Alrighty, I'm feeling pretty rested now despite the slight workload/studying I have to do for my classes. Which is really saying something. Man, I love this semester, so easy so far. I just hope to get through my GE classes without much trouble and get into what I really want to do: my damn major classes!

Moving on, as I'm sure you can see I decided to go straight through with this chapter rather than attempt a one-shot idea I had in mind. Perhaps next time I'll give the idea a whirl. That and I really gotta remember to post some ideas in the challenge forums or something…..

Anyways, on to the chapter!

Chapter 19

The group had been on the move for just a while now. After having settled down after laughing at the expense of Rei and Saeko, they had gotten serious once more and were now trying to get to a relatively zombie free zone. This was something that they were having rather bad luck in, having encountered small groups of Them so far that the group had easily disposed of.

But while the undead were only being seen in small clusters so far, it disturbed the group a bit at how quiet it seemed to be so far. Other than the zombies they've put six feet under so far, there were no signs whatsoever of demons or humans, which really didn't sit well with any of them for different reasons. Dante and Lady were worried that the demons had something big planned despite their aggressive and not too intelligent attacks. Takashi, Kohta, Rei, Saeko, Saya, and Shizuka on the other hand were much more concerned with how many people were still alive. The eerie silence so far in the area wasn't exactly putting them at ease. And lastly, Alice, with Zeke running right alongside her, was simply worried about what may happen next.

"Sure hope nothing real bad is going to happen. I'd like some time to rest after the whole mall fiasco just now," Kohta said, getting grunts of agreement from the rest of the group. While they had gotten to meet some nice people like Asami and Hiro during their short time at the mall, the resulting headaches from the mall survivors and the ensuing fights with demons and zombies alike was rather draining. Even Dante didn't want to have to through that sort of hassle anytime soon.

"Well, as soon as we find some place to hole up in for a while, we should hopefully be able to relax a bit," Takashi said as he slowed his jogging pace, surveying the neighborhood for any home that looked like it hadn't been hit by zombies or demons yet. So far, he was having no luck, blood spattered all across some of the houses while those that didn't look or smell of death certainly made up for it by looking like something out of a war movie, what with busted walls and broken windows and all.

"Which might take quite a while to find," Kohta mumbled upon seeing the state of the area.

Dante rubbed his chin. "Well, it's not as bad as my place," he muttered, but everyone heard him.

"What?" Saya asked, not believing what she just heard. His place was in a worse state than the houses here?

Dante sighed, having hope they didn't hear, but as he knew his luck was bad. "My place is sometimes attacked by demons," he said simply.

That seemed to satisfy the surprised curiosity of the group. However, Lady chose to throw in her two cents. "With some help from yourself of course." She snickered. "Like when you told me of how you broke your own jukebox when it wouldn't play during one attack. And then the time you sliced your pool table in half to use against the invading demons. And let's not forget all the times you've kicked down your own doors."

Lady tried to suppress a laugh at Dante's angry face and the group's shocked ones. But she wasn't done just yet with the slight teasing of her fellow devil hunter. "Oh wait, I remember now. You did all of that in one day."

The group, still moving, spared a glance at Dante, wonder why the hell he would wreck his own home. Dante shot them a glare of sorts that made them focus on the houses they were passing by once more. "Scary glare he's got," Kohta muttered, but Dante heard him and was going to retort, but decided to focus on Lady instead, who was running alongside him.

"In my defense, my crib would have been wrecked anyway from their attacks. And besides, I always fight with the tools at hand," he said, saying that last part in a lighter mood of sorts at the fond memories of his late teens. Granted that particular day was ruined with all the crap that that Lady's crazy dad threw his way, but the fights he had along the way made up for it a bit. And he did get to settle things up a bit with Vergil that time too, finally beating him, despite how things turned out in the end.

"Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night," Lady responded in good humor.

Dante grumbled something that she couldn't hear and they both fell silent. The rest of the group was quiet as well as they traversed through the empty streets of the neighborhood. That is, until some began to feel tired.

"Takashi-onii-chan?" Alice spoke up, sweat rolling down a little on her head. Takashi turned his head to look at her. Once she saw this, she spoke up again. "Can we stop for a bit? I'm getting tired," she said.

"I'm feeling a little tired too," Shizuka said, panting slightly now.

