Day 403, 1:30 AM
It reaches the top. Yes, finally, it reaches the top, back to where those scumbag survivors were. No, it wasn't going to squander a single moment, not while it still had the energy and ability to walk. It was going to kill those survivors, no matter what. He sensed their quirk usage earlier and after climbing up the cliffside, it was time for his patience and determination to be rewarded.
The beast used to be a boy named Shoji but no more. Ever since he transformed, his mask tore from hsi face to reveal his disfigured mouth but that wasn't a concern.
In some world, if Shoji were still alive, he would've thought he would look unrecognizable without his mask. After all, he was always seen wearing his mask so it was like Kakashi Hatake being unrecognizable in Naruto after having his face revealed.
But that Shoji was no more, and all that was left was a beast—maybe a beast of burden, but a beast—like the number 666 called to in the Bible—the Shoji beast.
The Shoji beast pulls itself over the edge and back onto solid ground. It finds itself behind the mansion he raided a night or two ago and barrels through the fence, causing quite a ruckus that makes zombies snarl at the sudden loud sound. He screams at the top of his lungs before looking around. Nothing. It was dark but its eyes adjusted enough to see. When he couldn't spot his target, the next best thing would be to sniff it out.
He leans forward and sniffs the air.
His eyes widen.
Flesh, the sweet smell of tasty flesh.
No, beasts don't eat their prey; they just kill, and now, it was time to fulfill his role as a beast. The innate trait that makes a beast a beast.
In the center of the closed-off community, Refraction Girl, Tail Man, Welder, and Rocketti look around, immediately going on guard at the sound of the beast roaring in the distance. They tried to avoid beasts for as much as possible but they can tell the sound of a beast when they hear one and this motherfucker was close by.
The sound of a beast was one that sounded like a bell with a guttal screeching sound added in that rang throughout the entire mountain like a gunshot. The students back away in horror and quickly disperse.
"Hide," Refraction Girl practically begs, "beast, hide!"
Without having to be told a third time, the four of them hide behind a fence separating two two-story houses and hunker down. Any attempt at trying to get what's left of Shoda's body out of there all but left them as getting their lives out was their only focus now.
They hide and kneel like kids playing a terrifying game of Hide-and-Seek and they cover their mouths. They squeezes their eyes shut as they feel tears welling up inside. Theyv'e done this before... they've survived beasts attacks before but the inhumane sounds they made never ceased to terrify the life out of them.
And then there was the stomp.
Thud.
It was soft at first but the implications of where it orgiianted from made it sound deafening to them. They hunker down closer and hide in bsuhes and shrubs, hoping that the beast will just go away.
Thud.
Another footstep, except this time, it was closer.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Three footsteps, all getting closer and closer.
THUD!
Refraction Girl almost jumps out of her skin when the latest stomping of the foot almost sends her into a fear-induced coma. The footstep rings in her ear, reminding her how fast and loud her heart is pounding. She thought her heart would explode from fear when it seemed like this beast already knew where they were and was locking in on their location.
What if he does know where we are? she panics. What if he's just playing a game of Hide-and-Sekk with us?
A tear escapes her and she bites the back of her hand hard to keep herself quiet. She lets out a stifled sob before Tail Man reaches over and wraps her in a hug. "Quiet," he whispered so softly she almost couldn't hear him. "We'll be alright. Quiet."
She nods as more tears escape her. She'd rather be tearing up than full-on sobbing right now.
The Shoji beast stops in the middle of the street and growls softly. It spots the corpse of Shoda on the ground and cocks its head. It sniffs the air again, the smell of blood no longer smelling nice to the beast, smelling more of tar and rubber than anything else. Shoda was dead for too long so there was no need to linger on him. Even so, there was that scent again, the scent of something alive, something with living, fleshly flesh.
It was the survivors, they were here, and he was going to find them and kill them. He growls softly and looks around. Several zombies roam the area but he pays no attention to them. They go about their business of staggering and looking around for food while he locks on to his primary objective of looking for the survivors.
