Tokonosu City, home of the Ultra Nationalist Japanese party, 3rd rank elementary education in Japan, first fully off shore air port in Japan and the famous Fujimi Academy. What made Fujimi Academy famous wasn't the educational rating, or the lowest teen pregnancy levels in Japan, or the low violence rates. No, what made Fujimi High famous was its clubs. The school had won the national championships for 2 years running in kendo, archery, math and karate.
Fujimi Academy had started their winning streak when multiple things where done. It started when sophomore Busujima Saeko challenged the former captain of the kendo club for the position. After a resounding defeat, the former captain, a senior, dropped out of the club. After word of the coup of the kendo club spread through the academy, the archery club had a coup led by a freshman student named Kiyoshi Mamoru.
Mamoru challenged the former captain, an arrogant grandson to one of the cities councilmen and a junior, with multiple teachers watching. In front of the whole school, a freshman split the arrow of a junior before out scoring the arrogant former captain. Mamoru and Busujima then lead their clubs to victory in the nationals. The archery and kendo clubs received brand new equipment the following year.
After the victories of the archery and kendo clubs, the math and karate clubs followed their lead and won their own national tournaments. Other clubs in the school came in anywhere from 9th to 3rd places. After winning and scoring highly in all fields, they received nation media coverage. The next year, after pulling off victories again, they would have gotten more media coverage if the event hadn't happened.
Kiyoshi Mamoru, a 5'8'' 16 year old boy with a slender body build, brown hair and eyes and an aristocratically handsome face, was overseeing his club and team practicing on the field. Each member of the club currently on the field, 10 of the 20 club members, were armed with their yumi bows and yazutsu quivers that were kept stocked with a full 20 arrows. To make sure none of the members became uncomfortable in their equipment, Mamoru required all member to wear their equipment at all times on the field including the 3 fingered glove called a mitsugake. He preferred his club members to always wear hakama, kimono and tabi when on the field, but never enforced that on anyone but himself. Of the 10 members of his club on the field, he was the only one in club competition wear. He could hear the academies P.E. classes going on in the background as he directed his club members to draw and aim.
As the leader of the club, Mamoru loved when his team hit every shot. As he called fire, 5 of his club loosed their arrow. 4 hit less than an inch from the bulls eye, with the last hitting a bulls eye.
"Good job team!" They all cracked smiles, "Retrieval!"
The 5 currently charged with returning the fired arrows back to those currently training, ran out to each target before pulling them out and putting them in to an empty yazutsu before they rushed back out of the way.
"Alright team, we're taking a twenty minute break. If I see anyone with a cigarette, I will shoot it out of your mouth. And you know I can do it." His threat delivered with a smirk, Mamoru walked over to his girlfriend Niki Toshimi and sat down beside her. Her all but sister Ichijou Misuzu smirked as he sat down behind his girlfriend and started to play with her pony-tail with a smile.
"Babe, stop that," the humor in her voice was plain as day.
Misuzu laughed, "Leave him alone Toshimi. I think it's really cute." She smiled at the 2 of them, as Toshimi leaned in to her boyfriend, her smile growing as his arms came around her stomach and pulled her against his chest. She handed him a bottle of water over her shoulder, as she looked back to her friend.
"When are you going to look for a boyfriend Misuzu?" The question caused her friend to look over at 1 of the 4 kendo club members practicing on the field. "I'm just waiting for the right time to ask vice-captain Iwao Katsumi. He's so hot!" She squealed.
"I'd think a good personality would be a better quality," Mamoru stated.
Misuzu went to speak, but a scream interrupted her.
"KYOKO-SENSEI!"
Everybody snapped toward the scream, to see a sight nobody wanted to see. Kyoko Hayashi, Ping-Pong club adviser and teacher of history, stumbled on to the practice field. This would have been a normal experience, except her face and eyes had an unfocused and vacant quality as she stumbled on to the field like a drunken woman. Again not something that would really grab much attention, if you discounted the massive amount of blood freely flowing from a gaping wound on her throat.
1 of the archery club members ran to Kyoko to see if he could help, it was the last thing he ever did as a living human. When he got to her, she lunged and sank her teeth in to his cheek. His scream stunned the rest of the club.
"Everybody, fall back!" Mamoru's command snapped everybody out of their shock and they all ran toward the bleachers.
