“What that’s uh still happening after all this?” She looks surprised that we would still help her after Takashi was shot and the failure at the other house.

“Well, the sooner the better right? The faster we get there the more likely we can help out? So lets get on it. Rei are you staying here or coming with?” I turn to her. She looks conflicted until Takashi speaks up.

“Go I’ll be fine just try not to get hurt okay? We don’t need matching scars.” He tries to laugh like it was a joke, but it sort of falls flat in the room.

“Ooookay lets go people! Shizuka sorry to interrupt your reunion with Auntie but we need to check on Kawamoto’s family still. Are you up for another trip?” She looks a bit hesitant.

“If it’s okay I can drive.” I look over and see Hideki she looks conflicted but is forcing herself. Shes also still injured so I don’t know how well this will go…

“Your still really hurt, are you sure you want to be going out and about? If you’re okay with it. I don’t want to rush things with you if it’s too much too soon.” Shes been through a lot no need to hurt it more. I also don’t fully trust her not to drive off with the car while we are scavenging. But I don’t really want to admit that.

“Its fine I need to do this. Besides it looks like Shizuka needs a break. I also just don’t want to be inside alone right now and need a bit of a distraction.” We look over at Shizuka laying on a table. With a tired expression. She had given Hideki an okay on moving around she has no broken bones but just a lot of bruising and some other small damage. But she also expected her to be mostly sitting down.

“Yeah, I guess so. As long as you’re just driving it should be fine. But let us know if it ever gets too much and I can give it ago.” It’s been more than 17 years since I last drove and even then, I lived in a large city, so I walked or used the bus.

We have an uneventful trip to Kawamoto’s place. We watch the streets and there are significantly less undead on this side of the river. Its kind of crazy. Did someone clear them? No then there would be bodies. Which means that they were lured somehow. So, they will be amassing somewhere.

“Keep a lookout I don’t trust how few zombies there are. They are likely all massing somewhere. So rather then dealing with just a few it will be a significant amount that we can’t drive over.”

“Good point, we’ll slow down a little just in case.” we start to cruise instead of going full speed. Even the roads have been cleared of cars. They are all on the sides of the roads instead. Someone definitely moved through here recently.

“So, Kawamoto, anything nearby we should scavenge while on the way?” She looks a bit surprised at this she looks very nervous, so she probably didn’t expect to be asked anything.

“Not really uh OH theres the um police station that way but that’s a bit far. Um theres also a pawn shop down that road? Otherwise, we don’t have anything that special over here…” Hideki flinched a bit at the mention of the police station. I’ll ask her later if she wants to go with us there or if someone else would need to go.

A pawn shop that could be interesting. They usually have a bunch of random stuff from people. Might even get a sword or something.

“Let’s check out the pawn shop it might have weapons or something interesting. Do you mind Hedika?” She nods and changes course slightly.

We pull up to a pawnshop that has a metal grating covering the front. This is one of the few areas where there are bodies nearby. Not all of them are zombies theres a small distinction but you can tell when they have no wound to their heads. If they just have a bleeding spot on their chest but nothing on their head, they were killed while human.

“Be careful someones killed here. Pairs of two Rei no hesitation we cant afford anything to happen like last time.” I give her a hardened look.

“Hedika you’ve done a great job getting us here, but I think its best if you stay in the car for now.” I turn to her and see that she has a pale face. And releases a breath when I give her a way out.

She looks down and mutters “Thanks that’s probably a good idea.” Its for the best that she slowly gets back into things.

“Okay Rei pair up with Kawamoto, Taniuchi pair up with Samada again. I’ll go on my own circle the building and look for a way in. I’m going in through the roof. Watch each other’s backs. If a firearm is pulled play along for as long as you can. I will make my way through the building slowly. If you notice another person is being held at gunpoint only act if you have the element of surprise. We don’t want someone else going down, Takashi got lucky he was shot in the leg instead of the chest or head.”

This pours some cold water on everyone.

