Nothing to say. Enjoy the chapter, and I'll see you next weekend.
Kohta's palms were slippery with sweat. He tightened his grip on the crossbow, and he entered the store side by side with Takashi who held a baseball bat in white-knuckled hands.
Naruto and Saeko had been waiting for them at the store. Hiroshi parked the bus so that the entrance was close to the shop entrance. He swapped places with Kyoko as he left the bus running—just in case.
The atmosphere was… weird. Heavy in a way that tasted of shared grief and sadness. Seeing Miku breakdown was painful, and a stark reminder of the sheer abnormality of their situation. In the end, he was secretly grateful for Shizuka stepping up to comfort her.
Her choked words had formed a pit in his stomach.
I don't want to think about it.
He kept his eyes on Saeko. She stalked ahead of them, taking point even as they scouted the shop. Her blade was out—a wicked thing, like a tiger's snarl. It lay easy in her hands, like her arm, flowing with her as she led the way. She stepped lightly, seemingly without any effort.
In contrast, Takashi and him almost seemed like newborn goats. The weight of the crowbar on his waist unbalanced him just that little bit.
They took the last corner, making their way to the back of the store. Across the floor, Naruto came into view, Rei and Hiroshi bringing up the rear.
"All clear here," Saeko said, her voice soft.
Naruto nodded as he replied. "Same here."
Turning to Kohta, he continued. "Get those trolleys," he said, pointing to the set of trolleys in a corner. "We can afford a bit of noise. Go round and get the stuff we need."
"You're leaving?" asked Saeko. Nothing in her voice changed, but he thought he could hear something there…
Disappointment?
Naruto stopped to reply. "Yeah. There's another hardware store down this road. I want to check it out." He smiled at Saeko—a small thing, but more than Kohta had seen anyone else receive.
She hesitated, just briefly, before nodding. If she was disappointed, she didn't let it show.
Naruto continued speaking. "I need you here to take care of the others. Can you do that for me?"
This time, Saeko's reaction was not so restrained. Her smile lit up her face, transforming it into something breathtaking. "Sure. Be safe."
Naruto was already moving away as he replied. "You too."
By the time Saeko shifted her attention to them, the smile was gone. Her face was back to its calm stillness. "Let's go," was all she said.
The four of them made good time. By his estimation, they were done in less than fifteen minutes. A few more minutes while they offloaded the things into the bus—nothing more fancy than simply piling the goods in the bus for Shizuka and a calmer Miku to sort out.
"There's no need to drive to the next store, is there?" asked Hiroshi. "We could simply walk."
Sure enough, Naruto was a few stores down the road, leaning against the building. They walked towards him, caught between the urge to hurry and the urge to be silent.
Another half hour, and they were done as well.
"There's one more hardware store further down," Naruto said as they were offloading their haul onto the bus. "Do you think we should hit it, Kohta?"
It was very tempting for him. They had enough drones—a dozen in total—along with batteries, power banks, and a plethora of other things that happened to jump at them while they were browsing the stores. Before he could answer though, Hiroshi spoke up.
"I'm honestly more concerned about making good time," he said. "It's almost noon, and we don't know what we'll meet on the road." He cast a glance at the sky, the sun creeping toward its peak. "If… no, when we hit trouble, I'd rather not be running blind in the dark."
Looking around at them, he continued, face firm. "Do we really want to encounter that thing at night? Or even the regular zombies."
The thought of meeting that monster in the dark made Kohta shiver, goosebumps trailing down his back.
It would be suicide.
Takashi raised his hand, something on his mind. Naruto glanced at him and nodded, giving him permission to speak.
"Where are the other normal zombies?" he asked, his voice the quiet thing it had morphed into after Momo's death.
Kohta swallowed hard, gripping the crossbow at his side with sweaty palms. His stomach twisted. The air felt too still now, as if the entire city was holding its breath alongside him. He had tried his hardest not to think about it. Now that it had been said though… he couldn't ignore it.
