Hey guys! I'm back! And I'm super excited to be posting another chapter of Underneath the Shade, especially since I've been unsure for awhile whether I would continue this story. It's not that I don't like the story- I really do! I guess you could say it's all my computer's fault. It was a very traumatizing day in my household when my computer randomly decided to die on me, taking with it several finished chapters of this story, as well as several more chapter outlines and many other documents I was working on. At first I thought "Hey, it's no big deal, I have a backup system in place." However, as it turned out, my backup system had stopped working several months ago and failed to notify me. :( Working with some very smart computer-tech people, I managed to recover some of my documents...but unfortunately, we couldn't salvage any of the work I'd done for this story. So I basically lost everything I had, which was a huge blow to my plans to continue with this story. So I put it on hiatus for awhile and kind of drifted away from it over the summer, vaguely wondering whether I should even bother continuing.

Then I came back to this site one day and decided to look through my old stories. And I read everybody's reviews about how much they liked this story and were hoping for the next chapter. And I'm not gonna lie, my little author's heart was touched. So I thought, "Hey, you know what? I've created something that I really like, and plenty of other people seem to really like it as well. I should continue creating it, even if there are setbacks along the way." So without further ado, I got started doing a re-write of the chapters I had lost, starting with this one, which I happily present to you now. I hope to get another chapter out before the end of the month.

I'd like to respond to some of your reviews, but I feel like you guys have waited long enough for this chapter, so I'll save that for the following chapters. But I really would like to say thank you to all of my readers, and especially to everyone who favorited and followed and left me amazing, inspiring reviews. You guys are the reason this story is alive again. So here's a new chapter, all for you! Enjoy. :)

Natsuno stared down critically at the pile of things he had amassed on top of his bed. He had just finished laying out all of the supplies for their planned excursion tonight. Five pillowcases, a lighter, a canteen of water, two knives, two flashlights, and the hammer and stakes he had gotten from the hilltop (in case of Shiki encounters.) They didn't want to bring too many things down to Sotoba, on the assumption that they would have more to carry back up. They needed just enough to help them search through buildings and protect themselves in case of danger. The jinrou nodded once, then strode over to the bedroom door and cracked it open, peering across the half-ruined living room into the forest beyond. The sun had just sunk below the horizon, and he could see the glowing sheen of its presence dyeing a purple sunset in the western sky. It was time. He wanted to get started immediately, so they would have as much night as possible to search for the things they needed. Natsuno shut the door and approached the other bed, where Tohru had been lying still and silent until a few moments ago. Now, as if his body sensed the arms of nightfall extending across the land, the okiagari stirred, his blonde curls tossing against the bedsheets. Natsuno rested a hand upon the other's shoulder, shaking him lightly. "Tohru. Tohru, wake up. Tohru."

The sound of his voice did not instigate the desired response. Instead, Tohru merely mumbled unintelligibly and patted the jinrou's arm without opening his eyes. Natsuno shook harder, and the okiagari burrowed his head under the covers. Furrowing his brow at his former friend's avoidance of regaining consciousness, Natsuno scoffed and then let his body drop heavily onto the mattress in a sitting position. His sudden weight bounced the okiagari out from underneath the covers, and Tohru lurched clumsily upward, casting his eyes around the room in groggy confusion. After a moment they met with the figure of the jinrou, arms folded and face a deadpan blank. A sheepish expression stole over Tohru's features. "Aaaah….sorry. Was I trying to sleep in?"

"You were trying very determinedly," Natsuno replied, shoving an empty pillowcase at the okiagari. "But we don't have time for that. The sun has set, and we need to start out for Sotoba."

