Parings, as requested by Jack oh lantern. (Hisashi/Rei), (Kohta/Asami), (Thomas/Things going according to Keikaku). These are not final, they are what is planned as of 1/31/18

o0oo0oo0o

IX

[3rd] {The Group}

Everyone was in the bus now, the one they'd set out for earlier. They'd even picked up more people, unfortunately, some of those people were previous followers of Shido. They were the minority thankfully.

No one was seemed more bothered by their presence about that than Kohta, who Hisashi saw was giving them a baleful glare.

He grabbed the group's attention by calling them to him.

As they'd left, it had been insinuated, if not confirmed that Hisashi was the leader among them as he kept everyone safe, beyond what Saeko or Kohta was. He'd even managed to save Takuzo, the second group they'd found, and his friends from drawing their attention, stopping one of his members and making sure that their weapon didn't hit anything, keeping Their attention off of everyone as they'd made their to the bus.

They hadn't known how much tension letting Shido's group on would cause until they were already on their way.

Hisashi grimaced, he didn't want the others know just how much he knew until they were safe at Shizuka's place. Prying ears and disbelievers who would take time to convince, despite the evidence he had, his main concerns.

"Alright, so we've got a pretty big group," he started, making sure he had everyone's attention, "it's gonna be hard to find somewhere that can fit all 7 of us-"

"7? Are we abandoning these people?" Rei appeared a bit scandalized.

"Of course, having too big of a group without the resources required to keep it up is idiotic." Takagi said, not caring how abrasive her statement was.

Rei narrowed her eyes and prepared to say something before Hisashi just put his hand out, "That's right, but try to be a bit more down low when you talk Takagi, I can't imagine being so loud is going to be very smart or helpful at a time like this," Takagi started to bring up a scathing reply before noticing that he was right, especially as she recalled the times it got her and Kohta in trouble, she looked like she'd swallowed something incredibly sour and just harrumphed as she stayed quiet.

"That being said, does anyone have a house that could keep all of us without being crowded while also being relatively safe?" Everyone but Saeko and Shizuka immediately shook their head. Saeko started to shake hers at the same time that Shizuka raised her hand but quickly put it back on the wheel to make sure she didn't crash the bus since she already had enough driving it. Hisashi caught both gestures and nodded, inwardly relieved that no one else had a place to offer.

"Is it your boyfriend's place?" Takagi said, grinning a bit as she did up until the vehicle briefly swerved, everyone reaching out to hold onto whatever they could. "Th-this is different. It's one of my girlfriend's places."

Kohta laughed, while Takagi flushed a bit at the fact that she'd almost made them crash while the others had various states of smiles on their faces. Hisashi spoke up after he had finished laughing, "then it's settled, we'll head to Marikawa-sen-"

"Hey!" They turned their head to see one of Shido's people, Tsunoda, Kohta would later remember him as, walk over to them in a huff, face red and not at all pleased with the sudden movement. "What the hell are you guys smiling about, can't you drive straight?!" Shizuka went around one of the abandoned vehicles in the road, causing the bus to shake and Tsunoda to lose his footing again, barely managing to stay upright. "Can't you drive any slower?! I almost-"

Shizuka whirled around to him, eyes narrowed in focus and anger, "That's enough, lay off of me! I've never driven one of these before!" Tsunoda flinched, not expecting her to offer any kind of rebuttal. He turned to Takashi, who'd been staring at him the whole time and started glaring at him instead.

Hisashi looked over to Kohta as they argued, the look on his face had intensified from earlier, approaching murderous, if it wasn't already there. When Kohta took a step forward Takagi held a hand out to stop him as Rei stepped in to interfere, swinging the handle she'd gotten from earlier into Tsunoda's body, lifting him off of his feet. As he slammed down onto the floor, everyone, Kohta included, stared at Rei in astonishment while she fixed him with a look of intense disgust.

"You're horrible," Her gaze was comparable to one looking at a roach or scum. Everyone stewed in the silence for a bit until he started to get back up.

"You...bitc-" He didn't get to finish his statement as a nail lodged itself into his head, his body hitting the floor again, this time without him getting up or stirring.

This time the looks were aimed at Kohta, although they weren't just ones of astonishment. Takagi was the first to speak, trying to school her expression but failing and just deciding to talk. "Hirano, what are you doing?!" She glanced at the body on the floor before turning back to him.

"How many people," He started out soft, looking down at the floor, face blank before swiftly changing to righteous anger. "How many people do you think beat me up at school? Only a few of the worst of them are right here, don't even try to tell me I dserved it! I've restrained myself! I've always held it in because I wanted to have a normal life! But that doesn't exist anymore so you better believe I won't hesitate to kill any of them that I come across now! Or anyone like them!" When he finished yelling he turned to those he recognized and pointed the nail gun towards them, "get out." When no one moved he pointed it to a specific person, finger slowly squeezing the trigger, "NOW!"

Shizuka barely got the doors open in time for them to bolt out of them, faces of abject terror on all of them.

The bus started to back up, everyone taking their time to collect themselves after what had just happened.

