Yo guys! Hope you all have been doing well. I kinda have been, and I say this due to a bunch of writing assignments I've had to do recently. As easy as they were, doing them was time consuming and thus was a major pain in my ass. Sure hope the workload dies down over time.

Anyways, let's get onto the chapter!

Chapter 20

Takashi tried to repress a yawn as he got up. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he slowly got out of his bed and, making sure not to accidently nudge Kohta awake, made his way out of his room. "Damn, can't sleep," he muttered to himself as he began to make his way down the stairs once getting there.

Yesterday, he and the others came up with sleeping arrangement of sorts, Shizuka and Alice taking his parents' room alongside Rei, Saeko, and Saya. At first, Takashi had offered his room to the latter three girls, out of concern that his parents' room wasn't big enough for the five girls, but he was proven wrong when they moved aside some of the stuff in there to make room for themselves. This left his room to himself and Kohta, Takashi naturally taking his bed while Kohta received a nice sleeping bag that Takashi happened to have in his closet for trips. Dante and Lady had opted to sleep on the couches downstairs, Zeke choosing to stay there too. But before they all decided to catch up on much needed rest, they made sure to stick the front door back on its hinges and place some of the more unnecessary furniture like small chairs and bedside tables in front of it to keep the door from falling while also serving as a barricade of sorts. Dante and Lady also chose to take turns sleeping so that one could always watch over said barricade.

When Takashi made his way downstairs, he had thought that both would have decided at one point to call it a night and fall asleep, but they were still sticking to their decision. As he entered the living room, he saw Lady wide awake on her couch, looking straight at the barricaded door.

"Hey," she said as Takashi approached.

"Hey there yourself. Are you feeling tired?" Takashi said.

Lady shook her head. "Not at all. Dante and I are used to this sort of thing."

Takashi looked over to the devil hunter in question and saw that he was dead asleep on the couch, his light snores evident of his. "He's a lot quieter than I thought he would be," Takashi noted aloud, having thought that Dante would snore loud enough to keep them all up.

Lady tried not to laugh, but failed slightly in this as a chuckle escaped her. "He has his quiet moments from time to time."

Takashi took a seat on a chair that wasn't placed as part of the barricade. "Anything?" he asked, referring to whether or not someone or something had passed by the house.

Lady grew quiet for a brief second, slightly fiddling with the Kalina Ann, which was leaning up against her. "No. Not a single sound."

Takashi raised an eyebrow. "Nothing at all? Even at this early time?" he asked as he noted that from the little light that shone through the door that it was barely dawn.

"Nothing," Lady confirmed.

They were silent for a moment, listening to Dante's snoring briefly in the process. "I take it that that's a bad thing," Takashi said.

Lady sighed. "Could be. It could be."

"Why do you think that is?" Takashi asked.

Lady pondered that for a moment. "Can't say for certain. Maybe all of the zombies in the area are heading towards the inner city along with the demons. Either that or they're finally killing each other off enough to make a difference. Though given our luck, I wouldn't be too hopeful about the latter."

Takashi sighed and nodded. "I guess."

They stayed silent for a few more minutes, once more listening to Dante's snoring. "Where exactly are we going next?" Lady asked the young teen.

Takashi scratched his head. "Don't know really. Not that many places to go now with the demons and Them going around. Though we could always try finding some sort of seaport."

Now it was Lady's turn to raise an eyebrow. "You mean to leave Japan?"

Takashi tried to think of how to word his next thoughts, but before the words could come to mind, someone else chose that moment to butt into the conversation. "You're hoping to find your parents and others leaving too, huh?" Dante said.

His sudden words nearly made Takashi jump out of his seat. "When did you wake up?" he asked, startled.

Dante cracked his neck as he let out a yawn. "I've been awake for a few minutes now."

"You were pretending to be asleep," Lady stated, not even remotely taken by surprise.

Takashi looked at Dante. "You were faking?" Then he turned to Lady. "You knew too?"

"Work with him long enough and you get to know how he works," Lady answered as she looked at the devil hunter in question. She focused her attention back on Takashi a second later. "Anyways, I take it you're going to ask the others about this idea when they wake up?"

Takashi nodded. "Wouldn't be much of a group if we didn't decide together on things."

