Chapter 1: It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)
"Uzumaki!"
A loud voice broke through Naruto's daydreams, snapping his attention away from the reddening trees outside, and he glared up at the Literature teacher, Umino Iruka.
"Since you find my lesson so boring maybe you should go down to the principal's office and talk to him. Oh, and you'll need to come to detention tonight. I'm sure I can find something to interest you then."
Naruto's friend Inuzuka Kiba snickered. Iruka-sensei rounded on him.
"You think this is funny, Inuzuka?" he snapped. "Go join Uzumaki in the hallway!"
The two friends held their laughter in until they left the classroom.
"What is this, the third time in a week you've been caught daydreaming in Iruka's class?" said Kiba. "You must really like him to wanna spend so much time with him after school…"
Naruto snorted and clacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth in annoyance. "As if. I'd rather be out chilling at Ichiraku's with you and Shikamaru instead of scrubbing white boards."
"Yeah I just bet," Kiba snarked back. "Your attitude says differently. What are you daydreaming about anyway? The next bowl of ramen you're gonna eat? The next time I get to beat your ass at Mario Kart? Sasuke-kuuuunnnn?" He batted his eyelashes.
Naruto blushed and glared at his friend. "I told you not to mention that in school dammit! What if he hears?"
"Hears what, Uzumaki?" said a silky bored voice behind him. Naruto jumped and turned around to be met by the onyx gaze of none other than one very unimpressed Uchiha Sasuke. Shit shit shit, how much did he hear?
"Yo, Sasuke!" he said, laughing nervously and trying to look anywhere but at Sasuke, which was kind of hard because he was wearing his kendo uniform. In an attempt to avoid looking directly at Sasuke Naruto opted to look over his shoulder instead, which turned out to be a decidedly bad idea since Kiba was behind the Uchiha making kissy faces. Naruto heartily wished that Sasuke would leave quickly so he could murder his friend.
"Don't tell me you got in trouble again," said Sasuke, looking for all the world as if he would rather be doing anything else other than standing in the hallway scolding Naruto. "As it stands now you are dead last in our class this year. If you keep this up you won't be moving on at the year's end."
"Listen up temee," said Naruto, "just because you're the student council president doesn't mean you get to lord it over everyone else! I'll catch up to you and make you eat those words, I swear!"
Sasuke raised an eyebrow in amusement. "I doubt you will ever catch up to me dobe, but keep dreaming if it makes you feel better."
"Fuck you Uchiha!" growled Naruto.
"Maybe later, Uzumaki," Sasuke said smugly as he resumed his journey toward the gym.
When he was gone, Kiba burst out laughing. "What do you see in that guy, Naruto?! You're constantly at each other's throats, your personalities are completely different, he's got a major stick up his ass that wouldn't leave much room for your dick… Why do you even like him?"
"I dunno," said Naruto thoughtfully. "There's just something about him… I can't really place it."
"His dominant personality?"
Naruto glowered. "Please, I'm the dominant one in my relationships."
"That's news to me," said Kiba. "When you were dating Neji he was the dominant one."
Naruto glowered at him.
"Don't mention that clingy bastard to me. And it's something else, okay? I just have this feeling that Sasuke isn't just a bastard with bastard filling like everyone thinks he is. Now come on, let's go to the roof."
"I'm down as long as you don't wolf call the guys and girls on the volleyball fields again."
"Aww, you take all the fun out of it!"
"Look dude, last time you did it we got caught and you blamed it on me."
"Well to be fair you were also wolf whistling so you kind of deserved it," said Naruto, giving Kiba the full effect of his side-eye.
"Listen here you shit!" yelled Kiba, angrily throwing his bookbag at Naruto and missing. The blonde took off running down the hall cackling, and his brunet friend was obliged to run after him.
