Last Stand

Chapter Two: Cerulean

A/N:

This is literally the fastest update I've made to a story in months. I'm not sure how long this streak will continue for, but know this: I've finally come up with a complete outline for this story. I'm still fleshing out some of the final details, but I've got a set plotline that I want to follow. Thus, I should be able to continue to update this story more and more often than my others.

Well, I guess I'll let you read now. See you below!

I turned to the girl I saved, finding that, even up close, the only thing I could make out was the pair of deep blue eyes that I saw from within the house I had appropriated. The whole rest of her body was nothing more than a silhouette to my eyes.

Even with this strange abnormality in my vision, I knew I still had to speak to her. "Hey, are you okay?" I asked her, giving what I hoped to be a caring look. Going without people around for five years made it troublesome to remember what facial expressions went with what emotions.

"Yes, I'm fine," she said in a timid voice. "But what about you? You didn't get hurt by them, did you?"

I sheathed my long knife and pocketed my butterfly knife, shaking my head to try to reassure her. "I'm just fine," I replied, giving her a thumbs-up with my right hand. "Anyway, what's your name?

"Yoruko," the blue-eyed girl told me. "And yours?"

I paused. What… what is my name? I thought, frowning slightly as I tried to remember.

Yoruko must have taken my silence and frown the wrong way, for her next words were, "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"That's not it," I quickly responded, my voice slightly raised. "It's just… I don't have a name. Or, at least, not one worth remembering. And I should know… because I don't remember it myself."

"You don't remember your own name?" this girl calling herself Yoruko asked me, her eyes widened.

"To be honest, I don't really remember much of anything that happened before the Event," I explained, casting my gaze to the ground. "I don't remember any of the people I used to know, or even where I lived. The earliest complete memory I have is of about five years ago, right after the Event."

I looked back at Yoruko. Or, more specifically, her fascinating indigo eyes. The only eyes I had seen for five years were my own steel-gray and the shining golden eyes of the undead. "I guess it's the price for living on."

"It must be hard for you," she whispered sadly. "Not remembering anything."

"To not remember my life before the Event is to not long for what's gone forever," I replied, shaking my head with a soft smile. I surveyed the area around us, looking for any signs of more undead. Even when I found none, I still kept up my guard.

I grabbed Yoruko's right hand with my left, earning a barely audible squeak of surprise. "It's not safe to be out in the open like this," I explained, beginning to lead her back towards my one-night base. "I set up a temporary place to sleep in this house, but I'm leaving in the morning."

"Where will you go?"

This question caught me off guard. I regained my composure just in time to respond. "Wherever I see fit to stay for a night or two. It could be a house in the next town over, it could be in a completely different region of the world. Either way, I can't stay in one place for more than a day."

"Why is that?" she queried as I opened the door to my temporary base. Once we were both inside and the door was shut and locked, I led her over to my couch.

"Because humans have a distinctly different scent that only the undead can pick up on," I explained, looking back to her indigo eyes. "After a day or two, the scent becomes strong enough for just about every one of them in the whole town to smell. And you already know what they would do with that info."

After that, the night was mostly spent in silence. Out of courtesy, I let Yoruko sleep on the couch-bed that I had prepared for myself, then sat down and leaned back against one of the armrests. It wasn't safe to sleep at this point; I had no idea how long she had been here, so she could attract undead to our temporary base. On top of that, with two humans in the same place, the smell they could track would most likely intensify greatly. This girl didn't seem to be able to fight, which meant I had to be on watch the entire night.

When the sun started peeking over the horizon, I knew it was time for me to leave. I got up from my spot beside the couch, grabbing my backpack and heading for the kitchen. I planned to get some more canned food from the pantry, and then leave while it was light out. The undead didn't move about as much in the light, and when they did, they were slower. As a tradeoff, the human smell that they tracked became stronger during the day, meaning they would know exactly where to go once night fell.

After stocking up with about two days' worth of canned food, I returned to the living room, finding Yoruko still sleeping peacefully. After looking at the gray silhouette of her body, the only thing I could see of her, I began to have second thoughts.

Can I really just leave her here?

My rational mind couldn't even fathom where that thought came from. I couldn't take her with me; her lack of combat skills would either get her killed or get both of us killed. She was nothing but a liability, through and through.

But… she's a human, like me…

And yet again, a stray thought confused me even more. I had no need for social interaction. I had survived on my own for five years, and I could continue to survive just fine without her.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard a strange noise coming from the front door. It sounded nothing like what an undead would sound like if it threw itself onto the door. Quite puzzled, I slowly walked through the house until I reached the door, my left hand grasping the knife at my side just in case something went wrong.

As I neared the door, the noise repeated itself. Three soft pounding sounds in quick succession before stopping altogether. Somehow, the noise reminded me of something, but the memory loomed just past my mind's grasp.

I looked through the tiny glass window, just large enough to see through with one eye, in the middle of the front door. The sight that greeted me…

Another silhouette, about the same height as Yoruko. Its outline had a distinctly different shape, but the real difference… was the set of bright, almost greenish blue eyes that seemed to glow, even with the rising sun right behind them.

Another human… I thought, looking intently at the set of eyes that seemed to shimmer, almost like the shimmer of the eyes of the undead. But… something is different about this one.

"Yoruko!" the cerulean-eyed figure said, the voice identifying it as another female. She moved her right hand up to the door, making contact in a way that matched the sound I had heard earlier.

Wait… she said, 'Yoruko.' Then… they must know each other. I could just leave her with this one and be on my way.

I unlocked the door, making sure that the figure heard it before activating my Phantom Shift and walking through the wall to my right. I ended up in a room that I had seen when I first arrived— a laundry room, by the looks of it.

