Something like normal

Helltanz's notes: I'll be sticking fairly close to canon's pacing for the first ten chapters (what comprises Arc 1) though noticeably things are happening differently. I'm really trying to highlight the differences in culture, which is where the Takagi estate will be really useful.

-scene break-

We'd gone and forded the river earlier, and were now sitting on the opposite bank. Tokunosu had several bridges, and at least two rivers feeding into the sea. I leaned against the ASLAV as we waited sipping my drink with all its tasty tasty caffeine. We'd sat down confirmed the plan as going to Saya's house, and then had breakfast. So now us guys were waiting for the girls to finish changing, something I had already done after we had stopped. I tossed a spare bag around for dirty clothes, and made sure my cammies were buried at the bottom of my clothes bag.

Hirano was, while we waited, running through the shotgun's basics with Takashi.

I patted Ishi on the shoulder, "Its alright, you're the smart one. You're the one who doesn't go running off into trouble," and he followed orders. I might have been tired of getting called sensei, but damn was I glad Ishi tended to listen immediately whenever I said something. "We'll get you a gun,"

He watched as I pulled one of the duffle bags out of the back of the ASLAV. "Sensei are you sure thats a good idea? I've never shot a gun before."

I looked at him, and then at Takashi. "Takashi hasn't either. The shotgun is good for these things, but I can't give you a shotgun," That was a deficient move on my part. The truth was most of what I had brought was designed around my expectations of people, and primarily of my native region, which was not Japan. I hadn't brought a shotgun. Truth be told I didn't like them it was for just that reason. It boiled down to really a personal bias. That meant the 22 caliber were the main things I had brought that would be the easiest, which meant you absolutely needed a head shot to put a zombie down. That fact meant we needed somewhere to practice, "Its not a big deal."

The five bags attempted to focus on addressing an individual type of supplies, and then whatever else could be crammed in. The first was dedicated to first aid supplies, meaning the near entirety of the bag had been pre event backed with medical supplies. The second was primarily foodstuffs and water. A third bag held tools, (Along with a great deal of other junk) and while the fourth bag held clothes and misc supplies. It was the last bag which held the bulk of my spare weapons.

What we'd gathered from Rika Minami's, as I had learned her name was, apartment was a tremendous improvement to our situation. The additional guns, particularly the two rifles, really helped, and I certainly wasn't going to complain about the food. It had however moved up the time table for when we needed to start practicing gun safety. Last night had demonstrated that, there had been a guy up the road with a shotgun who'd gotten torn apart probably because he'd gotten cocky and didn't think about what he was doing. We wanted to avoid stupid mistakes like that.

Hirano was right beside me the second I had pulled down the 'gun' dufflebag. I had five bags, and I'd told Hirano which were which. Takashi said something to Hirano gruffly, and I looked back at the two of them, "This is important," Hirano told him, a mite impatiently. "and besides you can't just expect to stick to your bat."

"Look we'll get you drilled on a gun when we get the chance," I told him They both needed the practice, but we really didn't need to waste the ammo for the shotgun. We also didn't need to be arguing right now, "for now just stick back around the nurse." Ishi, and Takashi both relaxed, "go ahead and look through there Kohta," I told the kid, he didn't need to be told twice. It wasn't like he'd mess anything up by doing it. "Ishi we'll teach you how to shoot, but for now," if he wasn't comfortable, now wasn't the time to push it. "For now just go keep watch for the Zed, and we'll sort something out," I told him as he clutched the impact baton. I watched him run up the hill, to stand beside the road.

Saeko had her stick, and Hirano had called dibs on the AR10 and handed the shotgun to Takashi, and then Rei had appropriated the Springfield. That left Takagi with the crossbow. It sucked we didn't have another one of those, or another shotgun.

As it was though we we're going to run out of shotgun ammo sooner than anything else. It wasn't like raiding the local sporting goods store was an option either. Principally since this was Japan and I had no idea where the nearest such store was, and trying to find it wasn't going to be easy at the best times.

Hirano was already trying to talk squad unit tactics to me. The main idea was emphasizing mobility and the ability to pick our engagements, and keeping the zed at a distance. The first idea revolved around shooting from our vehicles, briefly engaging and then withdrawing. It had merit the Iraqi insurgency had done it to harass coalition forces. The second idea was a bit more old school with us staying a little more stationary behind homemade defenses. If we could find somewhere were it was ideal to do that it might be worth doing.