Takashi craned his head over his shoulder as much as he could to see how everyone else was holding up. Dante and Lady still looked to be in top condition. Rei and Saeko on the other hand looked to be tiring out pretty quickly right now and Takashi couldn't blame for all the fighting they had to do at the mall. Kohta seemed a bit better than Rei and Saeko in the stamina department right now thanks to him having been rooted to one spot on the mall roof and thus conserving stamina, but all the running around they were doing was beginning to take its toll on him a bit. Takashi looked back at Alice and noticed that she really did look tired and so did Zeke, who was still keeping pace with her. Shizuka, right behind Alice, seemed to be doing better than the others save for the devil hunters since she has done no fighting so far. Saya, who was near Shizuka, was doing about the same as the busty nurse as far as stamina went too.

Takashi, however, felt perfectly fine still aside from Dante and Lady. But he knew that he had to watch out for the health of his group too. "Alright," he said to Alice with a small smile, "let's take a break for a bit."

The young girl gave Takashi a bit of a grateful smile that he returned. Everyone let out a sigh of relief a bit at the prospect of rest; moving around so much after a fiasco like the mall was very tiring.

They all then moved up against a nearby wall for now, Kohta and Saeko briefly glancing around to make sure there were no zombies or demons around. Dante and Lady noticed this, chalking it up to possibly still be on a slight surge of adrenaline; it does take a while for it to wear off.

"Ah man, my legs are kind of killing me," Rei whined as she sat down, careful in doing so as her skirt was still ripped. She had stayed near the back of the group the whole time as to avoid having them look at her butt and right now she really didn't want it to tear off another piece of it by sliding down the wall or something as no one had anything else for her to put on. Saeko was in a similar position with her shirt for she had not bothered to cover up the torn part of it while running for no one could see, but now that she wasn't on the move, Saeko opted for keeping her arms crossed under her breasts.

"All clear," Kohta said to no one in particular. After that, he let out a sigh before leaning up against the wall. As he did so, Alice along with Shizuka sat down next to him. Zeke walked on over to Alice and jumped into her lap, prompting the girl to scratch behind his ear out of affection before she looked up at Kohta.

"Kohta-chan, are you alright?" she asked, noting his downtrodden expression.

Kohta looked down at Alice and flashed her a tired smile. "I'm fine. Just feeling a bit out of it is all."

Alice gave him a studying look, trying to see if he was lying to her or something, but she gave up after a minute or two. "Okay," she said before looking away.

Takashi saw the interaction going on between the two and decided to get a bit involved too. "You sure? you don't look too good."

Kohta turned his gaze onto Takashi. "Yeah." His response was short and simple, but Takashi wasn't buying it.

Dante and Lady seemed to be in the same boat as him too for Dante called Kohta out on what he believed was the problem. "You miss that police chick, don't you?" he said bluntly.

Kohta twitched at Dante's words and looked about ready to retort, but then gave up on that idea. A few seconds past before Kohta spoke. "Yeah. I kinda do."

Lady took a step forward from where she and Dante were standing. "You two sure grew close," she commented, "you haven't known each other that long, but you really do miss her. And I'm sure she misses you too."

Kohta looked over to the female devil hunter. "Really? You think she does miss me?" he asks.

Lady flashed him a small smile. "Pretty sure she does."

Kohta didn't seem to react at first, but after what seemed like a long time, he smiled. Takashi smiled too, glad to see that he was more or less back to his former self now. "Lady does have a point: the two of them really did get close," he thought.

"Shame she had to leave with a simple goodbye though," Dante started in with a smirk, "I bet you wanted her to give you a kiss before leaving. Or you at least wanted to be the one to do it and knock her off her own feet." Dante snickered at the blushing face at Kohta. Lady shook her head at this and Takashi and the others were trying not to laugh at what was going on. Dante sure knew how to get under people's skin with simple and relatively short statements.

Takashi managed to keep his cool long enough to also note that at first Kohta didn't seem to like the devil hunters that much, but now it looked like his dislike of the two was gone if the very small smile on his annoyed face was anything to go by. "Looks like we're all getting along just fine," Takashi muttered to himself as he leaned up against a wall.

He watched as everyone else in the group began to chat a bit, talking about things that he wasn't paying attention too. As Takashi slightly listened in on some bits of the conversation going around, he looked off into the distance in an attempt to see if there were any houses on this block that were relatively untouched by both zombies and demons.

He was unsuccessful in this self-assigned task, but he saw something that he believed more than made up for it. Off at the corner of the street they were currently on, there was a street sign that was still standing. And Takashi recognized the name of the street as one being very close to his house. "Holy shit!" he nearly yelled, but he was able to restrain himself to enough so that it came out as a somewhat harsh whisper.

