"...I said red shirt, commando. The one you got was wearing yellow. You aimed too far up and to the left. " Rika sighs as she shakes her head while sitting next to me...

"...Just, I'm working on it. Give me a few..." I groan right after as I lift my head from the scope and turn the top small cylinder that was on it towards the right a few clicks.

"Ahhhhh, and here I was, looking forward to finally having some fun..." Rika tilts herself backward, leaning on her hands as she dramatically sighs.

"Well too bad for you..." Saya scoffs right after through my radio...

"Ok, help a brother out here. I'm conflicted. Rika kept saying how 'awesome' you were at the airport cleanup. Yet you didn't even calibrate your own gun after getting new parts on it? Such rookie mistakes should not be possible." The stocky dude chuckles.

"Oh bite me. I had other things in my mind..." I sigh as I keep fiddling with the scope.

(Not that this is an excuse had I ended up shooting one of the demo group's people by accident.)

"Hah. Don't worry, I understand, maybe the pressure of getting squeezed by two girls at the same time is a bit too much for you. Hell, to show you how good of a guy I am, I'll even volunteer to take some of that weight off your shoulders!" The stocky dude cackles.

"You know, I might not be able to hit a corpse while I'm aiming from a six-story building. But I don't think I'm gonna miss your fat ass from this up close." I respond as I keep looking at the scope.

"Hah? Is that how you treat the guy that carried the whole team? Ts, ts, ts" The stocky dude responds with a smirk.

"Excuse me, what?" Rika asks as she arcs an eyebrow.

"What, what. I killed more than all of you combined~" The stocky dude triumphantly blows some air out of his nose as he narrows his eyes.

"That's because you were blindly shooting at a horde. Obviously you'd kill more when the rest of us while we were busy keeping the real threats away from the demo team as it fell back to the boat." The sniper dude shrugs.

"Whaaaat? I can't hear you~ All I hear is 'Waaa, waaa'." The stocky dude chuckles again as he puts his hand on his helmet, to where his ear is supposed to be, then leans towards the sniper, who just turned to look back down the overrun street with an annoyed sigh.

"Well, you can say whatever you want." I respond as I lift my gun to look through my scope, finger off the trigger, aiming straight at the stocky dude.

"Oh hell! What the hell dude!" The stocky dude quickly leans his upper body away from my scope, which ended up aiming at the generic dude behind him, who was too busy looking through his binoculars to even realize I was aiming at him.

"But do me a favor. You don't know what Saeko or Saya have been through. And, considering you have been acting like a total fuckboi up until now. You'll more likely hurt them if you do manage to get them to open up to you. So quit that lame-ass joke. Also, you'll probably turn them into aggressive man-hating feminists, which is bad for everybody..." I add as I turn to aim back down at the horde. Aiming once again at the corpse with the red shirt that I had missed.

(Well, Saya didn't really go through anything more compared to all the other survivors, since I did save her house and her parents are still alive with us. And yea, she did have a breakdown, but what did you expect from a rich girl who had her expensive world pulled under her feet. But, whatever...)

-Bang!-

And with a single shot, the red shirt corpse's head blows up.

"Got'im." I add as I turn to look at Rika.

"Ohhh? So we can finally do it?~" Rika stretches before picking her rifle.

"The way you speak pisses me off for some reason..." Saya mumbles right after Rika.

"Ahh, come on now, you can't honestly be worried, after commando's little speech." Rika chuckles.

"T, that is that and this is this." Saya grumbles.

"And he could have skipped the last part..." She adds with a low-toned whine.

"Well, I do have to admit I find it hard to imagine Miss serious Saeko loudly shouting slogans at the frontlines of a march." Rika responds.

"Why did you mention only Saeko?!" Saya shouts back.

"Well, you 'are' already shouting..." Rika shrugs as she smirks. Saya just, grumbles back...