"Come on," Tail Man whispers to Refraction Girl. "We're leaving." He looks through the gaps in the gate and spots the Shoji Beast. The beast has its back turned to them but when it does a 180 rotation, he can spot its face. The beast's eyes dart around the community while Tail Man focuses on his facial features.
It didn't take long for him to recognize the eyes and hair. Gasping under his breath, he pulls back a little. "Shoji? Is that... is that you?"
The beast looks in the direction of the gate.
Tail Man gasps and pulls away from the gaps, hiding, and doing everything in his power to control his breathing. he bites his hand, not knowing his strength, and draws blood. He realizes his mistake too late when the Shoji beast starts sniffing the air.
The Shoji beast's heavy growling and snarling pick up like a dog picking up the scent of a criminal and he flexes his fingers. He looks around madly, trying to find the source before his eyes land on the gate. His agitated movements cease suddenly like a puppet who lost its strings.
Tail Man's eyes widen and he pulls away from the gate. He waits a few seconds for him to catch his breath before looking through the gap, only to find the Shoji beast gone.
Not only that but Shoda's body was gone too.
"Come on," he whispers to himself, "let's go, let's get out of here." He quickly wipes the blood off the back of his hand but some droplets continue to trickle down his hand. He turns to his right and spots Rocketti and Welder hugging each other tightly. "Come on, let's go."
ROOOOAR!
A body launches into the gate like a missile, tearing it to pieces and trapping some of the students underneath. The missile-like body launches forward until it crashes into a brick wall and makes a painful-looking stop inside. Tail Man quickly pushes the gate off of him while helping fraction Girl to her feet. His eyes widen and they focus on the Shoji beast as he charges for them like a football player.
"RUN!"
The four students make a break for it. They run into the backyard of the house as the beast smashes its way into the gate. The beast makes a sharp turn to the right as the students head inside the house after Tail Man uses his extra limb to shatter the glass door. The beast crashes through the wall and hits its head on the ceiling fan.
'Come on!" Tail man leads the charge as the four of them turn into a hallway. The Shoji beast takes off after them and barrels through the dry walls like they were made of paper and crashes into a bedroom, losing his footing and falling to its knees.
Tail Man changes direction. "Come on, let's go, this way!" They run in the opposite direction of the hallway and into the garage. Tail Man and Welder quickly lift the garage door open and allow the ladies to crawl through. Once they're on the other side, they hold the door open.
"Hurry."
"Okay." Welder drops to the ground and rolls under.
SMASH!
"Hurry!" Tail Man panics after hearing more drywalls tear apart. It was only a matter of time before the beast would be coming after them and killing them in the garage. Once Welder makes it all the way through, Tail Man quickly drops to his stomach and rolls under, stopping halfway through when his tail gets stuck. "Damn it."
All he had to do was move his tail a little bit but that meant attracting the beast's attention due to his quirk usage.
The students on the other side lifted the garage door a little bit more and allowed Tail Man to roll through.
They close the garage door just as the Shoji beast finds its way into the living room. Hearing the sound of the garage door clanking, he barrels through the garage. He rams through the drywall into the garage and without stopping, rams through the garage door, coming out the other side onto the driveway with shards of the garage door flying everywhere.
It roars at the top of its lungs before looking around, trying to find the survivors. They couldn't have gotten far; not when the garage door just closed by the time it tore through it. They were here somewhere and he was going to kill them. He wouldn't make it slow, no, he didn't care about inflicting pain, only killing any survivors in sight.
"Shh," Tail Man whispers to Refraction Girl as they both hide under a pickup truck. Tail Man looks up to see Rocketti and Welder hiding under an SUV with Welder's mouth covering Rocketti's mouth so the poor American exchange student doesn't sob in fear.
The beast growls softly like a bear and makes a hitter sound like a velociraptor.
Like Jurassic Park, Tail Man thinks. Wait a minute. He remembers his bloodstain. Oh shit. Without thinking, he cuts the fuel line above him and drenches himself in what's left of the expired gasoline from the car. Just like that guy did in Jurassic World to escape the Indominus Rex.
Seeing what his fellow classmates did only ten or twenty metes away, Welder quickly removes his knife from his holster and copies his classmate's example and covers himself and Rocketti in gasoline.
