Little update: My schedule has become unreasonably hectic again. The burden of actually having to make a living *sighs*. Anyway, updates will slow down. Enjoy for now.
Finally…
Ten days after Momo's death, they were ready to leave the school campus. The last three days were a frantic race to prioritise what would go on the bus.
She was exhausted—a bone-deep torpor that made her feel nearly half-dead herself.
Underneath that was a sort of… detached horror. She could not stop thinking—obsessing—over the two deaths that happened in the group. The boy whose name she didn't even know, and Momo.
She could not even muster the energy to push the guilt away.
But there's no time for guilt…
She could think about something else—and she did.
Today would be their last day on the campus. According to Naruto, they would leave early the next morning.
Better late than never…
Incidentally, this was her time to shine. It helped that she was thinking of it as an extended school trip.
Yay me! Go trip planner Kyoko!
If she got more despondent, she'd have to turn goth.
As the ping pong instructor, she was in charge of many school trips. Her job was to organise their packing so that everything would go where it ought to. She stood by the entrance to the vehicle bay, looking around at the sports complex one last time. It smelled of scorched metal and sawdust, with entire fixtures missing as the place was gutted and cannibalised to make material for the bus upgrades. It stood nearly lifeless, a testament to everything they'd lost. It felt weird to mourn a building. But wasn't it a graveyard now? A tomb for their old world—and Momo.
"It's morning and you already look half-dead,"
She turned to regard the speaker—Shizuka. The doctor was approaching her, the harsh lights from the central gym casting the wisps of her blonde hair that escaped her ponytail in a sort of halo.
"Like you look any better," she scoffed without any venom. She was too damn tired for venom.
The two women entered the vehicle bay together.
The bay smelled overwhelmingly of diesel—harsh and acrid. The stark interior lights shone down, painting everything with a sort of industrial wash, and illuminating the more than a dozen fifty litre cans lined up against the far wall. A small pump lay just by the side, with hoses rolled beside the pump, yet to be connected.
There, sitting on one of the vehicle ramps, was their bus.
To simply call it that would be a gross understatement what the men achieved with the vehicle.
Hiroshi, Kohta, and Takashi had worked on the bus, prepping it for their journey. It was huge—one of the school's tour buses, with all the comfort bells and whistles. She didn't know much about vehicles, but she used to love this particular bus.
Used to…
A second bus was parked beside the one they intended to use on the second vehicle ramp. It was identical in every way besides the fact that it would probably never run again with all that had been salvaged from it.
Watching the men transform the two buses—one into an abomination, and the other into a caricature—was… surreal.
Shizuka whistled beside her, drawing her gaze.
"Amazing that they did all this in less than a week," she said.
It was true.
Even she had to admit it. What they managed to accomplish was truly amazing.
There had been a small debate before they started work in earnest. She'd wanted the bus as secured as possible—a battering ram. Miku and Rei agreed with her. Hiroshi had vehemently disagreed, along with all the men.
"It is a balancing act," he'd said. "We must choose between armor and vehicle health. It doesn't matter how much armor is on the bus if it blows out a few feet from the campus gates."
He made his point, but she did not have to like it.
She could admit that she wasn't usually the kind of person to get involved in these kinds of technical things. But she had to learn. She couldn't tell where her chance to carve her place out would come from, and it would be stupid to overlook any avenues.
I guess survival is hell of a motivation…
In the end, there was no real way to test the additions, so they decided to err on the side of caution, prioritising the long term health of the bus.
It showed.
The tour bus sat under the glare of the interior vehicle bay lights. It was a far cry from the polished tour vehicle it once was. Its once-pristine white paint was now streaked with dirt and streaks from their recent renovations.
She didn't know where to feast her eyes—everything was noteworthy, she felt.
"Hiroshi really outdid himself," she said softly, moving to the front of the bus to see his replacement for her idea of a big, fuck-off, ram bar.
Shizuka nodded, humming in agreement as she trailed behind her.
The replacement sat along the length of the front of the bus. The girls had wanted a huge monstrosity, but Hiroshi forced them to see reason. They settled for this new thing—less battering ram, more bone-breaking knuckle-duster.
