Whew! Finally some time to get this done! Dammit I hate my weekly schedule with a passion. Anyways, thank you for those people that have added this story to their list of favorites, it means a lot to me since this is my first fanfic I'm posting.
Cheers, readers and writers. Enjoy.
Ryuji could not suppress the wide, crazy grin once his destination came in sight as dusk was just beginning to settle in. "Alright, sleepyheads, wake up. We're here: the safe house."
Having stuffed themselves after surviving this apocalyptic ordeal, Ryuji was the only one that was awake. He continually poked Shizuka in the side and slapped the three in the back on their knees.
"Wait, what? This place….It's right lacrosse, I mean right across from….my place? Huh?" Shizuka was still half asleep, rubbing her eyes, and once she realized why the street they were in looked familiar, her eyes widened in utter confusion. The safe house Ryuji pointed out was a three story building right across the street from the maisonette apartment that she lives in with a friend.
She did remember seeing moving trucks coming once or twice every week, but paid it no attention assuming some rich foreigner bought it as a summer home.
"Yep, this is the safe house." Instructing everyone to get out of the car, he stood in front of the gate towering over six feet. He punched in a combination of numbers in a keypad next to it and pushed the tags around his neck against the sensor above the pad, causing the lock to open with a loud clack. "Oh, and before you enter, there are several rules I need to inform you of. One: any room that isn't mine, the living room, the bathrooms, and the roof is off limits. Two: if someone asks for help in front of this building, do not act. Come to me first. Whether they enter or not will be decided by me and only me. Three: You will do nothing to jeopardize or compromise this compound in any way. If you will abide by these three rules, then and only then may you enter."
Immediately, Saeko took the lead, but before she could take a step, Ryuji's words stopped her in her tracks. "And if you say you can and you don't, you face a penalty."
"What? Why?!" Kota fumed at Ryuji's borderline tyrannical demands.
"As of now, the only owner of this compound that is present is me. Therefore what you can and cannot do is for me to decide. I am responsible to make sure this place stays standing until my family returns. I would rather kill you all and call it a day than see this place fall to the ground." Ryuji squared his jaw and folded his arms in front of his chest, with the same look he had when they were attacked by those men on motorcycles. "Your freedom, your life in this safe house, is contingent on obeying my rules and following my instructions should I give them. Do I have to remind you that you are only here incidentally? After blowing up the school with gas and nitro and tripping the fire alarm, I was planning on using the entire campus as a decoy to leave with a car. Without being seen or followed, of course."
"That was you?!" Saya gasped in disbelief.
"Yep. I had enough infected cramming the place up and I didn't want to waste the bullets. Plus I needed to test myself if I remembered certain recipes for explosive agents. so I rappelled down from the chemistry lab to the teacher's lounge." But then he ended up running into the four of them. Never had Ryuji wished to be in possession of Vector's cloaking device.
"Are you saying that you can't trust us?"
"You can never be too careful in an apocalypse," Ryuji nodded at Kota's words nonchalantly. "Also, I do trust you. Your knowledge of military weaponry and tactics is probably more extensive than mine. Saeko is proficient in melee combat. Saya's smarter than the average high school kid, and Ms. Shizuka has a medical degree. You guys can think on your feet under pressure to some extent, so I'll give credit where it's due. Just to avoid confusion, I trust you, but I don't deem any of you as reliable. The only people worthy of both are my family and me."
Everyone in front of him are a far cry in terms of their set of skills compared to the Wolfpack. While Kota was skilled, it was if and only if he has a functioning firearm in his possession; without it, he is nothing but fodder. On top of that, he lacked something crucial: stamina. Saeko has the opposite problem of being too light, making each strikes less lethal. On top of that, she has no experience with firearms, meaning she could not be relied on to cover anyone at a distance.
The other two were unquestionably useless in combat due to the absolute lack of experience being in combat or any other high pressure situations aside from the one they were in right now. Relying on them was out of the question.
"I understand and I see why," Saeko spoke with a faint yet defiant smile on her lips. "Then all there is to do for me is fight and win you over." She moved on without a glance back into the safe house.
