"There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature."
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

There was a sense of panic in the air, and no one understood why it felt like that. It wasn't until there was a noise from behind the white curtains that they understood. The – at first – quiet noise exploded soon after. The sound of struggling and threats burst into the calm room. When the curtain was pulled back. Haruhi was struggling against who she assumed was her captor, but was actually Takashi. His hands firmly gripping her wrists and pinning her to the ground as she thrashed, growling at him.

"Haruhi," Takashi finally snapped, and the noise was enough for her to pause in her frantic attempt at escaping his clutches to focus. Her eye slowly focused her breathing slowing as she assessed the situation. Her hands clenched and unclenched a few times, tugging lightly before he released her and leaned back. Still on alert and ready to grab her if, she tried anything. The others didn't see the look of suspicion on Takashi's face, as they raced straight over, pulled her into hugs, and asked if she was all right. Her fever had broken sometime in the night, but she still looked pale and her eye didn't hold the clarity it normally did. It was rather bland and lacking emotion as she returned hugs.

After getting some food in her stomach, the others were herded back into the main part of the temple before Kyouya and Takashi sat back down. They both had trained their faces to not allow any emotions to be betrayed. Haruhi's eyes flickered back and forth, as she waited for them to say exactly why their friends weren't allowed in the room. Was it because they didn't want them to get sick? If so, why were those two still there? However, she didn't say anything to them; instead, she sipped on some water that Reiko had supplied to her.

Takashi didn't break down first, but Kyouya. Of the three of them, the males were waiting until Haruhi broke down and asked them the question, any question really. However, she didn't. Mostly because she didn't know what to ask, or why. He explained to her what happened, to them, and then what happened to her. She waved him passed that part, saying she lived through it but what happened the past couple days? That was what she needed to know.

"You had an infection and were ill for a couple days," Kyouya murmured quietly, averting his eyes. Wrong move. Takashi watched, as Haruhi's face seemed to be completely zapped of any colour. Her fingers clenched the blanket that draped her legs lightly and she swallowed thickly. Her mouth opened, but no noise passed her lips. Her eyes flickered up to him, then back down to her hands. Her mouth closing, she made a non-committal noise.

"We're going into the city," Takashi decided to push past the part that Kyouya was completely avoiding, "They can't get away with pushing us from our home. Nekozawa and his group have offered their assistance. I think we'll break even with their group. After minor training on our new group's part," he explained, his eyes not leaving her face. When her mouth moved to open, he continued speaking, "You'll stay here."

If they were expecting her to sit idly while they burst into the city guns blazing, they were truly delusional. She snorted at that fact and pushed her blanket down to her feet, exposing bare legs with white scars dotting them in random places. Takashi's eyes flickered down briefly before returning to her eyes. Kyouya wasn't so quick and stared at her legs for a few moments longer than Haruhi's liking, smacking him with the pillow she had been using. "I'm going with you guys, whether you guys like it," she snorted again, "I doubt any of you guys are able to get, what? Twenty, thirty people into the city and move them around without those bastards realizing what's happening."

"We'll leave Kaoru and Tamaki here with you," Takashi stood up, "We're leaving tomorrow."

Haruhi jumped onto her feet, glaring at him. "I will not be pushed aside so easily-"

"We won't have a weak link," Takashi turned around, speaking firmly. Haruhi glared at him.

"I'm not a weak link," she hissed at him, "If anything, I'm one of the tougher fighters you have. Leaving me behind wouldn't be-"

"You're injured," Takashi spoke calmly, "Weak spots on your body can be easily hit and you could fall within the first couple minutes of battle."

Haruhi stayed silent for the longest time before she glanced towards Kyouya, and straightened her back. Her eyes flickered back to Takashi, staring at him coolly. "I'm not someone you can easily push around, Takashi. I thought you would've understood by now."

Takashi looked towards Kyouya, and stepped aside. It barely took Kyouya a few seconds before he nodded, casting a warning glance to Haruhi before slipping out of the area. The two remaining were silent. Haruhi's eye was heated with emotion and anger, all directed towards Takashi. He was wondering how to properly deal with the situation without resorting to any more low blows. Or else he could lose her as a friend, ally, and maybe even cause her to go on her own and help out in her own way.

"Haruhi," Takashi murmured, looking at her and stepping forwards. "You're staying."