Its lines were jagged and raw, meant to deflect rather than destroy, pushing obstacles aside. A steel mesh covered the radiator—a shield of wire and iron, designed to stop a stray limb or shattered bone from piercing through.
The metal felt as rough as it looked. The welding seams were Hiroshi's handiwork—quick and dirty but sturdy.
I still want my battering ram, she thought with a mild mental pout.
"Look…" said Shizuka, pointing towards the tires
Her eyes trailed lower to what she was pointing at.
The front wheels were protected by small, flared steel side guards, scavenged from god knows where, and cut so as to angle debris away from the tires. She did not know that the plating would stop a solid hit, but it would keep too much wreckage from wedging under the bus.
While Shizuka was still admiring the tires, she looked up, squinting into the glare of the overhead lights. She caught a glimpse of the grid of sleek, matte-black solar panels that now covered the roof of the bus. They were concentrated more towards the rear of the bus, mounted at a slight angle and reinforced with a frame of steel rods.
It looked like something Naruto would suggest.
The panels glinted faintly under the overcast sky, a patchwork of glass and aluminum made to silently soak in every scrap of sunlight the day offered. Thick, insulated cables, wrapped in electrical tape ran down from the panels, disappearing into the bus through the emergency windows overhead.
She stepped up the narrow stairs and into the bus while Shizuka went around the bus. The entire thing creaked ominously as she stood, rocking slightly. The smell of old upholstery, a hint of sawdust, and a blend of oil rubber and singed metal greeted her immediately.
The cables from the roof terminated near the floor, where all along the sides of the bus, a bank of batteries were strapped to the walls. Wired into the batteries were more cables than she ever wanted to see, fastened to the walls, looping and knotting through many things with blinking lights, and finally terminating in multiple locations. The socket strips—four in total—were the only locations she could see right now. They were obviously intended to function as charging points.
Someone—definitely Saya, judging by the meticulous labels—had neatly marked everything—'Solar In', 'Battery Output', 'Inverter', 'Do NOT Touch'.
You know what? I don't even care at this point…
Yet she couldn't deny that in a weird way, the ordered chaos was welcome.
It felt… comforting.
Most importantly, at least to her, the last six rows of seats on the bus had been completely stripped out, leaving behind a wide, open space covered with a patchwork of mats, blankets, and salvaged sleeping bags.
The floor was rough. Scuffed metal with bolts and seat tracks were still visible where the seats once anchored. Rough edges stuck out from the covers they had improvised for the batteries and their cables in the area—but it was a place to sleep, and that was enough.
They had used curtains from the offices to create a makeshift partition, dividing the space into two sections—one for men, one for women. The curtains hung evenly, fastened on fittings scavenged from the offices they were vacating.. The separation was thin and flimsy, but it gave the illusion of privacy.
She stumbled a bit, catching herself. The whole thing reminded her painfully of Momo.
In the few days she spent with them, the girl always took it upon herself to keep their living space neat and welcoming. Without her… well…
The men's section was rough—there were only three men after all. Sleeping bags, jackets used as pillows, and a more spartan outlook overall, aiming primarily for 'functional'.
In the women's section, they'd arranged the bedding more carefully—folded blankets and cushions scavenged from the school infirmary. There was some sort of safety in numbers—it soothed her lizard brain. Shizuka seemed to agree. She insisted on adding a small storage crate for personal hygiene supplies, making it just that little bit homelier.
Momo would've hated this bus. It was too cramped. Too ugly.
She'd have found a way to keep everything welcoming and clean.
She covertly wiped the corner of her eyes. It would not do to fall apart now.
Between the two sections, near the front of the sleeping area, there was a small communal storage space, a plastic crate holding bottled water, a flashlight, and a first aid kit.
It wasn't comfortable. It wasn't home. But it was something to tide them over until they reached their destination—some sixty miles or so away via the roundabout route they intended to take.
She hesitated to even get too comfortable with it. From the way Hiroshi was speaking, the changes to the vehicle would be hell on it, and it might only barely make the trip.