In the time it had taken for the members of the archery and kendo clubs to rally around Mamoru, the beast that had once been Kyoko Hayashi had brought the screaming club member to the ground, stopping his scream with a lunge to his throat.
"Attention all students and teachers! At the present time, there is a violent struggle occurring on the premises. Students, stay with your teachers and follow their instructions!" The principles voice came over the intercom announcing the situation to the whole school. "I repeat at the present time," in the background of the announcement, a crash was heard, "there is a violent struggle occurring on the premises..." a scream interrupted the message, "Ah! Help me! Stop! Help! Ah! Ow, that hurts! Help! I'm going to die!" one last scream came over the intercom, before only the wet sound of chewing remained.
Mamoru instantly recognized that panic that was about to engulf the school. Looking over toward his former club member, he bowed his head and said a small prayer in his head. Snapping his head up, he made a decision. A decision that would effect the lives of all those with him. Grabbing his yumi from off the bench, he pulled an arrow from the yazutsu attached to his waist, notched the arrow and proceeded to draw the string all the way back to his shoulder. He took aim and released. The arrow flew fast and true, nailing the beast eating one of his club members threw the top of the head. The body jerked, then lay still of the corpse of the student she had been previously eating.
Everybody looked at Mamoru, as he slowly lowered his yumi. "Kendo club at the front, archery club as support." The whole group just stared at him, most of them still in shock.
"We all heard the principle. The rest of the student body is going to freakout and panic. If you listen, you can hear them screaming in the school and on the other fields now. I don't know what's really going on, but the true Kyoko-sensei would never have done that," he pointed his yumi toward the 2 corpses, only for the dead student to start crawling toward them.
They all stared at corpse that had once been Daichi Aki, 4th seat of the club, crawl toward them with out a care toward the dead weight of Kyoko Hayashi's body sitting on his back. Vice-captain Katsumi, with bokken in hand, walked toward Aki. He stopped a foot in front of the former 4th seat, as the corpse grabbed his his foot, he drew his arm back and swung. The solid thunk of the bokken hitting Aki's head at full speed was punctuated by his head jerking and falling limp on the ground.
"You all heard captain Kiyoshi." the 5'10'' 17 year old with black hair and a bad boy punk look spoke, "Kendo club at the front." He turned to Mamoru, "What's the plan captain?"
Mamoru nodded in thanks. "The plan is simple. First, does any body have a phone on them?" He looked at each of the other 15 people with him, receiving a no from all of them. "Then our first order of business is to find a phone. We need to see if whatever this thing is is a city wide thing or just around the school. After that, we all need to see if our families are alright. Everybody grab an additional yazutsu. Misuzu, Toshimi, I need you to carry two yazutsu. We might need more arrows, and we can't carry all of them by our selves." His girlfriend and her friend just stared at him. He walked to his girlfriend, "Toshimi please, I swear to you, we are going to be just fine. We'll get a hold of your mom and be just fine." She nodded, as she and Misuzu ran over to the supply shed to do as he'd asked. He turned to the rest of the group, screams of students dieing in the background, "Anybody have a phone in their locker?"
His 10th seat, Hanako Gina, the 5', 15 year old girl with short black hair green eyes, a cup breasts and a cute little girl look, raised her hand. "I've got one, but my locker is on the other side of the school at the second entrance."
"It's to far. The nearest entrance on the south side of the academy is much closer. I know the office at the south side has a phone. So the plan is to call the police, followed by our families then go home. Lets move people!" They started towards the school.
10 feet from the practice field entrance, they encountered their first true test. 1 of the P.E. classes had been in the middle of a game of soccer, and some of those had fallen near the archery clubs practice field. What should have been a quick jog to the office, was now a battle field. Living dead littered the ground and stumbled along from the academies many buildings to the practice fields.
"Kendo club, fall back. Archers, draw." The finality in the order had everybody react instantly. The 4 kendo club members slipped between them, as the archers all drew and notched arrows. "Aim for the forehead," Mamoru was interrupted by his vice-captain, Fumiko Emi, 15, 5'4'' with a yamato nadeshiko look, "Are you sure captain? I mean I know it looks like a zombie movie, but are you sure it will be like in the movies captain?"
