A/N: Sorry this new update took so long guys and girls! The first few months of school have been crazy and I've had scarcely a moment to myself, but I finally finished this one as it was a snow day today. I have edited it, so hopefully there aren't too many errors and incoherencies, but if so, I apologize, it's late and I wanted to get this out as soon as possible. So again feel free to rate, review, and tell me what you think so far, where you think the story should go, etc... Until then please enjoy one of the longer chapters in this story thus far!

As they sat in Taiga's living room planning their "Daring-Rescue Super Plan Mark 1", as she had so affectionately dubbed it, Ryuuji felt himself blushing at the still vivid memory of his close encounter with her in the bathroom. The way she had moved towards him had seemed almost fluid, as though she had been compelled by some undefined force of nature, her movements dictated by a higher power. Though that fact was but a foot note in the whole fiasco, especially when compared to what had really entranced him, the real reason he had not been able to move when Taiga had advanced upon him. Not because he had been pinned up against a wall, backed into a corner, or paralyzed by some overwhelming emotion. What had held him was the confounding combination of her gaze, the smile painted starkly across her face, and that she had said scarcely anything as she advanced.

The way she had looked was so uncharacteristic of her that it had, in fact, reminded him of the way Kawashima had that time the two of them found themselves alone in his apartment, just before Taiga had walked in. It had been beseeching, full of want and of need, but behind the erotic façade had been the innocence of a child desperately wanting a playmate, someone to whom they could relate and open themselves. Ryuuji had developed a long-running theory that Kawashima was so used to marketing herself to people that her sexy super-model persona had grown to more than just a business tool. He believed that she had come to rely upon it so much that it had simply become a way of life for her; pout, get what you wanted, cry, people would support you, look sexy, people want you. In that moment, just before they had heard the lock turn, he had known somewhere deep inside that for all of Kawashima's professional attitude, charm, and good looks she really just needed to be wanted. More than that; all she wanted in the world was to be truly needed by another person, a bid for a bond hidden behind a lonely mask of the kind of stuff that makes women green with envy and men drool.

Taiga's manner had been similar, she also appeared to have desired a bond, but from the fire in her eyes, the way her breath had come quick and ragged, and the way she slunk toward him, he felt as though she had desired one of a completely different variety. And that thought was severely inhibiting his ability to reason now.

The plan so far had come to consist of three phases:

Phase I) Head over to his house to extract Yasuko, obtaining whatever they could find by way of weapons en route. They would employ Taiga's usual means of entry and jump from her bedroom window to his balcony, the doors of which were kept unlocked during the day to allow her passage, and proceed to face whatever they found within. They had deemed the street in front of the apartment impassable, it was still thick with the Newly-Dead, and even if they had wanted to risk it the persistent pounding on the door had done nothing but intensify since they had slammed it shut, (Which seemed like ages ago by that point).

Phase II) Make their way over fences and through yards to find Kitamura, Kawashima, and Minori. The more they avoided the main streets the better, they would encounter less resistance, danger, and move more quickly overall. There was always the chance that there would be stragglers loitering along their path, but that would have to be chalked up to collateral damage, they could not afford to exercise either mercy or curiosity at present. They would first check Minori's usual haunts and jobs, as well as her home, which were all the closest. They would then make a Bee-line for Kitamura's place, and from there locate check Kawashima's flat and the modelling agency under which she was employed. Once as many of them as could be located had been gathered they would move to phase three, which was relatively simplistic.

Phase III) Survive and determine the cause of, and possible remedies for, whatever the hell had gone wrong with the world.

"Alright" Taiga exclaimed, they had gone over the plan upwards of ten times, hashing out every little detail, making sure every nuance was just so. "Go grab whatever you think you'll need, but don't pack too heavily. Remember, we have to be able to run and hop fences with whatever we carry, and whatever you bring you WILL carry, we are not hauling a wagon of crap down the sidewalk, and we don`t have a car."

"Yes Sergeant!" Ryuuji replied, voice dripping with well-meant sarcasm. He knew that they were in a dire situation and getting too uptight about it would simply cause infighting and a whole unwanted, and very much unneeded, slough of problems. Hopefully his little joke would do the trick.

"Damn straight!"

Evidently it had the desired effect.

"And you best not forget it! Now drop your ass and give me 20!"

He hurriedly dropped to the ground and proceeded to perform the ordered punishment.

"You call those push-ups!?" She cried after the first few, laughter now evident in her tone, and jumped promptly onto his back, "Now start over you wuss, and this time I want 30!"