"But enough of that~ Come on, take another shot. We have to make sure this was not a lucky shot, because I'm not going to let you use that as an excuse." Rika taps at my shoulder as she motions with her head towards the horde below.

"Huh. I'm actually impressed you managed to calibrate your gun this quick. Have you done this before?" The sniper asks.

"Uhh. Saw it in movies?" I respond flatly.

(And the gun range...)

"Hah, yea right." The sniper snorts.

"Guy with a missing arm, wearing a bloodstained shirt with an anime character." I speak then up.

"Messy hair with glasses?" Rika asks.

"Yes." I nod back as I take aim.

(You know, it makes me wonder. Is anime here considered to be 'real life'? Like for example, would Gundam here be like Pacific rim from my world? And vice versa? Do does this mean this guy has a real life person, or an actor stamped on his shirt?)

With that thought, I pull the trigger. And my target's head, bursts open.

"Ohh, two in a row. So I guess it's on then~" Rika smirks as she takes aim.

"Ok, but what exactly 'is' on..." I ask as I tilt my head.

"Hmmm, how about we go for most confirmed headshots till the helicopter arrives? We will take turns, the harder the target the more it'll be worth." Rika casually aims through her scope as she speaks.

"And the winner will, hmmm..." She lifts her eyes from the scope and turns to look at me. Then glances at my radio, and smirks.

"Have total control of the loser for a whole night~" She adds as she leans towards the radio. And sure enough, after a couple of loud coughs...

"W, what the hell are you saying?! Stay away from Naier you, you succubus!" Saya shouts with visible, or more like audible shock.

"Hmm? So you'll take his place then? I don't really mind~" Rika responds with the same smirk on her face. Though you know, the fact that she was smirking at my radio did make the whole thing rather comical...

"N, no!" Saya responds almost instantly.

"Humm, that won't do. I need to have some drive, a little bit of risk. It's no fun otherwise." Rika finally leans back as she folds her arms.

"You can have control of me any night you want~" The stocky dude butts in as he smirks at Rika.

"Deal." Rika instantly responds.

"Aww come o, wait what?" The stocky dude's eyes go wide as Rika smirks at him.

"Oh sweeet! Ok dude! Make sure you lose!" The stocky dude turns to stare at me with a serious expression.

"I hope you know how to wash dishes and clothes. And mop." Rika then continues, causing the stocky dude to turn and stare at her with a dumb expression.

"What? Control you for the whole night was it not? I've been a tad lazy this week, so chores piled up. Thank you for volunteering~" Rika narrows her eyes with what I can only call an evil smile.

"Ok dude, make sure you win." The stocky dude then turns to stare at me with a serious expression.

"I retire." I instantly respond as I flip my gun's safety.

"Heeeyyyy!" The stocky dude throws both his arms in the air with an exaggerated sigh.

"Uhh, guys?" And the generic dude speaks up.

"Hmm, perfect." Rika chuckles.

"But I'm afraid I can't accept that~" She adds as she leans towards me.

"Guys!" The generic dude shouts again. This time the group actually turning to look at him. While in the meantime, he was staring towards the center of the roof. Where...

"These things can open doors?!" The sniper shouts as he stares at the several corpses that have crept through the now open roof door.

"No, look the door is open towards the outside, I think they were just pushing up against it and opened it by accident..." Rika tilts her head as she looks towards the oncoming corpses.

"Ha, I'll handle this. Maybe then you'll realize that I'm no damn maid." He cackles as he gets up, glancing at Rika as he grabs his machine gun and a couple of box magazines.

And starts heading right, before following the edge of the rooftop until he was adjacent to the stumbling corpses. He then turns to walk towards them, before kneeling down and leaving the box mags. After that, he takes aim with his machine gun.

"Knock! Knock! Motherfuckers!" And with a loud shout, he opens fire...

And, you know. In retrospect, I should have realized it sooner. That the spot he was shooting from was, bad...

Bad, because obviously with a gun like that, not all of the bullets would find a target. And behind the corpses, was the skyscraper. The glass skyscraper.