"I'm not letting you guys go away and cower back like a pathetic wimp," Haruhi crossed her arms. Looking non-frightening in her white cotton dress and pale complexion. The only thing that gave her any edge was the anger in her eyes, threatening to hurt him if it was necessary. He didn't doubt that she thought she was above that, but he wasn't about to let her get what she wanted. Knowing it would be certain death anyways. He told her exactly that. The girl was silent before snorting. "Takashi, from your look earlier, I think we both know it's inevitable that I die regardless. At least let me die with dignity."

Unwittingly, panic and fear flashed in Takashi's eyes. The look made Haruhi's resolve soften a bit before flaring back again. "What are you talking about?" he questioned, locking his emotions back up tightly. Causing Haruhi to bristle quietly, her eyes darted to the curtain. "They're not listening. Kyouya's distracting them by getting them to get ready."

"I lingered too long in the city," Haruhi laughed bitterly, "Lingered in the place where the radiation still incubates quietly. I would have to be stupid to realize that I would be immune to...that awful fate. The reason my eye isn't healing, as Kyouya explained, the reason its infected still is because it won't ever get better. It's the first sign, you know it."

Takashi clenched his fists, inwardly rejecting the fact that he believed the same thing. He didn't want to lose the first girl – no, woman – who entered his life and made him comfortable around her. Especially to the cruelest imaginable way. Haruhi touched his arm, and he lost his resolve. His hand came up to the side of her face and he crushed his lips against hers. He held them there, and was about to pull away when she returned the pressure. It was a desperate kiss, and she knew it.

His fingers brushed her cheek, feeling the fabric of her eye patch, sliding his fingers to her neck and feeling the bandages. She was fragile, but the strongest person he knew. She was so small under him, her skin so soft. Their lips moved together and she hesitantly moved her hands up his arms and rested on his shoulders. After a moment, he pulled away and stepped back. "Sorry," he whispered, averting his gaze.

"Is that the reason why you won't let me go?" Haruhi asked quietly, her gaze intense on the side of his face. Takashi didn't respond, and she sighed quietly. "Takashi, I can't return your feelings. It wouldn't be fair of me in this situation, and besides if I'm going to die, I'd rather not feel guilty about leaving someone who I love to that extent behind in this world."

Takashi glanced up at her, but her gaze looked aside. "So, you're set on dying?"

"Successfully transitioning the conversation," Haruhi shot a grin that didn't quite reach her eyes before nodding her head.

He rubbed his mouth and stared at her intently for a few moments. "If you come with us, you're under my orders."

She raised her hand and saluted him.

-X

Of course, that didn't sit well with the others at all. They all growled and scraped for some excuse that Haruhi couldn't go, she was still sick, should be rest, too weak. The last one got them all a look from the newly dressed Haruhi. Her previous clothes were too dirty and un-repairable for her to wear again. Instead, they had fitted her in a pair of black jeans that were possibly skinny jeans at one point but were big enough to look like loose pants on her. A black tee shirt was under her black hoodie. The others donned in similar outfits, all black clothes, a common theme around here, due to their leader being Nekozawa – the man that was born with a hatred and vulnerability to light.

She attached her guns to her legs and accepted a dagger from Reiko, a little wary when the girl said the blade had a curse. It was the morning that they were heading towards the city. More than half of Nekozawa's group had volunteered to take up this challenge. It was about twenty people from his group, matched up with the ten that joined. Thirty people in total.

Of course, they couldn't all enter the city together or the alarms would go up. They separated into groups, ten groups of three. Haruhi was forced to stay with Takashi and Kaoru. Hikaru, Mitsukuni and Satoshi were another group. Ritsu, Kyouya and Yasuchika would be another. Tamaki complained immediately when he realized he wouldn't be with anyone he knew, until Kyouya told him that he would be staying. Which he started complaining about, saying he wanted to help.

Tamaki was the least experienced fighter of the group, and was the least likely to take a life if the opportunity was there. Giving the person the benefit of the doubt and this 'war' they were making meant that there would be no room for sparing someone. It took far too long to convince Tamaki to stay there, saying that he was to protect the people there if the other group figured out what was going on and sent a few people to the shrine to kill off their people.

Then they set off. Haruhi, Takashi and Kaoru would take seven hours to get to the position where they entered the city. Everyone agreed to avoid heading directly into the city, just in case anyone was caught entering. It would give the people within the city an area for them to head out, and if they could avoid sending people in the right direction, it was better.

