The trip to the busses ended up being a running melee with Eddy, Ed, and Saeko clearing the way silently with blows to heads and necks. Kohta and Konrad punctuated the meaty thwacks with the pops and hiss of their silenced weapon and nail gun. The group made some good progress until they passed a stairwell and heard a scream, a small group of students had gotten trapped moving between floors by corpses.
"Oh dear!" Double-D whispered.
"Kawamoto-Chan is with them!" Toshimi gasped.
Konrad wasted no time in rushing to help. He jumped down smashing two zombie skulls on his boots before backhanding another two heads off their shoulders. Rei, Ed, Eddy, and Saeko moved in and took out the rest.
"Thank you!" One of the girls, Naomi, yelled to their saviors.
"Keep it down. These things hunt by sound." Saya hissed.
"Are any of you hurt or bitten?" Takashi asked.
The group all shook their heads. Wanting to make sure, Konrad approached them and saw that his visor had a scan function to check for potential infections.
[INFECTION SCAN...SCAN COMPLETE: NO INFECTION.]
"They're all good," Konrad said to his group.
"Alright look, we are going for the buses to get the hell out of here. You guys in?" Matthew asked the new members of the group.
Needless to say, the students all nodded their heads and joined up. The growing group of survivors moved on to the front entrance nearest the busses. However, that's where they got stalled.
There were dozens of zombies clogging the aisles between the shoe lockers. No way the group could slip by them without attracting at least a few and after those, the rest would be on them.
"So now what?" Eddy asked.
"They react to sound, right?" Saya pointed out. "One of us is gonna have to suck it up and take it."
"I'll do it."
Everybody looked at Ed who was grinning. Eddy, Double-D, and Matthew all had the same thought in their minds.
"OH HELL NO."
Toshimi's heart skipped a beat when she heard Ed volunteer while Misuzu looked at him like a wife was about to witness her husband going to war.
"Ed, you are not doing it," Konrad said. "It's better if I do it."
Konrad walked fearlessly out near the zombies in the locker room, quietly moving around them as they seemed not to notice him at all. He even went so far as to play drums on two of the zombie's heads.
"Will you PLEASE be serious?!" Saya hissed quietly.
Konrad gave a silent chuckle as he picked up a shoe that was on the ground and tossed it. The small sound attracted the zombies in the area to it. With the coast clear, Konrad opened the door to the outside and motioned the rest of them to follow him.
Matthew quickly made sure a member of the second group didn't accidentally bang his weapon on the stairway railing while Kohta opted to watch over the rest. However, Principal Sato suddenly did something surprising...he made his way back to the principal's office.
"What are you doing?" Kyoko asked.
"Saving as many as I can."
Making his way to the blood-stained microphone, the principal of Fujimi High took a deep breath before speaking into it.
"ATTENTION STUDENTS AND STAFF. ATTENTION STUDENTS AND STAFF. WE ARE LEAVING THE SCHOOL. ANY SURVIVORS THAT WISH TO JOIN US, MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE BUSSES IN FRONT OF THE SCHOOL. IF YOU DON'T WISH TO GO WITH US THEN WE WILL MAKE AS MUCH NOISE AS POSSIBLE TO DRAW THEM AWAY FROM THE SCHOOL. THEY ARE BLIND BUT NOT DEAF SO BE SILENT AND BE SAFE."
"Alright, you got it, let's go!" Matthew said.
"No..." Principal Sato said. "You all go. I'll stay here."
"But why?" Saya asked.
The principal sighed. "I've lived a long and full life, Miss Takagi. If I die so that my students and staff manage to escape...then I will gladly lay down my life for them."
Saya wanted to argue but Matthew put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head, telling her not to argue. It was the principal's choice, not theirs. Reluctantly, the Takagi Scion followed Eddy's Bro as they caught up with everyone else, who were already making their way to the bus while fighting off the zombies in the parking lot.