“Now let’s head out” I climb up through the hole in the top of the jeep to the top of the car and plan my route up to an open window. Its interesting, recently I’ve been applying study and planning together to come up with methods of attack or strategies. With the improved thinking speed, it lets me think of methods I normally wouldn’t have the time to consider.

I grab ahold of a lamp post and crawl up the side before jumping over to the sign on the building and climbing through a window that was left open on the second story. I wasn’t always able to move this freely but with increased speed and thought I can plan out my movements and somewhat take my time making sure the route goes well.

The room I climb into is covered in trash its all old so the person that lived here likely already had a mess before the apocalypse even happened. The window was probably open because of the smell. Moving up and putting my ear to the door I can’t hear any movement just in case though I pull out the machete and start making my way out into the hallways. Peaking in rooms as I pass I can see food containers and other miscellaneous items spread across one bedroom apartment types. Each rooms door is unlocked but empty. Beds left clearly unmade and disturbed.

At the end of the hall, I hear some sound coming from down some stairs at the end.

“Hey Toshki, there are some kids circling the place make sure the doors are secure. We don’t know if theres more of them but its better safe then sorry.” The voice sounds like an older woman maybe in their 50’s or 60’s.

“Yeah, yeah, they’re just some kids we got this place locked down.” Sounds like an older man gruff and aged like a smoker.

Peaking down I confirm what I thought and see an old lady worriedly looking around and a wiry old man. What surprises me is the group of kids around them. At least ten kids between the ages of 6 and 14. Where are all their parents? The old man is holding a can of food but looks otherwise unarmed. Then a person walks in from another room she looks to be around 27 short cyan hair and a slim tomboy figure shes wearing military fatigues and is holding a rifle.

“They are just some teenage punks; they might scrape at the outside, but I don’t want to shoot at some teens. Even if they could be a threat.” Hmm so they are watching these kids. They also don’t want it to come to shooting a bunch of teenagers. It makes sense they have probably dealt with other people trying to raid the place and all the bodies outside looked to be older.

I wait until the women puts down the rifle and sits with it on the other side of her away from the kids. I rush in hoping over the rail of the staircase I land with a bit of a crash but still make it to her before she has time to react. Placing my machete against her neck before she can move to get her gun causing her to stop. Some of the kids scream the older couple are shocked still and the old lady starts screaming. The older man tries to lunge towards me, but his body just can’t keep up with him and his lunge doesn’t reach so he just ends up hitting the floor.

“DAD!” The cyan haired girl looks at the older man with concern. Then turns to glare at me.

I feel a little awkward about doing it this way, but I’d rather not get shot by a rifle. “Don’t worry as bad as this looks I’m not here to hurt you.” I might have had a better way of going about this.

“Yeah right, why the hell would you take her hostage if you werent going to hurt us!” One of the 14 year olds yells out then is silenced by the old man who’s slowly getting up from the floor with their help.

“What do you want kid. Your obviously with those punks outside so what are you trying to get our food? Weapons? We don’t have much but you can have it, just please don’t hurt her…” Smart man hes playing it like a hostage situation.

“Oh no you misunderstand I just didn’t want to get shot at for suddenly appearing. I noticed she had a gun and decided to take the initiative to not get shot upon appearing. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.” I release the girl but put myself between her and the gun. If possible, I’d rather get them all to come in as survivors after all.

“Now, my name is Haruto Ikami but everyone just calls me Haru nice to meet you all. We have a group that’s working to create a good place for everyone.” The girl I was previously holding the blade to is glaring at me. She is wearing army fatigues she likely came from the bridge last night.

“And if we don’t believe a kid?” She moves slightly standing and slowly moving to maybe go on the attack.

“Well, I just wanted to talk anyways we were hoping to find a sword or some good weapons for our own people to defend themselves. We are mostly students from the academy north of here.” She glares at me.

“How old are you? How many adults are in your group?”

“Me? 17 so almost an adult. We have a couple of the teachers too, but they aren’t combat trained. Oh, also I’m the leader of our group so don’t worry the others will listen. We don’t want to hurt the kids if anything we just want to give them a place to stay that’s safer then here.” I throw the machete into the ground next to me lodging it into the floor. The old lady winces seeing the machete lodge itself into the hardwood floor. Oops they probably own this place.