I looked over at the Humvee. That was another thing we needed to figure out who was riding with who, because the Hummer only had four seats. Shizuka was obviously going to be driving, just like I was going to be driving the ASLAV. I'd really prefer the kid, Alice, getting in the Humvee so she could buckle up, but she wouldn't take up much room either way.

Takashi, Rei, Takagi, Ishi, Saeko, Hirano. Five people meaning three were getting to ride with me in the ASLAV. "Kohta," He turned, setting the Glock 26 he'd been examining down, "I want you to ride shotgun in the Humvee with the radio." He didn't complain or object, even though he probably thought my 'amphibious reconnaissance vehicle' was considerably more tank than the armored humvee.

"I understand." He responded, going back to checking the contents of the bag individually. In hindsight I should have brought a bolt action, the bag was long enough to fit one, but I'd chosen to bring extra ammo, which wasn't a bad idea in itself.

That left at max two seats in the back... god damn it, really the Humvee needed the guys with guns in it. So that meant Rei, and Takagi needed to be the other two. This would leave Saeko, which was not so bad by any extent, but also with Saya. Oh well it was for the best. "We also need the girls to get a fresh change of clothes, you guys too." I added, a bag full of clothes pretty much and I didn't have anything to really fit these people... well didn't fit well.

Takashi looked over, "So I'm riding in the Humvee, then?" He didn't seem to mind.
"Yeah remember to buckle up, its better to avoid conflict remember most of our space is in the ASLAV, which is a bitch to open up." I added a little harsher than I intended, and it was a slight exaggeration. It was true we had set a pretty bad example yesterday by riding on the top of the thing, but that was because we really hadn't had a choice. Now though was different, and it certainly wasn't worth risking injury. "We're also going to move some more 308 ammo to the humvee," I paused. The discovery of the Rika's guns should have prompted to do that sooner. "lets go ahead and do that." Having the Humvee really did help us a lot since it allowed us to free up space in the ASLAV, which meant people could actually sit down on the actual seats.

Hirano zipped up the dufflebag looking pretty happy. "if we can find somewhere to hole up, and entrench ourselves while gathering supplies we'll be set." He commented.

I grabbed an empty bag and started grabbing boxes of 308 plinking ammunition. Ishi had had some nonsensical idea of not wanting to take one of the pistols I carried on me, 'oh sensei I don't want to take one of your guns, you might need them.' I was only carrying like three of them, and relying mainly on my MP5. I had hoped that showing him the guns in the dufflebag would help, but he just wasn't ready just yet. Hopefully he'd get over it soon enough, and there were almost enough Glocks to go around.

"We also need to see about finding a gas station." Hirano reminded. "We can grab food, and water there, and then maybe some spare clothes as well."

Takagi nodded, "We probably should get fuel while we're there."

Yeah that wouldn't hurt either. We'd need to find extra gas cans though. I looked over, it seemed like the girls were finally done getting dressed, so we could get moving. "Alright," Good the sooner we were away from a natural choke like the bridge two hundred meters from us the better.
"My house is the closest," Takagi reminded, "I'm sure they'll be well prepared for that." She paused for a moment, "We'll have to talk with my papa immediately he'll know what to do in this kind of situation."

She seemed pretty confident about that. I really hoped she wasn't wrong, "Right then Hirano go take shotgun," That wasn't going to change. I wanted him handling the radio, and Takashi still was gripping the Ithaca even if he was loath to use it. "Okay the humvee will take lead and you can direct Shizuka, and..." I don't have any idea who thought letting Rei have the M1A was a good idea because really it was not ideal as far as first rifles went. It was only a matter of time too till she complained it was heavy because everyone did after walking with it. Not that we had such a rifle for this situation and as far as things went the less said about what I thought about her idea of using it as a spear the better. I waved Ishi down the hill. "Kohta will manage the radio. If we stumble along a gas station or a clothes shop along the way we need to stop and get supplies if its not overrun. You guys need to get changes of clothes,"

It was a little before noon when we all piled into the vehicles, and Shizuka started up the incline after I made sure the radio was still working. It wasn't like I expected them not to work I was just a bit paranoid. The humvee, and ASLAV had built in radios, but it seemed like they had different preset channels and I didn't see the point of trying to figure that out right this minute. That'd be something to do when we bunkered down for the night.

Last night had been pretty tiring most because of sheer what the fuck was going on than anything else. We really needed to find somewhere to bunker down. As it was the boys would probably pass out before I would, but I was still exhausted, and I was the one driving the damn 'truck'. Breakfast MREs might have sucked, more so taste wise than normal, but the drinks they came with had so much wonderful glorious extra caffeine in them it about, almost, made up for it.