Where were the zombies?
He never thought he'd even ask that question—ever.
The mere presence of the monster that chased them conjured up images of the zombies melting into each other to become more of that thing.
How many were needed to make one of those monsters?
How many more of the monsters were out there?
He forced himself to breathe.
Takashi continued. "By now, we should have encountered even a few of them. Yet… nothing." He wrung his hands nervously. "It bothers me, and I would like very much if we did not spend the night with only the bus between us and outside."
Kohta found himself agreeing with that sentiment.
The drones were an inspired idea. Saya couldn't believe she hadn't thought of it herself.
Kohta really outdid himself.
She focused on the next set of images, zooming in and looking carefully through them. Kyoko was back with them, Hiroshi at the wheel again as they neared the ramp to join the intra-city highway that would take them towards the southern end of the city where their destination was.
Naruto was back in the sleeping area, napping away. He must have been exhausted. She had never seen him fall asleep before. Saeko was back there too, albeit on the female side of the partition.
Something is going on between those two…
She wasn't sure how she felt about that. It wasn't surprising—Saeko was strong, competent, and deadly. If anyone in the group was Naruto's equal, it was her.
Still, she couldn't help but wonder…
Meanwhile, phone networks were now completely gone. Not even a dial tone left. There was no internet, and the satellite network was getting spotier by the hour.
She did not expect it to last the rest of the day.
"All clear until we hit the ramp," she declared.
The rest of the bus let out a small cheer.
They were making much better time now, only pausing to pick up the drones that they sent ahead. Their speed was still a crawl—a combination of the narrow streets and their drone scouting forcing that necessity on them, but they could recon multiple streets simultaneously, and the drone they'd sent overhead had helped them all but eliminate blocked streets from their route.
"If all goes well, we should get to the ramp in about half an hour," she continued. "There's some blockage at the ramp, so we may have to clear it manually."
Despite that, the energy in the bus was optimistic. The air felt lighter, charged with the quiet hum of the possibility of safety that lay a few hours away. Even the sunlight that spilled through the windows seemed warmer. Golden shafts cast warm, dappled patterns in the cabin. The air conditioning of the bus cycled cool air through the cabin, as if the world itself was smiling on them.
"I'm happy that we didn't need all the modifications we made on the bus," remarked Rei. "The roads have been zombie free."
"We can't expect it to remain that way," replied Kyoko, powering her own drone down. They only needed to stop and retrieve one more drone. At the speeds they'd be hitting on the highway, they wouldn't need the drones for overwatch until they entered the city proper again from the south. "Given that we know that the zombies are attracted to sound, they probably followed the noise from survivors making their way towards the residential districts."
"Let's leave that aside for now," said Miku. "I'm starving!"
On the surface, she was back to her normal self. But Saya could hear the undercurrents in her voice. She was just barely stable.
Her exclamation roused everyone else.
Even she had to admit that she was quite hungry.
"I've got just the surprise," Shizuka said, a huge smile on her face. "No peeking everyone…" she sang.
The doctor made her way to the back of the cabin, disappearing into the folds of the curtains that dominated that area. A few minutes later, she came out, a large tub in her hands.
"I've got ice cream!" she declared, thrusting the tub above her head like a trophy.
Another cheer went up in the bus, louder this time. Even Saya could not help but get caught up in it.
Where did she even find ice cream?
She didn't care much though, and she quickly joined, waiting for hers as Shizuka scooped some for everyone.
"Here you go!" Shizuka said, handing her a cup.
"Thank you," she replied.
It was plain vanilla. It would not have been her flavour of choice. But right now?
I'd take any flavour of ice cream.
Miku went to hand Hiroshi his own, and they all sat together eating.
"Should we call Naruto and Saeko to join us?" asked Kohta. For the first time since they acquired the drones, he looked more relaxed. Not by much, but it was better than nothing.
"Yes…" "Nah…"
The two people who'd answered looked at each other.