They were silent as they walked, Haruhi sandwiched between Takashi and Kaoru. Both keeping an eye on her, afraid she would collapse, but an odd vigour had filled her and she seemed to have energy to spare. Takashi stopped Kaoru from commenting on it with a look as they continued on. With each stride, Haruhi's energy didn't deplete. Takashi idly wondered if adrenaline was rushing through her, voiding any and all pain and fatigue. They would have to rest, the group was meeting up at Ouran in the Host Club to scope out the situation. It wasn't a straight to attack situation, they wanted to get a view of what they were up against.

There were many rules that had been recited to everyone before they left. They were not to speak more than necessary in the city, they were to find a spot to hunker down if night fell and they weren't close to Ouran. If night fell and they were outside of the city they were to wait at least thirty minutes outside the city until light came back up. With the Creatures roaming the city, it was dangerous enough, enter crazed mutated dogs to the risk factor and no one wanted to tempt it.

Pressure was on everyone's shoulders to get to the school quietly and safely. No one was to attract attention to themselves. It wasn't like the other group would actively kill three people who were seemingly making to raid a shop for some supplies, but they would if they attracted too much attention to themselves. It was a dog-eat-dog world at the moment, and as much as Haruhi and the others wanted to deny that they had fallen for it, they couldn't. They were playing right into the hands of that scenario. One group would emerge successful or neither would. There was no positive outcome for all of the people involved.

Night had begun to fall as they moved through the forest, and they knew they would have to meet up during the next day and hunker outside of the city. Takashi guessimated how far outside the city they were and made them move a couple of metres away before deeming it safe to set up camp for the night. Which consisted of a low fire that gave off just enough heat to keep them warm, thin blankets, and eating canned food silently before sleeping for a couples hours.

Haruhi spoke quietly to Kaoru about fighting, wondering how good he was with his weapons. A single gun, a semi-automatic machine gun. He laughed, admitting that he was a decent shot, but it was good that his gun spurted out bullets because that gave at least one bullet to hit the target. That was often how many bullets it took to take down a single person. It wasn't like in the movies where the people took a bunch of bullets before finally falling down. Yes, it may have given suspense of a chase, but all in all, it was not real.

Haruhi made sure that Kaoru also had blade of some sort, and he pulled out a switchblade. She gave him a smile, assured that he could defend himself successfully if someone got too close to him. However, Haruhi doubted that Takashi had taken Kaoru with him without a reason. He had taken Kaoru because he was able to kill someone, but if the fighter was more experienced and went after Kaoru, Takashi or Haruhi could step in and take them down before they seriously harmed Kaoru.

Far off in the distance, a gunshot rang quietly. Haruhi froze, but it was too far away for them to figure out why there was a gunshot. Too far away, that if someone was in trouble they couldn't step in and help them. They had to grit their teeth and press on, praying that the person who pulled the trigger was on their team and had taken down whatever opposed them.

A few minutes later, they dropped into a crouch as they approached the edge of the city. A line of houses that backed out into the forest provided enough cover for them to sneak over a fence and into a house. It was abandoned, like the many other houses. Many people would think that a house would be the perfect place to stay in, but not really. Too many windows. It allowed people and things to be able to see movement and go to investigate.

That was why they only stayed for a few moments to check the area out through the windows before sneaking out and heading deeper into the city. Ouran was about a two-hour walk from where they stood. Kaoru fell back, and it took the other two a moment to turn back to see why he fell back. His eyes were staring at the lawns of some houses and then flickered to the two.

On the lawns were dead bodies, well if you could call them. Nothing more than bones and clothes of decomposed bodies. Haruhi glanced at them before back to Kaoru. "I'm use to it," she muttered, averting her eyes before turning and continuing. Takashi waved for Kaoru to hurry up, not commenting on it. The ginger gave Takashi a look, a confused look filled with horror. His eyes snapped to Haruhi.

Six years they hadn't seen her. It had been six years since he entered the city. He didn't ever consider the fact that there were bodies of people, and no one ever mentioned it so it slipped from his mind. He realized that she had probably walked about the city, seeing the decomposing bodies. What had she done at first? Did she empty her stomach and flee? Did she have a panic attack until snapping out of it and getting out of there as fast as she could? It couldn't have been easy to see bodies of people slowly decomposing until nothing but their skeletal, covered in ratty cloth, remained.

He stuck close to them at that point. Not wanting to be added amongst the pile of skeletons that littered the streets and lawns of homes. He knew that there was a graveyard that was a while away that had bodies that were burned or buried. However, only so many bodies could be moved until people started to think what's the point? and left the bodies to decompose naturally and got the hell out of dodge. Or became Creatures that wandered the streets.

