Author Notes: As before, I have no claim to either Fallout: New Vegas, or High School of the Dead. As before, a big thanks to Drgyen for his beta work!
Name: Saeko Busujima
Level/Karma: "Defender"
Strength: 9 (Intense Training)
Perception: 6
Endurance: 5
Charisma: 8
Intelligence: 6
Agility: 4
Luck: 5
Traits: Built to Destroy, Kamikaze
Perks: Intense Training, Educated
Skills:
Barter: 25
Energy Weapons: 15
Explosives: 15
Guns: 11
Lockpick: 15
Medicine: 15
Melee Weapons: 59 (tag)
Repair: 15
Science: 15
Sneak: 26 (tag)
Speech: 50 (tag)
Survival: 13
Unarmed: 20
As Kohta and the strangely dressed woman glared at one another like dogs vying for dominance, Saeko took a quick look at her surroundings. The entire building seemed grey, from walls to floor to ceiling. Unknowable stains trickled down the filthy concrete, and shattered signs hung crookedly from rusting hooks. Even the air itself was grey, choked full of dust and gun smoke. Beams of sunlight gleamed through cracks in windows, turning thin sections of the swirling filth golden. The only other breaks in the universal coat of grey were the vibrant colors the survivor group had brought with them, from their hair to the smear of crimson where Rei had been savaged by the horde.
Tearing her eyes away from the sprawled corpses of THEM, the last daughter of the Busujima dojo turned back toward her comrades. Kohta and the woman who, like everything else here, seemed grey in the half-light, had begun to talk in English. Saeko was near fluent, but her grasp of the English language was shamefully outmatched by the fluency Kohta was displaying. As she watched, the two began to exchange names, searching for common ground. Looking past Kohta, Saeko watched as Takeshi and Shizuka crouched over Rei, whose whimpers of pain echoed in the two-story room. Shamefully, Saeko could feel a growing slickness in her undergarments as she listened to the injured girl's suffering. Sighing at her own failings, Saeko turned away from Takeshi and Rei; while she wanted to comfort the one man who had accepted her for who she was, she knew he wouldn't appreciate the intrusion. Instead, Saeko took the opportunity to examine the fallen bodies of their assailants.
As she knelt another half-scream tore its way out of Rei's bloody mouth, sending a shiver of pleasure through her thighs which Saeko concealed by pretending to stumble on her way down. Kneeling beside a fallen THEM, Saeko noticed several differences between this most recent batch of attackers and the reanimates her comrades had contended with since the last day at Fujimi Academy: While THEY had all had grey skin and sightless eyes, these most recent contenders had flaking brown skin, and discolored but still usable eyes. Casting her mind back to the battle, Saeko realized that the creatures had reacted to visual stimuli, like the movement of Kohta's weapon, proving that they had the capacity of sight as well as hearing. Further, THEY had always attacked by biting and grappling; these had almost exclusively clawed, but at least two had tried to punch her.
The sword mistress reluctantly came to the conclusion that these were not THEM, not the creatures that had hounded them across the ruins of Tokonosu City; they were something different, and alien to their experiences.
Looking back towards her comrades, Saeko felt her eyes widen in surprise as the stranger knelt by Rei's side, next to Takagi, and injected something into the supine girl's arm. Kohta peered over the leather-clad woman's shoulder, watching with interest as the woman's injection instantly began to improve Rei's condition. Saeko stood, and silently walked back over to Takeshi's side.
"Be strong, Takeshi-kun. See, her pain has already begun to leave, and her skin is beginning to regain its rosy glow." She put a hand on the kneeling boy's shoulder, and squeezed, trying to convey her concern and support through the contact.
The leader of the group looked back up. "Yeah, her pain's leaving, and her wounds are somehow closing but… bu… But she was bitten by THEM! You and I both know what that means!" Unnoticed by the young man, tears had begun to well up from the corners of his eyes. "I… I don't want her to die! I don't want to have to kill her like I had to kill Hisashi!"
With a gentleness that her old kendo opponents could never have imagined, Saeko gently wiped his tears away with the tip of one elegant finger. With a small smile tugging at her lips, Saeko shared her observations. "Takeshi-kun; whatever those we just fought were, they weren't THEM. They look somewhat different and attacked with a completely different method. There is no guarantee that their bite is fatal." The look of mingled surprise and hope in his eyes took her breath away. Sadly, she cut their moment short. "Rei will be alright, but we need our leader, Takeshi-kun. I'll stay and help Shizuka, if you go talk with Kohta about our mysterious stranger."
