Many thanks to Paradoxity for catching those errors. They're fixed in this version.
Leaving the campus, there was an impromptu debate. Should they make one last effort to find any trapped survivors in the school? Or should they simply move on?
Naruto and Saeko had loped ahead, guiding Hiroshi through the remains of the campus, and out into the larger district. The rest were all in the bus, watching the exchange in their seating section.
Listening to those opposite her, one would think that being callous came to her naturally.
Sure, by virtue of her training, she was more comfortable with making those big decisions. But that did not mean she felt nothing while doing so.
I could only argue so passionately for Takashi's death because, for better or worse, I was so mad at the stupid boy.
She stood opposite Kyoko and Rei, hands clenched, and nails biting into her palms. She absolutely could not believe what they were proposing. Shizuka did not disagree with her, but she didn't stand with her either. Neither did Miku. Without Naruto and Saeko in the bus, no one was going to side with her naked pragmatism.
But she still stood her ground.
"Save them and do what with them?" she'd argued, staring Kyoko down despite the height difference.
"Since when do we need a reason to save anyone?" Rei shot, accusation in her voice.
Saya took offense at that, her emotions running away with her. "Since our lives literally depended on it," she shot back. "Or have you so quickly forgotten what happened the last time one of us got the brilliant idea to save someone not in our group?"
Everyone shifted uncomfortably, but she didn't care. She was too angry.
"Momo died," she spat, putting as much venom into the words as she could.
Takashi closed his eyes, despondent. Kohta looked away, ever uncomfortable. Even Hiroshi met her eyes over his rear mirror, disapproval radiating from them.
Rei was in her face now, face reddening. "At least we did something, Takagi! We fought! What the hell do you do?! All you do is talk! All you ever do is sit behind keyboards and yammer away!"
In a cold flash of clarity, she was struck dumb.
Her nails bit into her palms. She was angry, she was right, and yet—she had no response. Her throat burned with something unspoken, something ugly. I hate periods so much, she thought furiously as she tried to keep her eyes dry by the sheer force of her will.
Because Rei was right.
What was the point of strategy if she couldn't fight? What good were logistics if she couldn't kill?
She knew the importance of her role in her head—had always known, always assumed she was secure in it.
Yet…
Yet standing here, eyes hot and heart hammering, matching the furious gaze of someone who had survived the mad melee that claimed Momo, she needed to know it in her heart too.
In this new world, might essentially made right—more so than ever before. Sure she had her plan to replace her father and use… no, work with Naruto, but that was in the future.
She needed might now.
Her silence effectively ended the argument, and the matter was carried to vote. She 'won', supposedly, but the victory tasted like ashes in her mouth. She blinked hard, willing the wetness at the corner of her eyes to dry out.
A kind of fragile silence fell on the bus, with Rei still fuming.
There was an ever present smell of smoke. Of burning. Not particularly strong, and quite easy to simply forget. But the scent hung there either way. It lingered—faint, but inescapable; seeping into their clothes, their lungs—just like the silence pressing in around them.
The smoke formed a grim backdrop to the start of their journey, somehow amplifying the silence into a weighty, cloying thing that you could feel in your chest and taste at the back of your throat.
We all have strong personalities, and only really give way to Naruto.
As they left the campus and moved into the district proper, the city's corpse loomed, smothering a hope she hadn't even known she carried.
A storefront caught her eye. It had been torn apart, its windows shattered, and a car crashed through the front door. A mannequin in a half-burned dress stood in the wreckage, eerily untouched, its dead eyes seeming to stare directly at her. Its dead eyes met hers. Hollow.
She could not look away until the bus passed.
Saya's stomach cramped.
She hadn't realized she was still hoping. Not really.
But as the ruins passed, as the city's corpse stretched out before them, that last fragile hope withered and died, leaving nothing but emptiness in its place.
Somehow, she had believed the outbreak had been contained to the campus. Now, with the city stretching in ruins before them, that illusion crumbled.
Looking outward now, it was quite obviously the case that, for better or worse, the campus had somehow been spared the majority of the destruction.
The bus continued on, and the silence sat heavy, nearly pressing against her skull.
Then, the thought slipped in, unbidden.
What about Papa and Mama?