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"Relax Nara, you're holding your sword too tightly," Sasuke barked. This was the second time today that he'd had to correct Shikamaru and he didn't even know why the guy was on the team with his seeming lack of motivation, but Shikamaru's dad was friends with the coach so he couldn't kick him off without catching hell for it. Having friends in high places or a lot of money was nice –hell, Sasuke's family had more money and influence than they knew what to do with- but not when it interfered with the kendo team's performance.
As he stepped in to spar with deputy captain Rock Lee Sasuke let his mind wander to the subject of Uzumaki Naruto. Naruto was a hopeless dunce when it came to school, but he shone in other ways. Sasuke had seen him step into a hairy situation more than once and diffuse it with his easy-going attitude. There was an atmosphere around him that made people like him. His laugh was infectious and his sky blue eyes were always glowing as if he'd just heard a good joke. And there was the fact –which everyone at school had known since tenth grade- that he was bisexual. Of course, Sasuke would never openly admit to having a crush on the blonde since he had his reputation as an Uchiha to uphold...
"Itai!" he gasped as Lee's wooden sword hit him in the side. He glared at the bowl-haired boy as he rubbed at the spot. That was going to leave a bruise.
"I am sorry, Uchiha-kun," said Lee, "but one should never let down their guard, as you have told us time and again."
"Well I'm glad someone has been listening to me," said Sasuke, glaring at the other attending team members. Gaara rolled his eyes, and Shikamaru yawned.
At that moment the door of the dojo slid open, and in walked something right out of a horror movie.
"Sakura!" cried Lee, running toward the door.
Indeed it was Haruno Sakura, the secretary of the student council. Her uniform, usually so impeccably taken care of, was torn and covered in blood and dirt. Her skin was deathly pale, her teal eyes unfocused. Blood dripped down her leg from a wound that looked strangely like it had been made by another human's teeth. The sight of her set Sasuke's nerves on edge.
"Get away from her Lee!" he called, readying his bokken, but Lee was already picking Sakura up.
"We have to get her to the nurrraugggghhh!" Lee screamed and choked on blood as Sakura bit into his neck. Blood spurted from the gaping hole, bathing the floor and the wall in red. As everyone watched in horror, Sakura began to eat a still writhing Lee.
It took a moment for Sasuke to shake the wave of nausea that swept over him at the sight that lay before him. Sweeping the bokken up, he swung it around in a curving arc to hit Sakura in the side. She stumbled but quickly regained her balance and began to limp toward the rest of the team, a wavering moan coming from her mouth all the while. The sound sent chills down Sasuke's spine, almost paralysing him with fear. One thought ran through his mind: Sakura needed to be stopped now. Drawing the bokken back, he drove it through her chest. She slumped over as he withdrew his weapon, wiping the blood off on his hakama.
As he turned to walk away, Sasuke heard the bone-chilling sound again. This time there wasn't just one moan but two as Lee got unsteadily to his feet and joined Sakura.
"Holy shit," said Shikamaru.
Sasuke almost panicked. Sakura was still up and moving after he'd just stabbed her in the chest. How was this even possible? And what the fuck was Lee doing up when he'd lost so much blood?
Zombies. It had to be zombies. Sasuke didn't want to believe it because it sounded so utterly ridiculous even in his mind, but what other explanation could there be for what was happening right now? Think Uchiha, how do they do it in the movies?
"Nara, I need the kusanagi hanging on the wall."
Shikamaru just stared.
"NARA!" he yelled, and Shikamaru snapped out of whatever daze he was in and ran for the wall while Gaara helped Sasuke ward off the monsters that had been Sakura and Lee.
"Oi, Uchiha!" he yelled, throwing the sword in Sasuke's direction. He caught it and whipped it out of its sheathe, decapitating Sakura with one swipe. Her head fell to the ground a little ways from her body, eyes still moving and teeth still clacking as if trying to chew something. Sasuke shuddered as he drove the kusanagi through her forehead.