Do you know how many people work in skyscrapers? Apparently, a whole fucking lot...

As when the stray bullets pierced right through the skyscraper's glass panes. The glass, shattered. Letting what I can only call a sea of corpses waterfall out of the window.

And while the corpses from the same high floor as us ended up free-falling between the small gap between the buildings, the ones from the floor above us...

"Oh what the fuck?!" The generic dude shouts as the corpses from the upper floor started crashlanding right onto our roof.

"Shiiiiiiieeeet! How many of em were inside that fucking building?!" The stocky dude screamed as he kept firing at the now slowly growing horde on the roof, causing everything to essentially stumble towards him, and slowly swarm the roof.

"How long till the helicopter?!" The generic dude shouts as he turns his radio.

"Ten minutes?! Fuck! I don't want to die here! We're compromised! We have a horde on our roof!" Was the generic dude's response to what the radio answered.

"What the hell do you mean 'How?' BY FLYING FUCKING ZOMBIES THAT'S HOW!" The generic dude shouts at the radio again.

"Naier? What's going on? Why is everybody shouting?" And my radio speaks up. I just glance at it and took a deep breath.

"Uhh. Don't freak out. But we might have horde spreading on our roof..." I respond calmly.

"WHAT?!" Saya shouts right after, thankfully the constant gunfire from the stocky dude's machine gun drowning her voice.

"You're freaking out." I answer.

"What do you mean don't freak out Naier?! How did a horde get on the roof?!" Saya yells back.

"From the taller building next to us." I answer as I keep looking at the horde, then look behind me, at the steep drop, and to the horde on the street.

(...Ok, think. Think...)

"Are you sa..." And as Saya begins to speak, the constant stream of gunfire from the machine gun ends.

"Fuck! Out of bullets!" I hear the stocky dude shout as he starts taking small steps backward after picking the box magazine he took with him. He then slapped the machinegun with an angry expression as he opened the top cover and took out the empty box magazine...

"Keep your eyes up!" Rika shouts as she takes aim to shoot one of the nearby corpses. The stocky dude turning to look at her as a single corpse that was ahead of the rest lunged forward in a falling motion, grabbing the stocky dude's machine gun as it fell towards the ground, ending up essentially hanging from the gun with its hands.

"Oh what the fuck?! Get the fuck off me you smelly bitch!" The stocky dude shouts as he violently yanks his gun, the corpse getting flailed to the side, he then quickly reloaded his gun by placing the new box mag under the gun and pulling the belt of bullets on the open top of the gun.

"Now where was I!" He grins as he closes the top and pulls back the charging handle, and as he lifts his head, he found a face, mouth gaping open.

"Ah..." Was the only thing he managed to say as the face collided with his...

"AAAAAHHH!" And with a loud scream, he fell backward, machine gun still in his hand, now aimed towards, us.

(Oh fucking hell!)

"Get down!" I shout as I jump towards Rika pulling her to the ground with me. The sniper, who was next to us, didn't react. And...

-BRRRAAT!-

A single burst.

"GuuhhAAAaaaaaa!" Followed by a loud scream next to us. Which then quickly started to dissipate, as if it was quickly picking up distance...

And, silence...

As quickly the panic started, as quickly it ended, now only the moans and crunching sounds of bones being broken left...

"What, the fuck..." The generic dude, who was the only one left along with me and Rika whispers.

"WHAT THE FUCK!" He shouts again as he lifts his rifle.

"Stop eating him you fucking freaks!" He screams as he opens fire...

(Shit, and now he's getting everything towards us.)

Rika probably thought the same as she glanced towards the now oncoming horde, and quickly rolled to grab her rifle.

Yet before she could take a shot I get up and go next to her, lowering her gun by putting my hand on its barrel.

"What are you doing?!" Rika shouts as she turns at me.

"We need to!..."

"Get the fuck off of this roof." I cut her off. Rika just stared at me.

