.
Landing gracefully, Saki slung the blood from her blade with a quick flick of her wrist and smirked.
"Damn, that was fun—but not really a challenge. I don't want to sound arrogant, but I'm kind of looking forward to Nemesis and William now. At least they'll be a challenge. And I can't forget Mr. X—the world's most relentless stalker. He'll be a pain to deal with. Not as bad as the other two, but maybe he'll die if I destroy his brain."
With that, she strode out of the arena and headed straight for the lion enclosure. From what she remembered, there should be three in total—one male and two females.
Not long after she arrived, she instantly regretted her earlier remark about Titan being easy.
"Fuck!" she cursed, narrowly avoiding a blur of claws aimed for her head. "These assholes are fast!"
One of the lionesses lunged, and Saki blocked with her blade, muscles straining as she shoved the beast off balance. Seizing the opening, she drove her odachi through the lioness's skull, kicking its twitching body off her blade before rolling backward—just in time to avoid the snapping jaws of the male.
She sprang back to her feet, amber eyes sharp and focused as she squared off with the two remaining lions. Her grip on her weapon tightened, and she waited.
The male lunged first, his massive form blurring through the air. Saki flipped over him, twisting mid-air as her blade came down in a devastating slash. Her odachi cleaved into the second lioness's neck, and with a swift spin, she decapitated it cleanly.
Whipping around, she caught the male's next charge head-on. There was no time to dodge, no room to block. Snarling, she met him with raw aggression, her blade flashing in a desperate slash. Steel bit deep, severing his front leg and sending the beast staggering back, growling low and hateful.
The two circled one another, eyes locked in a deadly stalemate. Tension thickened in the air, neither making the first move—until Saki broke it.
With a feral grin, she dashed forward. The lion lunged to meet her, jaws gaping wide. At the last second, Saki spun aside, twisting with blinding speed. Her blade pierced clean through his chest, skewering him in one decisive strike.
The undead lion let out one final growl before collapsing, silenced forever.
Saki continued searching the zoo, methodically sweeping through each enclosure. By the time she had explored the entirety of it, she had taken down six human zombies, four zombie monkeys, three zombie hyenas, and two massive zombie crocodiles.
She stopped outside the snake habitat, scowling at the dark enclosure. "Those fucking things can fuck right off," she muttered, pulling together a hastily made Molotov. With a flick of her lighter and a casual toss, she sent the firebomb sailing through the window, watching with grim satisfaction as the flames spread inside. "Problem solved."
Along the way, she also stumbled across some useful supplies: a hunting rifle with enough stopping power to pierce an elephant's hide, a twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun, and a magnum revolver. As she stored the weapons and their ammo neatly into her inventory, she shook her head and scoffed.
"What kind of fucking zoo is this? I haven't seen a single tranquilizer gun. You telling me they were only packing lethal weapons? Jesus… maybe you all deserved this."
Dusting her hands off, she straightened up. "Alright, I think I'm done here. Let's collect the quest reward real quick."
She navigated to her quest tab and turned Sub Mission 4 in. The familiar ding chimed from her watch.
Sub Mission 4 complete. Rewards received.
Almost immediately, another ding went off. Raising an eyebrow, Saki glanced down at the glowing display on her wrist.
Total zombies killed has reached: 40 out of 50
Familiarity has reached 25%
Stats updated and 2 skills unlocked
Curious, she pulled up her stat page.
Name: Saki (Dexter)
Health: 1600
Strength: 42
Perception: 16
Endurance: 33
Charisma: 12
Intelligence: 28
Luck: 12
Perks: None
Skills: Tsubaki Style Mortal Combat, Saki Style Swordsmanship, Parkour, Energy Manipulation (Locked), Swordsmanship, Archery
Abilities: Enhanced Strength, Enhanced Speed (Locked), Enhanced Endurance (Locked), Accelerated Perception (Locked), Berserk Form (Locked), Xtatic Form (Locked)
Familiarity: 025%
Seeing the updated stats, Saki's lips curled into a feral grin. Without hesitation, she turned to the nearest concrete wall, drew back her fist, and slammed it forward. The satisfying crack of stone giving way echoed through the zoo as her hand punched clean through the solid surface.
"Fuck yeah," she said, smiling with pure satisfaction as she pulled her fist free, dust and grit falling from her knuckles. "Now we're talking."
Still grinning, she left the zoo humming to herself, her mood light and almost playful as she searched for a decent rooftop to camp on for the night.