Tohru nodded and crawled out of bed, slouching behind Natsuno over to the layout of supplies. "You take this, this, and these," Natsuno ordered, handing the okiagari a flashlight, a knife, and three of the empty pillowcases to put inside the pillowcase he'd just given him. The rest of the materials he secured inside his own pillowcase, then turned back to his silent companion. "We're going to descend carefully through the forest and enter Sotoba from the northeast corner. Keep your eyes on the landscape around you so you know how to get back here, just in case we get separated for whatever reason. I'm not expecting that to happen, though. We need to keep out senses tuned at all times for any kind of presence, human or otherwise. If we do come across something, we'll make sure to give it a wide berth, no matter who it is," he enunciated, staring hard into Tohru's eyes. "As long as no one knows we've survived, no one will come looking for us. We can't go around wantonly revealing ourselves to people who knew us before, or we risk our safety." He waited for Tohru to nod before continuing. "My plan is to start out going through the commercial area of the village. If any of the stores are still somewhat intact, we may be able to find food or clothing. Then we'll walk along the roads and see what we encounter. We might be able to find supplies in residential homes as well. I expect this to take awhile, since Sotoba is so spread out. Lastly, I'd like to stop at the Ozaki clinic- assuming it's still standing- and see if we can find anything inside that might be of use to us. Specifically, I'm hoping we can find some pints of preserved medical blood for you. Aside from that, the list of things we need is as follows," Natsuno slung his pillowcase over his back and beckoned Tohru to follow him out the door as he continued talking. "We need clothes of all sorts- anything with a remote chance of fitting us. We can't afford to be picky. Shoes as well. I'd like to find a working watch, if possible. We need food- primarily canned food. Fruit or vegetables would be good, too- anything that's not spoiled or burned. Bottled water would be immensely useful. We can do without them, but if we happen to come across more washcloths, towels, blankets, and hopefully a can opener, we should definitely take them. I'd also like to find something we can use to carry things, something sturdier than pillowcases. Preferably a suitcase." Natsuno counted these things off on his fingers as he strode briskly through the ashy air of the darkened forest, Tohru tagging along behind. "That's the general list, but there's room for additions. Overall, if you see something which you think could be useful and we can get it back to the cabin without too much trouble, take it. It's better to be overprepared than underprepared."

He glanced behind him to see Tohru nodding seriously, still saying nothing. Natsuno swallowed and closed his mouth, having no more to say. That was the longest succession of words he had spoken to anyone in a long while, and it surprised him that it had been to Tohru, of all people. He found that it was relatively easy to talk to the okiagari about impersonal things such as plans and supplies. He didn't need to be present within those sentences, except as the arbiter of concise, fragmented directives. However, the thought of speaking to his former friend the way he used to, when they were human- in friendly chats and sarcastic banter and the occasional, exhilaratingly revealing discussion of inner thoughts, of hopes and dreams- the thought of that made Natsuno's tongue harden and turn to lead inside his mouth. No, things could never be like that again. He didn't know exactly why he was so drawn to take care of the okiagari, especially in the face of what he'd done- but it was not because they were friends. Friends did not kill each other and then continue killing, sullying the bond and the values they had once shared. They were not friends, and that was that. If Tohru wanted a friend, he was going to have to go elsewhere. The okiagari's plaintive voice echoed in the back of Natsuno's head for a moment: Where would I go? The jinrou stubbornly pushed it away, refusing to feel sorry for the timid figure following closely behind him. Stupid Tohru, bringing all of this upon him. Making Natsuno care about him and then betraying him like that. Stupid Tohru, calling him by his first name.

Coming out of the hills, the two members of the undead emerged warily onto the level ground of the northeast corner of Sotoba. The night remained still and silent around them, and their keen senses did not detect the presence of anything living or undead, other than themselves and a few birds. By Natsuno's calculations, they needed to cut through several fields, cross the main road which led out of Sotoba, and then continue walking diagonally until they reached the town's commercial center. The houses around here were sparse, and the fire had burned thickly in this area, so they would not bother trying to scavenge along the way. Natsuno started across the barren dirt of a field that bordered the forest, Tohru's footsteps scuffing softly behind him. They had almost made it to the road on the other side when a nearby rustling sound caused both boys to freeze. Natsuno arched his back and curled his fingers into claws, his sharpened senses urgently penetrating the darkness. What could be making that sound? He'd detected nothing but birds before, and-! Ah…. The jinrou relaxed as his eyes caught onto a gathering of birds a few feet away, rustling their wings and hopping around, seemingly oblivious to their presence. Feeling somewhat silly, he retracted his claws and turned away, about to continue with his march when an ice-cold hand suddenly seized the cuff of his shirt. Natsuno stiffened and turned around to see Tohru shrinking into his side, staring past him at the feathered gathering. The jinrou was just about to pry him off when a group of the birds shifted to the side and he saw it too- the hazy outline of an ash-covered body lying in the field. The suddenness of it made him jump rather badly. As the birds continued to circle around and peck at the flesh, he stared openly at the grotesque impression of legs, a torso, a pair of splayed arms, the tip of a neck, and- Frowning as he sensed an anomaly, the jinrou ventured forward with a sense of sickened curiosity, hauling his companion behind him. Tohru seemed torn between his desire to stay away from the body and his refusal to let go of Natsuno's arm. As they drew closer, both boys inhaled deep, involuntary breaths and immediately coughed them out again as a putrid odor invaded their nostrils. Natsuno stared down through the darkness, his piercing eyes fixated to a single point. He had not been imagining things. The body- the body was missing its head. At least, that was what he assumed until he noticed that the dirt surrounding its shoulders was stained darker than the rest of the ground, stained and coated with a grayish, pulpy matter which the birds were pecking at in eerie silence. To either side of the body ran the rutted imprints of tractor marks. Just when Natsuno thought he could not possibly feel any more shocked, he took another glance over the torso, and the insides of his mind rang with recognition. Dirt-smeared, bloodstained, and half-burned by fire, he was nonetheless certain he had seen that ridiculously flamboyant dress before. A moment of panic overtook him as Natsuno staggered backward, his mind flashing over images of Megumi Shimizu as she had been- stalking him outside his window, crawling out from underneath Tohru's bed, attempting to bite him beside the village spring. His feet tripped over a clod of dirt and he felt Tohru steadying him as he backed off from the appalling vision before him. Shoulder to shoulder, the two boys stared in ashen silence upon the final resting place of the first of the villagers to be turned. The birds continued to circle around her, pecking obliviously at her remains.