"We don't have enough ammo for all of them, plus we have no space to move, they will reach us before we can take them all down." I continue. Rika, stays silent for a few seconds, before letting out a shuddering sigh as she lowers her head.

"Go where? We're on a roof, not way out." Rika whispers as she leaves her gun next to her.

"...I'm, sorry I got you into this..." She adds as she glances at me.

"Naier what's going on? Get off the roof? What's going on there? Please don't do anything stupid..." And my radio speaks up, the voice behind it talking with an almost begging tone.

"Nothing to worry about, just..." I glance over the edge of the building. And the gunshots that echoed came to an abrupt end once again. Untill, one more, different sounding gunshot echoed. Turning to look towards the generic dude, I find him sprawled on the floor, motionless, a handgun in his grip as the corpses surrounded him.

"Standard procedure. I'm still aiming to be back sundown." I add as I turn to glance at the radio.

"I'm going to turn the radio off for a few." I continue.

"Naier wai!" And before Saya could finish, I switch the radio off.

"Just in case..." I whisper as I glance at the corpses, then look back down again the only thing between the sea of corpses and me, being a couple of open, thin windows...

(Window. Open window. If I jump from here will it break under the pressure?)

"Rika. Open windows under us." I speak up as I glance at her.

"I don't know how bad the insides are, but staying up here is not going to end well." I add as I turn to face the steep drop.

(Don't do anything stupid was it?)

And I walk off the building...

And as I quickly closed into the window, I extend my arms. Violently stopping my fall as the window's lower glass shattered from the momentum of the impact with my legs.

"Fugh! Fuck that hurt!" I groan as I felt my arms go numb. Nonetheless, I shake my head and look to my left, towards the opening that led into the floor, which...

"Oh. Well, ain't that fun fucking tastic..." I groan as I let out a loud sigh. While not as bad as the roof, the building still had several corpses inside. Also, it was dark. The only difference was, that the corpses inside were all staring towards the ceiling.

"Naier?!" And a female voice shouts from above me. Lifting my head I find Rika staring at me with a worried expression.

"Quit shouting! You'll get them all on us!" I shout back, which in retrospect, was quite retarded. As now two of the corpses in the room had turned to look at, me...

Rika glances behind her before she pulls her handgun.

"Shit!" Was all she said as she disappeared from view, only a couple of gunshots echoed from above, which again caused the corpses in the room to look up.

(There! Now or never!)

I take a deep breath and kick away whatever glass shard had remained on the window, then use the lip of said window to step on it to balance myself as I extended my arms towards the building's opening, Thankfully, reaching it without much of a problem.

(Hope my arms don't give out...)

And, I let go of the window and grab the upper part of the inside frame with both hands, pull myself inside the room. Going over a desk that was next to the window, and boot first on a corpse. Sending it to the ground as I landed on top of it. All the while, gunshots still echoed from the top.

I quickly pull my knife, and stab the corpse on the side of its head. And just as the corpse stopped moving, the gunshots stopped.

(Come on Rika! Don't you go dying with everybody else!)

I leave the knife in the corpse's head, ready my scar, and open fire to the nearest corpse, then the next, and the next, quickly moving towards the inside of the room.

The moment I passed the first two rows of desks, I lift my scar towards the ceiling, switch to full auto, and let out a short burst, hoping that the noise would draw the corpses from the far end of the roof, where Rika was at, to where I was standing. Though that had the side effect of drawing every corpse in this room towards me as well...

(Shit! Move move move!)

I let go of my Scar-H and do a quick turn around, almost crashing into a corpse that I barely managed to skim past from..

(Rika was never shown to be a quitter, no way sh...)

Before I could finish that thought, I found myself getting shoved to my left, against the wall.

I reflexively raise my right arm as I turn to look to my right, to find a corpse's head inches away from my head, both ti's upper and lower jaw chowing down on my arm guard.