"I say 'yes' because they're part of us. They rarely get time to unwind because they keep protecting us," said Miku, something glinting in her eyes.
Saya was suddenly reminded that Naruto and Saeko had spent a lot of time together alone—to the very obvious disappointment of one of them. It had always been there, in the background, an unspoken thing. But now? Now it was being dragged out into the open.
So that's how it is…
Kyoko was the one who said no. "I think we need to allow them rest," she said. "Plus, the ice cream will be something for them to do together."
Saya could literally feel every ear getting larger. They all looked at Kyoko intently, ice cream temporarily forgotten.
The woman smirked as she glanced around at them. "What?" she asked. "You'd have to be blind not to see that Saeko is in the deep end with no paddles where Naruto is concerned."
Shizuka chuckled. "Indeed." She took a bit of her ice cream before she continued. "You'd think that Miss Hack N' Slash wouldn't know what to do with all that hunk of a man, but we were apparently wrong. She must have been doing something right all those times they were alone—he's actually starting to see her now."
"Er…" began Kohta, scratching his head nervously. "Should we be talking about this?"
At the same time, Miku turned with a mild glare on her face. "Hunk of a man?" she asked Shizuka. "Isn't that objectifying? Or rather, doesn't it seem like you want that hunk for yourself?"
Saya blinked.
Once.
Twice.
What… what just happened?
The shift was so sharp it left her reeling, and her brain scrambled to keep up.
We were just talking about ice cream! How the hell did they get here from there?
Takashi was looking away, determinedly putting away his own ice cream bit by bit. Besides the blush on his face, there was nearly no indication he was paying attention.
He's also leaning in our direction, the hypocrite…
Shizuka didn't back down. "Oh baby," she replied to Miku. Yet Saya could tell that it was directed at all of them. "When I want Naruto, I'll simply get him." She held a pose. It was simply, yet somehow, also packed with pure seductive energy. "Do I look like a woman that has any problem getting whatever hunk I want?"
The silence that followed was loaded, as though something tethered on the edge. Of what, she could not say.
Miku's expression twitched, her eyes darting to Shizuka. Hesitation flickered in them so briefly that if Saya wasn't looking at her, she'd have thought she imagined it. Kyoko remained utterly composed, but Saya could see the flicker of something in her gaze. Rei looked away, her ears reddening to match her face. Takashi was eating his ice cream like it was the only thing that mattered—with deliberate intensity, as if trying to pretend this conversation wasn't happening at all.
Saya swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. Her heartbeat picked up. It felt like the temperature in the bus had jumped several degrees. Was it just her, or had Shizuka's presence become… overwhelming?
I'm not even a homo, but damn…
"It won't be that easy," warned Kyoko. "Naruto isn't like other guys."
"To you," replied Shizuka emphatically. "Naruto isn't like other guys to you."
She paused for a moment. "To be fair, I don't see him like other guys as well."
The discussion went sideways quite rapidly. Miku was facing Shizuka, a glint of competition in her eyes and she sat, subtly emphasizing her good points.
Why did I even notice that?!
"Let's leave them," Shizuka said suddenly, seemingly losing interest in the direction the conversation had gone. Rei actually sighed audibly, her cheeks aflame in secondhand embarrassment.
"Eh?" protested Miku. "That puts us behind Saeko!"
"Us?" Shizuka smiled, a soft thing that hid what she imagined the grin of a succubus ought to look like. "Who said I was interested in just one of them?"
This woman…
She continued. "I want both of them. Of course I want them to get together. It benefits me."
Miku grinned back, confidence in her every gesture. "Oh? Here I thought I was the only one," she said. "We might eventually settle for a harem situation—as long as I get some for myself."
These women…
Hiroshi sighed, audible even from the driver's seat. "Is this all you women think about? Sheesh!"
"D-don't lump me in with these… these… women!" protested Rei, even as Shizuka replied, "Of course. I'm a naughty, naughty girl!"
