We sat up there on those bookshelves what felt like forever, feeling like we let our teammates down just for letting our guard down. All we could do now was wait and hope.
Day 343, 12:50 PM
With Kuroiro
"Oh shit," Kuroiro curses under his breath. "This is so not good. No, we're fucking trapped." He continues pressing his back against the wall despite reaching its limit and closes his eyes, hoping it is all just a dream. Licking his lips, he looks over to see everyone else on the bookshelves against the walls. Looking over, zombies flood the room, exceeding the maximum occupancy limit and feeling every inch of the room with zombies. Well, at least on the ground floor.
"This is so not good."
"You already said that," Kaibara rolls his eyes. "Got any new content to give out or are you a one-trick pony?"
"Shut up, drill boy."
"You think that's an insult? That's a compliment. You may be surprised to know that some girls love it when a boy can rotate any part of his body like a drill and I mean... any."
"Guys," Komori whispers, "please, let's not fight. Please, can we just get out of here?"
The sound of Komori's whispers brings Kuroiro back to his senses and he nods. "Okay, yeah, sure. Okay, we'll uh... we'll figure it out. Uh... I... uh... I'll think of something. I'll... I'll figure it out." He licks his lips nervously, doing everything in his power to catch his breath and steady his heart rate. "Okay, it's dark in here and... uh... there are plenty of shadows."
"But the doors," Komori points out. "There are zombies in the doorway."
"I'll drill a hole in the wall," Kaibara offers. I'll drill a hole in the wall and then one by one, we'll climb out. If I remember correctly, there should be an alleyway on the other side of the wall behind us, right?"
"Yeah," Kuroiro confirms. "We should do that. Drill a hole in the wall and then we'll... we'll crawl out of here."
Kaibara nods. "Roger that."
"Try to minimize the use of your quirk though."
"I know, I know; if I use my quirk too much, we'll attract a beast or a brainiac and... god." Who's to say there isn't a brainiac in the crowd right now?
"The last thing we need is a zombie with the IQ of Albert Einstein and a beast that makes Hulk look like a chump on our asses."
"I wish we did have Hulk on our side because Hulk would destroy these beasts." He rotates his hand like a drill and begins drilling a hole in the wall just a few meters above his head. "Hulk defeated the Juggernaut in one comic with pure physical strength alone. He literally stopped him and no one stops the Juggernaut."
"You can't stop the Juggernaut because he's the Juggernaut, bitch."
Kaibara offers a laugh as he finishes drilling a hole about the size of his hand. He moves to make another hole beside it a few meters away before pausing. "I think I'll weaken the wall and then use my knife to cut my way through. You know, minimizing the chances of using my quirk."
"Good idea." Kuroiro scoots back to give Kaibara some leg work. Kuroiro notices that whenever Kaibara uses his quirk, the zombies become more agitated and begin lunging for him, reaching, and growling hungrily, ravenous, savagely.
"It could be a while," Kaibara tells them as he begins cutting away at the wall with his survival knife. "Might as well get comfortable."
"I hope you hurry," Komori urges. "I kinda have to go to the bathroom."
Kuroiro reaches over and grabs Kaibara's backpack. He unzips it, pulls the microbiology textbook out, and begins flipping through it once his eyes adjust. He pauses on one page before looking at Kodai. "Hey, Yui, is there anything chance we can fight our way out with your quirk? You could turn these books into a shield or barricade for us."
She shakes her head. "Too heavy."
He nods. "Yeah, they'll be too heavy to push or carry. Even if you turned them into shields, there are no handholds like riot shields have. It would be easier if we had Yanagi with us... but I'm sure we can figure something out." He turns to the textbook. "We'll think of something as a backup plan in case this hole-in-the-wall plan fails. In the meantime, I'm going to catch up on reading incomprehensible English words." He turns to the textbook and begins flipping through the pages.