"Hirano, what the hell is wrong with you?!" Takagi was quick to turn on Kohta, vehemently pointing a finger at his person as she stepped closer to him. "Even if our group is too big and that-" she pointed to Tsunoda before stopping as she looked a bit queasy at the sight of his body, quickly turning away from it and pretending that she hadn't brought it up, "some people are unpleasant, that doesn't mean you can kick them to the curb like that!"

Kohta's whole body tensed, his face reverting to the glare from earlier, "unpleasant? Takagi-san, those people have beaten me senseless, this goes beyond unpleasant!" Everyone else shifted their attention from the two to anywhere but them rapidly, quite uncomfortable with the rising heat in their voices and volume.

Takagi looked taken aback by that but pressed on with her argument, "you've seen what happens to people that don't have any protection! You can't just send those people to their death like that!"

Kohta shock with bottled up rage. "THE HELL I CAN'T! I-" Everyone turned as a monstrous clang rang throughout the bus, only to see Takashi holding his bat above a warped section of metal, with the new silence, Hisashi nodded his thanks and turned to everyone else. "You both need to calm down, even if it They couldn't hear you through the windows, this is neither the time nor the place for an argument, we have to talk about our plan of action and get somewhere safe. After that you two can talk out this mess civilly, and I do mean civilly."

Takagi looked ready to turn her fury on Hisashi for telling her what to do, but chose not to upon seeing and feeling the aura of authority and almost parental scolding, choosing to angrily pout after heavily sitting down, grounding out a "well?" as she waited for Hisashi to speak. Kohta breathed deeply while clenching his gun, soon after looking a little embarrassed at his outburst and raising his voice at Takagi, or, anyone really.

Satisfied the children were done with their spat, even if only temporarily, Hisashi huffed and recollected his thoughts, briefly speaking to Shizuka before deciding to inform the others. "Okay, so as I was saying, we're going to Marikawa-sensei's place, she says its got a lot of stuff that could be useful, including a better vehicle. We'll spend the night there since I doubt we could get anywhere with all, this." He waved outside to the zombies they could see as they drove past. "We'll get up early to head out for whoever's houses are closest, does that sound good?" He looked around, searching everyone's faces for a sign of disagreement. After no objections he smiled a bit, feeling a bit lighter. "After we get to Shizuka's, we'll hand the bus off to Takuzo and his group since we'll have a new ride." Again, no one seemed to object, so Hisashi just breathed in deeply and nodded. "Alright, well, everyone just cool off until then. We should be there within the next half an hour."

Despite the threat that had ripped apart their lives, sitting in a bus driven by a teacher and talking and laughing with each other got everyone's minds off of the terrible state of affairs, all of them knew it wouldn't last but they were going to enjoy it for as long as they could.

o0o

[1st]

Great, just swell. I sighed heavily, stomach turning a tad as I saw the pile of bodies before me. I'd taken a break from running to Shizuka's, choosing to instead slowly make my way on people's rooftops. Less than 10 minutes after doing so, I'd spotted what I'd assumed to be a blockade, and in a way it was; the issue was not only the multitude of people that I could see from here, but that the vehicles and debris in the area stopped me from taking the path I had wanted. In order to make things easier on myself, I just memorized a few possible paths throughout certain areas since I hadn't really I would be spending much time in this one, nor had I thought I could stuff all the paths, along with everything else I'd been learning for the past 6 months. Not only would this keep me from reaching everyone for longer, but blocking the road ahead lead to more zombies being basically right in front of me, cutting off both parts of my initial plan. I sat down, thinking about what to do, then I looked down and saw the balcony right in front of me. I could see if there was a computer in there and blast it at full volume, see if it cleared the road up enough for me to pass through.

Good a plan as any, I guess.

I slid down soundlessly, landing and twisting around only to see a face in the window. I gulped down whatever noise I'd just about made, endlessly thankful that it hadn't just smashed out of the door and berating myself for looking over the roof before dropping down. After a second of staring at it, I realized it wasn't a zombie I was looking at but just a really pale boy. The only thing that really seemed zombie like was the pale skin and prominent veins. I looked down at his hands, and added that to the similarities.

Neither of us moved, just staring at each other. Then I recalled my time limit and just poked the door, hoping he'd be willing to talk or would at least give me a chance to dodge before trying to kill me.

"Kill me." My eyebrows went up, I wasn't really sure how to respond. He seemed to take that as asking for him to explain and he just nodded at me, getting ready to do so. "I got bit while trying to kill my family. I'm honestly surprised I'm still alive, but I want to stay that way, in spirit at least or something." I had forgotten this kind of thing just happened, although now that the thought was there, I remembered the guy who'd molested Rei in canon, hopefully that hadn't happened or wouldn't if the time hadn't come yet.

I found myself nodding, a tired smile coming to the boy's face when I did. "Ah, but is there a computer I can use?" He looked confused when I asked but nodded anyways, "where is it?" He pointed to a corner behind me. "Is there a password?" He shook his head, the puzzled look still there. "I needed a distraction, if you want I can lock the door or something so they don't get in, or at least not as easily." The boy nodded, not saying anything else.

I just readied myself for what I was going to do, not even a whole day in and I was already mercy killing someone. Man, what a load this universe was. The boy just sat down on his bed, waiting for me. As I began walking over, I realized I didn't even know his name. The...right thing to do, I guess, would be to make sure he's remembered, even if only a tiny part of him. "What's your name?" I stopped in front of him, asking as I looked down and slipped my knife from its sheath.