Saya couldn't help but feel a twinge of fear for her sexuality if she ever caught the eye of one of these women.
I'm surrounded by real monsters.
She exhaled softly, rubbing her temples.
And what was worse, she wasn't entirely sure she didn't want it.
Mama… Papa… Your daughter is in danger…
The cool air in the bus hummed with a low, steady whisper, providing a stark contrast to the warmth of the late morning sun that shone through the tinted windows. The seats were comfortable enough, though the occasional swerve and jolt as Hiroshi navigated around the abandoned vehicles on the road sent a gentle sway through the cabin.
The bus hummed beneath her, a familiar comfort to Rei. The dent on the left side just caving into the cabin was a stark reminder of the danger lurking outside. As though belying that, the sunlight filtering through the tinted windows cast soft shifting patches of gold and shadow across the floor and passengers.
It was a time of transition—not quite the cool of the morning, not yet the heavy warmth of midday.
There was a sort of lazy contentment in the air. The remnants of ice cream and more mundane banter lingered, lightening Rei's heart. The atmosphere was pregnant with good humour, mingling with the cool air and the lingering scent of vanilla into a pleasantly chilled aftertaste.
Shizuka, Miku and Kyoko were still in animated discussion. They'd moved away from the, in her mind, frankly embarrassing topic of earlier. As the bus made its way across the district, topics had been picked and discarded. Everyone chipped in, and at one point, there was a heated discussion on some celebrity gossip that was making the rounds two weeks ago.
It was all terribly mundane.
It was exactly what Rei needed.
There was a jolt as the bus ran over something.
"Just a stray zombie," Hiroshi called. "One less for us to worry about, eh?"
Just fantastic, Rei thought. Of course it would be too much to expect some form of peace for an hour.
At the mention of the zombie, the atmosphere began to shift. The lightness of moments ago faded gradually, like a cooling ember. The air felt heavier, the bus quieter, the laughter from earlier already feeling distant.
In a few more minutes, Hiroshi ran over two other zombies—one in the middle of the road tethered to a pole by a rope around its neck, and another on the pavement that he'd needed some rough driving to get at.
The jolts woke Takashi who was dozing in a corner. Kyoko stood, making her way to the back of the bus, ostensibly to wake Naruto and Saeko up. The rest got themselves ready, putting away loose items, clearing the central corridor, and rechecking the doors.
What they were getting themselves ready for, she didn't know.
She sat, taking deep breaths as she tried to prepare herself for the possibility of combat.
Her lungs filled as she drew breath slowly.
In a way, it's great to see 'regular' zombies. Kohta's conspiracy theory around the zombies and that abomination lingered in her mind way past what she would have liked.
Her chest fell as she emptied her lungs.
There was no proof that it was true. More importantly to her, there was no proof that it was not true.
She would err on the side of caution.
Kyoko returned, Naruto and a slightly groggy Saeko in tow. "Kohta," the woman began. "Get a couple of drones ready. We didn't see these zombies on the stills earlier, so something might have changed."
The boy scrambled to it, Takashi actually taking the initiative to join him.
Takashi…
The ten days after Momo's death had been a rollercoaster of emotions for her. The group's animosity towards Takashi had slowly died down. Not because they forgave him, but because he had faded into something else. A shadow. A worker. A soldier who spoke only when necessary. With his silent withdrawal, he didn't make more fuel for the resentment the others quite rightly had towards him. Plus, because he was always involved in the work, he built up a lot of goodwill in the long run.
The goodwill was reluctant, but it still accrued, especially when he could not piss it away with his motor mouth.
Hiroshi also stepped up, taking Takashi under his wings, so to speak. The rest of the group were not privy to their discussions, but the two could often be seen together the remaining days they were on the school campus.
In the end, it turned out that in practice, his 'punishment' transformed him into a silent, hardworking type—just the sort to gain respect in an apocalypse.
She could not help looking at him, although slyly out of a corner of her eyes.