"The fuck did you come out from?!" I shout as I push myself off the wall and start walking in reverse towards the window, Dragging the corpse with me. Glancing behind the corpse, I spot three more of them coming up the stairs.

"Oh for crying out loud!" I pull my handgun as I start to take steps back, and press it against the corpse's forehead. While at the same time, cracking sounds started to sound off from my arm guard and the pressure on that spot started to increase.

"Piss the fuck off already!" And I pull the trigger, the corpse instantly lets go of my arms as it falls backward. I quickly glance arm guard as is turn to run to the window again.

(Fucking thing crunched through carbon without breaking its teeth...)

Just I lift my head, I see Rika jumping onto the same window I used. The window once again shook violently under the new weight.

"Oh holy hell!" She shout as she slightly flailed her legs, turning her head to look down, only for her glasses to fall off her head and towards the street below.

"Hey! That's my favorite visor!" She shouts as she keeps staring at the glasses as they disappear in the corpse sea below...

(I see her priorities are the same as Shizuka's...)

Without speaking I quickly run-up to the window, lean out, and grab her boot...

"IIIAAAHH!" And much to my surprise, Rika lets out a rather, girly scream as she lands her other boot flat on my face. Which sent me stumbling back, which then caused me to lose my footing off the desk that I was on and land on my back with a thud, my legs still on the desk.

"Ugh! Fucks sake..." I groan as I open my eyes and lift my head to look up towards the corridor. Only to find three bodies, dangerously close to me...

(Oh shit!)

I quickly try to reach for my handgun, only to realize that I never put it back in its holster, and I was no longer holding it.

(Oh come on!)

I then crab my Scar, only to find I could not fully pull it as the sling was stuck under me...

Before I could do much of anything else.

-Bang-

A single gunshot, and the nearest of the three corpses flying back, and spectacularly fell on the corpse behind it.

And with a second gunshot, the last standing corpse kissed the ground.

"Are you alright?!" And Rika's head pops up from uhh, between my legs?

"Oh, I'm just perfect..." I groan as I give up trying to pull my Scar-H and start looking around me, finding the handgun sitting within arms reach right next to me.

"Sorry for that kick. But you really need to speak up when you intend to grab somebody's leg while they're hanging over a window." Rika adds as she extends her arm towards me. Then lifts her head to look up.

"I'll keep that in mind..." I groan as I take her arm.

"Now unless you want to give up now. I suggest we move." She adds as she mentions with her head. A rather, large group of corpses coming up the staircase.

"Any ideas? Because I don't think charging towards the staircase is a good idea with how many of them keep showing up." She asks as she glances at me. While at the same time, I got up and gathered my stuff, knife included.

"Uhh..." I then look around the room again. This time focusing more on 'what' was in the room...

Other than the staircase ahead of us, there was the staircase that led to the roof right next to it. There were also two doors on the wall to our left, both open, Or more like, broken. also two doors to the wall to our right, these closed. And right in the corner between the right wall and of the staircase that went down. A metallic, sliding elevator door.

"Well?" Rika asks again as she looks back out the window.

(We are six stories up. Jumping is an obvious no-go. So one exit is the stairs, the other is the elevator. Both are where the corpses are at. Fuck. come on, think, think, think...)

"I got, nothing..." I whisper as I keep looking at the oncoming corpses.

"Well, I guess we at least get some points for the effort. Damn skyscraper next to us needed to have free falling zombies..." Rika sighs as she looks back inside, the corpses now about halfway through to us.

(Wait, the skyscraper...)

I quickly run up to the closest broken door to our left, Rika following behind me. And sure enough, behind a big desk with an equally large office chair, a window that was facing the skyscraper. Which was still, one or two meters away from this building. Sadly the window pane ahead of me was still acting like a mirror, so I could not see if that floor was also a corpse party...

I lift my scar, switch to full auto, and let out a short burst, the window installed in this building shattering, while the windowpane of the skyscraper became full of cracks.