As they got closer to Ouran, they stumbled over less and less bodies, but the more they stumbled across the bodies the fresher they were. The first time Kaoru saw a bird pecking at the face of a dead body, he expelled the contents of his stomach into an alley. Haruhi comforted him, and told him to just focus on the ground as they walked. He did just that. Seeing the bird eating was just too discomforting for him to do anything else.

They reached Ouran and snuck in. Heading through the winding halls that were so familiar, that Kaoru relaxed. His bunched shoulders aching as he realized that this was a safe place. He wouldn't become another body on the street, and that they were close to others. Others who wouldn't turn on them and slit their throats.

However, Haruhi was anxious. Why hadn't they seen any Creatures? Even a glimpse of one was something of a regular thing. To not see any, well it may have been a bad omen. Or a good one. It was too early to see. However, once they got to the Third Music Room, where everyone was gathered. Some groups were short one or two people, taken out. Some sported minor injuries, but no one was bleeding excessively.

Kyouya explained that one of their three-person teams entered the city and crossed a group of four, and only one person managed to get away. Haruhi nodded, listening, showing no emotion. Inside she was angry, the guy should've stayed and defended his group and tried to kill at least one of the fuckers who killed his group. Instead, she pretended that he did the right thing and then assessed her friends to make sure they weren't seriously injured.

"Does this mean they know we're in the city?" Takashi asked Nekozawa as the two came to join them.

"They were a part of our group, which is weird that they were attacked," Nekozawa mused, a dark tone in his voice. "Onto more pressing matters, who will we send out to gather information?"

Haruhi waved to Satoshi, Ritsu and Yasuchika, "We know the city like the back of our hands by this point," she explained, "We'll go and report back."

"We should stick to the same grouping," Kyouya explained, "You, Takashi and Kaoru will go east. Ritsu, Yasuchika and myself will go west. Hikaru, Satoshi and Mitsukuni will go towards the bay. Scope out areas where you guys think they'll be, but this way it's three groups with back up."

Haruhi opened her mouth to counter, but Takashi nodded his head, "We'll get more covered this way. Everyone must report back by tonight however. Regardless if we've covered everything we want to."

Haruhi reluctantly agreed, and the others followed suit.

They were back on the street before Haruhi could fully rest her feet. She mapped out the city in her mind, the East side. Where could they be hiding a big group? The area where she had been taken the first time and the second time were completely different. That much she knew. Before she plotted anything, they stopped by a tourist stop and stole a map. They broke into a store and headed to the upper level where they could open the map and have enough light without risking someone seeing and investigating.

She took a pen and with the help from Takashi marked where the second building she was taken to was, then marked the first one. They were all in the Southern section of the city; one more to the west and the other more to the east. Haruhi marked the places she was kidnapped and then figured out the routes. Depending on her location, she guessed she was taken to a closer place.

"Since you escaped both times, they wouldn't stick to the same spot," Kaoru murmured, tapping his fingers on the desk, "However they stick to the southern end. Maybe they're holed up by the docks?"

"Too obvious," Takashi grunted, from his spot guarding the door, standing to the side in case someone busted in.

"That is also the reason they would be there. Someone wanders by, they threaten them saying that it was obvious a group would be holed up there. They aren't exactly 'keep it secret, keep it safe' kind of guys," Haruhi muttered quietly, tapping the map. She earned a look from both of her companions, and she threw them a grin. "Being serious, we should probably head towards the docks, though we should also check out the area where they had kept me to check for clues."

Kaoru leaned back, placing his hands on the back of his head. "Do you think we'll have enough time to get back?'

Haruhi trailed her finger down the map, mentally calculating the time, "It might dip into a few minutes of night time, but if we're careful we can avoid any dogs and get back...if anyone says anything then I'll take the blame, saying that I took too much time thinking up areas for this section..."

Her companions made non-committal noises. No doubt, she would try, but they would explain what really happened. No point in lying. They had a pretty good lead, and they could easily get out of the situation by explaining exactly what was going on. In addition, they were supposed to be back that night, not before the sun went down.

Kaoru folded the map up and shoved it into her pocket, knocking the pen to the floor. Haruhi rolled her eyes, shooting a smile to her friend and bent down to pick it up when the window beside them smashed and Kaoru fell to the floor.


A/N: What happened to Kaoru? Who knows? I'm sure he's fine though.