“If you want to throw down that’s fine but let’s not do it around the kids.” I look behind her and she also looks to see that some of the kids like they are going to try to join the fight and would just get hurt.

“No, the fact that you care enough to not want them involved is enough that you probably don’t mean them harm.” She sighs relaxing herself slightly but still looking on wearily. That’s good it was mostly a bluff anyways, I’m good with a blade so I’d probably need to grab my knife which would get ugly fast.

“My name is Tanada I worked with the military, but I noticed quickly that everything was falling apart and came to take care of my parents.” Oh, so that’s why shes here. I sit on the couch I still put myself between her and the gun though just in case. The atmosphere is still slightly awkward and everyone else is still a bit tense.

“That makes sense… Any news on the military on whats going on?” I lean back on the couch and stretch a bit. She gives a serious stare at me.

“Your awfully casual now, anyways not much. This virus or what ever is spread everywhere. Its in other countries and here. I heard we have bunkers full of scientists working on a cure for it but even then, it might come too late.” The moods getting a bit grim. I’m tempted to tell her about the cure I have. If I could get some actual scientists working on it they would be able to make some real progress.

“Well, I might have something that would be useful for developing the cure” This surprises her. But then she gets really upset.

“Don’t fuck with me, why would you have anything that could help make the cure? Your just some kid. You probably just want to try to raid them on the off chance they really have a cure don’t you?” She tenses up a bit more now.

I sigh a bit “Don’t worry it’s not that. If you’d like you could go with me, and I can give them the research from one of ours to maybe help?” Shizuka hasn’t even started but they don’t need to know about the quests or how we got one of the cures. Could just say we found a small box and it was the only one left. Not sure how likely they are to believe it will work but they might just be desperate enough to give it a try.

“I…I don’t know how to get ahold of any of them. They were just spoken of in passing. I wasn’t exactly high up on the totem pole -sigh- I doubt it is but if what you have is the real deal. You should go to one of the military outposts or get in contact with one of the places that has contact. There should be one further in the city. We are still around here because a nearby group cleared out all of ‘them’ from nearby making this area safer. I’d have moved us to the groups base but part of their method of cleaning the street is luring them all towards their base with loudspeakers which makes it a bit dangerous to move down some routes espeshally with this many people. So, with me around and my rifle I figured I could scare off most of the people that try to break in, and the shutters will keep out most of the things and other people. How did you get in here anyways?” Man, shes a bit of a chatterbox once you get her going. She doesn’t seem that bad though. I wonder why I havnt seen any other military vehicles or personal around the bridge or anywhere nearby.

“Oh, I climbed up the side of the building and went in through the upstairs window. One of the rooms has a lot of trash in it and the window was open.” This got a blush from her and a chuckle from the old lady. With that comment the last of the tension in the room releases. The kids are still kept away from me a bit but its less likely for a fight to start out. The old man is still not looking happy though.

“HEY! Its not THAT bad! I just haven’t had the time to take it all downstairs and I had to open the window because it started to smell. I’ve only been back for like two days I have time to clean it up sometime this week.” She looks away a bit.

“That was your room? I thought it was where you guys were throwing trash because you didn’t want to open the shutters to risk anything!” I was genuinely surprised because there were banana peels on the bed and a half-eaten bowl of cereal. I noticed a lot of baggy clothes around but nothing that screams occupied or military.

“HEY until now I had to clean every little thing in my living space in the bunks. Everything was just so “DO THIS NOW TANADA, CLEAN YOUR BED TANADA, DON’T LEAVE YOUR FOOD ON YOUR BUNK TANADA, YOU’RE GOING TO ATTRACT RATS AND ANTS TANADA. Its just so much cleaning that you can’t even breath.” Her face is glowing red but shes still defending herself. Great so shes a slob. And doesn’t even understand its that bad.