"Tachibana Yuta," He didn't seem to care about why I asked, just lifted his head and sat up straight, preparing himself.

I stood still, looking closely at him. The paleness I could now attribute to the blood I saw coming from his arm, even as the flow had already stopped, couple that with the somber look on his face and he looked half way to being a zombie. Seeing the pictures that were scattered about the room I could see that he'd been happy, full of life, before this.

One, two, three. The knife slid right through the top of his head. I caught his body as he slumped forward, lowering him gradually onto his bed and moving him around a little. After making sure he was situated, I locked the front door and his, blocking both of them with some light furniture and making sure all other entrances were tightly shut as well.

That being done, I walked to the computer he had and turned it on, finding a song that was loud online and making sure the speakers were at the highest volume, bringing some earplugs out of one of my pockets. Here goes.

Even with the earplugs in I could still hear the music blasting out of the speakers, not to mention feel the bass throughout my everything. I had no doubts that the zombies would be coming from the next few streets over, at least.

And, I'm out of here, I went out the way I came in originally and closed the door, getting on the railing and jumping onto the roof. Already, I could see dozens of them, at least, making their way over here and pounding on the house or pawing up at where the actual sound was coming from, I could even see some trying to get out of the pile of bodies. Once there was a sufficient amount for me to casually stroll across the street I jumped off onto the street and made my way over to the other side, passing by the dead end (heh) and going down another street, back on track.

I absently wondered how the others were doing and if my help, however slight it was, had helped them do better.

o0o

[3rd] {Takashi}

Takashi hadn't gotten to know Takuzo and his group all that well but was still slightly sad to see them go. Everyone made small talk on the way here, and there being only a dozen of them, talking amongst each other had been easy, even with the circumstances. Nonetheless, when they reached Shizuka's place, they'd given the smaller group the bus and said their farewells. They'd been quick to encounter a few of Them, and even quicker to finish Them off.

After that, they'd gone inside and started to talk about what they would do now that they had a safe house. Again, Hisashi had stepped forward with a plan, Takashi had to admit, he was happy his best friend was so capable, he doubted he would be all that good as a leader himself. The girls would shower first, something which made Takagi very happy, and the boys would check the place out, see what kind of stuff was here, switching places after the girls finished up.

"Sounds like they're having fun." Takashi tried to talk over the shrill screams of excitement that were coming from the bathroom, looking down at Kohta as they set a crowbar into one of the container's in Shizuka's friend's place.

"Want to see if there's anything to 'protect them from' in there?" Kohta asked, a lecherous grin on his face as they started to pull back.

"I don't want to die yet." Takashi shook his head, keeping his focus on their current task and wondering where Kohta's sudden bravery came from, Hisashi softly chuckling at the current conversation.

"I'm gonna see if anyone else is ok," Hisashi waved his phone and stepped outside, leaving the other two to it.

"Here we go! 1! 2! 3! Whoa!" Both of them surged forwards as the container finally gave in. Takashi was the first to get up, taking the time to look over their new stuff and pulling Kohta up.

A grin most would call dangerous or creepy peeled across Kohta's face, fixing the weapons inside with a look bordering on the indecent. "Just as I thought..."

"This is Shizuka-sensei's friends's house...just what kind of friends does she have?" Instead of answering, Kohta grabbed a gun and started looking it over, practically vibrating with excitement.

"A Springfield M1A1 Super Match, huh? But it's only semi-automatic. Well, the M14 series is full-auto. This is less wasteful when it comes to ammunition." He moved his hands carefully over the gun, as if it was a baby or something precious.

"Um, Hirano?"

"This is a 20 round magazine! This is illegal in Japan. It's illegal. Heheh." As the chubby boy continued salivating and muttering to himself Takashi sighed and went to grab one of the guns out of the locker.

"That's an Ithaca M35 Riot Shotgun! It was designed by an American. It's one badass shotgun. It was used in the Vietnam war." Takashi looked at the gun briefly and swung it towards Kohta, smiling when he quickly moved out of the way of the muzzle. Mood dampening when he was told the only proper target.

"Them, that's the best way to use these." They stared solemnly at the gun and what it meant, this wasn't a joke, these things, along with the ammo, would be some of the only things standing between the 7 of them, and becoming one of Them.

o0o

"They've gotten louder," Kohta was looking towards where the girls were, face touched with worry.

"They're fine, They react to sound and we're not the loudest ones around." Takashi looked through binoculars they'd found Watching the beginning of a protest taking place. "It's getting worse, it looks like a blockade has been put up by the police." He handed the binoculars over to Kohta so he could see the situation for himself.

"It's starting to look like some kind of movie," Kohta said, frowning at what he was seeing.

Takashi had grabbed the remote, planning to watch the news as he'd seen a few vans on the bridge. "The police have the place barricaded and it looks like some people are being rounded up for a protest. At the moment it doesn't look like a sizable enough group to do anything yet but they seem very set on speaking against the police."

"The police? I'm glad Rei isn't here right now, she'd probably be screaming at the top of her lungs about how her dad is doing his best to keep them safe and how they're being so ungrateful or something like that." Takashi was pissed, trying his best not to tear into these guys himself. "More importantly, what are they blaming the police for? It's not like they had a hand in any of this, dead bodies just started walking around and attacking people!"