He grits his teeth and clenches his knuckles. "For the love of Almighty God, why are there no... oh, there's a picture." He groans at the picture of the flesh-eating bacteria Kuroiro heard earlier. "Disgusting." He looks over. "Komori, if I ever catch a flesh-eating disease, put me out of my misery with your toxic mushrooms."
Komori scoffs. "We'll see about that, shroom."
He turns back to the textbook. "Come on, there's gotta be something. This dead flesh disease or whatever... it's gotta be somewhere in here. I fucking hope so." He bites his lower lip, trying to calm himself but the growl of the zombies below him causes him to temporarily lose his concentration.
"Come on. What are you, the fuck are you?"
You gotta be in here. Come on disease, what kind of disease are you? Come on, where the fuck are you?
He begins flipping desperately through the pages, his breathing picking up with each passing page to the point he lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding in. Groaning in frustration, he flips to the back page to count the number of pages. He internally smacks his head upon seeing the last page number to be 851.
Damn it!
The back of his head rests against the wall for a few seconds as he clenches his fists again. This is going to take forever. We could've been out of here in less than ten minutes but I had to push us to stay just in case. Damn it. I wish Kaminari were here because we could just send him to money across the shelves like some kind of chimpanzee and lead the zombies away. He's done it before; I'm sure he wouldn't mind doing it again. In situations like this, the Kamisquad went on supply runs and in those moments, we soared like eagles.
I miss the Kamisquad.
He turns back to the book, desperately flipping through it again, hoping to find the disease inside.
1:30
With Manga
"How are you feeling, man?" Manga asks what felt like the one billionth time.
Kamakiri is unresponsive as he rests his head against the pillow, soaking in the sweat he's drenching out... again.
Manga carefully pulls the blankets off of the bug boy to discover that Kamakiri's right hand dislodged from his wrist. Jumping back and nearly losing his stomach contents, Manga turns away to catch his breath. He mentally curses himself for not noticing before he heads into the bathroom. He quickly looked through the medicine cabinet and under the sink to see if there was something he could use to dress Kamakiri's wounds.
Thinking back, Manga realized that even though Kamakir's hand dislodged from his wrist like a plastic hand falling off a plastic statue, there was no blood. Whatever this disease did, the flesh is so dead that not even blood is seeping out of the stubs. Yet, that guy from last night was able to still walk and use his hands somewhat, despite his flesh being dead.
How is this possible? His flesh is dead and not flowing any blood but he was able to move his hands and feet? Wait, did he move his hands and feet? I know he walked here and based on Kamakiri's look, the skin on his flesh was dead yet he was able to walk. Then again, even if he forced himself to walk with whatever nerves were still alive, that must've been an excruciatingly painful experience.
He finds a dirty hand towel. He runs the water over from the sink and cleans as much as he can. After drying it up as best as he could, he returns to Kamakiri's side and puts the towel over his stump, grossing himself out and nearly vomiting once again. He decides to use his quirk to make the room cooler for Kamakir's sake. As he steps back and looks at the buy boy's condition, he notices that the rash spread to his collarbones, and the purple skin marks were now at his elbow with the black patches of skin just a few inches under. In a few hours, the black skin would spread all the wall up his arm and then his arm would fall off. He cringes at the idea before heading out of the room, keeping the door open and standing in the doorway.
Kendo and Monoma meet up with Manga and take two steps back upon seeing him standing in the doorway, refusing to leave.
"What's going on?" Kendo demands. "How is he doing?"
Manga pauses. "Not good. His right hand came off."
"Oh god," Kendo groans. She punches her stomach. "No, don't throw up."
"He's going to end up like that guy from last night. He's going to fucking fall apart. Piece by piece, hand by hand, finger by finger, limb by fucking limb."
Monoma closes his eyes, his brain taking a few moments to register the situation. "We should put him out of his misery."
"He's sleeping right now."
"And when he wakes up, he's going to be in pain. A lot of pain. We should put him out of his misery."