I then quickly run to the office chair, grab it, and lift it with both hands over my head.

"This better fucking work!" I shout as I throw the chair at the window. And, the window shatters. Revealing, an empty room.

(GOD FUCK YES!)

"Oh my..." Rika whistles at me before she runs up to the desk and starts pushing it.

"This probably just drained all my luck for the next couple of decades." I take a deep breath as I help Rika push the desk until it reached the well, right at the same time as a corpse loudly groaned as it stumbled into the room.

"Of course they would not stay away." I whisper as I turn to look behind me.

"Then we better bail house!" Rika shouts as quickly climbs the desk, and without a second thought, jumps into the building right next to us. Leaving me alone in the room with now several corpses. At least until I also got up desk and jumped onto the adjacent building. Landing with both feet on the ground with a crunching sound, as the floor under me was now full of broken glass...

"Uhhh, haaah.." Rika then leans on her knees and takes a deep breath, before letting out a deeper sigh.

"You think they can get to us?..." She asks as she looks at me. In response, I turn to look behind me. And as one of the corpses reached the desk, it stayed there. Or more like kept trying to walk through it, arms stretched towards me.

"They can't get on the desk. And even if they manage, I don't think they can 'jump'..." I respond as I turn to her.

"Good..." She adds as she sits on the ground, wiping the sweat off her forehead.

"Hah, hahah. I can't believe we just survived that." She chuckles as she closes her eyes with a smile.

"You don't seem very sad that your team just got munched on." I glance at her as I let out a deep breath.

"I guess it would look that way." Rika answers, as she opens her eyes to look at me.

"I have already mourned my first partner's death. It didn't bring him back." She adds with a slight smile.

"Instead I got an E.M.P. in the face." She adds as looks away trying to keep her smile from fading.

(...Wait. Oh fuck, I forgot her partner died in the manage, right before the E.M.P.)

"Uhh, and now I look like an asshole." I sigh as I also glance away.

"Don't be, I would be among the casualties if not for you." Rika responds as she shakes her head.

"Besides. I think you have bigger problems to worry about." She adds as she chuckles, then points at my radio.

(Oh crap, right, I closed it while Saya was screaming at me.)

"Uhhh, yea right..." I blinks a couple of times as I pull my radio from my chest pocket...

And the moment I open the radio. I heard, silent sobbing, along with the occasional sniff.

(...Oh come on now...)

"Did you drop your chocolate chip yogurt?" I ask as I tilt my head.

"N, Naier!? Naier! Naier!" Saya instantly shouted with a cracked voice.

"I mean, when I was a kid I did drop mine once, it was heartbreaking." I respond as I let out a sigh.

"You're, not being funny! I though you died!" Saya shouts back as she kept taking a couple of involuntary breaths.

"Yea, I guess. I'm fine, though the only ones left are me and Rika." I respond.

"Thank, God..." Saya let a cracked sigh, before taking a deep breath.

"Better thank the poor s.o.b. that left the lower floor window open..." I answer as I turn to look at the corpses amassing at the room we were in some time ago. Then at the empty room we were in, desks, chairs, water coolers, everything jammed at the staircase that went up, and down. Essentially blocking off the now giant empty wide room from the other floors.

"Where are you now? Are you safe?" She asks, this time with a much calmer voice.

"Uhh, yea, think so. No corpses where we're at. that being a skyscraper, both staircases on our floor seem blocked off." I answer as I keep looking around.

"I, see..." Saya responds with a low tone.

"Anybody other than you in our group knows that this thing went downhill?" I ask.

"No..." Saya responds.

"Good, try to keep it that way. The last thing I need is you or Saeko flipping off and running off to find me." I answer as I sit on the ground.

"And why shouldn't we! We won't j..."

"Saya, the last thing I need right now is worrying whether you or Saeko wind up dead while I'm not there." I cut her off.

"And what about us then?! Are we supposed to just sit on our thumbs?!" Saya yells back at me.