Nonetheless, it caught the attention of everyone else. "What's wrong?" Dante asked as he slightly tensed up for a fight. Lady, Kohta, Rei, and Saeko did the same while Alice and Zeke were held onto tightly by Shizuka.

"I know where the fuck we're at! We're near my house!" Takashi told them without looking away from the corner. Now that he knew what street this was, he was able to recognize the area a bit. The reason he didn't recognize it earlier was because this was never a direction that he went in. That and the blood and damaged houses really changed things.

Takashi gulped. They had really traveled that far? They got all the way from the mall to near his house? He couldn't believe that they all had been on the move for that long. "No wonder they were tired," Takashi thought.

While he was occupied with these thoughts, Rei took several steps forward from where she was, not seeming to care now if the group saw the back of her torn skirt anymore. "You're right!" she said after a moment of silence as she too began to recognize things that she would have recognized immediately if not for the sad state of the neighborhood.

Rei began to feel a bit excited; there was a chance that she and Takashi could find their parents right now. She turned to Takashi to see if he was feeling the same as she, but upon sparing said teen a glance, it was obvious that this was not the case.

Takashi looked slightly afraid, dreading something. It was clear to everyone that he was being presented with a chance to see if his parents were alright, assuming they were even home still, something that was very doubtful. But rather than be elated at this opportunity, Takashi was scared of what may very well be a bloodbath at his house. The state of the area wasn't exactly helping making this feeling go away.

"Hey Takashi," Dante called out.

Takashi snapped out of his thoughts. "Yeah," he answered in a somewhat shaky voice.

Dante gazed at him for several seconds before speaking again. "You want to go by your place?"

Takashi, although he expected the question, couldn't help but feel taken aback by it a bit. He was glad that he could return home to see what became of it, but that was also why he was so damned scared right now: finding out what may have come to happen to his parents. Right now, he was having an internal struggle of sorts going on. One part of him said to just leave his home be and move on, out of fear of what to see. But there was another part of him that told him to just suck it up and face whatever may happen because to do so otherwise would be an affront to his parents.

A few moments of silence later, Takashi had his answer. "Yeah. Let's swing by real quick."

No one in the group said anything, merely nodding in response. They followed Takashi as he then began to lead the way to his home. Takashi was silent the whole time as he led them around the corner and straight down the street, feeling a lump in his throat form as he noticed that the houses seemed to be bloodier and more damaged than the ones they had past by moments earlier.

Takashi fought down the feeling of dread slowly appeared as several moments later the group finally reached his house. It was a rather plain looking place, what with Takashi and his family being middle class. The house was two stories tall like most of the other houses on the block and just like those other homes, it was damaged rather badly, some pieces of the walls completely gone. The rest of the house had some spider web cracks running along the sides. The group couldn't see if the roof had taken any damage, but from what could be seen, it seems the roof was just fine as was the lawn.

Takashi let out a breath he didn't know he was holding upon the sight of his damaged, but blood free home and silently hoped that the same could be said for the inside. He started up the short path to the front door, Dante and Rei picking up their walking pace a bit to be relatively close to the teen.

Takashi reached out for the door knob, but as soon as he took hold of it and turned, he nearly yelped when the door nearly fell right off the hinges. Thankfully, he was still able to retain his hold on the door knob despite the suddenness of the breaking off and so Takashi was able to avoid making too much noise.

Gripping the sides of the door now, Takashi walked inside his house and placed the door up against the side of the wall. "Close call right there," Lady said to herself as she and everyone began to walk in single file after Takashi moved aside for them.

"No kidding," Kohta said as he entered and took a closer look at the door. He noted how the hinges looked very weak. He was amazed that it hadn't fallen off on its own much earlier. "It's definitely been put under a lot of stress before."

Takashi rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Yeah, the door's been in that state for months now. My parents kept talking about getting it fixed or replaced, but just never got around to it."

"Well, they could have at least made the doorway a bit taller," Dante complained as he had to duck his head slightly to get into the house.

The group snickered a bit. "I'll keep that in mind," Takashi said to the devil hunter before gaining a serious and slightly nervous expression as he then turned around to survey the room. Right now, they were in the living room and it didn't look very banged up at all. In fact, the group noted that it was rather untouched by anything if the very light layer of dust on a nearby table was anything to judge by.

"Wah, Komuro-kun, your house is really clean," Shizuka said at how the room was perfectly fine, at least in comparison to what was being expected by everyone.

