Classes went on without incident until the middle of the day. Then, without warning, the ground shook violently beneath their feet. Students screamed and ducked under desks as the tremors shook windows and objects on shelves.

Almost as soon as the shaking began, it stopped. But in its wake, a throbbing headache stabbed at Touya's temples. From the moans and gasps around him, the others felt it, too: a debilitating pain that made him stagger.

"Damn it!"

Touya gritted his teeth against the blinding pain in his skull. After stumbling in the direction where Saya sat, he found her clutching her head with her hands.

He looked around; some students were crying on the floor as they writhed, and others seemed to have simply passed out.

"Saya, it's me." Whispering in a low tone, he put his arm around her to reassure her that he was there.

'It's started, huh? But...'

Touya frowned. This hadn't happened in the original anime; it must have resulted from his existence in these world-altering events. But there was no time to think about the implications. The apocalypse had begun without warning.

"Grugugu..."

Then a guttural roar was heard down the hall. Students who had overcome the pain paled in terror as a teacher appeared, eyes glazed over, and lips peeled back in a savage snarl as he charged at the students.

Other students staggered up from the floor; though slow as any zombie, they threatened the frozen and terrified students severely.

This was the beginning of hell.

As Saya looked around in horror, a sickly pale girl lunged at the closest student. She slammed him to the ground, her mouth open to bite his neck mercilessly.

Blood gushed like there was no tomorrow, pooling beneath him as his screams came from his throat. Though he struggled and pushed the zombie away, his efforts were futile. Soon his eyes glazed over, and his very existence was transformed into something more than human.

Finally, other students reacted accordingly. Shrieks of panic and screams of terror flooded the room as they stampeded toward the school gates.

Touya's gaze followed the Komuro's figure, Hisashi and Rei coming through the door.

"T-Touya, what's going on?" Saya's mind felt dazed at the chaos in the room.

"Nothing's going on. I'm here with you."

Touya stood up.

Seeing a zombie stagger towards them with outstretched arms, Touya remained impassive as he summoned his God's Grimoire. The thick book opened with a snap, and its pages turned under the force of his will until he reached page two. The white, slightly time-stained page rippled as, at his command, the hilt of a katana emerged from its surface.

Touya stepped out to meet the zombie, grasping the hilt of the katana. For the first time, with all his might, he swung the sword with a wind's whoosh and decapitated the zombie with a single blow.

"Wh-what!"

Saya's eyes became huge as she stared between Touya, the severed head of the zombie that rolled to a stop, and the floating book.

"T-Touya, how did you...?"

For once, she was speechless. As much as she prided herself on being sensible in crises, she hadn't prepared for this. Zombies were the stuff of horror stories, not real life. Yet there they were, an impossible nightmare come true.

Not only that, her brother summoned a magic book out of nowhere!

"Surprised?"

The bloody katana in his hand and what he had just done with it made the casual question chilling.

Snapping out of her astonishment, Saya frowned. She trusted Touya to choose precisely now to delight in unsettling her. Well, if he thought that would get him out of having to explain himself, she had another idea.

Once they were out of this place, she'd ask him what was going on and how exactly he'd gotten a sword out of a book that had appeared out of nowhere... but staying alive was a priority for now.

Her fingers tightened on his sleeve as she urged. "Come on! We need to get out of this cramped place before those things pile up on us!"

Touya nodded, grabbing Saya's hand as they ran after their fleeing companions. The hallway was filled with zombies, attracted by the screams and smell of the living.

Ahead, five zombies appeared, blocking their path to the entrance to the other hallway.

In an instant of movement, Touya lunged forward. His katana pierced the neck of the first zombie, knocking its head off.

Without pausing, he spun and swung his sword at the chest of a second zombie, pinning it against the wall. A third zombie reached him with its fingers, but its arm was severed at the elbow. It barely had time to react before Touya's sword also cut off its head.

Two zombies remained. One lunged at Touya, opening its rotten, bloody jaws. Touya easily dodged it and cut off its head with disdainful ease. But at that moment, the last zombie reached Saya from behind.

She screamed as its rotten fingers were about to dig into her shoulders. At that moment, she felt something mysterious stirring inside her. However, she was unable to delve deeper into that feeling.

Touya's eyes narrowed into a cold silence. In a gust of wind, propelling himself with all his might, he seemed to vanish and reappear behind the zombie trying to grab his precious sister. His katana flashed, and the zombie's head flew off. Its corpse fell to the ground, freeing Saya from a predicament.

"Ugh, this smells so bad... Touya."

Although Saya felt nauseous in her stomach at the sight of blood, she kept her eyes fixed on Touya's back. His swordsmanship was unlike anything she had ever seen as if he had trained for a lifetime to wield that sword. Yet he had only come out of a book a few minutes ago and had only trained for a week with her mother.

Who-or what-was her brother? And why had he never given her a hint of what he was really capable of?

'Questions for later.' She said to herself as another zombie collapsed under Touya's sword.

"Where are we going now, Touya?" Saya asked while she kept close to him, sometimes reporting the approaching zombies.

"To the administrative office." His tone sounded more severe than usual, but given their situation, it was understandable. "That's where the school bus keys are kept. We also have to pick up Saeko on the way."

Saya nodded, trusting Touya's judgment. If anyone could get them out of that chaos alive, it was him.

Read up to 20 advance chapters in my Pa treon

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I wanted to speed things up a bit. Forgive me if I have not left you satisfied.