Dante stifled a yawn. "Yeah, yeah, democracy is the way and all," he said sarcastically. "You wouldn't happen to have anything to eat though; I'm starving."

Takashi placed a hand under his chin, assuming the "thinker" pose. "Yeah, there's plenty of food. Come to think of it, what the hell are we gonna do for breakfast? I'm not that good a cook."

Dante rolled his eyes. "You can't be so bad that you can mess up scrambled eggs. Not that I plan to eat that stuff. Nah, I'm looking forward to some pizza," Dante said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation of that.

Lady now rolled her eyes. Takashi just looked at Dante as if he just grew a second head or something. "Pizza? Are you serious?"

"Of course I am. It's pizza after all," Dante replied.

Takashi was silent for a moment before speaking again. "But I don't have any pizza."

Dante, who had looked to be in a good mood not even a second ago, now looked as if it truly was the end of the world, a look that Lady and Takashi found to be rather ironic seeing given the current state the world was in. "N-No pizza?" Dante asked, a question to which Takashi shook his head. "What about the ingredients to make strawberry sundaes?"

Takashi raised an eyebrow at that, but didn't bother asking about it. "I think I do."

At that, Dante looked a little happy. But Takashi resumed a thinking posture again. "On second thought, my mom did use up the last of the strawberries a week ago."

Dante's shoulders slumped. "Fuck!"

Takashi just looked at him, wondering what was up while Lady snickered. "What's with him?" Takashi asked.

"Ah nothing, nothing. He's just mourning the loss of his everyday meal," she answered.

"What's going on?" Takashi and Lady looked up the stairs to see Kohta coming down, said boy rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. After doing so and putting his glasses on, Kohta looked at the two of them before sparing a glance to the now slightly gloomy Dante standing away from them. "What's with him?"

As this went on, somewhere else, there were a group of people moving as quietly as possible through the streets, using anything as big as themselves as cover. "How much further?" someone, a man in his twenties asked the person in front of him, a guy around his age, give or take a few years.

"Not much further. We're almost there," the leader replied. He had been leading the small group of people towards the suburban area. The reason behind this was because they had originally been trying to find other people and get out of Japan via a boat or something, but not long after trying this, they had the very bad luck of stumbling into a fight between Them and the demons. Several members of their group had been horrifically killed and the now current leader, who wasn't leader at the time, took charge and led everyone else away from the fight as quickly as he can for he was the only one to be able to stay calm enough to direct them.

He held up a hand, signaling everyone to stop. The people crouched as low as they could behind whatever they could find, many keeping a very panicky look out for anyone or anything that may come their way.

"What is it?" someone else, a middle-aged woman, asked.

The leader didn't answer at first, focusing instead on the surrounding environment. "Thought I head something."

His words made the still nervous group grow slightly panicky. "Oh god, we're dead!" one of them cried. As soon as the words left the person's mouth, someone else quickly clamped a hand over the mouth to keep said person from speaking anymore.

"Keep quiet, you dumbass! Are you trying to get us killed?" the man who covered up the person's mouth said.

"Calm down," the leader said in as low a voice as possible while still trying to make sure everyone heard him. The group was in too much of a panic now to listen, so it took him repeating his words several times, rising slightly in volume to get the desired effect.

"Shit, just stay calm and maybe we can make it to a house still standing and get in," the leader said, grateful that the group is now quiet again, albeit greatly annoyed at how they got so scared. Granted, he knew why and couldn't blame; he was feeling very terrified himself, but he couldn't help but wonder if they would ever learn to keep relative control of themselves. If they come out of this alive anyway.

"Sorry," one of them muttered.

The leader sighed. "Forget it. Let's just keep moving. Remember to stay low and next to the walls to duck for cover. And try to keep up at a decent pace."

The group took his words to heart, making sure to stay in a crouching position at all times as they began to move down the street. If there was one piece of information that they have calmly processed, it was that demons weren't too bright, focusing on what caught their eyes and while they have made it a habit of late to ransack buildings in search of people, demons didn't bother to do things like checking underneath things.

The group moved on, making a turn at the next corner they came to. On the next street, they didn't bother with crouching for there was very little to duck under if came to that, many buildings looking like a war past through them. In a sense, this was true was bodies of Them, both normal and demonified, littered the street. This did little for the group's nerves for now they worried if the zombies were somehow smart enough to play dead for good. It wasn't as if they had a way of finding out if this was true or not either.