She wasn't sure if she was relieved or frustrated—relieved for him, and frustrated at herself.
I guess it's both…
He failed them. But he was her friend.
He got Momo killed, and nearly added her to the butcher's bill as well.
She once carried a flame for him. She still might.
He used to be loud. Incompetent. Useless.
Now? He was quiet. Competent. Useful.
Isn't that exactly what I want?
She did not know.
Sometimes I wonder… Did Naruto foresee all this when he leaned on this 'punishment'?
Looking back now, she was not sure what she remembered. Emotionally, it felt as though they all decided Takashi's punishment. Yet she knew that wasn't what happened.
Naruto allowed us to air our opinions on punishments, and then decided on one completely different instead.
Even looking back, she wasn't sure what to think.
Were we following Naruto even then? Who am I kidding—of course we were…
She couldn't help thinking that the entire thing was a sort of test. A test that they'd received feedback on in the form of the talk Naruto had with them after.
Everyone except Hiroshi was at that talk.
Everyone who'd advocated for Takashi's death one way or the other.
But now, looking at the dynamic, you would not imagine that awful night. Kyoko hung around, watching Kohta and Takashi work side by side to get the drones up. Saya was behind Takashi, her voice pitched low, but still flowing in the cadence that indicated she was nagging again.
Naruto himself sat on the last row of passenger seats, his head on his one hand and a small smile on his face as he watched them work. Saeko was beside him, looking more alert as she woke up fully.
Maybe she was overthinking things.
Naruto turned his head to meet Rei's gaze, and his smile widened, reminding her of a fox.
But maybe she was not.
Kyoko watched the display, her fingertips tingling in growing anxiety as they examined the video from the drone. The ramp was cluttered, but not so much that they could not make a path for the bus given some time.
No. Her anxiety was from something else.
All around the pileup, zombies milled about, nearly all of them lying around like mere corpses. She didn't know how long the pileup had been there. It looked like there was an initial accident, then two or three others to compound it at various other times. The vehicles were covered with a thick coating of dust, some with doors ajar.
Their bus was at the intersection to join the road that would become the ramp—a lane originally designed for two lines of traffic going one-way only.
"There could be zombies behind us as well," Saya was saying, her voice under iron control.
It was easy for Kyoko to forget that from the beginning of the outbreak, this would be the first time Saya would actually be exposed to the zombies directly.
"Can you pick them off?" Naruto asked Kohta.
The boy worried at his lips. "Maybe if we moved a bit closer?" he replied. "I honestly doubt it though. This crossbow is effective at something like thirty metres?"
"But there's the rub, isn't it?" Rei said. "We don't know how close we can get to them without setting them off…" she trailed off, face scrunched in thought.
"Plus," Kyoko said, picking up where Rei stopped, "we still cannot be sure that our rear is free."
"This feels too much like a trap," complained Kohta, even as he began to lay out bolts. "They were not there an hour ago."
"That starts another uncomfortable conversation," Saeko said, speaking for the first time. "If it is a trap, it means that they can learn. They must have gotten experience stalking this exit."
"So how did they know that we were coming?" asked Saya.
Silence.
It stretched for just a beat too long, and Kyoko felt her pulse in her ears. The question just… hung there, like something they weren't meant to ask.
Fuck…
Naruto shook his head and turned to Saeko. "Can you handle the ones at the ramp?"
"Alone? Likely not," she replied. "As a team? Maybe."
"We can be reasonably sure that it is only the dozen or so we can see there that we should expect from that direction," Naruto said.
Kyoko agreed with him. The footage from the drones bore witness to that.
Naruto continued. "The issue is our rear. There are any number of places zombies could rush at us from."
He pursed his lips. "Here's what we're going to do."
He nodded at Hiroshi. "Try and bring us as close as you think you can get away with. At worst, they can fall back to the bus and allow me to clear the field."
Hiroshi nodded gravely.