The door I unlocked opened a moment later. Immediately after, the sound of rushing footsteps rang throughout the house as the figure sprang through the entrance.

"Who's there?" I heard the new girl nearly shout out as she reached the end of the foyer. The volume almost made me unsheathe my knife and go on the attack, but I kept myself calm enough to stick to the plan.

She won't find me… I reasoned with myself, trying to calm my frantically beating heart. Just stay still, don't make a sound, and she won't find me.

The sound of the cerulean-eyed girl's footsteps drifted towards the living room, where I had left Yoruko sleeping. Even so, I stayed completely still, knowing that I would need to wait until they left to leave myself.

It took several minutes before I heard the sound of two sets of footsteps coming for the front door. With them came two voices, one belonging to Yoruko, and one to the cerulean-eyed girl.

"Why did you run off this time?" the new girl asked my indigo-eyed acquaintance in a tired tone.

"I sensed another living human with a Gift," Yoruko replied, her tone completely different from all of the ones she had used with me. "So I went to find them. I met another human, but I didn't see him use any power. Either his Gift isn't useful in battle, or he didn't even have one, and the human I sensed is already gone."

"What is it with you and picking up stray puppies?" the other one queried gruffly. "Seriously, you're much more important to our team than any rat you find, whether they have a Gift or not."

I knew I shouldn't have been affected by her words, but something in her tone just rubbed me the wrong way. Against my better judgment, I found myself walking back through the wall and right in front of both of them.

"I'm not exactly a 'stray puppy', girlie," I said, giving the cerulean-eyed girl an annoyed glare. Her eyes widened considerably as I spoke, giving me semblance form of satisfaction. "In fact, I can guarantee you that I'm better at surviving than both of you combined."

After a few seconds of shocked silence, the cerulean eyes of my annoyance narrowed. "Oh? How do you figure, street rat?"

"Calm down, both of—"

Before Yoruko could finish, I decided to continue my little debate with this new girl. "Have you traveled alone for five years without any human contact? Have you been surrounded by more than forty undead before fighting your way out and walking away without a scratch? Have you forgotten almost everything about your life in the world before the Event?"

When she said nothing, I smirked, then turned to meet Yoruko's widened eyes. "So, you're not exactly alone, are you? Well, I guess that solves one problem of mine. Now I don't have to deal with a liability when I leave today."

The second I finished my sentence, I heard the familiar sound of a gun being loaded with a magazine. I turned back to the other silhouette, finding her pointing a handgun at my head. On instinct, I activated Phantom Shift, though I could tell that neither of them noticed.

Good.

"Let's see how you handle a bullet in your brain, Mr. Survivalist."

"Go ahead," I replied, giving her a devious smirk. "But the only thing that it'll do is attract a bunch of undead with the sound. However…"

I grasped the handle of my sheathed knife with my left hand. "I'll make sure that they're not what kills you."

"Both of you, stop it!" Yoruko shouted, walking in between us. "This is wrong! We're all humans, so we shouldn't be trying to kill each other!"

At her words, I found myself relaxing my grip on my knife. At the same time, the other girl lowered her gun, her eyes showing that she still wanted to shot me. She seemed to obey Yoruko for some reason, even though the difference in skill between them was obvious.

I couldn't care less, however. My mind was racing due to three words in her plea.

"This is wrong!"

I hadn't thought about what was right or wrong in years. I had lived by my own creed. One that said to do whatever it takes to survive, and destroy anything that gets in the way. Now that I had heard the word, 'wrong', I somehow felt… empty.

Why? My rational mind thought. Why should I care about what's right or wrong? I just need to keep on living… it doesn't matter if I do something wrong in the process…

Then, all of the sudden, the cerulean-eyed girl spoke up in an apologetic tone. Even her eyes showed genuine remorse. "Look, Yoruko's right. It's wrong to fight another human. So… I'm sorry."

In truth, I had no idea what to say. I didn't know how to handle it, especially since I was having a hard time handling my own emotions right then.

"Is it wrong?" I finally said, looking up at the ceiling. "We both intended to kill each other. For the past five years, I've never thought about what's right and what's wrong. If something like an undead intended to attack me, I always killed it without a second thought.

"Just a few seconds ago, when you had your gun pointed at me, I thought the exact same thing I do when I see an undead coming after me. 'The first move she makes against me will be her last.' That's what I thought."

I closed my eyes, beginning to talk in a slightly more emotional tone. "In the past five years, I've pretty much become an animal that only thinks about self-preservation. I don't even remember my own name.

"I guess… what I'm trying to say is…" at this point, I was struggling for words. "If I keep going down the path I've walked all this time, I think that I'll lose my humanity entirely. And, at this point, I'm not sure that I want that.

"I don't know where you guys are going after today, but… I want to come with you."

Silence reigned the foyer for several seconds. When I opened my eyes again, I saw the cerulean-eyed girl looking to Yoruko as if she were deferring to her. Finally, it seemed like they reached a verdict.

My indigo-eyed acquaintance looked to the other girl, who began speaking in a stern tone. "Someone is coming to pick us up in five minutes," she said curtly, looking me dead in the eyes. "So you'd best be ready by then."

A/N:

So, how was that? Please tell me what you think in a review! Also, sorry for being a bit picky, but please don't just say a generic compliment and then follow up with, "update soon". I know you mean well, but telling me to update right after I just updated can get really annoying.

By the way, for those of you who are wondering about this, there is a reason why Kirito can only see silhouettes with eyes, as opposed to seeing the whole body in detail. The only thing he needed to know about the human physique for five whole years was the color of the eyes. All of the undead have glowing golden eyes, so his brain decided to only focus on what he needs to in order to survive.

Anyway, I think that's it! I guess I'll be seeing ya!