Meanwhile Gaara was facing off against Lee. As the zombie lunged, he stepped back out of reach. The sickening crunch of the wooden bokken against bone echoed throughout the dojo and Lee fell to the ground, his brains and blood oozing all over the mats. The others looked on in disgust as Gaara shook off the brain matter stuck to his weapon. "That was way too close for comfort," he said, wiping his hands on his haori.
"This is completely impossible," said Shikamaru numbly. "Zombies only exist in the movies. This has to be a really bad dream."
"It's improbable but not impossible," replied Gaara. "There are diseases out there that could create what we just saw."
"Less speculating, more moving," said Sasuke, heading for Asuma's office. "We're all going to need real blades if we don't want to become zombie food."
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"So what were you thinking of doing for your history project?" Kiba asked Naurto as they lay on the roof.
"I dunno, probably ninjas."
"Dude, why are you so obsessed with ninjas? You're such an otaku."
"Look man," said Naruto, "I don't get on you for wanting to do your project on video games and there's barely any historical value to those."
"Wow, low blow Naruto. Besides, Japan practically invented video games!"
"Oh yeah…"
"Baka."
"Hey! You want to fight me dog breath?"
"Don't call me dog breath, fuckface!"
It was as Naruto and Kiba were rolling around on the roof, each trying to pin the other, that the door to the roof banged open. The two boys immediately leapt off each other.
"We're so sorry Tsunade-sama!" they cried in unison, bowing low in the hopes of their punishment not being too severe. But it wasn't Tsunade; it was Yamanaka Ino and her group of friends.
"Ino-chan?" said Naruto in confusion. "What are you doing up here?"
"Haven't you been paying attention?!" the student council treasurer snapped. "There's something wrong!"
"That's not very specific," Kiba pointed out, scratching his head.
"There are students attacking each other!" wailed another girl. "One of them bit Miki!"
The girl named Miki was slumped on the ground nearby. Her uniform jacket was torn and her shoulder was leaking blood at an alarming rate. She looked up at her friends in terror. "Please, I don't want to die!"
"You won't die Miki!" cried Ino, putting pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding. "You'll be fine! We'll get you to the nurse and you'll be fine!"
But it didn't look fine to Naruto; Miki's pale face was beaded with sweat and as he watched she began to cough up blood in thick globs. "We have to take her now Ino, she really doesn't look good," he said, his eyebrows knitting with worry.
Just then there was a loud slam on the other side of the door and the girls shrieked and stumbled back. Naruto looked at Kiba, who looked back at him and mouthed "What the fuck?"
"It's them!" cried a girl with red pigtails. "We're doomed!"
Naruto was about to ask who "them" was when the door burst open and his question answered itself. Standing before them were two girls and a guy, their uniforms in tatters and their guts dragging behind them as they staggered onto the roof. Behind Naruto Kiba made a noise somewhere between horror and disgust.
"We're doomed!" Ino screamed.
"Hey Naruto!" yelled Kiba. Naruto turned in time to catch the lead pipe that Kiba tossed him and took aim at one of the students. His swing missed doing any substantial damage and instead caught her on the shoulder, knocking her back onto Ino. As he watched in awestruck terror the bleeding girl turned around and bit Ino's face, tearing off her nose and part of her eye. She screamed, clutching at her face and receiving more bites on her hands as she tried to ward off the attacks. Meahwhile the other two went for the rest of the girls, who were huddled in a group on the corner of the roof. Naruto and Kiba ran toward them but it was too late; in their panic they began to jump, tumbling over the roof's edge one after the other like lemmings off a cliff.
"Stop!" Naruto cried. "We can help you!" But his cries fell on deaf ears as the girls jumped, their screams piercing the early autumn air. The two… creatures… caught one and tore into her like a starving man into a bento box. Meanwhile, Miki had gotten up and was tearing into the soft flesh of Ino's stomach as her terrified cries weakened to strangled gurgling.