"They're just trying to cause hysteria, or is this one of the effects of the disease?" Takashi was about to reply when they heard a loud noise followed by a scream from outside and rushed over to the window again to see what was going on. Some poor sap had had the misfortune to bump into a car, getting all of Them nearby to charge him at once. Both boys grimaced, backing up to get away from the grisly scene.

A pair of hands loomed over Takashi, by the time Kohta noticed, Takashi was already being pulled in. The next thing he knew, a giant pair of boobs were dangling next to his face, their owner clinging onto him soon after.

"Koomuurookuu~n." Shizuka pulled him in for a sloppy kiss on his cheek, Takashi's eyes bugging out.

"S-sensei? Are you drunk?"

"Just a teensy weensy bit. Fufuu~. Ah." Shizuka unevenly turned towards Kohta, arms wide open for a hug. "Kohta-cha~n."

"Chan? Err, um." The boy nervously stuttered and laughed, face going red and leaking blood when Shizuka planted a kiss on his cheek as well. Takashi dragged the nurse off to lecture her while Kohta recovered, eventually deciding to put her to bed and picking her up, eliciting some kind of high-pitched noise from Shizuka.

"You're just a little pervert Komuro-kun!" She started tracing circles on his head, heavily breathing into the teen's ear. His face started to light up, a little grin forming on it.

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't enjoying it."

"Takashi~." He froze up, turning to the second voice and seeing Rei. "Where's Hisashi~?" She stumbled towards Takashi, who looked a lot more overwhelmed now that there was two drunk people in front of him. "He's on the balcony," he tried pointing but stopped when Shizuka almost slipped off, something she just giggled at.

"Okay," Rei nodded and proceeded to move in the completely wrong direction.

"Wait, Rei, hold on, please, I'll bring him in a second just hold on." He left without confirming that she'd heard him, making for a room that would gave Shizuka some privacy, spotting Takagi resting on a nearby couch, hopefully she'd help Shizuka dress up when she woke up. Quickly making his way back, Takashi saw Rei absently starting to nod off. He went to get Hisashi anyway.

"Hey, Hisashi, Rei needs you," His friend nodded, coming over to the door. "How many calls did you make? You've been out here for a while."

Hisashi frowned, "It must've been at least thirty."

"Thirty? We hardly even know more than ten people, and two of those are here, why'd you call thirty?"

"Not thirty people, thirty calls." Hisashi's grimace deepened as he said that, waiting for Takashi to get what he meant.

"What? Oh." He fell silent for a moment. "How many people picked up?"

"Two. Morita and Tom, the calls didn't even take that long, I've just been," He struggled to find the word he wanted "thinking, I guess."

The silence got heavier. "I guess you need Rei right now then too, huh?" Hisashi nodded and started to move past Takashi, stopping when Takashi put his hand on Hisashi's shoulder. "We have each other, that's the most I could ask for," Hisashi nodded, a small smile coming to his face before he continued inside.

Takashi thought to himself for a second. His family, Takashi's parents, Rei's parents, his instructor and maybe three friends from school. Other than those already accounted for, that was Hisashi's contacts list.

Tonight would be rough. He looked over to where Rei was, the three of them would definitely need each other if they wanted to get through this. Takashi steeled his resolve, he would make sure they lived. Come rain, Them or hellfire.

They would live.

o0o

{Hisashi}

Hisashi found Rei calling for him at a staircase. "What's up Rei?"

"Hey~ Hisashi~!" Rei swayed a bit while she called to him, at one point only barely managing to keep her balance as Hisashi closed the distance to hold her.

"Are you, drunk?" He asked his girlfriend, surprised.

"Well, I was tired and so much has happened already." She leaned forward and stared intensely at Hisashi, having to focus for her words to come out with any sort of clarity. "You're really nice guy, I'm glad you're around," she leaned on hiim. "I'm not s-sure what I would've done if I'd l-lost you," she was beginning to stumble over her words, forgetting to make sure she was coordinated in order to get her thoughts out into the open, resulting in her relying on Hisashi almost entirely to keep the both of them upright. "'Kashi's a nice guy too, but he's always been soooo, 'Kashi, you know?" She looked blearily at Hisashi, waiting for his confirmation.

"Yeah, I understand what you mean but, we've been friends for a long time, I'm sure he would do whatever he needed to make sure you were alright if I was gone," He smiled genially at her, pulling her in as he did so. "If he didn't I'd make sure to come back and kick his ass," Rei giggled at that and snuggled into Hisashi, enjoying the closeness.

When she didn't speak after that Hisashi pulled back to look at her and saw her eyes closed, her breath coming out almost silently. He smiled again, lifting her so she could sleep somewhere more comfortable. He supposed since the girls were out he should round Kohta and Takashi up so they could bathe too since he wasn't sure when they would next get the chance.

o0o

Conversation had started out innocently enough. Kohta and Hisashi were looking over some of the more civilian stuff they'd found lying around after they'd cleaned up, looking over the plethora of useful things Shizuka's friend had lying around.