For the first time, fear wrapped itself around her throat—a slow, cold pressure that squeezed tight. A cold sweat prickled at the back of her neck, her fingers clenching against her knees. The last time she spoke to them was before Momo died.
Since then, silence.
No updates or contact.
She'd thought nothing much of it.
Her parents were indestructible.
Weren't they?
But…
Are they even still alive?
Miku exhaled sharply, breaking her from her thoughts. The girl shook her head—like she could physically dislodge the tension in the air.
Then she clapped her hands together, breaking the silence. "So… are we just gonna sit here like ghosts, or what?"
Everyone, including Saya herself, turned to look at the girl. But her thoughts were already back on her parents.
They have to be. They just have to…
Kohta was quick to take the opportunity to try and lighten the tension. "Do you have anything in mind?"
Luckily, Naruto's apartment complex is quite close to the house.
Miku shrugged. "Not really? I do know that we can't just sit here with our thumbs up our asses." She turned to Kyoko. "Any suggestions?"
I have to get him to go check it out with me.
Kyoko huffed. "I'm perfectly willing to sit 'like a ghost' until we get to our destination."
Miku rolled her eyes. "Alright grandma… Some of us aren't that patient."
"We could explore outside," Kohta suggested. "The bus is moving slow enough."
Before Saya could interject, Shizuka raised her hand like she was asking permission. "Aren't Naruto and Saeko already handling that? Wouldn't this just… ruin all that effort?"
Rei crossed her arms. "We've been locked in one place too long. First the complex, now the bus. If we don't get used to zombies soon, we'll freeze when it actually counts."
Miku oohed, even as she nodded in agreement. "That's a good point! I feel like I'm going to burst if I don't do anything soon. I wouldn't want to get all repressed and do something impulsive just for the adrenaline."
Saya was going to try to speak again, but thought better of it.
Better to keep my opinions to myself.
She was still raw from her argument with Rei, and had no intentions of trading blows.
Hiroshi cleared his throat from the front of the bus. "Before that," he began. "I think Rei and Saya need to apologize to each other."
That got Saya to her feet immediately, her uncertainty evaporating in a white hot flash of rage. "What do you mean?!" she spat. "I won't apologize for telling the truth!"
At the other end of the cabin, Rei was also on her feet, glaring towards the driver's seat. Her hands were clenched, her lips tightly pinched together.
Miku sighed. "Why'd you have to go poke a bear, Hiroshi?"
"It needs to be done," Hiroshi replied, not fazed at all by the angry two women behind him. "We cannot afford in-fighting amongst ourselves. So, both of you need to apologise to each other."
"Never!" "I'd rather chew my jeans!"
Hiroshi sighed. Adjusting his rearview mirror, he faced them, locking eyes with both of them through the mirror. He let the silence hang for a moment, pressing it into their chests like a weight.
Then he spoke.
"This is not a game," Hiroshi's voice was calm, but there was steel beneath it. Even as she burned with anger and hurt, she could not help but listen.
"Saya, you are quick to anger, and you forget—genius or not, humans are not chess pieces. You were right, but berating your peers weakens your position. Convince them."
He exhaled sharply, then turned his focus to Rei, his gaze steady. "And you, Rei—remember that we work as a team. Not everyone fights. Some make sure we survive. If anyone here has the right to flex, it's Naruto and Saeko."
Apologize? To her? After everything she said?
Why should I care about the morale of people who are, at best, expendable? Cannon fodder.
Only Naruto matters in this story.
Her thoughts twisted in on themselves, red-hot and seething, filling her mind with a faint red haze as the tightening coil of heat and fury gripped her head and chest.
Never. Not an inch for that woman. She wants to be a warrior? Fine. I'll feed her with her fucking kills!
Rei locked eyes with Hiroshi through the rearview mirror, her glare sharp as steel.
He didn't flinch. Didn't shift. His grip on the wheel remained steady, his eyes holding hers with quiet finality.
He was not backing down.
The rest of the bus was silent, the air thick with unspoken judgment. No one moved. No one even pretended to look away. It was the kind of quiet that only comes before something breaks.
It was not lost on her that she and Saya were in agreement in their refusal to apologize.
Yet, no matter what she said in her defense, Hiroshi was simply not having it.
Saya had fallen quiet, her face set in an almost unnatural doll-like calmness. Her hands were still at her sides—very carefully still, fingers barely curled. Even her breathing had slowed, measured, as if she were forcing herself to remain frozen.