The beast sniffs the air and narrows its eyes. That smell that filled the air wasn't human, didn't belong to a human either, but still, the smell was strong. A powerful scent, one that would've been strong enough to almost make him pass out if he were living but no.
The Shoji beast turns to the two parks parked on the curb and cocks its head. It stomps towards the one on the right where the foul odor came from and sniffs the air around the bottom.
Tail Man and Refraction Girl quickly hold their breaths but they almost pass out when the smell of gasoline suddenly hits them like a tsunami but they endure. They endure and place their heads carefully on the ground, playing dead. As long as the beast didn't look under the car, then they should be fine. If they're lucky, then this stench of gasoline would be enough to hide their scent and overpower the smell of blood on the back of Tail Man's hand.
The Shoji beast flinches at the smell, not our of repulse but because it wasn't a smell that attracted him. Wherever these survivors were, they weren't under the vehicles. No use in checking out the other vehicle because the smell was just the same.
Where were the survivors? They had to be here somewhere, right? It didn't matter; the Shoji beast would find them and kill them. With this vow, the Shoji beast marches off, its heavy footsteps shrinking in volume as it gets farther and farther away from the teens.
After two minutes of holding their breath, they finally exhale and lean against the ground in relief rather than for survival. Refraction Girl looks over at Tail Man and notices his wound. "What happened?" she whispered.
He matches her volume when he responds, "I bit myself, sorry."
"Don't worry about it; it's okay."
"That was Shoji. That was our classmate. He... he turned into a beast."
"No," she gulps, "no, it can't be."
"It is. I recognize his eyes and hair anywhere. And... Shoji is a big guy so it makes sense he would turn into a beast."
"No. First... first Sero, then Shoji, then Yangai... and Shoda?"
"We've lost too many people in two days." Tail Man gulps. "Save your tears for later; we're going to need our eyes clear as much as possible."
"What do we do? Let's just get out of here."
"I agree." Tail Man rolls over. "But... wait... if we head back to Kendo and her bus, we'll have a horde to deal with. And the beast follows us there, then it's game over for all of us. And if we try to head back to the Mister Donuts, then we won't make it far. And if the beast follows us there, we're dead."
"Let's call Kendo on your walkie-talkie; she'll know what to do."
"Yeah." He takes out his walkie-talkie and lowers the volume until it is almost mute. He presses the call button. "Battle Fist... this... this is Tail Man, are you there?"
Static.
His brows arch. "Battle Fist, are you there? We found Shoji... he turned into a beast. We just barely escaped; we're hiding under two cars right now. Please, please, tell us what to do."
Static.
He winces and closes his eyes. "Battle Fist? Battle Fist?"
He almost bites his tongue as his eyes well up with tears. "We're on our own."
"You think they're dead?"
"No, let's not think that." He crawls out from under the car. Crouching, he moves over to the car Rocketti and Welder hide under and calls out to them. They meet up on the driver's side of the SUV. "Welder, Rocketti, how you two doing?"
"Good, so far," Welder answers with a trembling voice. "You?"
"Good."
"The beast... that's..."
"I know, Welder, it's Shoji. Fuck. Shit."
"Oh, man. We've... we've lost too many people. Both classes."
"All of us. We... I can't contract Kendo, so... she must be either in trouble... or she's out of range. Or she's too busy to answer the phone."
"It's a walkie-talkie, not a phone," Rocketii corrects.
"I don't remember asking for semantics from an American girl who is living in our country, Rocketti."
Rocketii resits the urge to flip him off. Instead, she settles on saying something in English: "地獄へ行け."
"Guys," Refraction Girl almost snaps at them. "The beast, we got bigger things to worry about, literally. Does anyone have any ideas 'cause Mr. Tail here said that running in either direction isn't an option."
"It's not," Tail Man confirms. "We gotta take out the beast, right now."
"How?" Welder snaps, "None of us have superpowerful quirks to kill a beast and you know how durable they are."
"Deku said that he saw Shinsou, Mina, and Kirishima kill a beast before."
"Yeah, but they had to get the beast to tear off its own skullcap before putting a bullet in its brain."