Eventually, Natsuno tore his eyes from the grisly scene and glanced over at Tohru, whose face was empty and cavernous as he gazed down at the body of his murderer, the thief of his humanity. After a moment he shook his head and backed away, pulling Natsuno with him. "Let's go, Natsuno. Let's go. There's nothing to stay here for; let's leave." The jinrou allowed himself to be dragged a few feet away before he paused and took a final look behind him, the weaker okiagari tugging uselessly at his arm. Megumi Shimizu….even in her final death, she found a way to disgust him. She had been one of the most virulent of the okiagari; careless, remorseless, soulless. It seemed like her evil deeds had finally caught up with her. His mind reached automatically across the year he had lived in Sotoba, all that time having to put up with her obsessive little crush on him. She was always getting dressed up in her inappropriate costumes, trying to be appealing for him. It had been annoying, to say the least, but he could never have imagined back then how depraved she truly was. Becoming an okiagari had given her an outlet for the darkness and vanity inside of her, and this was how she had ended. Curdled and crushed and rotted for all the world to see. As Natsuno gazed over her remains, he could not help but think about how she would have had a heart attack if she could have seen him looking at her in this revolting state. So he looked long and hard before turning away for the final time. As he allowed Tohru to lead him out of the field, the jinrou silently vowed never to think of her again after this night was over. She had robbed him of his peace of mind for long enough while she was "alive"; he'd be damned if he allowed her to continue even after she was nothing more than a smear on a farmer's field. Congratulations, Megumi Shimizu, he thought as they crossed the black-topped road and hurried through the night into the desecrated town ahead. You're finally as ugly on the outside as you always were on the inside. And I am finally done with you.

They traveled on in utter silence for half an hour before Tohru spoke up suddenly. "I had to do it, you know. I had to bite you before she could. I couldn't let it be her."

Surprised, Natsuno turned his head ever so slightly to the side. Tohru was looking pale and ashamed, although he supposed the okiagari always looked pale and ashamed nowadays. "What are you talking about?"

"I couldn't let it be her," Tohru repeated stubbornly. "Megumi was selfish and evil. She would have abused you, Natsuno. She was dying to sink her fangs into you so she could use her hypnotic powers to make you play at being her boyfriend while she slowly killed you. She would have….made you do all kinds of things that you would never have wanted to do in your right mind. So I thought to myself, 'Natsuno would hate that. It's too awful.' So when Tatsumi ordered me to do it, I went off to bite you myself." Tohru hugged his arms across his body and hunched his shoulders as if he were cold. Natsuno found himself slowing down, listening to the okiagari despite himself. "So I came to your house, and you opened your window…. And then you saw me, you looked at me and I couldn't do it. I ran away and hid. I didn't want you to see what I'd become. I don't….I don't think I could have made myself go back, even though I was terrified of what they'd do to my family if I didn't. But then…." Tohru walked more slowly still. "Then Megumi came out from the trees and told me that she was going to do what I couldn't. And I- I thought-" The okiagari's voice trembled, becoming thick with suppressed tears. "I thought, 'I can't save Natsuno from being bitten. Even if I don't do it, someone else will. But if I bite him instead of Megumi, then at least he can still die as himself. I want to be the one beside him at the end. Even if….even if he hates me for it.' " Tohru sniffled once and bowed his head, like a child preparing himself to receive punishment. "So I….well, you know what I did."