She had the horrifying vision of being bogged down by zombies, fighting to exit a bus that had become a deathtrap.
Of something rushing at her, ripping into her throat before she even had time to scream.
Just like…
No… Naruto and Saeko alone would probably hold back the tide long enough for us to escape.
They had to.
They just had to…
She believed that.
She had to believe that.
If she didn't, she'd never step into the bus.
I'm way too beautiful to be stressed like this…
Her arms ached; her shoulders tensed from lifting all morning. She stretched, feeling the stiffness in her lower back, barely suppressing a groan.
With only ten people, she couldn't even slack off on her share of the lifting. The sour stench of sweat was nearly overpowering, beaten only by the acrid smell of fuel. Even Kyoko joined in the physical lifting in between directing their placement of supplies.
They were leaving tomorrow, so there was a frantic rush to get everything ready. They were arranging the supplies in the central gym prior to finally loading the items.
Her hair was done up in a ponytail. Stray wisps floated around her face, sticking to her sweaty face.
Rika would have said I look cute…
But Rika was not here.
She felt sticky. Sawdust and god-knows-what had mixed with the sweat to produce a disgustingly grainy-textured feeling in her pits, between her arms and torso, and between her thighs.
I can't wait to take a bath.
Takashi and Kohta were filling up the tank. Over the last three days, Naruto had carefully gone around the campus, scavenging diesel from the diesel vehicles he could find in order to supplement the diesel from the maintenance depot on campus.
"It's the least I could do," he'd said, "given that my arm—or lack of—makes me useless for working on the bus."
Quite a mature outlook on the whole matter as far as she was concerned.
Not that it helps my poor, abused shoulders…
Yet she was not sure it would be enough.
There were nearly half a dozen empty cans lying around—all around fifty liters capacity. Fuel efficiency on a bus like this wasn't exactly stellar, even before all their modifications. While she didn't know the math, she had the creeping feeling that their reserves wouldn't last as long as they hoped.
She could only trust the men, who all insisted that it would be more than enough.
To think that even I got carried away suggesting mods… Men really are useful
Her mind remained perfectly still for what felt like an instant before it suddenly spat out an absurdly embarrassing thought—I wonder how feminists are faring…
She kicked it right out of her mind with the expertise of an accomplished ignorer of self-embarrassing things.
Kohta and Takashi were dragging the last one they earmarked for filling up the bus into place even as the glug glug of the diesel entering the tank provided a backdrop. The rest would go into the bus as a sort of reserve for their journey.
"Shizuka…"
She turned to reply. Hiroshi was approaching her, wiping his hands on a rag as he came. His face was filthy, streaked with grease and things she couldn't identify immediately. The stench of exertion wafted off him, surrounding him nearly like some form of aura.
He continued once he put his rag away. "I think we are ready to start with your materials. It's all packed into crates, yes?"
All the wiping had simply redistributed the mess into a new, improved configuration.
He took the effort to stand a bit away from her though—he was definitely conscious of his… She'd simply call it 'aura' and leave it at that.
How considerate…
"It is," she replied. "Would you be so kind as to help me carry them along while I enter them into the general inventory?"
Hiroshi nodded, calling for Takashi over his shoulder even as he followed her.
There was an inventory sheet that they were to fill as they loaded things onto the bus.
Even in the apocalypse, paperwork is eternal.
Her crates were not much—just four categories of crates divided according to immediate need. One first aid box would be in the living area, and the rest of them, along with medications, IVs and quick suture materials would be stashed in the left rear cargo area.
There were two cold boxes, plugged to a dedicated strip wired to their position. One would hold their cold chain supplies, and the other would act as a sort of cooler. In the sweltering heat of the bus' interior, condensation dripped down their sides, and onto a rag placed underneath them to absorb the moisture.
Their hygiene items would take up the overhead bins in their respective sleeping areas.
It was as she was stretching, trying to reach the furthest overhead locker without having to climb, that she noticed them—two small fans fitted into a box-ish thing, and placed at the roof vent just above the locker in question.