He turned to her, "It worked on both Aki and Kyoko-sensei." She nodded. "Like I said, aim for the forehead." The archers all did as they were told, "Loose!" The shuffling corpses all turned to the loud sound, only for an arrow to drop them to the ground. 8 of the 40 zombies currently on the school grounds dropped to the ground, drawing the attention of several more.
"Three steps back, and draw again." He ordered while doing the same himself. They were quick to follow his orders, while drawing their own arrows. "Aim. Loose!" Again a flight of arrows struck. All 9 finding their marks. This time, the loud order grabbed the attention of the remaining zombies. The 23 original zombies were joined by more from the fields.
"Ten feet back, then draw." All but 1 person was quick to follow his orders. A kendo club member had a look of horror on his face. He ignored everybody else, as he moved toward 1 of the female zombies that went down on the 2nd volley. Making zero noise, he walked right past the zombies and fell to his knees next to the dead girl. He put his bokken down next to him as he caressed her cold face. "Haruki!" His scream drowned out any order Mamoru or Katsumi might have been about to issue.
What happened next, was to quick for anybody to stop. The zombies who had been moving towards the larger group, stopped dead before turning and falling on the unfortunate grieving kendo club member. In what seemed like seconds, a human being was torn apart. The group could only stare in stunned horror. In about a minute, the zombies were done. They all stumbled after the sounds of screaming coming from the main school building, leaving the stunned silent group behind.
They all just stared after the ravenous group, all except vice-captain Katsumi. He couldn't tear his eyes off the blood stained scraps of clothing and bones. The zombies had eaten everything else.
A hand landing on his shoulder snapped him out of his thoughts. He snapped his head to the left, eyes locking with Mamoru.
"I know how it feels. I just lost Aki, and had to put down Kyoko-sensei. I know how it feels, but we can't grieve for them right now. We have to keep it together for the sake of everybody else right now. When we get to some place safe, we'll both cry for those lost." Katsumi nodded, "Yeah. I understand. I just... wish grieving wasn't necessary."
"I know." Mamoru nodded as he gestured for everybody to gather in to a huddle to make the least amount of noise.
"I've just learned something important." All 14 people looked at him. "We now know that they are attracted to sound, almost to the exclusion of all else. They didn't even look twice at poor Haru, till he screamed. They focused everything they had on him after he screamed. It means if we stay quiet, we'll be fine." The group looked relieved at the information.
"Lets restock out of the supply shed, then get out of here." They snapped to it quick as they could. The restock took less then 15 minutes.
"Alright, same plan. Only this time, we move silent."
The 3 remaining kendo members drew bokken from belts and took the lead. The field and school grounds were almost empty this time, as they rushed toward the south entrance of the school. They stayed as far from the zombies as they could, sometimes 20 feet and sometimes 5 feet. The zombies never reacted to them, seeming to almost not be able to see them.
The school had gone almost dead quiet by this point, so when the sound of water rushing of the school roof came from the east, it sounded like a cannon. The zombies outside of the school, in their stumbling gait, moved as quickly as they could to the sound. The group looked at each other in relief. They might not have to put down anymore of their fellow students. It took them another 10 minutes to reach the southern entrance at their safe speed. Their relief lasted all the way till they opened the door. Inside the entrance, they made an incredibly gruesome discovery.
Blood decorated almost every surface, like some kind of demented paintball fight. Zombies feasted on the remains of students, body parts scattered over the locker room. The smell of death hung over the room like a heavy fog. The students must have been trying to get their stuff, when they were fallen upon by a group of the undead. Their was no evidence to suggest that anybody had survived.
A feminine scream rang out faintly from 1 of the upper levels. Mamoru waved his group back outside of the school. With no hesitation, they almost ran out of the school. Once back on to the practice field, Most of the group threw up. Mamoru dropped to his knees, a puddle of vomit not far from him and Toshimi sobbing in to his shoulder. The entire group spent the next 2 hours taking comfort from each other.
As afternoon neared it's end, they all heard a shout of 'Run'. As they looked at each other, wondering if they had all heard it. Within minutes, the sound of 1 of the travel buses starting up on the north side caused them all to hop to their feet.
"Lets move people!" Mamoru's voice spurred them all in to action. They sprinted for the north side of Fujimi Academy, only to see the bus break through the gate and continue toward Tokonosu City proper.