Natsuno suddenly wished he was alone, so he could have time to process all of this without feeling like he needed to think of a response to Tohru's confession. He cleared his throat and tried to set the pace again. "When it comes down to it, I suppose I'm glad it was you and not Shimizu who bit me. Because of that, I was able to die as myself, as you said….and that was important to me." He shifted his frame and began to stride more quickly. The throbbing anger in the back of his head was still there. "Even so, it was your decision that sealed my fate. I offered you another way, and you turned me down. You held my life in your hands, and you let it fall. For that reason, I-"

"It wouldn't have worked, Natsuno!" Tohru insisted, distress rising in his voice. "We couldn't have found a solution! We were already trapped, both of us!"

"You have no right to say that," the jinrou informed him flatly, stepping over a series of fallen fence rails in his path. "You didn't even try to avoid killing. You were too afraid to try. After I died, you just kept on going, crushing lives…."

Tohru gave a sudden, sharp, almost animalistic wail as he fisted his hands in his hair, dropping his makeshift rucksack and staggering to the side. Natsuno ground his heels to a halt and watched his former friend's body give a convulsive shudder as Tohru pulled more desperately at his golden hair, as if trying to tear the memories out of his head through the roots. The jinrou watched him stagger as a dispassionate grimace swept across his own features. He wasn't going to take back what he'd said, for all of it was perfectly true. Dismissing what Tohru had done would be an insult to the memories of his victims, Natsuno included. Still, the jinrou felt no joy or sense of vindication in witnessing the other's suffering. It was as he had always thought. Hurt only bred hurt, and no one's pain could relieve anyone else's. This was it, Natsuno thought as he watched Tohru finally fold over onto the fire-scarred earth. This was the weight of killing. This was the price of fulfilling a momentary hunger by devouring something that could never be given back. Shame. Endless agony. It was either this or lose all feeling altogether, become a monster like the crushed female okiagari they had left behind in the field. For the first time, as he watched Tohru shudder, Natsuno thought he truly understood how monsters were created. It started with a sin, a cruelty that grew and gnawed as it was left unmended. Then, unable to reconcile what they had done with their human conscience, they chose to dispense with every last bit of that conscience to escape the pain it caused them. After that they were painless, soulless. They could do whatever they wanted. They could do anything at all, to anyone, without feeling a thing. Natsuno wondered whether that loss gave rise to an exhilarating feeling at first, before it devolved into an emptiness that nothing could fill. He gritted his teeth and quietly approached the slumped okiagari, whose hands had moved from his hair to his face to hide his tears. Pain or no pain, he knew he couldn't let Tohru become like that. Not even if it would grant him an artificial reprieve from his suffering. He moved around the blonde boy's back and squatted down beside him. The clawed hands tightened around the shielded face.

"You're right," the okiagari moaned softly. "I'm a horrible person. A coward. I didn't even try to stop myself from killing after I killed you. I thought, 'Now I've done the worst thing in the world. What could possibly condemn me any more than that?' " He shivered intensely in the cold night air. "I didn't even try. Not like Ritsuko. She was so brave. She refused to feed off her friend, did you know that? The Kirishikis kidnapped her nurse friend from the clinic and locked them in a cage together. Even though her hunger pains were so strong, even though I begged her and threatened her to do it, she still forced herself not to bite her friend. She said she didn't want to hate herself. I didn't deserve someone like her in a million years." Tohru finally glanced up at the jinrou standing above him, the hollowness of his gaze piercing through his defenses. "And do you know what the humans did when they found us out in Yamairii? They killed her. Didn't even give her a moment to explain. They pounded a stake right through her heart and she didn't even try to fight them off. She died so quietly." Tohru buried his face in his hands again, his voice coming cracked through the tears. "The humans were pinning me on the ground and I was trying to fight them off, bite them, do whatever I could, and there was screaming all around, people running and killing, and I didn't even realize she was gone until I looked up and saw her lying there. She was just so…." Tohru pressed his lips together as if he wanted to stop talking, but couldn't manage to seal the words inside. "After they ran out of stakes, they tied the rest of us, put us in a truck bed, and drove us to that hill so the sun would finish us as soon as it rose. I couldn't really think of anything at that point….but I remember saying to myself, 'At least it was over quickly for her. At least she won't burn slowly like I'm going to.' "

Natsuno watched the okiagari bow his head in misery. He could not help but feel that misery too as he thought of Ritsuko as she had been- chasing her dog down the road, teasing him about his dislike for his name, caring for anyone and everyone at the clinic, riding beside Tohru in the passenger seat and teaching him to drive. She had not deserved her brutal end, even though she had risen up from the dead. For the first time, Natsuno allowed himself to be staggered by the magnitude of losses caused by the end of Sotoba. When he had been fighting the Shiki, he had not permitted himself to think that way; he had kept his recognition of the situation confined to manageable levels, to guard against the always-present temptation to give up. But now that it was over, the jinrou could not deny the scale of losses they had suffered. They had lost an entire village. All of their teachers, their friends, their families. Everyone who had helped them or hurt them, everyone they had known. He had seen war movies where this happened, but the endings, in which the survivors found self-gratification and closure by going on a bloody rampage of revenge, were implausible at best. How was it even possible to recover from such an atrocity in the real world?