Her eyes flitted to the other vents that she could see. All of them had some form of small fan—sometimes one, sometimes three—fitted into them.
"What are those?" she asked.
"Huh?"
She turned to look at Takashi, who'd replied to her. Apparently at some point, Hiroshi had left, leaving just the boy.
Awkward, but she didn't really care.
At least he's no longer drowning in depression simply because of a little adult politics…
She pointed at the fans, repeating her question. "What are those?"
She wasn't like Kyoko. She didn't really care that she'd wanted Takashi dead. It was nothing personal—just pragmatic.
Naruto was wrong about her. She might not be a killer like he was, but she knew all about cold, naked pragmatism.
Takashi seemed… shocked that anyone was actually talking to him directly. He still had an adorably confused look on his face.
It's in these little things that they betray that for all they've been forced to go through, they are still essentially children.
She decided to help him along. Turning on the ditz with a hint of spice, she asked. "Are they like… ventilation fans?" She tucked her head cutely.
She knew it was cute. In saner times, she'd practiced it for hours until she got it down just right.
It worked. The boy cleared his throat a little too hurriedly as he sought to explain. "Yes, Ms Marikawa. Naru… Mr. Uzumaki suggested them, and we just fitted them yesterday."
"Oh?" she replied, intrigued.
To think that any of the men had even considered smells…
"How did you make it work?" she continued. "Won't it stop when the bus stops?"
She, of course, already knew the answer to that.
"No, Ms Marikawa," replied Takashi, confirming her suspicions. His nerves crept into his voice, driving his fingers to twitch before curling into tight fists as he tried to reassert some emotional control. "We rigged it to one of the battery banks in the back. It'll be very near permanent once we get going."
It wouldn't matter, of course
If merely talking to me makes him so nervous... Hmmm... Should I?
Well, she thought. Given what Naruto seems to think… I might as well. Not too sure what I'll gain by integrating him into the mix again, but better he's mine than any outsiders latch onto him for some advantage.
She gave him her 'winning smile three', guaranteed to perk anyone right up.
Besides, I have absolutely no intention of keeping enemies within my own group. There'll be plenty of outsiders for that.
He stood a bit straighter, some hints of life returning to his eyes even as his hands relaxed.
Naruto played the savior, whether he admitted it or not. She had little interest in that game. What she wanted was people who would admire and be loyal to her—who would see her best interests as theirs with 'no prompting' from her.
If people saw her as a leader, as a protector, so much the better. She didn't need them to call her that. But…
"Well done, Takashi." she said, even as she turned back to her loading.
I sound just like an Overlord…
But to be fair, Overlord Shizuka does have a nice ring to it.
Despite listening to Naruto, she was decidedly not an altruist. If she was going to value the lives of others, then she might as well maneuver them into being useful to the group, but especially to her.
She didn't bother looking back to see the soft smile she heard in Takashi's voice as he whispered. "Thank you, Ms Marikawa."
After all, people were generally predictable. It was just a matter of giving them the right thing at the right time. With mere highschoolers? She didn't care how many zombies they saw, they would be putty in her hands.
Freaks like Naruto didn't count.
He held onto the steering, drawing a deep breath as he centered himself. The wheel creaked slightly as he tightened his grip on it. The small cracks in the steering wheel cover pressed into his sweaty palms. The bus bounced a little as the rest of the group repositioned themselves, making final last minute adjustments.
His mind was still reeling from what Naruto showed him two nights ago.
Whatever his doubts about what the redhead said, they evaporated as he saw the… Naruto had called them 'seals', but that fell completely short of what they really are.
Runes, he thought, still a bit incredulous. They're runes…
The engine ran nearly silently, sounding like it was just a well maintained engine. He had to do some very fast talking to get it past the others with some bullshit about mufflers and silencers and sound dampers—bullshit he still didn't believe worked.
The entire frame should have been rattling for all it was worth. No matter how well they tried, their welds weren't perfect fits, and the additions ought to have made a terrible racket—something he'd judged as well worth it for the ability to simply mow through any zombies at reasonable speed.