Nighttime had already come, so talks had been shifting to use on the weapons, Kohta savagely smiling as he showed off more of his intimate knowledge with the subject.

"This!" Kohta exclaimed, patting the AR-10, "can hold up to 20 rounds in a single magazine and is semi-automatic. With this, They wouldn't even have time to grasp for us before having their heads blown off!" The smile he'd begun with had only grown as he listed off each and every thing about the guns.

"Is the 'they' you're referring to the undead? Or random people?" The two of them turned to face Takagi, whose scowl immediately told that this hadn't been another attempt at a joke.

Kohta's eyes narrowed, shortly mirroring hers. "What do you mean?" He was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, hoping the question meant something else, despite how little room for interpretation there was.

It did not. "Just what I said, do you plan on getting rid of Them? Or turning on random people?"

Kohta rose, bristling at the insinuation. "Random people? Those weren't random people, Tsunoda and those that I pushed off deserved everything that happened to them! And worse." His face darkened, his whole body tensing up at the mention of his old tormentors.

"Even if they did, you said you would go after anyone like them! You can't kill people just because they're acting like an asshole!" Takagi took a step closer to Kohta, her face rapidly getting redder.

"If they're like that then why the hell not?!" Kohta didn't back down, challenging her as he took a step forward of his own.

"If you killed someone every time they acted like that, you'd be killing people left and right! Especially with everything that's going on!"

"I'm not gonna kill every jerk we come across!"

"I've only known you for less than a day, and in that time you easily transitioned from a normal person to killing someone without major provocation!"

Things continued like this for the next few minutes, both of them inching closer until they were just about been in each other's faces when Hisashi stepped in, pushing the both of them apart. "Enough! If you're going to argue, I ask that you do so without alerting everyone and everything in the area." The two facing each other down violently turned their heads towards Hisashi, faces flush with anger and unspoken arguments.

They opened their mouths at the same time, whether to yell at Hisashi or each other was unknown, as, right when they started up they heard a throat clearing from down the hall. The person they saw was staring at them with a cold expression.

"Hello. I don't suppose the two of you would mind keeping it down, would you?"

o0o

[1st]

It was late, like, dead of the night late. I had been rushing ever since I saw the sun start going down.

Earlier, Hisashi called. I hadn't had the foresight to silence my phone as I'd assumed that anyone that would call me was either dead or not in possession of a phone. Needless to say, I'd needed to fight off a bunch of ghouls, answering the call and trying to not sound as if I was getting swarmed. I had managed to take out enough of them to climb up a small house, sitting down and talking with Hisashi afterwards.

He told me that him, Takashi and Rei had made it out, along with Takagi, Kohta and a couple people from school; I assumed that was the group from canon.

Then he told me that no one had been bit and they'd taken a bus to the school nurse's place, sort of. He had paused for a second, for what reason I didn't know but when he spoke up next he told me how to find the place, if I was in the area, which would save me some explaining to do for when I got there.

After, I asked what he knew about the whole situation. From what they knew, over 2,000 of the city's populous were dead at the moment and most, if not all, of the world had been affected by this; some of them had even lost contact with the rest of the world. That sounded mostly in line with what I'd remembered, except the death toll seemed a little low, though you wouldn't hear me complaining about that. Lastly, he'd asked me if I remembered that movie we'd seen on Christmas Eve, I'd confirmed I did and he went silent again briefly before telling me he thought the events had lined up with what was going on. I was ecstatic that he'd noticed.

I had agreed after taking some time to make it seem like I was thinking, telling him that I was on the way over as well. He'd told me that they would wait for morning to leave so I could get here and be less at risk.

There wasn't much said after that, well wishes and then a farewell. I'd looked over the area below me and saw those gathered had thinned out in favor of louder noises. Going off of what I remembered, I'd guessed that I would reach them within a few hours. I was probably gonna smell worse than the zombies.

Around 30 minutes ago, Alice suddenly came to mind, making me aware that if things went as they had originally, I wouldn't really be able to join up with them all that easily, as the streets would be filled with zoms.

Which lead to now, with me tearing through the area, hoping I would reach Alice and the dog in time.

"Across from the store, what was it called? Oh Jesus." I was tiring out, again, running or even travelling for most of the day would do that to you, but I couldn't really afford to get tired until I was sure she was okay.

I didn't really care for the character herself; at the moment, I had no memories of her other than the manga or anime but knowing a character exists and seeing or meeting them in real life were radically different things. The only reason I was going after her and the dog was that her part in the group was keeping morale up, something that was endlessly important for the times to come.

I was absolutely sure no one, myself included, could so effortlessly make things happier or forcefully bring out everyone's protective nature like Alice could.

As I ran, I could see some zombies shambling in the same direction. I was pretty sure that was where I needed to be, and if it wasn't, whoever they were heading towards would at least be thankful. If they were still alive and all that.

When I reached the first of them I could hear faint crying, pretty sure that was her, though I guess crying wasn't really exclusive to little kids. I weaved my way through the crowd of zombies, slipping among them and making as little noise as I could, sneaking the knife into every other zombie I passed, whittling their numbers down along the way.

When I got to the gate, I saw her, crying over her father's corpse, Zeke just reaching her and barking at them. Some of them were awful close to her now. What was the group doing? Time to forgo 'Super Stealth Mode.'