Last night had also been a good summary of our situation, and our problems. We did need to be more careful, as it was we were going to draw plenty of attention if only because of our vehicles not to mention our weapons. We only had so many supplies, and we couldn't save everyone, but we probably should make the attempt when it was possible. We'd watched more than a few people get killed last night. Some of them had even been armed, with real, meaning guns, weapons. It would have been nice to have been able to take their weapons, but it had been a risk we couldn't have taken at the time.

When Hirano had been on look out and started shouting about spotting Alice he'd gotten Takashi's attention immediately, and they'd dragged me into it. It wasn't to say I hadn't wanted to go, but Takashi had been way to eager to rush to his probable death by running off half cocked. Saeko had pointed that much out to him, both before and after. He hadn't even taken the shotgun when he did rush to save the kid.

"I think we should consider our options carefully. We may be able to get supplies from Saya's home, but we should definitely consider trying to acquire them along the way once we move on." Saeko added.

It really seemed like they were all finally getting it. That was a good thing. "We'll need a plan but yeah that the basics." I agreed calling back to them from the driver's seat, before telling Ishi to get up top and look up ahead. We hadn't seen a single damn zed... or any other survivors for that matter, and it was getting unnerving. I grabbed the radio, and rang the people in the M1025. "Kohta tell Shizuka to slow down, something isn't right," I grunted before telling Ishi to get back down.

Given the lack of bodies it wasn't likely for there to be snipers, but I wanted to wait a minute. A few minutes rolled by and there were still not a single person, and no corpses either. We finally came to a total stop, and I handed a leather case to Ishi. He went back up to the commander's cupola and took a look around with the binoculars that were in the case.

"What do you think?" Saeko asked after we started rolling along at a slower pace through the residential zone.

My face set, "No idea, something is up though," The lack of air traffic was one thing. Hell it was understandable given fuel requirements. It was the lack of foot mobiles that was fucking weird in this situation.

Ishi called in a few minutes later. Yeah there weren't any back that way because they were all milling up around ahead. "They're getting thicker," I grabbed at the radio, "Shizuka get in the other lane, and be ready to put the humvee in reverse, and back up." I craned my head back, "Ishi tell me what you see?" He described the area up ahead.

Yeah there had to be some kind of barricade we weren't seeing up ahead, and if we didn't pay attention we'd run right into it. As it was the zombies, according to Ishi were real thick, getting denser the farther up, but then all of a sudden there just weren't any.

"If we fire the cannon it will probably just attract more of them," Hirano commented over the radio as peaked out the top of the humvee.

Yeah that was true enough, and might damage the barricade... whatever it was, "Yeah," But the zombies were coming our way now. I grabbed the radio and called the Humvee as Shizuka moved into position, "Kohta tell Shizuka to reverse," Time to put his idea to work, "pull back and then get on with sniping. We'll keep it up till they get to close, and then we'll move, but there has to be some kind of barricade up ahead, that we can't see real well at a distance so we can't got straight ahead. I put the ASLAV in reverse and backed it up to beside a streetlight, and put it in park.

I had made sure to hand out ear plugs last night just in case. There were enough of them, of Zed to kill quickly then we'd figure out what to do, or we'd run them over or something. Running them over though was less than ideal, and could damage the humvee if we weren't careful. It didn't really matter how we dealt with them as long as we avoided getting close.

If nothing else we could just back up, and turn the corner, and keep doing that. Sure it would burn fuel, but it wasn't like there were any other options I could think of. Going around, and trying to find another way to Saya's house was one option, but this barricade had to have been put up by someone. That didn't mean it had to be Saya's folks, but someone, most likely from this neighborhood, had done it. I stuck my head out the driver's cupola... not even half a kilometer something was keeping them out.

-scene break-

It turned out there were some kind of thin high strength wire, or cable, stretched criss cross out across the road blocking the way. As we correctly surmised there would be more Zombies coming towards the gun shots, but that was why Ishi was on look out. More correctly he had been watching our rear while we reloaded the rifle magazines for Hirano and my guns.

We also were chocking the scores up for team 308. If we were back home, where I knew I'd have access to reloading dyes I'd have been policing my brass for reuse, but given the situation that didn't seem to be worth the effort at the moment. This seemed especially true since space was at a premium at the moment.