Never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined that he could eat his cake and have it.
If he could do all these with those seals, then there might have been no actual need for the modifications except to serve as a smoke screen to hide this ability.
It was nearly unbelievable—and he was to drive the damned bus!
With abilities like these, saying that Naruto would be in high demand would be an understatement so vulgar it might as well be a blatant lie.
He might not like it, but even he knew that three people could keep a secret only when two of them were dead.
He had no intention of tempting Naruto like that.
Everything they sought to do with the modifications, Naruto did them with his seals in less than a night.
Once the frame modifications were completed two nights ago, Naruto had called him to the vehicle bay at nearly midnight.
He could still remember it—the bay was cold despite the time of the year. The glaring overhead lights were turned off, and he had just a flashlight with him. It made the shadows seem nearly alive, twisting in a way that gave him a vague feeling of unease.
He'd walked into Naruto in the bay, seated already against some of the diesel containers in the darkness. His eyes seemed to almost glow in the dark, and he didn't even bother to pretend that he needed the light.
"How long have we known each other, Hiroshi?" Naruto had asked without preamble as Hiroshi walked into the vehicle bay.
"Three years," Hiroshi had replied. "But no, I'm sorry, but I don't like men in that way."
The redhead snorted in laughter, and Hiroshi joined him, chuckling.
"Neither do I," he replied. "I wanted to tell you something serious."
Naruto's face didn't change. Nothing in his expression shifted. Yet, the air somehow became… charged. Heavier in some intangible way.
Walking to a crate opposite Naruto, he sat. "Alright. Let's hear it."
"I'm sure you've noticed that I am not really normal."
Hiroshi nearly made a joke reflexively—anything to lighten the atmosphere. It was not oppressive per se, just very… he didn't really have the words for it.
Instead, he simply nodded for Naruto to continue.
This time, the redhead looked away a bit, nearly bashful. "It has been years since I had to do something like this," he began. "Feels like a lifetime ago."
The man took a deep breath. "I can write seals that affect reality in ways that are not normal."
Huh?
His confusion must have shown on his face because Naruto was suddenly on his feet. He came to him and crouched, pulling out a piece of plain paper, and then what looked like a jar of ink. He laid the paper on the floor, and twisted the cap of the ink jar, opening it and spilling a few drops on the paper.
He dropped the jar and placed his index finger on a corner of the paper, and the ink moved, coalescing and twisting into esoteric letters and notches that spiralled outwards from its centre and covered the page.
Hiroshi was breathless—too stunned to move.
The ink shuddered, before settling into the paper in some fundamental way. Somehow, he knew that the ink would not come out again.
Naruto looked up and met his eyes. In that moment, he looked like a strange entity.
Something other.
He swallowed, clearing his throat. "So, what do these seals do?"
He was surprised that his voice was still steady.
Naruto shrugged. "Pretty much anything I can figure out how to write." He gestured towards the paper—the seal—between them. "This specifically, is a notched variant of a standard storage seal. This variant can store up to ten cubic meters."
Hiroshi could not even describe what he felt. Naruto was telling him that he could store the equivalent of a small storage unit in a standard A4 paper.
"How?" was all he could croak out.
Naruto mistook his question for a request for a demonstration. He looked around, then lifted the marked paper and walked back to the diesel containers. He placed it on one of them, and it simply disappeared.
Hiroshi crossed himself—he couldn't help it.
No noise.
No smoke.
It was simply gone.
His brain refused to process it. One moment, the container was there, solid and real, cold diesel lingering in the air. The next—nothing. Not even an afterimage. No sound. No shift in air pressure. It wasn't gone. It had never been there at all.
The diesel container wasn't sucked in. It wasn't pulled, warped, or broken down. It was just—gone. Like a skipped frame in a video, like an error in reality itself.
Naruto walked back, showing him the paper. In a corner of the page, on the outermost spiral notch, a small, two-dimensional… there was nothing to call it besides an icon. A small, two dimensional icon that was a representative of the diesel container was on the notch.
