Alright. Love it or hate it? This chapter/Mini arc is going to be through the joint POV's of Saeko and Naruto.

Naturally I am confident in my capabilities of writing my Naruto. However Saeko here is up in the air, and a work in progress.

Also note that I am creating Saeko's character essentially from scratch. So please be patient with me as her entire character comes into fruition in the next couple chapters.

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"There were a couple men... that I liked... loved, really."

Saeko surged upward coughing and sputtering up spit as she roughly rolled onto her side, her vision hazy and fading. Her glazed eyes looking up toward the cloudy sky.

She felt the warm liquid run from the side of her head down her cheek, all the while letting out slow uneven breaths.

The purple haired swordswoman had fallen. But fallen would have been an understatement, as she had fallen hard. The rickety escape ladder positioned above her, bolts having long since rusted over. She knew the moment she set foot out there that it was a bad idea... It was just a better idea than anything else.

A loud thud resounded through the alleyway with a sickening squish filling the young woman's ears upon the foreign impact.

'Sounded like one of the corpses jumped off the roof and landed flat...' she idly told herself in her head, only for a frown to come upon her face. 'How much do things have to change for me to recognize a sound such as that...' she thought sadly as she forced herself to sit up.

That was when the pain happened. It wasn't an aching pain. It wasn't a soreness. It was a blinding, piercing pain that shot through her arm and her leg.

"You fight arrogantly with this... but without it you fight like a child with nothing held back. Your hubris will be your downfall."

Saeko cursed at the memory as tears filled her eye, from the pain. She was a strong woman, but she couldn't help it. Pierced through her leg and through her arm was the shattered remains of her wooden kendo blade.

It had shattered into three pieces, in her grasp was one piece unyielding in any attempts to remove the blade from her grasp. Yet it didn't stop the blade from shattering upon her vicious impact with the ground.

"Uggghhhhh..." a fallen man groaned out from the shadows of the alleyway.

'Get up Saeko.' She thought to herself as she pushed herself up with her uninjured arm, only to lean against the wall as if that alone sapped all of her remaining energy.

She was tired. It was a fact. It was a fact that she would never admit to anyone else. Yet it was a reality that refused to stay buried in the depths of her mind. It only served to become more prevalent every moment that passed, urging her to just collapse and go to sleep. Urging her to stop in a store and eat.

'You have to move.' She told herself as she stood up straight, bringing her hand before her eyes blocking the sun that was slowly starting to pierce the clouds. The weather would have been beautiful had it been similar just a week ago.

The purple haired young woman looked over her shoulder briefly, only for a sight that chilled her to the bone. Out of all of the horrors she had seen, from dead children, to zombies walking around with their intestines hanging out. She had been able to handle it.

There was nothing particularly special about him, although it was unnerving. Dressed in a large black hoodie, that still was over his head and completely shadowed over his face in utter blackness. Yet there was one key fact about this zombie that worried Saeko, far more than any other encounter she had formerly.

It was a tune that continually kept getting louder and louder, repeating over and over as the figure continued to approach her. Each step emphasizing the beats. As the hooded figured moved more and more into the light, the sight of two small ruined speakers that had tangled up the figures arm came into light. Both speakers hanging loosely on uneven lengths like scales, swinging up and down as the black hooded figure approached.

The song that was powered likely by a battery pack had served to collect a huge swarm of dead, following behind him searching for Death.

I keep using my energy... Pushing and shoving my way to please... Almost there almost there, feel like we've been gettin' nowhere...

Saeko cursed silently to herself. She had been unlucky enough to run into this particular zombie shortly after her departure from the group. And it had been following her ever since with an unquenched hunger as it suffered from it's ever increasing Famine.

She no longer had the time to just stand there are stare at the oncoming figure. To her? That black hooded figure symbolized her coming death. A death that she had no intention of giving into yet.

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Saeko grit her teeth in pain as she rammed a broom through door handles, before she stumbled to the back of the pharmacy she had the grace of luck to find while being followed by that hooded figure.

It wasn't long before she was rummaging through shelf after shelf in hopes to not just help with the damage she had sustained, but hopefully to fill the sports bag she had been lucky enough to obtain when she moved her way through the city, and found one abandoned.

"You don't even understand a single label on this shelf."

Saeko shook her head free of the familiar voices that she had been thinking of far too much ever since her talk with Takashi that night.

Vicodin

Perocet

Oxycontin

Dilaudid

Saeko tightened her lips. She had no idea what she was looking at. She knew they were pain killer's, but she wasn't a doctor. To be honest, she couldn't even remember the last time she had even been injured. She had no idea how many she should take, or even what she should take. And it was at this time that the pain was slowly starting to come to the forefront of her mind.