"You have a welding ability."
"I'm not getting anywhere near that fucking beast. You'd have to be insane to even consider it. And Kaminari said that they're tough enough to survive two million volts of electricity."
"But he also led them over a cliff," Tail Man remembers. "Remember how he said he lost the first beast by leading it over a cliff? And then he did the same trick with the second one?"
"Yeah, but-"
"We'll do the same thing."
"It won't do a damn thing to kill it; if they can survive falling from great heights then-"
"We're not trying to kill it, we're trying to get rid of it. Okay, so, here's my plan. Rocketti, you're going to blind the beast with your horns. Once you get both of your horns in its eyes and blind it, we'll use our quirks to draw it away."
"But we're going to need a distraction," Refraction Girl realizes. "And luckily for everyone, I'm a perfect distraction. I'll move some things around like a ghost and when the time comes, I'll stab him in both eyes."
"I have to use my quirk to remove my horns," Rocketti explains, "so the minute I remove my horns, it'll attract the beast."
"Our nail guns then," Refraction Girl realizes. "I'll sneak in, stealth-like, and shoot the beast in the eyes."
"Right," Tail Man nods. "Then, I'll stand at the edge of the cliff, use my tail to attract its attention, then when it charges for me, I'll block."
Rocketti smiles. "Or better yet, why not have me give you a ride? I'll use my horns to carry you over the cliff and we'll hover in the air together. If the beast is blind, he won't see the cliff and he'll run over, right?"
"Exactly."
Welder leans forward. "And it'll take care of the rest of the zombies. If there are still stragglers in the community, it'll follow after the beast and run over the edge like a bunch of rats, right?"
"Exactly."
Welder leans back. "In that case, I'll stay here while you guys work your magic. Sound good?"
"Yeah, sounds good." Tail Man turns to Refraction Girl. "You a good shot with the nail gun?"
Refraction Girl holds up a floating thumbs-up. "I sure am. Don't worry, I'll either make it or break it out there. Besides, he won't see me and as long as I stick to the cars, the beast will assume the smell of gasoline on me is coming from cars."
"Perfect." Tail Man stands up. "Alright. Rocketti, let's head on over to the edge. Welder, stay here. Refraction Girl, you're up."
"Hell yeah."
Welder grabs Tail Man's shoulder. "Hey, if we toss him over the cliff, he'll just climb back up."
"But look how long it took him to climb up the cliff. According to Kaminari, they tricked Shoji into going over the edge and he's just now getting back up. Either the fall knocked the wind out of him or something else. Either way, it'll give everyone some time. Now come on, let's do this."
Welder grabs Refraction Girl's hand. "Here, take my nail gun; just in case you need to shoot twice at the same time."
A few minutes later, after every split-up, Refraction Girl catches up with the Shoji beast carrying her nail gun in hand. She keeps it low to the ground so it doesn't look like it's floating too much and sticks next to the cars as much as possible. She spots the Shoji beast staggering around the mansion like before and quickly hunkers down. She licks her lips and checks the ammo in her nail guns. She didn't have too much ammo even if she combined both nail guns. She had only four shots and she needed to make sure she hit her targets dead on.
The dark of night offered a challenge and made things difficult but she had to persevere.
She took a deep breath before carefully tapping on the hood of the car before her.
The Shoji beast turns and faces her direction.
Before Refraction Girl can aim, she gasps as the realization sinks in. This monster that is now bloodthirsty was once Shoji. She remembers Shoji, she remembers him well. She remembers training with him and taking the practical exam with him. And then there was that test where she and Shoji were paired up against Snipe. She remembers how they worked together to defeat the pro right before that pervert touched her boob with his elbow.
All the memories flooded her and she felt her lip quiver. How could her friend turn into something like this? Shoji was a good student and now, he was a walking killing machine whose only instinct is to slaughter any living survivor he finds.
It takes her a few minutes to adjust to the reality before she remembers what her objective was. Blind him. Blind him then...
She leans down and carefully pokes the barrels of the nail guns out over the edge of the car. She aims down the iron sight and takes a deep breath.