"Thanks," Takashi replied with a smile, the burden that he had felt being lifted considerably at the sight of his house so far. He took it as a good sign and so began to hope for the best right now.

"Well, just because the living room is fine doesn't mean that the rest of this house is. And there's still a chance that one of Them could have come in through the back door," Saya said, killing the good mood that Takashi had been settling into.

"Right." Takashi started walking forward, heading for the stairs so that he could check out the state of his room and his parents' room. "We should split up real quick and search the rest of my house. Don't want any nasty surprises, right?"

"Uh, Takashi onii-chan, should we take off our shoes first?" Alice asked.

Takashi turned around slight to look at her. "Nah. No point in doing that if we may have to leave in a bit," he answered. And with that he walked up the stairs.

"Well, you heard him. Let's go look this place over," Kohta said as he hefted his machine gun off his shoulder. He gripped it a bit tightly as he held it in preparation to fire should he encounter anything inhuman or without a pulse.

"I'll go with you," Lady said, hefting the Kalina Ann a bit as its weight had shifted earlier when she came in.

Kohta nodded and the two walked off to the kitchen and the rooms around it. Dante, Shizuka, Alice and Zeke, Rei, and Saeko were now left in the living room.

"Should we help too?" Shizuka asked as she looked to the others there.

"Not really," Rei answered, "Takashi's house isn't that big so it shouldn't take them long to look it over."

"Well, I know I'm looking over something," Dante suddenly cut in with a lecherous grin. At the girl's questioning looks, he pointed to Rei's butt and she immediately turned around so that he couldn't see any more, getting a chuckle out of Dante. She had forgotten about her torn skirt and now she was paying the price for forgetting that now.

"You perv," she muttered angrily.

Dante held up his hands. "Hey, chill there. You don't have to worry about me trying anything. I was just messing with you. After all, why would I hit on jailbait?"

Rei twitched, but didn't say anything. "I'm going to go and see if I can borrow something from Takashi to wear," she said and made her way over to the stairs, her hands covering her rear as she went.

"I should join her too. I need a new shirt," Saeko commented, slightly surprising the others as she had been silent for quite a while now. But they didn't get a chance to comment on that as Saeko went after Rei up the stairs.

Dante, Shizuka, Alice and Zeke were silent, listening to the light thuds of Rei's and Saeko's footsteps on the stairs. It wasn't until the footsteps completely faded that they talked again.

"Well, they sure looked tense," Dante said, "probably because they're worried for Takashi's parents too."

"Can't say I blame them, Dante-san. They do like Komuro-kun a lot," Shizuka said with a smile.

Alice nodded at what Shizuka said. "Yeah, the onee-chans really do like Takashi onii-chan a lot!" she nearly exclaimed, getting an agreement bark from Zeke.

Dante laughed lightly at the young girl and did something rather uncharacteristic of himself: he patted her on the head. "Yeah, you're right kiddo. And teasing them about this kind of thing is going to be very fun."

At that moment, Kohta and Lady came back from scouting the other rooms. The instant Dante had heard them walk back into the living room, he immediately retracted his hand from Alice's head. However, while he did this fast enough for Kohta not to notice, Lady was able to see it.

"Ah shit," he thought as a smirk slowly crept onto Lady's face. "Well, the rest of the house is clear. Not only that, but it's also untouched for the most part. I guess Takashi's parents got out of here the second things started going bad outside and so the demons and Them never had a reason to search inside."

"So then the damage done to the outside of the house is the only damage?" Dante asked, hoping that Lady wouldn't comment on his unusually soft moment just now.

"Yeah, looks like it," Lady answered. She didn't say anything else for a few seconds after that and Dante thought that maybe she wouldn't say anything, but he had no such luck. "I don't think I've ever seen you looking that nice, Dante. I knew you missed Patty a lot, but I didn't know that you would resort to finding another kid to hair ruffle in her place."

Dante twitched. "Hey, that's not true."

Lady snickered. "Sure. Whatever you say." She always found it fun to poke fun at Dante. It just never got old.

While that was going on, Takashi had just finished searching his room and the other rooms upstairs. There was really nothing of any value to the group that he could find. Granted, he found that his room was fine save for the missing portion of the wall that he had seen from the outside. Other than that everything appeared intact, which had rather relieved him.