Incredulous, he turned to look back at Naruto's face.
The man must have seen something in his face because he suddenly chuckled. "I'm not telling you for no reason, Hiroshi. I've known you the longest in our group, and you will likely be our designated driver. I want to add a few seal modifications to our bus, but you need to be aware so you can bullshit accordingly."
"What?" he said. He took a deep breath before continuing. "What exactly do you want to do? Increase our cargo space?"
"No," replied Naruto. "Seals, or fūinjutsu as my people called it, can do essentially anything you can code properly."
There was a gleam in his eyes.
"Anything," Hiroshi had asked, his voice a strangled whisper.
Naruto smirked, tapping the edge of the paper. "Anything." He let the word hang between them, letting Hiroshi stew in it before adding, almost as an afterthought—"Within reason, of course."
Within reason, he says. As if reality hadn't just bent around ink and will.
Ha!
Even now, two days ago, the memory still brought goosebumps to his flesh.
Was it magic? He didn't know. He wasn't even sure there was a way to figure it out besides taking Naruto's insistence that it was not magic of any kind at face value.
He exhaled—a long, shuddering breath to try and clear his head.
Releasing the brakes, he gently guided the bus down the ramp and out the doors.
As they rolled out of the vehicle bay, Naruto stayed behind, locking down the school complex. It reminded him quite starkly that nothing about their present circumstances was normal.
Honestly… Are these seals really more unnatural than zombies?
Rationally, they weren't.
But he knew what he felt that night when he watched Naruto work on the bus.
He saw Naruto lope ahead of the bus, drawing his blade as he went along. Saeko came up in his side mirror before she passed the bus on the opposite side of Naruto, blade bared as well as she hurried to meet him.
They reminded him of two wolves on the hunt.
Rei bit down her bitterness as Saeko alighted from the bus, hurrying after Naruto.
She knew what they intended. They would clear the path to the gate ahead of the bus. Their vehicle rode smoothly, the engine purring despite the modifications they made.
Hiroshi must have been modest when he called himself an amateur vehicle enthusiast. It was difficult to imagine a better result at an actual car shop.
And with merely what we could scavenge or weld ourselves?
Hiroshi was definitely being modest.
…
She was just distracting herself—and she knew it.
Ever since that day, she had not been able to face the zombies again.
There had been no major encounters—simply one or two that wandered away from the noise traps Naruto had set up around the campus. Yet, she had been unable to handle even those, freezing in a potent mix of fear, shame, and horror.
It was disgraceful.
She envied Saeko, who could simply face her death and get up and try again.
Once, that envy would have driven her to madness, pushing her into what, looking back, she could now acknowledge as near suicidal tendencies.
Now, it simply made her long to be free—free from the stifling weight of cowardice and shame that held her back whenever she thought about facing them again.
It wasn't admiration or resentment. It was something clammier. Like the slimy feeling of a shameful addiction—greasy in some weirdly disgusting and shamefully satisfying way.
Watching Saeko simply get up and fight was like watching a bird take flight—effortless, unburdened. Free.
Watching herself though…
Watching herself was like watching a child, wide-eyed, fearless, and a little jealous, convinced she was just like Supergirl. Watching that child tie some cloth around her neck for a cape, little chest puffed out in cute determination. Watching that child take off from the third floor, arms at her side in the correct pose, her face starting at complete certainty, and ending in horrified realisation.
Horrified realisation that she's decidedly not Supergirl.
At least she was alive to learn.
Broken, but alive.
And boy had she learned…
She… She could not fly.
And when the time came, when it was time to fly or die… when she had no choice…
She didn't know if she'd fly or die.
And she hated it.
No one knew, of course.
To everyone, she was still the ever calm, ever decisive Rei.
But she knew.
She knew it in the half a second delay she allowed for Saeko to jump at Naruto's offer to clear the path to the gate for the bus.
No one knew, of course.
Who could even tell what a half second delay looked like?
But she knew.
She knew it in the way she always fell back into support whenever she and Saeko encountered a stray in the last couple of days of patrols.
She knew.
And she hated it.