Kohta made it to the bus first, covering everyone's escape. Konrad moved to help Naomi's boyfriend, Takuzo, from being grabbed and torn apart by the zombies before providing covering fire for him and his girlfriend to join the others on the bus.
"We're coming!" Matthew said, firing his rifle at some zombies from long-range and scoring some wicked headshots while Saya did her best to command the remaining students onto the bus.
Matthew joined Konrad in holding the line along with Ed, Eddy, and Saeko, making sure none of the undead got close to the buses. A few of the other students managed to come over, sneaking onto the bus as well, including Morita and Imamura.
"Glad to see you're still among the living." Double-D smiled.
"Hell yeah! I was almost a goner before the principal's announcement drew them away!" Morita said.
"We need to go!" Takashi yelled.
"WAIT FOR US!"
Everyone looked and there were another six or seven students and a teacher running to them. The teacher among them caught Rei, Matthew, and Kohta's eyes as they scowled.
"Taniuchi-Chan! Miura-Kun!" Kawamoto called out as she recognized two of the students.
"Shido..." Rei snarled at the sight of the snake himself, Koichi Shido.
"We need to help them!" Double-D said.
"You can't be serious!? We're not saving HIM!" Rei yelled in protest.
"I hate him as much as everyone else, kid," Matthew said. "But would you rather we leave him to his own devices when we can keep an eye on him?"
Rei didn't like it, but Matthew did have some semblance of a point. He and Kyoko were both trusted authority figures and they would no doubt keep Shido from spreading his poisonous influence over everyone.
Konrad was in the same boat as everyone. He was sorely tempted to just shoot Shido and make it look like an accident, but the students' lives took priority first. He moved to provide covering fire for them and thin out the undead numbers.
"Sensei! I twisted my ankle! Help me!" A boy with glasses cried, having been carrying some books only to fall over.
"I see...then it's over for you," Shido said before stomping on the poor kid's face. "In this new world, the weak have no place. Take comfort in the knowledge that your sacrifice has saved the rest of us at least."
As the boy wailed in pain, the zombies began moving upon him to feast on his prone form. Konrad noticed and moved to help but he wouldn't make it in time.
Suddenly, a loud air horn blasted from nearby, attracting the zombies' attention away from the kid. Konrad looked up and saw Principal Sato by the bridge interconnecting the two buildings of the school, firing the airhorn on full blast.
"Hey! Hey! Over here!"
At the last moment, he moved towards the building farthest away from the evacuation point. As the horde continued to pour up and into the building, everyone realized that the zombies were no longer pressuring the bus and even the way out of thinning.
"Come on, nobody gets left behind," Konrad said, holstering his guns before picking up the poor kid in a fireman's carry and bringing him to the bus, where Shido and his group had already made it.
"McGee-san it is a pleasure that you saved me and my students."
Matthew scowled. "Save your shit, Shido. Just get in the damn bus and shut up."
With everyone safely boarded onto the bus, Shizuka took the driver's seat and with a few chants of "They're not alive anymore!", floored the gas as the bus sped out of the gates, running over what few zombies remained.
"Look!" A boy from Shido's group, Yamada, called out as everyone looked out the windows.
There they could see the building Principal Sato had lured the zombies into, specifically it was the one with the dome on the roof for the Astronomy Club, standing up there was the principal himself, having barricaded the stairs and was still blowing his air horn. He blasted one last time and looked back towards everyone. Right then the barricade broke and the swarm lurched up the stairs towards him.
Principal Sato backed up towards the railing, the side which opened up to the parking deck below. The old man saluted and right when the zeds were reaching out to grab him, he leaned back and dropped out of sight, a smile on his face as the undead followed after him, plummeting to their doom as well.
"Fuck... You did good, Teach..." Eddy whispered as he saw this.
The survivors could only sigh of relief as they finally escaped the hellhole that Fujimi Academy had become. At the same time, they all gave a silent prayer to their principal for his final sacrifice.
Rest in Peace, Daisuke Sato...