"What'll it be? You have thirty seconds to decide and the gates will close indefinitely until my family returns." As he counted down, they all slowly walked through the gate. Ryuji opened the front door, revealing a simple interior of white walls and oak floorboards. Putting everything down in the living room, everyone threw themselves onto the floor and couches from exhaustion. Although there were conditions to be met, they were finally in a building that they did not have to worry about getting bitten or infected.
"If you wanna shower, they're on the second floor, second door on your right. Don't forget to not wander around the place." Ryuji disappeared through another door into his room, leaving the living room silent.
"Takagi, Dr. Marikawa, I suggest we appreciate his hospitality. A good hot bath should help us unwind our high strung minds." The two did not respond, but lurched up the stairs. "What will you do, Hirano?"
"I'll, uh…..go up to the roof and see if there's a route we could use while there's still some light out." Seeing Kota's gloomy complexion, Saeko only nodded and climbed the stairs after the two women.
Once they were gone, hot tears started streaming down from Kota's eyes.
What was he going to do? As long as he followed Ryuji, everything that he learned, everything that would have been useless in the future in Japan could be put to good use. He could finally establish a sense of identity, a sense of competency and power. But he couldn't bring himself to cross that line separating people like him and people like Ryuji.
Kota still remembered that look, freshly burned into his mind. Those eyes belonged to a snake, a cold blooded killer that would take a life as casually as he would a fly buzzing around his face. What was going to happen to him should he cross that line? He hugged his knees, shivering in fear of the uncharted, unknown territory. He could feel his stomach churning just from imagining things. He may very well go insane if he were to face those eyes again. Plus, Ryuji said that he had family, comrades. Were they all like him?
Entering his room, Ryuji opened the refrigerator and pulled out a vial and a disposable syringe. Plunging the needle into the vial, he drew out the contents of it and stuck the needle into his neck, injecting everything into his blood stream—the vaccine for the T-Virus that Michaela and Christina developed after investing a large amount of time, money, and effort. He did not know if it will be effective on whatever was causing this outbreak, but Ryuji could not just stand by without taking any and every precaution he can. Tossing the syringe into the trash can, he pulled the phone out of his bag, calling Vladimir.
"I assume you're calling because you made it?"
"Yes, Vlad. I'm here. You? Are you at the airport?"
"Already landed, and we have a chopper flying. Once we land, we will take a chopper to the closest helipad, and then drive or walk. I cannot say exactly when, but we will be there tomorrow."
"Great. I'm getting sick of babysitting. How's the airport looking?"
"SAT was placed there with some BSAA agents as countermeasures for terrorism. They've probably secured a certain area of the airport, but from what I saw via satellite, most of the runways were filled with infected. According to my pupil, securing the entire compound is still going to take some time."
"How'd you even get into the air in the first place?"
"Broke through a swarm of infected. My pupil was in the control tower so negotiating was not as hard as I anticipated. The BSAA should be looking up bogus credentials by now."
Ryuji frowned. He knew Vladimir knew his way around technology and programming, but he knew the BSAA were not so stupid to take a bait such as that. "Vlad, be honest with me: how many women from the BSAA have you slept with?"
"Four. One was a widow and the other was married."
Hearing this, he let out a mixture of a groan and a snicker. "I fucking knew it." Members of the Wolfpack were fraternizing within the team, but before that, a majority of them were womanizers: Vladimir, Hector, Ryuji, and Michaela. All three of them gave them copiously detailed lectures on how to woo the target they fancied, how to spend the night with them, and how to give them the ecstatic night beyond their wildest dreams. So far, they have not failed him even once.
"Oh, shut up. You slept with a waitress on your fifteenth birthday at the restaurant we went for the first time."
"Guess you got me there. But it wasn't just her."
"Come again?"
"It wasn't a one on one. It was actually a ménage à trois. Aside from the waitress who was a college student from Barcelona, there was another Parisian flower. God, I miss them."
"And how did that come about, again?"
"The other girl found me during the make out session, and I guess that turned her on very quickly." Specter let out a groan with a hint of laughter on the other side of the phone.
"Karena would be crying if she heard that story from you."