"If we do that, we're giving up on him. There can still be a way to save him. Come on, we just gotta hold on a little longer for Kuroiro and the others to get back."
"They went to the library to get a medical book to see if we can identify it but identifying it will be useless unless we have treatment."
Kendo nods. "I agree. I should've sent them to the hospital or pharmacy or something else."
Manga clutches the doorknob from the inside of the room. "Hey, in this world, hospitals and pharmacies are the first to go. Even if we don't have medicine or treatment, at least knowing what this disease is will make things easier in the future."
"Easier?" She shakes her head. "There is nothing that can make this easier. I think Monoma is right when he says we should put him out of his misery."
"No. We can't kill him. He's our friend and even if the chances are slim, there's a possibility he can be saved. If you want to focus on someone, why don't you focus on Kimiko and Shimamura? They're infected too so why not focus on them?"
"Their symptoms aren't as severe as Kamakiri. In fact, the medical book retrieval would be used more for those two than Kamakiri."
"He's our classmate, our friend, Kendo, by killing him, we're saying that we're giving up on him."
Kendo steps toward him. "By keeping him alive, he is suffering. Every second he's alive, he's in pain. He's falling apart; putting him out of his misery is the only thing we can do. Please, he is our friend and I can't stand to see him suffer. Please, I know you want to believe there is hope but Manga, the only hope he has is making sure he dies sooner rather than later."
Manga hesitates, his unseen eyes wandering around the room before his head tilts over. "Shit. Please, please."
"I'll do it." Kendo sighs heavily. "I'm the leader of this group so I should be the one to put him down." Kendo produces a knife from her pocket. "It'll be quick, I promise. He won't suffer, I won't let him."
Pushing Manga aside - who offers no resistance - Kendo steps into the room and closes the door. She debates locking the door before deciding that it is better to leave it unlocked in case there is an emergency. She pulls up her mask and a pair of goggles she got from Hatsume and steps toward Kamakiri.
"This is it," she whispers to herself, "just... get it over with. Don't think about it, just do it." She sighs heavily, taking a deep breath, praying that she won't catch his disease through the mask before telling herself that it is stupid. She looks down at the motionless Kamakiri who keeps his eyes closed but his breathing somewhat erratic. His lip twitches, indicating he might be thirsty. She wants to run and get him some water but that would only be giving him false hope. She wanted to give him hope but right now, she was here to put her classmate out of his misery. Kamakiri was somewhat like Bakugou and had a short temper, yes, but he always had his class's back no matter what and he wouldn't back down. He was also insanely strong, even when he didn't have a regular supply of food to keep his muscular physique up. He got into UA to be a hero and was a boy who loved his classmates and was willing to kill for them and here he was, reduced to a mess of living decomposing flesh. She choked on her vomit and forced it down her throat, determined to go through with this.
As leader of this group, I owe it to him to put him out of his misery. You can do it, Kendo, you can do it.
She sighs heavily and raises the knife above her head, ready to hammer it down through his temple before seeing his groaning form causing her to freeze in place like an ice cube. Kamakir's eyes open and they lazily scan the room like a camera. His eyes eventually meet hers and he doesn't do anything to acknowledge the knife over Kendo's head.
No, go back to sleep, Kamakiri, go back to sleep so you won't feel a thing.
"Kill me," Kamakiri whispers. "Please, please kill me."
Kendo groans suddenly at hearing his pained voice. He was awake and alive and he wasn't going back to sleep anytime soon. Oh, she so desperately wanted to drive the knife into his skull and put him out of his misery but seeing his sad face, the look of hopelessness in his face saps all the willpower out of her like a vacuum. Her lips quiver uncontrollably and she loses the will to even hold the knife above her head. She drops her hands to the side, the knife slipping out of her hands as if it were covered in slippery corn syrup and she is reduced to nothing but a state of daze as she gazes upon her dying teammate.
"Please, let me die. Please, let me die."