He pointed at Rei, and then Kohta. "The two of you are to join Saeko to clear our front. Kohta, try and whittle them down before the others engage. Rei, you're with Saeko in the melee."
Rei's hands tightened on her staff, and she took a deep breath. Kohta gave a mock salute in acknowledgement, and Saeko merely nodded.
All in a day's work for her…
Turning to the rest of the group, he continued. "Once the front is free of zombies, Hiroshi, Kyoko and Takashi will join Kohta to move the vehicles in the pileup. Shizuka, you'll be at the wheel of our bus, and Miku, you'll be on door control."
Kyoko started as he mentioned her name. Her heart sped up and it felt like blood was rushing to her head.
I can do this!
Unfortunately, she was not convinced.
She kept her voice steady with some effort.
"How do we move the vehicles?" she asked. At the same time, Miku asked, "what do you mean by door control?"
I'm going to be face to face with them…
The thought nearly distracted her from Naruto's reply. "I'd bet that a lot of those cars have their keys in them," he began. "Try starting them and moving them to park behind us to form a sort of choke point. Or else, simply shift them to drive or neutral, and roll them away from our path."
He continued. "As for door control, your job is essentially to open the bus doors when we are taking off. We will probably exfil in a hurry, so you need to get the timing right to minimize the time we'll be waiting to jump in."
"That's all?" asked Miku. "What about our rear?"
"I'll be on rear duty." Naruto said. "If nothing pops up from behind us, I'll join the group to clear the ramp."
He reached towards the luggage compartment overhead. "One last thing," he said. "We'll use these." They were a set of radios. "They're six in all. I'll be with one. Shizuka will be with another." He dropped the bag and indicated that they pick a radio as he mentioned their names. "Hiroshi will take the third, and Kohta the fourth. Saeko, you'll have the fifth one. Miku, here's the last."
He lifted a unit, and clipped it to his shoulder by way of demonstration. "The earphones allow for voice activation, so no need to push to talk."
There was a brief lull as they attached the radios to themselves.
Naruto looked around at them. "Stay sharp, and stay safe. Don't make any silly mistakes, and we'll be home free."
Kyoko took a deep breath, trying and failing to keep her heart from pounding out of her ears.
Naruto grinned, his easy confidence infectious. "Let's do this."
Shizuka gripped the steering wheel in white knuckled hands to keep them from shaking. Just ahead of her, Saeko, Rei and Kohta crept forward.
Kohta crouched down and sighted down the crossbow. A bolt buried itself in the head of a zombie lying across the road with a quiet thunk that carried through their earpieces.
Her heart thundered in her chest, a deep, sickly rhythm that rattled against her ribs. She gripped the steering wheel harder, fingers digging into the leather. The moment seemed to stretch, a fragile thread of hope dangling in front of them.
Another almost silent thunk, and another zombie twitched, becoming a real corpse.
She glanced at the feed from the rear camera.
Still clear…
Another silent thunk.
Her fingers clenched the wheel tighter. Her pulse pounded in her throat, and she forced herself to swallow past the dryness. She hated this—waiting, not knowing what was coming next.
It continued like that until there were five zombies turned corpses in the blockage ahead.
We just might do this silently…
The sixth shot glanced off the skull of the zombie, ricocheting into the side of a car with a loud clang.
The zombie twitched, then began to scream.
Fuck me and my big mouth…
It was exactly like the scream that started it all. The other zombies around burst into terrifying motion, all swarming towards the screamer.
Kohta managed one more shot, trying to take down the screamer. Another zombie got in the way instead.
"Fuck!" he swore, his voice tightly controlled.
"On it," Saeko reported, as she and Rei repositioned, sweeping forward to meet the horde.
The zombie continued to scream.
The others thrashed about aggressively, no target within their reach, due to the position of the screamer, they were backing Saeko and Rei, and thrashing against the cars forming the blockade on the ramp. The girls crept up behind them, and Rei whacked the nearest one on the head with an overhead swing.