He happily obliged, unbeknownst to her his training at the Bakery had consisted of doing push-ups with heavy sacks of four on his back, as well as a strict regimen of squats, sit-ups, and other strenuous activities done with items of the trade that the overseer of his induction into the art increased in weight over time. When he had once dared question his master's workout routine, he had received, "You have to be able to move every piece of this bakery," as a reply. "We do things by hand around here, ain't none of those fancy machines to do the liftin', mixin' and bakin'. Ruins the taste of the confections. We make everything here with blood, sweat, and the tears of our hearts." The old baker he had apprenticed under had been strict, unwavering, and proven an invaluable friend and mentor to Ryuuji over the past handful years, consoling him in Taiga's absence, and encouraging him when he felt hopeless. He was sort of the Japanese equivalent of a Red-Neck, mixed with a Sage and a Poet. He talked like a hillbilly with the vocabulary of an Oxford grad.

It took him next to no time to complete his task, even with the extra hundred or so pounds on his back. Taiga certainly didn't look it, but she was all wiry muscle, and as a result was far heavier than she appeared; which, he mused, was probably the reason she had such a hard time staying afloat when the two of them went to the pool. Which we won't be doing anymore, he chided himself, if this is at all as bad as it looks there won't be anybody left to run a pool, much less swim in one. He kept his face neutral in spite of the morbid notion; it would do him no good to have Taiga depressed again, and with that in mind he sprang suddenly to his feet, launching her head over heels onto the couch.

"Time to go sergeant!" He exclaimed.

She rolled from the couch, dropping to all fours as though preparing to pounce and breathed, "Not just yet…" The small girl abruptly uncoiled like a spring, launching herself through five feet of empty air and at him. He deflected her at the last second, having taken that long to discern her intent and react, and sent her tumbling down the hallway.

"You've got ten minutes," He called after her, "Get your shit and get ready to move!"

"Bastard!" She responded from somewhere out of sight; not angrily, but serious none the less.

Aaaaand verbal abuse as a first resort yet again, he sighed internally, good to know we're back in the dog house. He began preparing things he knew they would immediately need. A pair of knives each, some flatware, plastic containers, water bottles, dry rations and preserves, basic cooking supplies, lighters, the list went on. He managed to keep it to a maximum of half a backpack a piece, leaving the remainder for personal effects and toiletries. Which was when Taiga came staggering down the hall under a load of clothing, bedding, and other more obscure items that could easily be described as twice his own size.

"Taiga, what the hell? You are the one who said to pack light!"

"This is light, stupid dog, how could I expect you to understand the complexities of your master's mind? After all, you are just an ignorant pup in comparison to my wise and all-knowing self. Plus, I'm not carrying this, you are."

"Fat chance of that," he spat back, and began helping her pick items from the pile. In the end he managed to haggle her down to the items he had already arranged in her pack, plus enough personal items to nearly split its seams. He pared his own down to a comfortable weight, having gone to the bedroom and found his clothing and such once he finished talking down his stubborn fiancé, and hefted it to his shoulder.

They made their way to the bedroom window, and took one last moment to look around the room they had only just begun to share. It almost seems symbolic of our lives, he thought, it feels like every time we are set to start our lives together, something goes wrong. It had all begun way back when the two of them had first met, bumping into each other by chance in the school hall, him knocking her over. From there it had only escalated: her father, the ski trip, her running away for a year, and now cumulating in this. The sad cap on a long pipeline of disappointment and disaster.

Now that he thought about it, most everything up till now had been either her fault, or had something to do with her. He could not blame this most recent occurrence on her, not by a long shot; to do so would be both Ludacris and unjust. But nonetheless he felt perturbed, if the sting of calamities surrounding his apparently misfortune prone love were to repeat past patterns then there was no way the two of them were going to get out in one piece.

He would simply have to focus on the good times they had shared, which he realized far outweighed the bad, and pray that those events were the ones that recurred in the future. Pray, he thought, never felt the need to do that before. But in light of recent events, I'm suddenly feeling very religious. If there is a god out there I want him or her on our side; because said deity knows we're going to need it.

He broke from his revere in time to see Taiga moving toward the window, a lone tear rolling slowly down her cheek. He moved with her, embracing her from behind as they reached, in tandem, for the latch to open their haven, possibly the last on earth, to the roiling hell that currently composed the outside world. He, having longer arms and a better reach, grasped it first and turned it, sliding the window along its rails.

It glided smoothly along; flying in the face of all that it portrayed in a small, sweet act of rebellion. He chose to embrace it. He next slid the screen aside, and stepped up and onto the sill, poised to leap across the narrow gap to his balcony, and felt a gentle tug on his pant leg.