“Regardless, what do you guys think about joining us at our base? If you want to, we can just stay in contact until we have a larger space or are more established. We have plans to start a farm and develop a small community after searching for everyones families. Phones still work for some reason so we can try to contact each other that way when ready?” At the mention of searching for families a few of the younger kids start to cry a bit. Tanada goes a bit wide eyed at the mention of families too and stands up to start ushering me into another of the rooms.

“Alright mom, dad I’m going to go have a conversation with him in the other room. Can you look after the kids and calm them all down?”

“You go dear, its good to see you finally making a friend. Its worried my old bones that you didn’t have any, it was probably the smell.” The old lady calls out with a thumbs up.

“Leave the door cracked open, young lady! Though I guess I don’t have to worry about anything happening in your bedroom since the smell alone would ruin anything from happening.” The old man yells out then starts laughing a hardy laugh while the old lady giggles next to him.

“MOM DAD NOT THE TIME!” We go into the other room. She closes the door then after a series of clearing throat sounds from the other room until she lets out a long sigh and opens the door a crack.

“Anyways, we don’t really mention families around here. A lot of the kids out there were ones I could find hiding around while looking for food. It seems common that the parents would have their kids hide somewhere while they fought off some of ‘them’ coming inside or other threats. Its starting to get a little crowded in here but its not like we can’t take in kids when we run into them outside. People are dying. If you have a place that can protect them then we are willing to send some of them with you. But I want to see this place first before I send any of them.” Makes sense probably wants to make sure we arnt some weird cannibal cult or something and sending kids to us wouldn’t endanger them.

“That’s reasonable. We also have a few teachers from our school and my auntie is one of them she teaches kids so at least some of their education could continue eventually. Your free to tag along with us on the way back. Would you like to go back with us on our way back? We still need to check in on someones family right now.” She considers this for a bit.

“Hmmm I’d rather not leave mom and dad defenseless though. Espeshally with a kid like you getting in we need to be more prepared in case someone more dangerous gets in.” She looks a bit strained.

“Well, we are only a couple kilometers away. It wouldn’t take long to take a look. While your gone we can leave someone here to watch over them too if you’d like.”

She looks like shes considering it for a while but doesn’t seem to trust me that much yet.

“Maybe not for now. We will probably see about it in a couple of days though. If you guys have a more permanent place set up sure but for right now this shop is pretty darn secure. With all those things being lured away the streets are also pretty clear. We have the occasional crazy person, but they go down fast.” I sigh, it would have been great to have another combatant espeshally one with military training even if shes a slob.

“Well, that’s slightly disappointing but we’ll stop by again once we find a better base. This is the address for our current base if you want to see it before we move.” I write it out on a piece of scrap paper.

“I was wondering are their any swords or anything here we could get to use as weapons? Right now, we are using some makeshift spears and a few other items. We need something to actually defend ourselves with.” She thinks about it for a bit.

“Well, we have a few fishing harpoons dad got them awhile back expecting to sell them to some fisher. They are barbed though so they wouldn’t be easy to take out once they go into ‘them’ but they would probably still be better then knives on sticks.” Yeah, she has a point, they are probably more durable too. Reis makeshift spear is already nearly falling apart from the duct tape being soaked in blood.

“If its no real trouble we’d like to take a few of those. We can trade food for them too so its more of a fair deal.” They might have better stuff and I want to them to know that we arnt just going to steal it from them.

“Ah also about those things outside they are called zombies by the way they follow all the same rules as a mythological monster.” That interests her slightly.

“Anything I should know about how those work?”

“Just that they are only attracted to sound, and they can only be put down by a head shot.”

“Okay so no new information then. well, do you want to be let out the front or do you prefer windows?” She gets up and starts moving towards the front of the shop. With a smile on her face. I move into the living room taking my machete out of the floor the grandma giving me a glowering look as the floor is cut up.

“Please like I’d want to go through that trash heep again.” This makes her trip a little.

“It’s not… well it’s not thaaaat bad.” Her, blush is spreading to her ears. Even if shes looking away I can still see it.