Taking the now-vacant place at Rei's side, Saeko applied pressure to the wadded bandages as Shizuka stitched the cuts and gashes up as best she could. While the injection the stranger had given Rei had dulled her pain and assisted the natural healing processes, it couldn't magically seal cuts; only time would take away the tears, hopefully leaving behind unmarred skin. Saeko couldn't figure out what the injection had been: As a part of her father's training, Saeko had received a crash-course in trauma drugs commonly used after training accidents, but none of the drugs or chemicals she'd learned about had the kind of immediate effects that the medicine had. Rei had fallen into some kind of slumber and was actually snoring, so at least part of the drug had a sedative effect – possibly the part that also managed pain. This indicated the presence of an opiate – maybe morphine? As for the rest of the cocktail, the swordswoman couldn't hazard a guess as to its components or effects.
As Rei was stabilized, Saeko listened to the conversation between Takeshi and the stranger via Kohta's translation. Somehow, the group had been transported from Honshu to America, close to the famed Las Vegas. A brief shudder crossed Saeko's elegant face as she remembered the feeling of utter hopelessness and irrelevancy that the bizarre crossing had inspired in her soul. To be ripped out of one's surroundings, and arbitrarily inserted elsewhere was horrible enough, but to be unable to prevent such a transition? Unthinkable!
From the looks of it, America had been hit hard by the end of the world; in fact, the decay looked much more thorough and complete than it had in Japan. Maybe they had just arrived in an already abandoned building? No, the woman said that this was one of the more intact "Pre-War" buildings. Though, from what Kohta was translating, the stranger seemed to think that it was hundreds of years in the future. On one hand, she might simply be an armed lunatic much like the thug who had attempted to rape Rei back at the gas station; on the other, if some unknown force could send them thousands of miles away in a moment, would a change in time be so unbelievable?
Tearing her thoughts away from the ravings of the madwoman, and stepping back to allow Shizuka better access to a gash across Rei's thighs, Saeko realized that not a single one of her comrades was paying any attention to their surroundings, and decided to start exploring the rest of the building. Before they got any more comfortable here, she reasoned, they should have some idea of who else might be here. But, no sooner had she begun to walk towards the hallway that THEY had emerged from, Takeshi's voice called her back to his side. The weak boy, full of fear and anxiety, was gone; the strong leader, her one love, had returned!
"Saeko-san; I don't even know where to begin, but a description of our situation can wait! According to Min-san over here," he waved his arm at the stranger, who nodded at the purple-haired girl in recognition, "a settlement is nearby, and a doctor lives there. Apparently, the drug she gave Rei will help her heal, and will close the skin, but won't repair the internal damage, so we need to visit the settlement. Saeko-san, you and Kohta are our strongest fighters, and I need you to help me save Rei's life! Shizuka-san, Saya, and I will carry her on a litter, but we'll need you and Kohta to defend us from THEM. Will you help me?"
Saeko honestly didn't know why Takeshi felt the need to give such a grandiose speech, but it didn't matter to her. She, as a warrior, would follow her lord into hell – and as a woman, she would follow her love to the abyss. She favored him with a smile. "You can rely on me. Not a hair on her head will be harmed."
He smiled back. "Thank you, Saeko-san."
Then, like a branch slowly peeling away from a tree before falling to the ground, the smile ran away from his face. Turning slowly, he tapped Kohta on the shoulder. "Kohta, could you give me one of your pistols?" With a face nearly as grim as Takeshi's, Kohta handed him the police pistol that they'd found less than a week before, so long ago. Takeshi thanked the gunman, before walking over to the wreckage of the vehicle that had carried them from a burning mansion.
The youngest member of their little band knelt beside the smallest of the companions, weeping. During the crash Zeke had been hurled into one of the interior poles of the vehicle, snapping his spine. The brave little dog lay on the ground, only whimpering when touched. With a somber air, Kohta embraced Alice, picking her up and moving her from the dog, making comforting noises all the while. Takeshi knelt beside Zeke and stroked his ears for a moment, before putting the pistol to the back of the dog's skull and firing a single shot, ending his misery.