A pounding at the door of the establishment alerted her that her wandering party had finally caught up.

"You're stronger than this, make it back to your group."

'Shut up.' Saeko told herself as she shook her head free of thoughts. She promptly began filling the bag with anything she could find, and anything she figured that she... or the group may need.

Bandages, painkillers, antibiotics, cleaning agents such as iodine and alcohol. She even poached the medical kit that resided in the back room.

"Or leave your group. You don't need them anyways. You don't need anyone." The voice in her head said.

Saeko shook her head thoroughly, 'I'm not like you.' she thought stubbornly, only to resist the urge to palm her face realizing that she was talking to herself.

"I think I'm falling apart..." Saeko whispered to herself as she had to take a pause from gathering supplies.

"Are you now?" a voice asked, all too familiar and close for Saeko's liking.

Saeko spun around promptly only to become face to face with a male figure only a few inches taller than her. It was then that the figure struck down with his hand, directly toward her injured leg.

Saeko yelped out and fell to the ground in pain, closing her eyes all the while as she grit her teeth. 'It's not possible...' she told herself as she slowly opened her eyes, her injured leg hurting far worse than she had ever acknowledged before.

Yet when she opened her eyes. The figure was gone.

A loud crash alerted the purple haired swordswomen that despite her pain, and her confusion, she needed to move. The footfalls of the dead were on hot on her heels.

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I think I'm going to get there...

Saeko cursed her luck as she did her best to move her fastest up what felt like the never ending staircase. She had long since lost track of how long she had been moving. It truly felt like years. Her wounded leg still an unbearable pain that never ceased. Every step was agony. Yet it was her only option.

It wasn't hard to spot the large and elegant Takagi household. If you even wanted to call it a household. It was easily the size of a mansion that you would only assume could house large celebrities. However every twist, every alley, every turn. The streets were swarming with dead. Not tens, not hundreds, it had to be the thousands. She had not seen this many dead walking in the streets... ever. Not even with their incident at Rika's apartment, and the flood of zombies entering.

And truth be told... she knew exactly why.

Gonna get there, gonna get there... there...

Saeko squeezed her eyes shut as she reached the top of the stairs, the sound following behind her unable to escape her ears. That song. The same song that had been playing from that beast's speakers never stopped. It would just play over and over and over. Yet there was nothing that stopped it's unending march.

'How is that thing even still following me?' Saeko thought weakly as she wiped her hand over her forehead, smearing blood over her face. 'Takagi-san said that these things are only able to track by sound. This doesn't make sense.' Saeko thought grimly, looking over her shoulder as the hooded figure's head slowly made it's presence known from the bottom of the staircase.

Saeko tightened her jaw to bite back the pain, and her exhaustion. She quickly spun around to overlook the building before her.

A large, elegant, yet old japanese home. Or perhaps it was a Dojo. Saeko couldn't tell as she swayed on her feet from her injuries. And as far as she was concerned, it didn't matter what the building was, as long as she could be safe.

Don't know when, don't know how...

Saeko limped up to the building as quick as she possibly could, gym bag slung over her shoulder. She approached the wooden doors easily, although no longer moving much faster than those that were following her. Yet it was then that her worst nightmares were found.

'Locked?' she realized in panic. 'No...' she realized as she pounded against the double doors. The doors weren't just locked, they were barred shut.

"Help me! Please!" she called out as she opened the doors just slightly. She would be too lucky if inside the building before her, there were survivors. Survivors that could help her. 'Although I suppose there is always a chance for the survivors to be like him...'

Saeko thought dryly as she was brought back to one night she had been attacked on the streets by a man. Although she had her blade. So naturally... that was foolish of him.

'My blade...' Saeko pursed her lips as she had long since left the wooden handle of the blade behind in order to carry the gym bag. All that remained of what was her prized possession was a long wooden shard stabbed directly into her leg. She had nothing to defend herself.

"Anyone!" she yelled out again as she tried to slam her full body against the doors in hopes to break it down, even if she knew it was futile.

Pushing but that will hold me down, down, down, down...

Saeko cursed as the music had officially grown to be right behind her.

"Fine." she muttered to the steadily approaching figure, as she dropped her gym bag to her side. "I accept my fate." she said she she stood tall and proud.

The hooded figure, the embodiment of famine, a slave to it's hunger, lunged jaws wide open.

Death would surely follow.

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Anyways like I said, a short chapter. And I am going to try writing like this for awhile now.

If you are wondering the song playing on the hooded figure's speakers? I suggest you listen to the song "Getting Nowhere" by Magnetic Man.

Naturally I imagine you all can see the "Theme" that this chapter is showcasing(hopefully, I wasn't very subtle about it.)

So anyways since the chapters are shorter, I can cut back significantly on the AN's. Have a great day everyone.