“But yeah, I guess I’ll go through the front my groups probably worried about me and trying to hit the metal with a rock or something in hopes of somehow getting inside.” We move up to the front. And can’t believe what they are doing…

Rei is stuck upside down from the lamp post like a cat that got somewhere but doesn’t know how to get down. Samada has his eyes covered by Taniuchi since Rei’s skirt is upturned. Hedachi is laughing from the jeep window. I try looking around for Kawamoto but don’t see her. Tanada starts to opens up the front metal grating and I hear a squeal and up above is Kawamoto who had apparently been holding on to the side of the building just above the gate was using the top of it for her feet.

“AH HELP!” -sigh- I leave them alone for like 15 minutes and they all flub around.

“haaaa Kawamato just let go I’ve got you.” I walk out and put my arms out to catch her.

“But but I’m so high up!” she looks down nervously then closes her eyes.

“No, your only like 10 feet you’d at most hurt your ankles now drop down like you’re going to land on your butt so I can catch you already.” She hesitates and I think her grip finally started to give out rather then her dropping on her own. I was half tempted to just move out of the way and let her fall but that wouldn’t build trust in the team I also don’t want any unnecessary injures espeshally to someone already hesitant to go out on a scavenging trip so I catch her.

“There we go, see I told you I got you” I smile down at her. She blushes pretty hard before I stand her back up.

“So, these are the people that defend your group?” Tanada has a questioning look at me. Suddenly a lot less sure of herself in joining with us.

“Hey these are just the ones that wanted to come along, I left our 2nd and third best fighters at the base and our fourth best got shot in the leg earlier today so hes recovering.”

“HEY WAIT WHO’S 4th BEST?” Rei calls from above annoyed. Looking around I see a few zombies slowly making their way towards us from all the noise. But they are far enough away that they wont be a problem for a little bit.

“Gun nut otaku!” I call up.

“Tubby is a better fighter then me? Are you serious!?” Likely offended by the idea of that.

“Well, you don’t see him stuck on lamp posts, do you? Besides hes got a killer aim with a gun or crossbow.” I got to see that firsthand last night when I saved Alice. He could shoot each zombie accurately in the head from a distance fairly rapidly. He just needs to learn some hand to hand and he’ll be much better off.

Looking up at her I call up. “Now get down here we need to go.”

“Aren’t you going to catch me too like Kawamato?” her voice is a little shrill but hopeful.

“Nope you got up there you can get down from there.” She begins to wine at that.

“So, if shes not down by the time we are prepped to leave I’ll just come back for her on our way back if that’s okay with you Tanada.” This got a reaction out of Rei.

“WHAT NO DON’T LEAVE ME UP HERE. GUYS!” I wince at how loud shes being looking around the zombies are getting even closer so I let out a long sigh again it doesn’t help that Tanada is also giving me a long look too.

“That’s a bit mean I thought you were their leader.” She looks at me then the others. A bit of doubt creeping in.

“Yeah, but she needs a lesson in humility. Shes the reason the other guy got shot to begin with. Trying to do something she couldn’t. Besides shes not even considering how much noise shes making up there right now by yelling around.” I look up at Rei who is holding on for dear life eight meters (26ish feet) up. Darn she’ll probably hurt herself if I leave her up there.

“Hideki bring the car up underneath her. We’ll try to coax the cat off the lamp post. Rei! JUST HANG IN THERE!” I pull up my phone and take a picture while I’m at it. My phone may only have limited battery life, but Saeko and Saya would get a laugh out of it later.

Hideki pulls the car over and I climb up on top shes only got a 4 meter drop now slightly less because her feet are dangling below the lamp.

“Come on go ahead and let go.” I’m starting to lose patience at this point.

“NO ITS I’M STILL TOO HIGH UP!” wincing again at the sound I look over at the shop and Tanada is closing the metal shutters as the undead are getting closer. Everyone else is inside the jeep already so I just look up.

“Drop down or I’ll grab your ankles.”

“YOU WOULDN’T!”

Well, now I have two choices. Follow up on my comment or leave.

-sigh- I jump.

“AHHH”