She remembers Snipe and his aiming abilities. Then again, he had a quirk that allowed him to lock onto targets so he was kinda of a cheating marksman. Then again, he had to learn how to shoot without his quirk as well unless he wanted to be a liability. She remembers how Mr. Aizawa said the pros were holding back during the practical exams to give them an edge, which means that he may have been shooting at them without using his quirk.
She takes a deep breath and aims down the sights of the nail gun on her right then the nail gun on her left. She lines up the barrels and watches as the Shoji beast looks around, trying to find the source of the tapping from a few seconds ago.
I'm sorry, Shoji.
BANG/BANG!
The lights go out. The Shoji beast growls and rips the nails out of his eyes and tries to pry open his optics but his vision remains pitch-black. He growls and swings at the air like a blind boxer, trying to find his opponent.
Tail Man and Rocketti quickly get behind the Shoji beast. Rocketti grabs onto the back of Tail Man and pats his shoulder.
"Shoji!"
The Shoji beast roars and makes a 180 turn.
Rocketti uses her horns to lift her and Tail Man up before floating backward. The Shoji beast roars and takes off after them, using nothing but his scent and the location of quirk usage to guide him.
"Just a little more!" Rocketti exclaims. "Come on!"
They finally make it over the edge, stopping only twenty feet or so from solid ground. The beast sprints for them like a marathon runner, ready to pounce them, when it flies over the edge and tumbles headfirst to the bottom like a swimmer taking a nosedive off a high board.
The Shoji beast disappears into the pitch-black abyss below and falls for so long that not even Tail Man can hear a thud. "Get us back to solid ground, now!"
Rocketti nods before taking them back to solid ground and deactivates her quirk, recalling her horns to them.
Tail Man sighs heavily and steps toward the edge, looking down and clenching his fists.
Refraction Girl stands by his side and looks into the abyss. "Holy shit. Do you think..."
"He survived that? Yeah, I'm pretty sure."
"We should put him out of his misery, right?"
"We should. But he's a beast and there's not much we can do." Tail Man turns to Rocketti. "From here on out, no more quirk usage; we don't need to give that undead bastard any reason to climb up the cliff, got it?"
"Jeez, can you tell me something I don't know?"
"Yeah, in fact, I can. How's this: your so-called Japanese accent is horrible."
"Fuck you."
Welder races around the mansion and stops five feet away from the survivors. Given that they're standing over a cliff and the beast is gone, he's got a pretty good idea of what happened and it warmed his heart with relief. "Guys, I'm glad you guys took out the beast and everything but we still got zombies to deal with. Come on."
2:45 AM
Riding through the forest with Thin Ice on the back, Chargebolt feels as if they finally made progress. For the first few hours or so, they had been putting out the fires at the edges of the forest and now, they were finally heading deeper into the forest and putting out the fires. Thin Ice continues with his quirk usage of freezing fires to nothing while Chargebolt keeps a gap between him and any other hazards.
Chargebolt stops the bike and gazes upon the fire before him, reaching heights of up to fifty feet up the tall trees. He mutters something under his breath. "How you doing on ice, man?"
"Good, you?"
"I'm doing good on fuel, not burning too much either."
"Good." Thin Ice looks around. "Come on, we still got plenty more fires to put out."
"It's going to be a long night."
Character Cards
Mitsuo "Low Light" Ochi
Quirk: NVG (He can see in extreme lighting standards)
Occupation: Baliff (Formerly); leader of the Last Light Group.
Age: 38
Birthday: August 3rd
Height: 170 cm.
Blood: O
Likes: Sherbet.
Dislikes: Plastic straws.
Other Facts: Bungee jumping enthusiast.
Zombie Kills: 90
Human Kills: 4
Iwao "Thin Ice" Doi
Quirk: Icehands (He can create streams of ice from his hands)
Occupation: Ice Cream Parlor employee (Formerly); member of Last Light.
Age: 29
Birthday: September 2nd
Height: 169 cm.
Blood: B
Likes: American movies.
Dislikes: Communists.
Other Facts: Top of his class in medical school.
Zombie Kills: 87
Human Kills: 4