Yet, one could almost feel the nearly manic rage coming from her.
To be honest, I didn't think she'd be this… Especially because of mere words I said in the heat of anger.
Or was it hurt?
With Saya, the difference never really seemed to matter.
The tension sat thick, suffocating.
Then Hiroshi sighed. Just once, just enough to break the quiet.
"Are the both of you not tired?" His voice was even, steady. "Look at the atmosphere. Is this an atmosphere conducive to a group relying on each other in life or death scenarios?"
His gaze flicked to Saya. "You're a genius. Can this group really continue like this?"
His eyes flicked back to the road briefly as he took a turn.
"This kind of constantly charged environment is not useful," he continued. "I said nothing while we were on campus. But out here? That is a good way to exhaust yourselves before any fights even arrive."
There was charged silence for a moment.
Then something slammed into the side of the bus.
The impact was instantaneous—a deafening, metallic howl as the left side of the bus caved inward with the force of a battering ram, flinging the overhead storage lockers in that section open. Bodies jerked forward; Saya slammed into the seat in front of her with a strangled curse, while Kohta tumbled to the floor.
Rei was flung into the opposite row, crashing into Kyoko. Pain flared down her arm as she clipped her shoulder against something.
The bus rocked wildly, jerking as it was lifted off the ground slightly before dropping again, the impact slamming through the bus like a shockwave.
Then came the scraping—a frantic screech against metal, like rusted nails on bone.
Something was out there.
Something that just hit us hard enough to warp steel.
"What the hell was that?!" Saya yelled, clutching her bleeding forehead as she tried to right herself.
Rei hauled herself to her feet, ignoring the pain, their standoff completely forgotten.
She saw Hiroshi's hands white against the wheel, locked in place like a vice. His eyes flicked to the side mirror, and for just a breath—he hesitated.
Then his jaw tightened. A slow breath through his nose even as blood from his forehead dripped onto his collar. He floored the gas pedal, jerking her off her feet again as the bus lurched forward.
His face was grim, but his voice came steady—just barely. "Stay calm. Stay in the center of the bus. Now."
Kohta, breathing heavily, was already scrambling for his gun—a jury rigged contraption based on a nail gun. Rei threw herself at her seat, fingers scrambling to get her staff from underneath it.
The others were just getting their bearings when a sound crawled into the bus—a low, shuddering breath, wet and unnatural, as if drawn from lungs that weren't meant to exist.
The bus turned sharply, tires screeching. Rei barely remained standing. Shadows stretched along the ruined buildings beside them, and for a moment—just a moment—there was a flash of something hulking and wrong, silhouetted against the cheerfully bright sky.
The smell hit them next.
Something acrid and thick rolled into the bus—burning muscle, ozone, a sickly-sweet tang of sulfur. It hit the back of her throat, turning her stomach. Her eyes watered, her vision swimming as bile crawled up the back of her throat.
Then, as the turn straightened out, the bus dropped back on all fours before taking off as quickly as it could.
Another violent crash, this time into the rear of the bus.
Rei remained on her feet this time, throwing herself forward to the driver's section of the cabin as the bus was thrown forward. There was a small pad, screen cracked, with a camera feed displayed on it.
The rear view…
There in that camera, she saw it.
Her breath caught, her hand tightening around her staff even as fear clawed its way around her chest, gripping viciously. Her brain screamed at her to run. To move. To do something.
And yet, she didn't. Couldn't.
Her feet felt welded to the floor, her limbs numb with the awful certainty that if she moved, it would see her—even here in the bus.
The size and shape were familiar—roughly human.
But everything else… wasn't.
Its right side was flesh only a very loose term of the word—leathery flesh that appeared greyish in the black and white feed from the rear camera.
I don't want to be close enough to know the colour of that thing.
Its muscles bulged, pulsing with large veins. An oversized limb tensed and convulsed with unnatural strength, ending in tentacles. The second arm was… she hesitated to say 'broken', but it hung limply, jagged bone protruding from halfway along its length, and the rest hanging limply. Its skin was taut, stretched tight over an abomination that shouldn't exist.
Its 'head' was simply a lump on its shoulders, packed with short stubby tentacles that bristled with sharp teeth or bones.