I pushed through the zombies, bolting for Alice. Oh god, this was going to be close.

Lashing out, I punched clean through the first one's head, at which point it quickly turned into a mist, moving its body to the side so it didn't fall on Alice. Thank my lucky stars the cestus didn't just get lodged in the zombie.

"Hey there," I moved to the side and swept through a few more, trying to clear up space. "Could you please get the dog to stop?" I didn't wait for her answer and just started to tear through them. Ah, papa bless, it looked like there weren't nearly as many as I'd feared.

There was a sudden lack of barking and I was endlessly thankful. Now I could focus on making sure we didn't die.

One closed in, his lower jaw hanging askew, it looked like someone had tried to kick his head in but only managed to clip him. There were too many close by so I swung him around and threw him onto the nearest group of them, bowling them over. I pulled the knife back out, shearing through a few faces and sending them tumbling to knock over some of the others.

This wasn't about killing all of them, it was about clearing a path to climb onto so I could just run for Rika's.

"Stay close to me," I said lowly, backing up towards Alice, there was no reason to be loud and draw more in, I'd already cleared up a whole bunch of them and would like to keep it that way.

She nodded, getting up on shaky legs. "Um," she started shyly, glancing towards her father and me.

"Yeah?"

"My daddy...he died." She started sniffling again, fresh tears coming up.

Oh right, I looked over to the laundry rack. Pulling a white shirt off and laying it on him. I pulled some flowers I'd brought in preparation for this kind of thing.

I didn't really trust myself to say anything comforting, instead trying to remembering what Takashi had said.

"He died protecting you, he was an amazing person, and father." Hopefully that was close enough. I handed the flowers to her as she knelt, going over to kill those that had stumbled in while we'd been talking and close the gate.

"Dad...dy.." My eyes went wide as I heard her get ready to start back up, rushing over to try and muffle her crying.

"Ahhhhhhh!" I pulled her into my chest, facing away from the zombies struggling to get in. I kept my eye on the gate, hoping it had been brief enough to get out safely. She had a tight grip for a kid.

More were pushing to get in, they were already blocking the way out. Time to go. "Quiet down please, we should get going."

She looked towards the gate, watching the hands reaching through fearfully. "How are we getting out?"

"I'm gonna climb the fence, grab the dog please." I'd been hoping to get those in the area to the gate, so that they'd be away from Rika's place. She did so, still dripping a bit, I pulled a tissue out of another pocket and handed it to her. She blew and grabbed the dog, whose tail wagged when he saw me. "Hey there, buddy. Thanks for not barking at me this time."

I picked Alice up, facing me, with Zeke in between both of us. That should keep him from licking me. I didn't want to nearly fall like Takashi had.

I started making my way around, doing my best to minimize noise. Once we got to the house, I would enter the top second floor, as I'm sure the doors were locked on the first. My best bet would be to hope Rika or more likely Shizuka, had kept the upper floors unlocked since I wasn't really confident in my ability to break into it otherwise.

So far so good.

"Onii-chan?" I nearly stumbled off the ledge, briefly flailing to keep that from happening. What kind of translator didn't change that? Was my own ability trying to kill me? Or, us?

"Please don't call me that." I said once I was sure we wouldn't fall.

"Sorry," Alice seemed sad at that, fudge, didn't mean to hurt her feelings or whatever.

"It's, uh, what's up?" I tried to change topics.

"I have to pee." Guhhhhhhhhhhh, I'd forgotten about this too.

"How long do you think you can hold it?" I already smelled bad enough, I didn't need to add piss to that, especially since I didn't think there would be enough time to wash it.

"I can't," I closed my eyes, deeply sighing.

We reached the place with the shortest distance between walls. I waited for her to start so I didn't mess up the jump and turn us into walker chow.

I heard trickling and was pleasantly surprised to find that my outer layer was water proof, pants included. Thankfully I'd closed my pockets too so nothing would get in them. It was still gross, but at least it wouldn't stain.

"When I say go I'm gonna jump okay?" She nodded, head down so as not to look me in the eye. "One, two, three, go." I crouched and sprang forward, legs out. The foot placement was weird and I spent a bit longer making sure we didn't fall again. Now just to sneak into the house. Easy peasy. "Just hold on a bit longer, we're almost safe," She nodded again, still embarrassed though at least she was done. I was about to say we would get her new clothes too, but I wasn't sure if she would appreciate that.

I jumped up, grabbing a ledge and heaving myself up, checking the window in front of us afterwards to see if it was unlocked. No dice. Onto the next one then, good thing most of this was connected, at least in these circumstances.

I felt one of the windows give and pumped my fist, yelling in victory on the inside. I opened it and put Alice down first, getting in slowly afterwards.

The room I'd entered was a bit dark, lit only by the light coming in from where we'd entered. I saw an outline of a body and tensed, lightly stomping on the floor to make sure the body wasn't gonna kill us, pushing Alice behind me just in case.

When it didn't move I relaxed, letting her step forward. She let Zeke down on the floor, at which point he started sniffing around. I walked to the door, hearing what sounded like muffled shouting coming from outside. Best to make sure it wasn't someone in distress.