Still the wire, or whatever, had to have been put up by someone. So obviously someone was fucking prepared. That was made all the more clear when Takagi's mom arrived... in the most retarded bunch of equipment I had ever laid eyes on. Of course maybe it wasn't so retarded since it worked, but by that point we'd dealt all the zombies because we'd been able to take our time while they came towards us. We'd also burned a decent bit of ammo, speaking at least with regards to shooting.

As it turned out though the Takagi family had managed to pull their shit together in a truly impressive fashion. Apparently they were, in addition to apparently being loaded, the head family of some ultranationalist group or whatever. I wasn't sure how I felt about that, but they were set up to survive. The whole complex was immense. I didn't even want to guess how much this house alone was worth never mind the furnishings. It was a pretty classy blend of east meeting west. I took a seat in one of the fancy dark wood chairs.

"I suppose it was fortune that you happened to be there," She said taking a seat behind the desk, it'd been cleared of any semblance of normal paper work in favor of munipal maps detailing Tokunosu's layout, "when the school came under attack. My daughter and her friends are lucky for that, particularly since you're willing to go out again to help look for the other parents, but what will you do after that?"

Mrs. Takagi had already explained that Tokunosu got its power, and water from a damn north of the city, and that the anti terrorist unit station to protect the damn had already been evacuated sometime yesterday. I didn't question how they knew that fact. "Right now all we can do is survive,"

"Improvise, adapt and overcome you mean." She stated pushing the map a little closer... she'd been talking to Hirano, he'd picked through my wilson bag, most likely to make that statement, "My husband is presently preparing for our departure from here but we will only take those with the will to live,"

I took the hint and looked a little closer at the map. Without context I had no real idea what I was looking at, but if they were talking about leaving here then they'd need supplies. So these were probably stores, or gas stations or something along those lines. "I haven't made a choice like that yet, but are they being armed going to be a problem?"

"Does it concern you?"

Now came the problematic part of all this, I didn't want to offend Saya's mom, but at the same time I kind of needed to make this clear. "Yes it does. I'm sure that the people under your," She corrected me that Souchirou was the one in charge, but I hadn't met him yet, "command have good intentions, but as it is I've got no reason to trust these people with firearms we've gathered yet."

"Why is that?"

Of course she had no reason to accept my statement at face value, "Kohta Hirano has been trained by the Army, trying to disarm him would be a waste of talent. Rei, and Takashi are going to have to learn because we're going to have to find their parents so I wouldn't support taking their gear away from them without a reason. Don't misunderstand I'm not opposed to sharing ammo, but we're still looking for their parents."

-scene break-

I leaned against the side of my ASLAV. This place was as good as any to hole up in. I didn't know whether Takagi Saya would stay here or not. It really wasn't my business but it'd probably attract the focus of the others. The power grid was working, as was the water, but like Mrs Takagi had said that was pumped from a dam up the way. One that Souichirou intended to secure. So I'd been more than happy to take her parents up on the opportunity to take a hot shower, because as it was it was only a matter of time before the grid failed. I knew it was coming unless it could be secured.

Ishi was reading one of the books, or trying to, that I'd brought. His English was actually pretty decent, of course all of them were pretty smart. For now we had a little bit of time to relax, to take a breather until we went out again to find Rei, and Takashi's parents.

Right now we were parked out side the house. In front of the house ,and in front of one another. I had the Bushmaster pointed at the gate... just in case. It was probably just paranoia, but as safe as things were chances are someone was going to get complacent. For the moment at least there were at least three layers of barricades between us and masses. It wasn't going to be me if I could help it, but sometimes you just slipped up. Right now though we'd spent the last few hours relaxing in the relative safety of the compound.

We'd already cleared out the trash from the emptied ammo boxes from having to reload yesterday. It was still ironic I'd figured that I'd use the nine mil ammo up so much faster than 308, and the opposite was proving true. I wondered if the Ultra Nationalists had a range set up, not anything necessarily fancy, but practical for shooting at the zombies while remaining safe.

They obviously had guns, but then they probably didn't really have the ammo to spare for daily training. I was regretting not bringing a nine mil carbine in my bag. Everyone agreed I was prepared, but there were things I could have changed. I hadn't managed to convince Ishi to pick up a gun yet, and Takashi hadn't even used his shotgun yet... then again the M1A hadn't gotten fired either.

Overall it was probably a good thing in some way that they hadn't had to shoot something just yet, but sooner or later they'd have to use those weapons. Well at least we were still good on shotgun ammo.

I sighed, and Ishi looked up. "Sensei?"