"She already knows, and two minutes after I told her, I heard her griping like a child in French and after she started crying, Michaela sung her a lullaby until she slept. Hurry up and get over here please?"
"We will. Just hang on."
Ending the call, Ryuji began taking his gear off, but left the bulletproof vest, side arm, and knives on. Opening the refrigerator, he pulled out a bottle of vodka and a shot glass, downing two in a matter of seconds. The distinctive smell burned his nose, and felt something hot pass his throat and settle in his stomach. Considering how far his plans had been derailed, the frustration was not going away any time soon without some alcohol consumption.
But right now he had to focus on the next step. He needs the people that are unnecessary as well as unwelcome to leave. One of them is Saya. Vladimir had already checked her background upon making contact.
Her father is the leader of an ultra right wing nationalist, whose operations and agendas were more sophisticated than the run of the mill gangster. Her wife was a former stock broker working in Wall Street, providing the connections and most of the capital, giving the organization the stepping stones to rise to power. They were essentially a small army with its own intelligence agency. If they were going to bring Saya back, there were only a select few that can accompany her to do so.
Once the rendezvous happens, the safe house will be secure. However, if the compound is assaulted during the delivery, getting back would take time. While it was not something Ryuji wanted to think about, he had to keep every possible situation in mind. He took three more shots of vodka, and the intoxication washed over him like the tide. His body was getting hot. This time he took out a bottle of water from the refrigerator and guzzled it greedily.
Upon hearing a knock on the door, he quietly approached, knife in hand. "Yeah?"
"It's me," Kota murmured. His eyes were puffy.
"What's up?"
"I've made up my mind. I…..I'm gonna stick with Takagi."
"Oh," Ryuji uttered without so much as a shrug, "well. Your choice, I ain't gonna stop you. Is that all you're here to say?"
"No. I wanna ask you something. You say that you can't rely on us, fine. I hate to be rude, but if anyone is untrustworthy, it's you. Your whole life in Tokonosu is a lie, so I think it's fair that you answer some questions truthfully."
"Touché. Alright, fine. I'll meet you half way."
"Who are you? The equipment, the knowledge, how you move, it's obvious that you've been doing this for a long time. And every weapon you have on you is illegal just by possession in this country. What part of your life is true and what isn't?"
Ryuji stopped for a moment before opening his mouth, his mind racing. He could not possibly give up his whole life story, but more lies could result in a more troublesome predicament. "Most of what is on my resume is a lie. I'm only partially Japanese, with a little bit of European blood in me."
"I can tell that much, you got blue eyes." Kota retorted, clearly unimpressed.
"Alright, fine. I gave you the short version about Umbrella and BOWs, right? The first time an outbreak happened was in the US of A called Raccoon City. I'm a survivor of that place. Group of ex-military people picked me up, and I fought to survive. My real parents have been dead for a while now, so I traveled the world taking down anyone and any place related to Umbrella making shady deals. All of them are oddballs and misfits with amazing skills that got booted out of their old place. Former JSDF, former Russian intelligence, U.S. army demolition man, and so on. To say that they have a few screws loose is a gross understatement, but they are my comrades in arms. They are my family."
Pulling off his bullet proof vest and tank top, he revealed the tattoos on his body. "This is the proof. All of us suffered many injuries in our years, some of them fatal, but none of us died. Everyone else says that because I was the seventh one to join, I was their good luck charm, blessing them; which is why I will always be proud to fight by their side and be a part of their family."
"I see. I knew that you weren't some ordinary guy when I saw you with the gas mask on, but….damn, you're a bona fide badass. Thanks for telling me. I'll keep it to myself."
"I'd appreciate that. Or else I'll kill ya." They both laughed as they spoke.
"Oh, can I have a pair of binoculars? I need to check possible routes to take Takagi back home. I'm assuming that's your plan?" Ryuji nodded, and tossed him his own. Catching it deftly with both hands, Kota began marching up the stairs, confidently compared to before. Once Ryuji was sure he was gone, he pulled out the bottle of vodka out from the refrigerator again with a bottle of Pepsi, and mixed them. Thanks to the water he drank before he was barely drunk, but he was not in the mood to be sober. As he was about to pour himself another, there was a knock at the door again.