"Nnnnnnn, stoppid," I turned upon hearing the person speak up, getting ready to do something in case they got mad at us. I saw Zeke licking the person, who I now knew to be a woman from the high pitched voice, yipping when he saw her start to get up.

I tilted my head. That voice sounded familiar. As the figure rose up, I saw blonde hair through the moonlight, followed shortly after by the person herself.

Hoo boy, was all that came to mind before I turned away from the scene, although I knew the sight was burned into my memory. My face was probably starting to burn now. I needed to get out of here.

"Eh? Vega-kun? What are you doing here? Is this a dream?" I resisted turning to answer Shizuka, instead trying to focus on what to say.

"Yes, it is, just close your eyes and go to sleep." I wanted out, not that this was entirely unpleasant, more that I'd feel like a scumbag if I kept staring when she clearly didn't realize what was going on.

"Why would I do that if I'm dreaming?"

"Please just do it." I really wanted to get out before I fainted from blood rushing to my face. Or anywhere else.

"Okay~," I heard a bed or something creaking, making for the door again once I realized someone was still yelling.

"Stay here please, Alice, and watch the dog." I said, reaching for the knob.

"How did you know my name?" Balls, I forgot she didn't tell me.

"I'm a psychic." I stepped out before she could reply. I really hope she bought it.

I was messing up a lot all of a sudden.

Before I'd even fully opened the door the volume of the yelling had increased considerably, by the time I reached the source, it would probably hurt a bit, that door was awfully good at absorbing sound.

I tried to school my expression, still feeling heat in my cheeks. I felt my face relaxing, my natural neutral/scowl taking place as I breathed in and out.

When I got to the source, I saw Hisashi, Kohta, and Takagi. I cleared my throat, wanting to make sure my voice didn't crack or come out all raspy. Those in the room suddenly turned to me, I felt my body stiffening at the sudden attention.

"Hello. I don't suppose the two of you would mind keeping it down, would you?" That came out a bit more aggressive than I meant it to. Hopefully they didn't take it too badly.

o0o

[3rd]

Hisashi was stunned, he'd been hoping that Thomas would make it, but hadn't actually been expecting him to. Not to speak against him, he was certainly in shape and Hisashi couldn't recall a time when his friend had been below a certain level of calm even when they'd pranked him on his birthday, but he hadn't wanted to get his hopes up.

Thomas certainly looked worse for wear, his clothes were thoroughly ruffled, his face seemed troubled and he smelled like he'd rolled in month old garbage, he actually hadn't recognized at first because he was so disheveled. Still, he was alive. And that was more than he could say he knew for half of his friends and family.

He saw the moment the surprise wore off of Takagi and she geared up to tear him a new one but Kohta reacted first, rushing to greet their friend first.

"Vega! You're alright!" Kohta disregarded the smell and clasped his hand, shaking his hand and body vigorously.

"I'm glad you're alright Thomas," Hisashi said, coming up to their friend as well.

Takagi, meanwhile, stood by in confusion. "Both of you know this guy?"

"Yeah, I told him how to get here." Hisashi backed away after saying hi, directing his attention to Takagi as he answered.

"Where is everyone else?" Thomas asked, patting down his pockets as he did so, grimacing when he touched the front of his jacket. "And the restroom?"

"The girls are asleep in one of the rooms and Takashi went to one of the other rooms to check for more stuff. The bathroom's over there," Hisashi pointed to a room to the right of them.

"Thanks," he went off, presumably to get clean.

Takagi took one look at Kohta and left in a huff, deigning to not waste her time arguing.

Kohta sat down hard, roughly going over the weapons. Hisashi sighed, he hoped they could settled things tomorrow, as it was now, they were still wound up from today's events. Which was entirely understandable but frustrating all the same.

o0o

[1st]

The bath had felt like I was about to ascend to a higher plain of existince. It was that good. That was, of course, due to the rough day I'd spent running basically across the whole town. I was extremely grateful I'd made it in time though, half a minute later and we'd have been a child and dog short.

Thinking back on when I saw her, it was weird. I'd never seen a child, or any person really, with eyes that big before; like she was made for being the super cute kid that melted people's hearts, which I suppose she was. Hopefully—knock on wood—things would be smooth-ish sailing from here.

Now I was leaning on the washing machine in a new change of clothes, having already thrown in my stuff to wash, I'd already taken the plethora of things out of my pockets. All 3 gajillion of them. I'd closed my eyes to rest them for a bit, planning on waiting here until my stuff was done so I could immediately throw it into the dryer.

"Oh," I heard a faint voice come from the door. I opened my eyes and tried not to snort. In the doorway was Saeko, wearing that stupid apron thong thing. I was slightly surprised that I wasn't all that embarrassed but supposed it made some kind of sense. The difference between now and earlier with Shizuka was that Saeko was at least covered and that she looked as if she'd stepped out of some fetish wear catalog or something. That paired with the fact that I hadn't seen her in anything other than track wear the whole time I'd known her made it hard not to laugh. It was the difference between an almost stranger and a friend, I suppose.

I closed my eyes again anyways, best to be nice. "Greetings."

She didn't say anything at first, just standing there I think. "Hello, it's good to see you again." I just hummed in agreement.

"What are you doing?" I heard her coming closer, her feet padding on the floor. "You can open your eyes," that last part was said with some mirth in her voice.