"Ryuuji, be careful…"

"Don't worry, I will be. And you too, try to land as softly as you can, we don't want to attract any unneeded attention."

"Right."

With that said he turned and leapt into open air, reveling for a moment in the feeling of it caressing him and landed, catlike, on the porch, turning just in time to catch the beautiful girl, no, he corrected himself, woman, sailing after him.

Then he noticed the ambient smell. The air around them was heavy with the stink of burning, almost but not quite masking the acrid reek of blood. The smell of denaturing protein, hemoglobin, red blood cells bursting as they hit the jagged edges of wounds, activating fibrinogen, which is converted to fibrin, creating a sticky net of blood cells and microfibers attempting to clot and close the gaping wounds rent in their organism by… He shook his head, it had been years since he had taken a course in Biology, but he guessed that some things just never seem to leave you. They lie in wait in the furthest recesses of your brain, poised to spring out at you when you least expect it. A cascade of firing neurons, specific electrical impulses firing specific cells in an all-or-none response. Creating a dancing electrical pathway, and inciting a reaction, all in fractions of a second, and… He again ground to a screeching halt. He had always been intelligent, able to recall things at the drop of a hat, and had started, years before, to do so in response to an uncertain situation, it was a coping mechanism he had come to use so often that it had simply become reflexive.

Taiga was standing perfectly still, her face upturned, and he noticed as he came back to reality that his grip on her arms was probably a lot tighter than it should have been. He released her as though she were a hot coal he has plucked, barehanded, from the heart of a fire, wheeling around and apologizing simultaneously. If she was hurt, she didn't show it.

"Ryuuji, are you alright?"

"Yea, fine," He replied, "Just lost myself for a second there." And having said that strode forward toward the sliding glass doors that he could only pray his mother had left unlocked in another early morning fit of drunken forgetfulness. She worked so hard, and often so late into the night as a hostess, that she would come home most nights and forget to lock even the front door as she fell into bed to sleep off the absurd amount of alcohol in her system.

He tried them and, for once to his relief, found that this had indeed been the case. The door slid noiselessly backward on its track, and came to rest with a soft thump against the rubber stopper at the far end; it appeared that all of his lectures on the importance of constant house maintenance had made some impact on his mother after all, it seemed recently oiled. Now he could only hope she had at least remembered to shut the front door.

He moved through the familiar dining/living area to her room, the doors of which were slightly ajar, that's a good sign, he forced in an only partially successful attempt to comfort himself. He inched them slowly open, so as not to wake and startle her if she was sleeping on the inside. He had thrown the doors open and scared her from her rest only once as a child, and had immediately discovered why doing so was hazardous to anyone's health. The moment the door had hit the wall and the first peal of sound was issued, his mother, normally able to sleep through a bombing raid, had been up like a shot, poised with a knife in her hand, inches from his own chest. She had immediately released it and sunk to the floor crying, but the damage had been done, and to the day he was still cautious about disturbing her when he did not know for certain that she was at least semi-conscious. He realized much later that what had occurred was likely a reflex from a much older time, when she had still been living with his gang-lord father, and the going had been far tougher than she had ever allowed him to see.

More and more light spilled into the room as the door crept backwards, revealing the edge of a futon; a mangled mess of blankets and covers that grew with painful sloth, every inch eating away his hope like acid. He began sliding it faster, panic bubbling in his chest. The bed was half lit, but still no figure appeared on it. The bubbling was replaced by a roiling sea of terror as he flung the door the rest of the way, only to find the last half of the divan the same as the first, all blankets and no bodies.

He didn't know whether to feel elated for the fact that he had not found a desiccated corpse, or worse yet one of the Things from outside, or scream into her absence, giving voice to his terror and conveying it to the world. Caught between two equally undesirable actions, he settled for simply sitting down, and raising a hand to his mouth to supress the mournful sounds trying to escape him. He had been sure she would be here, Yasuko came home late, that was true, but never so late as to have been caught up in whatever the hell had been going on since the early morning. Or had it been the middle of the night? His thoughts were becoming more jumbled by the second, if he didn't collect them soon he would be unable to go on. And then Taiga would have to face the world alone.

Taiga! The thought woke him from the despair he was sinking into. He couldn't leave her alone, she was what he lived for, and now what he would have to continue living for, as she was apparently all he had left. His mother was gone, that was a fact he would simply have to accept, he would never locate her in the ocean of reanimated corpses roaming Japan, there were simply too many.