Shizuka had the distinct displeasure of having a front row seat to watch the zombie's head split like a melon. It dropped like a rock, and one of the zombies turned towards the sound of Rei's staff. Rei swung again, and the zombie's head came apart.
The zombie continued to scream.
Naruto's voice came over the radio. "We've got incoming."
Shizuka glanced at the rear camera. About a dozen zombies were dashing full tilt for the ramp from inside the district, drawn by the screamer.
Naruto moved to intercept, his silhouette framed against the incoming horde.
Another thunk came in over the radio, and Shizuka wrenched her head forward. A bolt was sticking out of the head of another zombie even as it toppled. The horde in its trashing had separated into two groups around a car. Rei and Saeko separated, allowing the deadly girl to come into play fully for the first time since the engagement started.
The zombie continued to scream.
Saeko was on her group in a heartbeat, her blade flashing as she laid into them. To Shizuka's eyes, she was nearly a blur, blade lashing out in vicious, brutal swings that cleaved heads and necks. She used her off hand to maneuver around the obstacles, using the environment to her advantage.
The zombie continued to scream.
In a couple of heartbeats, Saeko's group was done. She had fallen on them like a thunderbolt—they hardly had time to even turn. She turned and approached Rei's group from the other side, actually ignoring the screamer to focus on the other zombies.
Why? She had a chance to end that infernal screaming!
As Saeko joined Rei to demolish her side of the mob, it hit Shizuka.
The screamer keeps the mob focused on itself as the loudest sound source, allowing Saeko and Rei to work in relative peace… It's fucking brilliant!
A couple of moments later, Saeko flowed towards the screamer—the only one now left in the group. Her blade rose and fell, interrupting it mid-scream, and cutting the teeth rattling sound off abruptly.
Shizuka's breath came hard and fast, as though she was in the fight herself.
"Ramp clear," announced Saeko.
"Good work," replied Naruto immediately. The sound of rapid blunt force trauma being inflicted formed a strangely fitting backdrop to his next words. "Hiroshi and the others, get a move on immediately. We don't have all day. Saeko, you're on the bus in case any get past me. After a while, cycle with Rei and assist in moving the cars."
Shizuka glanced at the rear camera feed, and saw something that should have been impossible.
Naruto had retreated to the entrance of the road, and stood there like an unstoppable wall. He should have been a centre around which the mob flowed, spurred on by the screamer as they brought certain death towards them. Instead, he stopped the mob dead in its tracks.
They probably didn't all arrive at the same time…
Still, he would have had to be killing them at an astronomically efficient rate taking his disability into consideration to keep their numbers low enough that they couldn't simply overwhelm him with numbers. Already, a pile of bodies was building up around him, and he was somehow maneuvering them such that they began to form choke points, narrowing the field even more.
She didn't know what she was looking at.
Naruto seemed to appear fully only in brief flashes in the press of the horde—low stance with blade in hand in one, legs flashing in rapid kicks in another.
Maybe if she was like Saeko or Rika, she might have been able to see what was going on. To understand.
But she wasn't.
All she could see was that somehow, Naruto was taking on a mini horde of incoming zombies and winning.
Is he actually…
She looked closer, trying to make sense of what she was seeing from the rear camera before giving up. She opened her door, standing and twisting so she could see their rear, holding on to the frame of the bus as she did so.
He is… He's actually pushing the line back!
Goosebumps ran down her spine as she watched, unable to put words to what she was seeing.
All she knew was that it was beautiful; a magnificent symphony of violence and control that had her pulse racing—not in fear, but in exhilaration.
She thought she understood what Rika told her all those days ago.
She thought she could see where Saeko was coming from.
She thought she knew why Miku wanted this man.
She now knew she was wrong.
I shouldn't be thinking about this. Not now. Not in the middle of this.
And yet…
He was simply beautiful, and it was only right—even sane—to want him for oneself.
To want him for herself.
Even if it meant sharing.