Kamakiri, I'm sorry, but... I can't do it. I can't put you down. I'm sorry, I can't. I'm not strong enough. I can't kill you. You're my friend, I can't fucking kill you. I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry. Please forgive me, please, forgive me. I'm sorry. I'm so, so, sorry, Kamakiri.
Without realizing it, tears were rolling down her cheeks.
Why did it have to be me? If you were going to die, why did it have to be by my hands? Why couldn't it have been a zombie or someone from the League of Villains? Why, why me? WHY?!
"Kill me. Kill me!"
Kendo backs away, forgetting the knife on the floor before backing away. She backs away until she is three feet away from the door when it kicks open and the knob hits her in the side.
"Shit."
"What's going on?" Manga winces.
Kendo pushes him out of the room. "I couldn't do it." She closes the door behind him. "I couldn't fucking kill him. Someone else has to do it, anyone but me. Please, I can't put him down."
Monoma shakes his head in disappointment but also with a sense of understanding. "He's suffering. Please, just, get it over with."
"It would've been so much easier if he was asleep." Kendo rests her forehead on the door. "Damn it, why did he have to be awake? Why did I hesitate in driving the knife into his skull?"
The knife? THE KNIFE!
Realizing she left the knife inside, she quickly rips the door open and looks inside.
Kamakiri reaches over with his left hand that was still connected to his wrist and picks up the knife with his hands gripping it by the blade and covering the not-so-stainless steel in fluids. He holds up the knife but he doesn't point it to himself. "Please, kill me. I'm not strong enough."
Kendo runs and grabs the knife, ignoring the fact she isn't wearing gloves. "Give me that."
Despite the flesh on his hand being dead, he holds onto the knife handle with an iron grip. "No. You have to kill me. Please, I'm not strong enough. Please, just do it! I'm in fucking pain!"
"Give me the knife!"
"Why won't you kill me!"
Kendo rips the knife from his hand... and the hand from his wrist, no blood spurting out.
Kamakiri screams at the top of his lungs before his screams slowly die out. What makes his eyes widen isn't the pain of his hand dislodging from his wrist but rather the sight of him officially being without hands.
Kendo falls flat on her ass, yelling out loud as she grips her right hand, the pain shooting through her palm. Looking down, she realizes she cut herself on the knife when she fell and left a deep cut behind, deep enough that the palm of her hand was already dark red with blood. Her eyes widen when she sees the knife lying against her foot.
A few seconds ago, Kamakiri picked the knife up by the blade rather than the handle and got some of his infected blood on the knife and she was cut with that same contaminated knife. Her eyes widen in horror.
I cut myself with a contaminated knife.
She feels her stomach do several backflips as her heart sinks.
I'm infected!
With Hatsume
Knocking on the door, Hatsume and Mogami wait patiently as they stand at Shimamura's door. A few seconds later, the door opens but Hatsume and Mogami gasp at the sight.
"Pretty sight, isn't it?" Kimko snarks as she holds up her hand, revealing it to be completely purple up to her wrist with the rash spreading faster up her arm and nearly making it to her collarbone. She wears nothing but her bra and panties as she invites them into the room.
Hatsume and Mogami cover their mouth and eyes with a facemask and goggles as they step through the door and into the farthest corner of the room, watching out for the camera.
"What are you doing here?" Shimamura asks as he climbs off the bed, still in his underwear. "Came to say goodbye or something? Need my instructions manual on how to build a rocket ship or something?"
"No, we thought we would keep ya company," Hatsume answers simply. "We've figured that you guys might want to hang out with your friends so we decided to come visit."
Shimamura shows him his red and purple limbs. "In a few hours, our skin is going to rot off of us while we're still alive. We don't want you to be here for this because as soon as that happens, the last memory you'll have of us is us with an ugly look."
"No," Kimiko shakes her head desperately. "Please don't leave us. We... we don't want to die alone."