"Looks like the demons are winning," the leader remarked, noting the distinct lack of demon bodies, though there was plenty of blood and what he guessed were their inards splattered all across the area. He just hoped that the demons had decided to move on deeper into the city rather than sit around in the shadows in case people came circling back. Just like the group was doing now.

Several moments past by and eventually, the group got to the beginning of a suburban area. "Thank god!" one of them said. The group began to feel their fear slowly being replaced with a sense of joy that they can hopefully find a shelter that will last them for a while.

The leader smiled, glad that they were so close now. "Alright people, all we have to do now is just find a house still standing strong and get in." The people seemed pretty eager to get this little task done and they began to walk towards the nearest block of houses when they heard a primal roar.

The blood from their faces drained completely, making them look as pale as Them. One of the group spared a glance back down the street they came to see an Assault round a near corner. It looked off in the direction opposite from them very briefly before sniffing at the air. Not even a second after this action did the Assault turn in their direction. At the sight of the group, it growled momentarily.

That was when the group made a run for it. Several members of the group screamed, caution be damned in their minds for all that mattered now was just getting away from the Assault. The leader of the group yelled for them to stay together as they took off, him remaining at the forefront of the group to lead them to the nearest house.

The Assault wasn't about to let that happen. It took aim at the closest person it could see and fired off its signature seed-like projectile at the unfortunate person. The projectile flew at the intended target at a speed none of them could hope to match in any way and the person cried out in pain only for it to be gargled out as blood spew out from the mouth as the projectile punctured a cannonball sized hole in his chest.

People screamed louder as the body then dropped haplessly to the ground. The Assault then let out a deafening roar, alerting any nearby demons of the prey it had found before charging off after the group. Shooting another projectile, the Assault watched as its attack got two for the price of one as it past in between – and partially through – two people running shoulder to shoulder with one another. Their arms that were hit fell down, nothing attaching them to the sockets anymore. The people screamed out at the blinding pain they now felt, but unlike most who would drop in this kind of situation, the two kept on trying to run. This proved to be increasingly hard for them as not only did they lose one of their arms, but a small portion of their sides were gone as well, leaving much room for blood to flow out and this was quickly taking its toll on them.

Seconds later, the two had lost far too much blood too quickly to keep it up and they fell too. One tried to get back up despite the situation she was in, but she didn't get too much of a chance for this as the Assault, moving at high speeds, stomped all over her in its path to the rest of the group. The Assault ignored the blood and small pieces of flesh that it clawed feet had cut off from the now dead woman and kept on going, letting out another roar.

The group, still a ways ahead of the Assault, but knew that it this wouldn't be for long, tried to run faster, some whimpering in fear. "Don't look back!" the leader of them said. "Just keep moving!" he said in as brave and steady a voice as he can muster. He knew that they most likely would die, but he didn't want to go down so easily. He felt that if they can get to a house in time, they could find a way to stall the demon, make it lose interest, or maybe even find something to kill it or at least knock it out.

With this thought in mind, the leader tried to run even faster, leading the group down the block and turning left at the nearest corner. Leading them onto the street that would eventually meet with the street Takashi lived on.

And cut!

Well then, this chapter actually proved to be quite difficult to write. Kinda had a hard time figuring out how exactly to proceed near the end. Which is saying something too considering how short this chapter turned out to be compared to the last few.

And speaking of short, I am so sorry that this isn't longer guys. I really wanted to end this chapter on a better note or something, but my mind couldn't come up with anything for that and so I had to end things here. Granted, this chapter is a bit of a reprieve chapter as well, just like the last one, but still.

Also, I thought I should tell you guys now that before you mistake this new group of people as possible OCs, they are NOT. As much as I like OCs (sometimes), I just can't bring myself to put any in this fic (and boy do I have a few interesting – at least I think so – OCs that would be fun to write. Too bad they are for original stories I do for something else. That and they were quite overpowered for the most part). So this group are merely side characters of sorts. Very brief side characters, which you will see why next chapter.

Yeah and maybe from now on, I'll be putting in these horitzontal bars to separate this from the story itself. Makes things so much easier on you guys and myself in the long. Sorry for not doing something like this earlier.

Anyways, I do hope that you enjoyed this chapter and please be sure to review!