It twisted toward them—or rather, something inside it convulsed, snapping into motion like a puppet with severed strings. The lump that passed for its head split into two across, the lower jaw further unhinging with a wet, sickening crack audible even from here. The thing inside the flesh writhed, its mouthful of jagged, irregular teeth snapping at nothing.
It lunged at the bus again.
Hiroshi swerved, the chassis groaning in protest. The thing shot forward, missing the bus and crashing into a streetlight. It fell with a loud crash, bent around the shape of the grotesque monstrosity.
Its skin was greyish green.
Rei looked on in horror as the thing untangled itself from the pole, screaming in outrage as the bus shot past it.
Somewhere at the back of her mind, she dumbly noted that other normal zombies would be attracted to all the noise.
What is my life now? I miss the normal zombies…
They turned into another street, and her heart sank.
At the end of the street, there was a pileup of cars and buses in a gridlock of abandoned vehicles.
She turned to Hiroshi in a panic, but he was slowing down, trying to bring the bus to a stop.
"Hiroshi…"
The thing appeared at the beginning of the street.
Rei's stomach turned to ice. They had nowhere to go.
No time.
No options.
A red blur crashed into it from the street they just turned off from, colliding with the monster like a hammer striking glass.
Naruto…
From the moment they left the campus, he felt… uneasy.
Saeko was at his side as they went, her blade in her hand and her head on a swivel. He took point as they moved near silently, words at a minimum. The bus trailed behind them moving as silently as he dared make it without arousing the suspicion of the others.
His chakra returning could not come at a better time, to be honest. He had the power to run his passive seals again, making him ever more confident.
But that sixth sense kept niggling at him.
Eighth sense…
He shook his head, a smile creeping onto his lips.
How I'd gone so long without you, I will never know.
They pulled away from the bus, beginning to range further away as they moved into the district proper. There was an ever present smell of smoke—not overbearing, but enough to confuse his sense of smell a bit. With the increased distance, they would need to use the headphone communicators. There was a risk of attracting attention, but he judged it minimal.
That nagging feeling though…
Just in case, he made sure to speak as softly as he could and still remain heard by Hiroshi.
Saeko by his side looked… 'happy' was not really the word—though she was obviously that.
Content?
Yeah, that seems to be more on the nose.
You do know that the monkey is absolutely drowning in romantic feelings for you, right?
He ignored Kurama with the ease of long practice.
There was surprisingly minimal infrastructural destruction. Sure a lot of the roads were blocked by abandoned cars, forcing them to take increasingly convoluted routes as they guided the bus towards the intracity highway link road. But on the whole?
I could see survivors bunkering down in these parts—as long as they remained careful.
You can't ignore this forever, you know?
Kurama was wrong, of course. He was a knucklehead—ignoring inconvenient things was kind of his superpower.
The electricity still worked even—for a given value of the word. There were whole streets that looked absolutely normal. He'd even spied some movement in one of the buildings. It was too far out for him to see clearly, but he could tell the person was male—built like a barn even.
Something was nagging him.
He stopped, looking around.
The atmosphere seemed normal—cheerful sky, clear weather.
Yet something felt off.
The air was still, too still. The city, abandoned but not silent, suddenly felt watching. The hairs on his arm bristled, and that deep, primal instinct—older than thought—whispered indistinctly to him.
It absolutely freaked him out.
There was something there. He was sure of it.
He stood still for a moment, allowing a bit of Kioku's chakra to flow into him. His senses expanded, the bus nearly four streets away lighting up in his senses.
But he could not pinpoint anything wrong.
There was their bus.
There was Saeko by his side, all hot and bothered and… He brought his mind back out of the gutter—Kioku was ridiculously invested in procreation for one reason or the other.
There was a large man charging at the bus. His arm was…
His arm!/His arm!
He keyed the radio just in time to hear a loud crash. Saeko perked up immediately.
"They're under attack," he said tersely, even as he reversed direction, watching them with his senses. "Come on!"
He kept his speed just above Saeko's so she was trailing behind him. He continued whispering into the radio, guiding Hiroshi to an artificial cul-de-sac they'd seen.
Kurama seemed to loom, coming forward to begin actively observing through his eyes.
He pulled his chakra forward, cycling it rapidly in readiness. The chase was short, but close. Hiroshi barely made it to the spot ahead of the thing.