"There could be hope for you," Mogami assures. "Don't worry, we got a couple of supply runners living up to their name and making a supply run to the library. Once we know what this disease is, you'll be cured."
"It's already too late," Shimamura argues. "Knowing what this disease is is useless unless we know how to treat it."
"We're willing to amputate," Hatsume says simply. "We can cut off your arms and legs if you want."
"No," Kimiko shakes her head again, tears pouring out of her eyes like a leaking water bottle. "Don't cut off our fucking limbs, please. I don't want to live the rest of my life without my hands and feet. Especially in this world."
Shimamura gets off the bed. "We'll be a liability so we might as well keep our limbs." He gestures to the camera. "Besides, we need to record our progress so you guys will know what to do the next time you get infected. But... I hope there isn't a next time."
"There won't be a next time," Mogami declares. "At least for us."
"I hope you're right because... what we're going through... you cannot even begin to understand the fear we feel. I am... so fucking scared for my fucking life. I just... that guy from last night. He must've been feeling what we felt and... we just pushed him away and left him to fucking rot. And then we killed him."
"We put him out of his misery," Hatsume corrects. "He's not suffering anymore."
"Can you do the same thing for us when the time comes?"
"That won't happen."
Kimiko groans. "You're going to let us suffer and die a slow and painful death? I don't want to die but when we come to the point where I can't bear it anymore, can you put me out of my misery?"
"Stop thinking of the negatives. You're going to be fine." Mogami leans against the wall. "We need you guys. I need you; I don't think I can handle MeiMei over here."
"Promise us," Shimamura speaks up. "I want to record our symptoms as much as possible but promise Kimiko and me: if we beg for mercy, you will put us out of our misery."
Hatsume pauses and shares a sideglance with Mogami. The two of them stay silent for what feels like forever before they slowly turn to their friends and slowly now.
"We promise," they declare.
The longer we stayed on those bookshelves, the more anxious we felt. We also knew that the longer we stayed on those bookshelves, the more likely our classmates would die without the textbooks. We needed to know what this disease was and get the information back to the others and fast but with each passing second, we felt as if our teammates were dying a little more.
With Kuroiro
1:10 PM
"Shit," Kuroiro groans, "this is like trying to find a paper needle in a haystack of paper." He slaps his forehead. "Shit, how many diseases are there in the world?" Trying to concentrate on reading was tough enough but trying to read while there was a horde of zombies growling at them, trying to make a human dish out of them made it worse. At least four times in the last ten minutes, he was tempted to smack the zombies with the sole of his shoes but he didn't want to take any risks. Every inch of the ground floor was covered with zombies and the doorway was too crowded for him to use his quirk and carry everyone out. Even if he used his quirk to carry everyone out, his quirk usage would just draw the zombies to his location and they'll be on him like lice on hair. Not only that but even if he tried to move through the shadows to get to the outside, the outside of the building - at least where the exit was - had no shadows as it was bright and warm on this particular sunny day and the sun showed no sign even allowing a shadow to appear. So as soon as he used his shadow-merging quirk to get through the door, he would be forcibly expelled and land on the zombies still trying to get into the doorway.
Their only hope was the alleyway but the more Kuroiro thought about it-
"I found it," Kuroiro whispers loudly. "I found it, I found the disease." He looks over the images and sees a picture of an arm showing a progressive transformation from red, to purple, then black.
Komori sits on her knees and looks over the book. "What does it say? What's the disease's name?"
Kuroiro points to the name. "Okay, so, it says here that... this disease is some kind of bacteria. It has a high mortality rate which makes it highly unlikely to spread far and wide." He sighs heavily. "Good, it's an extremely rare disease, so, we're unlikely to encounter it again." His eyes roam over the readings. "Breakdown of skin, cells, blood, flesh, projectile vomiting of blood..." He runs his rans over the words, trying to look for a keyword that might stand out. There is only one word that stands out and it makes even his heart skip a beat.
Amputation.