But now he was standing in his parents' room. Just like with his room, it wasn't damaged save for the spider web cracks from outside that had been deep enough to be also appear inside the room. Takashi ignored the cracks though and moved forward to the nightstand next to the bed. He frowned when he noticed that the picture frame they usually had wasn't there. "Must have took it with them," Takashi reasoned as he remembered that the picture in question was one taken after Takashi was born, him being held in the arms of his mother while his father stood right next to her.

"Takashi?" Takashi turned around and saw Rei and Saeko at the door to the room. Rei wore some old jeans of his in placement of her torn skirt while Saeko had on a long sleeve black shirt to replace her equally ruined school blouse.

"You alright, Komuro-kun?" Saeko asked.

Takashi looked the room over again. "Yeah, I'm good." He turned around and headed past the girls and started to make his way down the stairs. Rei and Saeko followed after him a few seconds later.

Once back downstairs, they saw the rest of the group getting rather comfortable on the couches in the living room. "You have really soft couches, Takashi nii-chan!" Alice said. Zeke barked in agreement as he lied next to Alice on the couch, wagging his tail in contentment.

He chuckled at her words. "Thanks for the compliment." Takashi then faced the others. "So I take it we're going to be staying here for the night?" he asked.

The others looked surprised. "Are you sure? I mean, we would understand if you don't want to be here," Saeko said as she moved from behind him to a standing spot by one of the couches.

"No, it's fine. Judging from the lack of stuff I found in my parents' room, they must have gotten out of here some time ago. Looked like they didn't leave until recently too if the look and feel of the room is anything to go by."

"So we probably just missed them," Kohta said.

"Seems that way. Knowing my parents the way I do, my dad would refuse to leave unless things really looked like shit was going to hit the fan hard. Until then, he'd stay and defend himself, mom, and this house with everything he's got. And my mom is pretty much the same as him when it comes to that. That and she was probably waiting for me to come home the whole time," Takashi explained, saying that last part with a small amount of nostalgia as he remembered how his mom would always be looking out for him as a kid to keep him from doing anything too dangerous.

The group was silent for a bit before Lady spoke up. "I see. Well, if that's fine with you then we should rest up for the night and get a move on again in the morning," she said.

Takashi nodded. "Right."

"And just where exactly are we all going to sleep?" Saya asked, speaking up for the first time in a while.

Takashi was stumped at that. "Uhhhhh…"

Meanwhile, the undead Shidou and his fellow Blitz-like zombies were walking slowly down the street that the mall was on. The reason behind their very slow progress from where they once were was due to them being distracted by noise being created by other zombies. They had attacked Them without mercy, splattering their degenerate bodies all across the ground. One of the Blitz-like zombies had nearly slipped on all of the blood and guts spilled by Them.

They stumbled along the road, no noise as of now to distract them from marching on save for their own groans. Shidou was still the one at the front of the group, his steps heavy due to the extra weight that his new Blitz appendages added.

As expected of them, they completely ignored everything else around them as they went on. Until they finally reached a corner and heard the all too familiar sound of Assaults growling close by. The Blitz-like zombies rounded the corner and almost literally came face to face with four Assaults that had come from the other street.

Upon seeing the demonified zombies, the Assaults let out their signature ear popping roar as they began to tense up for a bloody battle. At the sound of their roars, the demonified zombies immediately began to move differently, some of them taking on a crouching stance that a Blitz would sometimes take. The rest spread their arms apart and their groans gave way to deep growls that only a Blitz would be capable. Unlike their normal undead brethren who were always in a sluggish state even when attacking others, these demonified zombies were quick to move from stumbling to battle ready and were as tense as the Assaults.

Shidou took a few steps forward. The other Blitz-like zombies stayed put and so did the Assaults, though they did raise their shield arms in anticipation of incoming attacks. An Assault let out another roar and with that Shidou threw himself at it, the other demonified zombies following his lead. Though Shidou and the demonified zombies didn't know it, they had just gotten very involved in the recent beginning of a war between zombies and demons.

And that's a rap!

Phew, this took me a bit more effort than I thought! Probably because I was having trouble wondering how to play out the whole house thing.

Anyways, as you can clearly tell, no action this time around. I decided that I had put the group through enough action for now and so this chapter is basically just a filler of sorts, a reprieve to let them rest and to also slightly build up to what happens next. Now I have transitioned away from the mall completely, I'll be moving onto the next and final 'arc' of this fic, which would be the escalating violence going on between the undead and the increasing number of demons. Oh boy, I'm gonna have fun writing this out…

Thank you again everyone for reading and please be sure to drop a review!