It didn't even get a rise out of me this time, not right now, "Might want to see about rounding up the others," I knew Rei and Takashi had gone off somewhere, and Saeko had been talking to Mrs Takagi. I kind of wanted to know if Saya was staying here, and if she could keep Alice here. That kid didn't need to be out in this mess not if this was safety right here.

"Alright, just wait here." he ran off.

Like I was going anywhere. I might have trusted Mrs. Takagi but so far it was just her, and all our supplies were loaded up between these two vehicles. Amongst those were the kid's guns, well besides the AR 10 that Kohta was carrying around. I was surprised something hadn't been said when we first arrived then again maybe they were too scared. Of course sooner or later someone was going to have to say something about the tank. The guns were one thing, it was probably just they accepted that the situation was what it was.

Right now the situation even a few hundred meters away on the street there were zombies gathering and milling about. I could understand the Right wing guys had limited ammo, but just letting them mill about struck me as a bad idea. That and we needed somebody in our group to drill with the M1A at the very least. It was kind of the other reason I'd sent Ishi to go find Rei and Takashi... they all three of them needed to get some practice in. At the very least get them to go through a box each while Kohta and I did over watch.

It was probably the kind of thing I should ask Mrs. Takagi. I'd have to see about that. Yeah three boxes of 308. A single box was one, standard size, magazine worth. It would be a good start. I checked my watch, we'd been here since about noon. It was about three in the afternoon, and we would be spending the night.

One of the guys waved at me. I waved back, and he went back to what he'd been doing. From what I'd gathered not everyone was here right now. Apparently a part of the group had left in their vehicles to go out and gather supplies... thats were Mr. Takagi must have been. I leaned back it was a good idea, we needed to be doing that. So far we hadn't seen any examples of wide scale looting, which was amazing in this scenario.

I also needed to take the time to go through my own equipment. Of course that meant I needed somewhere private just to prevent, or try to prevent, any undue conflict. The real issue seemed to be arming the high schoolers. I knew at some point that some kind of argument was going to start. I looked back up, and saw Kohta marching up, as in like parade marching. I guess it was his way of coping, or trying to.

It probably helped we had an M1025, and the ASLAV. There was no denying the kid was a good shot, and apparently personally instructed by a former member of Army Special Forces. I didn't really want to find out why his parents had let him go through that. "Hey Kohta can you sew?"

"I can, the ability to maintain ones gear in the field is an important part..."

Oh god he was doing it again. It wasn't like he was wrong sewing was easily one of the best skills to pick up for survival. "Thats good," I responded interjecting. It would help with maintaining our clothes in case they got torn, or if we needed to fix a bag, or something else. "When we get the chance we're going to make sure Takashi, Ishi, and Rei all get some time to practice with a rifle. We also need to find out if Saya is going to be staying her when we go looking for Rei, and Takashi's parents." I was going to go with them, Shizuka, and Saya could stay here and such.

I had been wondering why Hirano had military tutoring. Takashi thus far hadn't seemed worried about his dad, who was 'always at work', but Hirano's parents were out of the country. In fact he'd said that his father was looking for some special batch diamonds in Amsterdam for some Jewelry project that he was working on for one of his clients. It made sense it seemed like he came from a fairly well off family so they'd be able to pay for his interests.

"I don't supposed you were trained in demolition work if we could clear an area we could create a clear field and set up a dead man's land." He meant like from World War I, "The Takagi's have a large stock pile of dynamite here, and we could probably get our hands on razor wire."

I shook my head, "I'm not EOD, little out of my area of specialty." if the Takagi's had explosives I didn't want to be anywhere near them. I liked being intact. Of course if they had explosives they had probably been intended for construction of some sort, which meant hopefully they had an engineer as apart of their faction -thing. Hopefully one who did in fact know the safe and correct way in case we had to demolish a building.

"Ah well it was just a thought, so about shooting?" He asked unslinging his AR 10. "We're going to ask Saya's mom right." I looked at him... if he was poking at what I thought he had a point. Saya would probably do well to start learning how to shoot now from a relative safe vantage point as well, but it was probably better just to make sure her mom was okay with it.

Ironically the thing I was worried about didn't happen, people complaining that was about the guns, until after we got Mrs. Takagi's permission, and we'd gone and come back. Then again that was just the way of things. I pulled myself up on top of the hull. We had a place to bunker down at least for the night, so I'd need to go through some stuff.

That was how Z-day +2 went more or less. As time went on new routines developed. The old normal became just nostalgia as we got more used to all of this... this New Normal.

-scene break-