It was definitely not a man.
He saw it for the first time as he entered the street. Saeko was a few seconds behind him—he was out of her sight. Twisting his chakra just so, he pulled himself into a rapid dash, closing the distance in half a heartbeat.
Time slowed as he crashed into the thing.
The instant they collided, something in his body screamed, a raw jolt running through his arm. It was like punching stone wrapped in leather, the impact reverberating through his bones. His chakra flared instinctively, absorbing some of the force—but not all of it.
Damn… I need to be careful if I don't plan on escalating.
The two of them tumbled down the street in the direction it was just coming from. He righted himself, planting his feet with chakra and transitioning into a flip.
The thing spasmed, tentacles lashing out even as it tumbled. They shredded the concrete, tearing it up even as the creature struggled to right itself, shrieking in primal rage.
He closed the distance even as Saeko finally turned onto the street. She went straight for the bus with barely any hesitation.
Good girl.
The thing was ready. His punch was met with leathery resistance, the skin resisting the level of damage he defaulted to in this world. Meanwhile, it lashed out in a mess of tentacle horror, each appendage tipped with shards of bone.
There was no way he could dodge all that.
He twisted, taking the blows on his torso even as he spun his chakra into a shield at just those points. The seals on the clothes held, flaring in heat as they struggled to dissipate the kinetic energy of the blow. There was still enough left to hurl him back where he came from.
The thing took off after him, leaving actual prints in the ground.
He coated his hand with chakra and reached out, digging his hand into the concrete and flipping over, halting his impromptu flight. He met it in a flurry of blows, at a disadvantage for the first time since coming to this world because of his lack of arm.
He upped the ante, speeding up now that he had no observers. He flicked his blade out, tossing it in the air as he staggered the thing in a five-hit combo, knees and fist leading the way. He caught the blade in time to stab it into the monster, coating it with chakra as he did so.
One. Two. Three.
Kidney. Heart. Head.
As he drew the blade out after the third stab, he was already twisting into a roundhouse, smashing the thing away and into a storefront along the road.
He rushed after it.
It came boiling out of the ruined shop, bones sprouting from it in a horrific parody of the Kaguya's bloodline limit. He met it, coating his hand with chakra as he smashed his hand through its torso. Its hands shot out, seeking to hold him even as bones exploded from its torso as it attempted to shred him.
Kurama raised his chakra as a shield, the demonic chakra boiling away all that came in contact with it—the abomination's bones, his clothes, and the seals on them.
He flung himself away, making space even as the thing chased him.
Sorry about that, Kurama said, contrite. You were not escaping that, and I would rather not find out if these attacks count as infection vectors.
Fuck! I hadn't even considered that!
He called up his chakra in a parody of the Uchiha's Susanoo, condensing it to just above his skin. There was no room for error.
The thing was upon him.
He met it again, working his way around it. At first, it was wild. But with every exchange, every attack, something shifted. Its movements, erratic at first, started adapting. Adjusting. Learning.
It wasn't just reacting. It was understanding.
It's learning…
He needed to finish this. Now.
Chakra flared in his hand as he smashed the thing, taking care not to go through it. The flesh was flung away in a horrific splash, and its left shoulder was simply gone. Nothing but gore on the streets.
It barely slowed the thing down. It smacked him again, launching him into the cul-de-sac, even with his chakra armor.
It followed him in, its speed almost unbelievable. He had nowhere left to go—not with the bus behind him.
No more games. Let's end this.
He started his combo again, leading the thing with blows as his blade descended towards where it would be snatched by him. He would stab it into its head and stream fire chakra through it.
The monster had other plans. A tentacle shot out and snagged the blade, before launching it in a vicious straight at his torso.
It had plans…
He would not be able to dodge completely.
Fuck…
The blade smacked into his shield and shattered, sending broken metal flying like shrapnel, and shredding the thing's face and last remaining arm.
Yes!
He took brutal advantage.
He punched his arm through its chest again, forming a rasengan inside its torso. It exploded magnificently, showering his shield with gore. The abomination finally fell, spent.
He took a step forward and channeled chakra into his feet.
Stomp!
Everything from the chest upwards simply disappeared as concentrated chakra blew it away, scouring the floor beneath it as well.
He was not taking any chances with any resurrection bullshit.