That thought sent a memory flashing suddenly into his mind:

He was much younger; probably ten or twelve, and he had awoken to find a disturbing lack of his mother's presence in the usual places she liked to pass out drunk. Even back then such a routine as this had been going on so far back into his memory that he could not recall beginning, it was a fact: mom came home, passed out, mom woke up, mom went out, mom came home… the cycle repeated. However that particular morning was missing a key piece, the beautiful, predictable, comfortable paradigm broken. He had looked all over the house, finding nothing, asked the neighbors, come up with squat, and been left with a big fat goose egg after calling the emergency number she always left for him when she was at "Work".

He had finally sat down in the living room, left with nothing else to do but cry, and wait for the police to show up and take him away as she had always told him they would if he wasn't impeccably good, diligent, and well behaved. He was mulling over what prison life would be like, and despairing over the thought of how dirty everything would be, (He had been a clean freak, even back then), when he heard a small noise issuing form the direction of the old bathroom, and noticed the door slightly ajar. He had checked the whole house over, that bathroom included, but he had been in such a state of panic by the time he had reached it that he had simply whirled through, not bothering to give it a thorough check. After all, why the hell would she be in there?

But there it was again, the small noise permeating from that direction, wafting into his ears and caressing them, and tugging at the strings at the very back of his mind. Was it the door creaking in a breeze? No, he had all of the windows closed, it sounded almost like snoring. …SNORING! He ran into the bathroom as fast as he could, not even bothering to push it open, but instead barreling straight through. He looked all around, trying over and over to locate the source, failing every time. He was just about to give up and sulk back to the living room to continue contemplation of his imminent jail sentence when the sound came again. He whipped his head around, the tub! How had he neglected to look in the tub! It was old, and he kept a wooden cover on it to keep the unwanted dust out, as they rarely used it, opting instead for the only other bathroom in the place, which had a shower. He threw the cover off and lo and behold, curled into a little ball of night dress smeared mascara at the bottom was his mother.

"No, I can't take them all, there are just too many… Too many…" She mumbled in her sleep.

"What!" He cried out in fury, "What is important enough to justify breaking with routine, scaring your son half to death, and falling asleep in a covered flippin' tub, WITH THE COVER STILL ON!?"

"Too many… Too many… Doughnuts…" She finished, a smile melting across her lips. He slammed his head into the wall behind the tub at speed, hard enough to wake his sleeping mother with a jerk, who promptly yawned, looked up at him, and inquired, "Ryu-Chan, what are you doing in here? And why am I in a tub?"

He snapped back to reality, the chance was slim, but maybe if he was ridiculously, improbably lucky, history would repeat itself. Without so much as a word of explanation to Taiga, who had standing behind him the whole time, looking at the little patch of wall he had repaired with the piece of pink love letter from long ago. He recalled that after that horrible experience he had locked the door to the old bathroom and hidden the key in his room. It had not been opened since; for fear that the same thing would happen again, but he had not taken the key with him when he had move his things over to Taiga's, perhaps his mother had reopened it in his absence.

He rounded a corner, slipping on well-polished hardwood flooring, and came to a halt in front of it. He slowly reached for the handle, fearing the disappointment he would feel when he found it to be locked, as it almost certainly was, but as his hand found it the knob turned with shocking ease, completing a full half circle and swinging inwards with the door it was attached to. So she was here!

He flung the door the rest of the way open, throwing caution to the wind with high spirits and higher hopes, only to find a film of dust covering the interior, undisturbed. He ran to the tub, and lifted the heavy wooden lid off, only to find that it had done its job all too well, there was nothing inside. He strode out the door and back to the living room in a daze; he had been so sure, so full of hope and belief when he turned the handle, was his solution not good enough? Was his piecing together of the mangled puzzle presented to him, sifting through each fragment of the evidence, and coming up with the only solution seemingly plausible in such a bizarre satiation not good enough? Was he not good enough? He stopped, a hand on the wooden trim surrounding the portal between the dining area and the kitchen, when he noticed light spilling in through the front door. It was ajar.

He strode up to it, angered at his stupid mother's forgetfulness and carelessness, hearing now a soft crying from behind him. Taiga. Yasuko had been as much of a mother to her as she had to him. The door slammed shut, his clenched hand following close behind its arc, and a single piece of paper fluttered to the ground. It was one of the shitty sticky notes his mother had always bought that would never stay stuck to anything for very long. It was probably just a grocery list, but he held it to his face and began to read anyway:

Dear Ryuuji and Taiga;

You remember that boyfriend I told you about a while back? The nice man I met at work that I said I wanted to get to know a little better? Well when the poop hit the fan today around 11:30pm; he came over hereto get me. And by poop I mean whatever the heck those things outside are. We took his jeep and are headed up to his house up the hill; it is relatively secluded there and we will be staying there for a while, and will be waiting for the two of you to meet with us.