"Waiting for my clothes to finish washing so I can get some sleep. Yourself?" I went through routine, treating this like any other meeting.

"I am waiting for my clothes to dry." She returned simply, letting silence settle between us. I'd never realized that the silence had been fine because we were both running, now it just felt weird. To me at least.

I felt the rumbling behind me stop, stopping me from needing to say anything. I started to pull my stuff out before seeing that Saeko's stuff wasn't done drying. Well, guess I'd have to wait a few more minutes, that was too bad, I really wanted the sweet embrace of sleep to take me.

A few more minutes passed without either of saying anything. Just waiting for her stuff to ding or whatever the machine did when it was done.

"I hope the way I am dressed isn't what is causing you to feel uncomfortable." I looked at her out of the corner of my eye, actually laughing a bit when I got what she said.

"Actually, I was trying not to laugh when I saw it,"

"Really? Why is that?" She looked me over, an eyebrow raised.

"Well, I've only ever seen you wearing a track suit, you know? So, like," I stopped, moving my jaw around a bit as I tried to remember how I thought of it earlier. "It's like, if you saw me wearing one of those doofy looking old time European frills or something you'd wanna laugh too right?"

This time it was her turn to hold back laughter. Raising her hand as she failed to do so. "Right?" I said, taking that as evidence.

"Do I really look that strange?" She looked herself over.

"No you look fine, it's the outfit," I waved off her question, the dryer buzzing as it suddenly finished. Saeko opened it and felt her clothes, or their clothes, since that many certainly didn't belong to only her, nodding when she was satisfied with the level of dryness. I nodded at her thankfully, putting my stuff in and starting the machine up. I stretched, muscles and bones popping as I did so.

"I'm off," I started heading out, anticipating laying down to sleep.

"Rest well," Saeko called back, lugging her stuff over to whichever room she was in.

"Night." I flopped onto the couch once I got there, trying not to groan from the relief I felt at resting. Hisashi told me we'd be taking off before dawn, so I was gonna enjoy this while I could.

o0o

Most of us were sitting in the Humvee, the sun still not yet up.

"That should be everything," Hisashi wiped his hands off, looking over to the rest of us.

"Now it is," Kohta stepped out, wearing a surplus of weapons and weaponstuffs. Everyone, the dog included, stared in amusement and a bit of confusion.

"Ready to go General?" I asked, trying to draw a nice reaction out.

Kohta's grin almost split his face, "Damn straight, Cadet!"

"Cadet? Why am I a Cadet, I ran through town by myself, I should at least be like a Captain or something." Everyone's attention turned to me as I said that, causing me to scrunch up again. "Was it something I said?"

"Holy shit," Takashi said, "the whole town?" Oh.

"Not the whole town, just like half of it, I didn't really fight much either." Everyone seemed to take that news better.

As the group settled into their seats, Alice came up to me. "Mister?" I raised a brow, waiting for her to continue. "Why are you glowing?" Again, everyone was looking at me.

"What?" I asked. Bewildered.

"Your eyes are glowing." I pulled out my phone and stared at the darkened screen. Indeed, there was a very faint luminescence to them.

"What?" I asked again, not any clearer on what was going on.

"The hell?"

"Huh?"

"Oh my,"

"Eh?"

Well. At least I wasn't alone in this.

Then it hit me. That super chuuni dream I had last month. Was that a prophecy or something? Was I really a psychic? Why now?

I just closed my eyes and leaned down. I hadn't really noticed since I was busy trying not to die, but it had been easier to see when it was dark.

"I don't know," I muttered from between my legs. I didn't want to look anyone face to face right now.

I think I'd just try to get more sleep. That sounded nice.

I looked up and saw the sun barely peaking over the horizon. Well, we'd made it through one day. Now all that was left was making sure we can keep doing that forever.

Easy- "Ow."

The Humvee jumped as Shizuka ran over a corpse, making everyone float out of their seats for a brief moment.

I guess that's what I got for tempting fate like that. I'll just take that nap then.

o0oo0oo0o

So, the time has come. Three and a half months later and here we are.

Originally, this is where I was planning on ending the story as I actually started this because I had just finished reading HOTD through and wondered why no one wrote a fic where the protagonist did some kind of crazy shenanigans. When I got home I sat down and started typing out the first chapter without any kind of plan. It was going to be closer to the Deleted Scene, where the protagonist (not an SI at the time) was overpowered and just tore through legions of 'em. But I thought that wouldn't be as much fun to write or read so I went with this instead.

Anyways, I'm considering this the End of Season One, so to speak. The next chapter to come out will have a new naming scheme as well since it would be a lot of Spring for awhile to come. But yeah.

Also, more importantly, I never intended to write Saeko/Thomas, going back over the chapters, I saw it looked like SI-kun was just incredibly dense (which I suppose is true) and that Saeko was mooning over him or something. Not the case, it was just intended to be a good friendship.

I'm gonna be writing a Worm one-shot so if any of you guys know some Worm resources for writing or whatever I ask that you tell me.

Finally, this chapter will push the story to 50K, which is by far, the longest story I've ever written in my life. It feels super good. So yeah, tell me your thoughts, questions, concerns, about the chapter, the story as a whole, all that stuff.