Beside him, Tohru clutched his head softly again. "I don't know what happened to me. I didn't used to be like this. I used to be good. I had a great family, lots of nice friends. I had no reason to ever hate anyone. But then I was bitten, and I turned into this." He shuddered again. "At first I thought that maybe I couldn't help it. I thought that it was just the way of things, that being an okiagari made me evil, made me need to kill. It was easier to think like that, because it made it less….my fault, the things that I was doing. But Ritsuko proved me wrong. That's why I was so upset with her. She proved that being a Risen never made me do anything; it never took away my freedom of will. It wasn't some sort of evil transformation that was making me do those things. It was just….me. And I can't stand to know that, because I'm such a coward. More than anything else, I hate that about myself."

Natsuno laid a hand on his former friend's shoulder, and it was like toppling over the first block in a line of dominoes. Tohru fell onto him and cried, his head folding into his shoulder, hands clutching the back of Natsuno's shirt so hard that the claws speared through the fabric. Natsuno let Tohru curl up into his side, heavy and cold as death, his tears like freezing rain upon the skin. He did not say anything to the okiagari. What was there to say that could right any of these fallen lives, including their own? Words were frivolous things. Throughout this entire ordeal, Natsuno had known that Tohru needed to be listened to much more than he needed to be talked at, and so, against the voices of his lingering resentment, Natsuno kept his hand upon the okiagari's shoulder and listened to the guttural sobs of his guilt. What was there to say? The night enfolded its black-cloaked arms around them.

Eventually, Natsuno perceived that Tohru had neither the strength nor the drive to stand up and move forward on his own. The jinrou considered scrapping their mission and returning to the cabin to try again another night, but his practical mind warned against it. They had already come this far, and Sotoba would not stay abandoned forever. Soon there would be clean-up crews and disaster analysts and possibly even surviving villagers come to scavenge in the ruins of their homes. Going back now, they could miss a golden opportunity. And he really was very hungry, and tomorrow night Tohru would need more blood. Flexing his muscles in preparation, Natsuno stood up, hooking his arm under Tohru's and bringing him up with him. "We're going on," he announced as the okiagari wiped his eyes, mutely resigning himself to continue the trudge. "I know it's hard for you, Tohru….so you can hold onto my arm if you want." Even in his head that sounded dumb, but the blonde boy wasted no time in doing exactly that, linking their arms together as they began to walk away from that place. Natsuno glanced back at the soil, darkened even further by the fallen tears. He imagined all of the grief Tohru had poured out sinking underground, loosening the earth with its moisture until it finally absorbed into a seed, somewhere far underground where the fire hadn't reached, unlocking the frail drop of life from within the ocean of dead things. Natsuno shook his head and continued walking, unsure why he was suddenly thinking in images. The patch of burned earth faded into the darkness behind them.

"Can I ask you one thing?" the jinrou questioned quietly as they began to glimpse the rising hulks of gutted buildings from Sotoba's downtown district. He felt the okiagari nod beside him.

"What happened to Ritsuko's friend? The nurse that the Kirishikis brought for her to feed on?"

Tohru shook his head and bit his lip. "I let her go. Ritsuko begged me. I let them both go. I assume her friend ran back to the village and told the humans we were hiding out in Yamairii. That's how they found us. I knew they would come. Some of the others didn't think it would be so soon- they thought we had more time- but I knew. I was terrified. I wanted to run. But Ritsuko was so weak….and I couldn't leave her. I offered to carry her….but she didn't want to run." Tohru bit his lip again, this time drawing blood. "She was strong enough to accept….what I'd been so afraid of. For her, living on wasn't worth it if she'd have to take the life of others. She knew the truth. There's no place in the living world for the dead."

The okiagari squeezed his eyes shut and leaned himself closer to Natsuno, shivering. Their wrists brushed close together, and for the first time, Natsuno was acutely aware that only a single pulse flowed between them. The jinrou turned his head forward and nodded shortly, and the silent pair continued their journey toward the uncertain edges of the lifeless buildings that rose above them, blocking out the ashen moon.