"What the hell is going on?!" asked Kiba, his eyes wide.
Suddenly it struck Naruto, like a bolt from the blue. It was crazy and impossible, but there was only one way to deal with this.
"Aim for their heads Kiba!" he shouted as he swung again at the creature that he'd missed. "That's the only way to put a zombie down!"
"Are you crazy?!" Kiba responded.
"Are you even paying attention to what's happening?!" snarled Naruto as he swung again and again, reducing the zombie's brain to mush. He splattered Miki's brains across the roof door with a backhand swing and crushed Ino's head in the door for good measure.
Kiba seemed to fight with himself for a moment and then grabbed another pipe as the two zombies near the roof's edge turned and came for them. With a heavy swing he knocked one over the edge of the roof, and then on the backswing he hit the unfortunate girl who had been caught in the back of the head, knocking her to the ground. His second swing caved in her skull and she stayed down, brain matter oozing from her eye socket. The final zombie was dispatched by shoving the bar through her eye socket and out the top of her head. Kiba flicked the bar to remove the gore, his nose wrinkled.
Soon enough the door to the roof began to rattle again. Behind the door Naruto and Kiba could hear their fellow classmates screaming to be let up, but though the screaming tore at their heartstrings they began to barricade it with whatever else they could find on the roof. A chair, another section of pipe, a few boards... As they worked the screaming died away, replaced by the horrid moaning and scratching of the undead. The two boys were alone now. Naruto briefly wondered if Sasuke and Shikamaru were among those on the other side of the door. He shook his head; now was not the time to be thinking about what ifs.
"How long d'you think this will last?" Kiba asked Naruto as they looked at their rickety makeshift barricade, already shaking apart under the weight of the thumping on the other side.
"I dunno, but if the movies are anything to go by probably not long," Naruto replied. "We need to figure out a way off the roof before they break through."
But after two rounds of the roof with no ladders long enough to reach the ground and no stairways in sight, they had to admit that they were trapped.
"Welp, it was nice knowing you," intoned Kiba as the barricade slowly crumbled.
"Stop being a downer and fight!" Naruto yelled as the door finally collapsed and the undead poured out. Kiba had just enough time to get out of the way before he rammed the long metal rod into the head of the nearest zombie, which dropped like a stone.
"I could've gotten that!" griped Kiba as he drove another zombie off the roof.
"You could have if you weren't getting all teary-eyed," Naruto retorted as he stabbed another zombie through the eye. The eyeball burst and gelatinous ooze slid down the zombie's face as Naruto pulled out the pipe.
"Fuck you," Kiba said as he rammed his section of piping through the chin of the creature that used to be their headmistress Tsunade. It exited the top of her head and Kiba pulled back quickly to avoid having his weapon pulled from his hands as she fell.
Just then there was a new commotion from the direction of the door, and who should step onto the roof but Sasuke, Shikamaru, and Gaara, all in their bloodstained kendo uniforms and each wielding a sword. They were all breathing hard and seemed to have worked up quite a sweat.
"It's about damn time you showed up, 'ttebayo!" called Naruto, inwardly breathing a sigh of relief. "I thought we were fucked!"
"Hn."
Naruto rolled his eyes as he speared yet another zombie. "Uchiha Sasuke, always a man of few words. It's nice to see that some things don't change even when the world's ending."
"I should have left you here, usuratonkachi," Sasuke muttered as he wiped the blade on his hakama. "Come on. If we don't hurry the way back down will be blocked."
Kiba and Naruto did not need to be told twice.
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All right, here it is! The first chapter has been redone and hopefully it's more readable than the earlier version. I was really young when I wrote this the first time, so I apologise for the shitty writing and long ridiculous after chapter dialogues. Just a little information: a bokken is one of the two types of training swords used in kendo. The bokken is made of hard wood like oak, and the shinai is made of bamboo.
Please review, I want to know how I did the second time around!
~CaelansFolly92