His heart jumped with elation, that sort of thing was just like his mother, leaving with just a note to tell you where she had gone, toning her language down the level of a grade-schooler around him so as to keep his little ears safe, even though he was a grown man. He flipped the note to its back side.

You have one week from today to get up here, after that we are going to have to assume the worst and leave without you. I hope that this note finds you well and desperately hope you make it; I love you two to pieces and miss you more every second you take.

Love you-

Yasuko

The rear half of the message was dotted with the stain of a single tear, and looked hastily scrawled, however for his mother to sign a note "Yasuko" instead of her usual "Ya-Chan" or "Mom", things must have been serious. He was so relieved he nearly burst into tears for the umpteenth time that night, but opted instead to rush into the living room, shove the note into his Fiancé's hands and tell her to read.

She protested at first, eyes still puffy from crying, tears running in rivulets down both cheeks, but she eventually did as he asked. Her jaw dropped as she began, and proceeded further downward with every sentence she read until she finally finished and launched herself upwards shouting for joy and pounced on him, enveloping him in a crushingly emotional hug.

"She's alive! Oh thank god, I knew it! I knew she couldn't be dead!"

Ryuuji overcame his surprise at her sudden display after a second and hugged her back, just as fiercely, if not more so. He himself wanted to jump in the nearest vehicle with gas and drive to her, but he knew that was unrealistic, the Things were still crowding the streets, and they still had to find their friends. They could easily round all of them up and reach the hilltop within a week, he knew for a fact that Kitamura had gotten his licence, so as long as they could find him they would at least have somebody to drive them around. He had a sneaking suspicion that Minorin had hers as well, or at the very least a vehicle. There was no other way she could feasibly navigate the city and go between her countless odd jobs with the speed she did otherwise.

Regardless of what lay ahead they now had at least one thing, hope. And that was all they would need to keep them going. The hope that they were not the only ones left. The hope that there were others, perhaps whole groups of people, just out there waiting to coagulate, cohere, and reform into a new society. To restore normal social order. Perhaps in time to fix the world. But that all came later, at the moment all that mattered was putting one foot in front of the other and moving forward, and ever onward towards the source of their hope, their wish, and their desire.

Like the sages of many an ancient legend, chasing after a star, compelled by an omen that they had received in one form or another, simply because they had faith, and they clung to it like a drowning man clings to a piece of wood adrift at sea.

"You know we can't stay here right? We have to keep going and find everybody else, stick to the plan."

"I know, but I still worry about her you know, out there all alone."

"We'll find her before the week's up Taiga, I promise you that." He turned to the sliding doors again, just in time to see the sun peek its sleepy head from behind the adjacent mountains, low on the horizon, allowing the first few locks of its golden hair to spill over and caress the town below. He felt taiga move beside him, drawing breath sharply inward at the sight. It was beautiful, sharply contrasting the situation that seemed to have taken a choking grip on their world, and it was as that big ball of cheery radiation began its sleepy ascent of the morning sky that they witnessed the first anomaly of many in the brave new world into which they found themselves entering. The first rays began to fall on the streets, and as they did the Things appeared to grow increasingly restless, until at last a single beam found its way through a far off pair of mountain peaks and landed squarely on one of them. It broke out into a fit of startled shrieks and other guttural noises that seemed to spread outward in a wave, passing from one creature to another like fire in a dead forest.

Slowly at first, but with speed increasing over a very short time frame they began moving like a rolling sea, heads bobbing, bodies swaying, and the crowd of them began to thin. As more and more of them seemed to disappear Ryuuji's field of view became less and less restricted, and he could see them moving indoors in droves. Whatever had done this to them, and whatever they were, sun worshipers were not among their ranks.

The pair watched as the last of the stragglers trickled off and left nearly empty streets in their wake. Nearly empty consisting of a few scattered corpses, (much trampled and mauled), burning cars and refuse, and other un-pleasantries, but utterly navigable none the less.

"Do you know what this means?" Ryuuji asked, awed, turning his head to the woman beside him as he did so. He had never had much time to appreciate it in their busy, pre-apocalyptic lives, (He had come to the conclusion that with how widespread this seemed, apocalypse was a fairly safe label), but when the sun hit Taiga just so, when she was in just the right mood, she almost seemed to glow with fierce inner radiance, like a back-lit diamond, and at the same time she appeared to burn with all the ferocity of the animal after which she was named.

"I suppose this means we travel during the day."