"Yes." I reply flatly.

"W, wha, you can't..."

"I'm already in this situation Saya. Throwing yourself under the wheels ain't going to bring me back faster. At best it'll fuck my focus and make me make mistakes I would otherwise avoid." I cut her off again.

"I can't just sit and wait!" Saya yet again loudly responds.

"Who said anything about sitting and waiting you dofus." I reply.

"Wha! Who are you calling a dofus you nincompoop!" Saya yelps back.

"The person who forgot that she's holding a radio. Instead of running off, inform your father, get us a new extraction point." I answer.

"F, fine..." Saya mumbles.

"No pressure, just, you know. Rika has been looking at me funny ever since I saved her butt." I chuckle.

"Oh?" Rika just arcs an eyebrow as she lets out a dry laugh out her nose.

"I'm going to tell papa. Don't do anything stupid ok?" Saya quickly responds, and the radio goes silent.

"Huh, guess things must be pretty serious if she didn't even react to that." I answer as I glance at my radio.

"Things ARE serious you idiot!" The radio shouts back.

"Indeed, now that I'm gone, that fat ass general might try to creep up in your room..." I respond with a serious tone...

"Don't make jokes like that! I'm scared enough as it is!" Saya responds with a loud tone.

(True that, I actually just scared my self too...)

"Yea, good point..." I respond as I let out a small sigh.

And with that, silence...

"So? Now what?" I ask after a few silent minutes, turning to look at Rika was sitting next to me...

"We managed to inform that we were under attack and that we are alive. It's just..." Rika answers as she closes her eyes.

"Just?" I ask back.

"I, don't know if we should tell them that the whole team got wiped." She adds as she opens her eyes.

"How come? You think they might leave us for dead if they find out that it's just the two of us left?" I ask as I tilt my head.

"All the helicopters belong to the army. You are not part of it, and neither am I. So yea, I can think that." Rika nods.

"Uhh, Saya you got all that?" I ask as I turn to look towards the Radio.

"What?" Was Saya's response.

I then take off my radio from my chest pocket, and hand it to Rika.

"Tell her the gig. I'll look around for a way out without the need to donate an arm." I speak up as I turn to look around. Rika just nods.

And, as Rika started speaking. I started to walk around the room.

(Hmm, other than the two blocked staircases, there's a set of elevator doors, and that's about it. The barricades are also way too thick, essentially the whole staircase is clogged, I can't even see past it...)

I then turn to look at the building we came from, towards the second room that was adjacent to us.

(That room looks empty, but past that, I see movement. And I'm not going back there if I can help it.)

Then I walk up to the elevator doors.

(Hmm, they are slightly ajar. I could pry them open.)

I give the left door a few loud knocks. And after a few seconds.

(No response. So if the elevator is behind this door, it's hopefully empty. Better if it's not though, we could use the cables to climb down. Though slipping and falling would be really ugly.)

Just as I finish that thought, I felt somebody tap my shoulder. Turning to look behind me, I see Rika extending the radio towards me.

"Done?" I ask, Rika nods.

"If they won't give us a transport I'll find one myself. Was essentially her response." Rika chuckles as I take the radio.

"What a Saya thing to say." I answer as I put my radio in my chest pocket. A silent 'Humf' coming out from it...

(Though that could also lead to Saya getting wrapped with the wrong people...)

"So, I'm ready to get impressed right about now. So please impress me. Tell me you found a way out." Rika folds her arms arching an eyebrow at me.

"Only one." I tap the elevator doors as I speak.

"Dark, claustrophobic, and deadly high? You sure pick the best first locations for a date." Rika chuckles.

"Hey! I can hear you you know!" The radio butts in right after Rika finishes speaking.

(Oh now you heard her huh? Selective hearing at its best.)

"Huh, where did I hear that one before?" I shrug as I kneel to try and pry the door open, Rika helping me along.

(I think Saeko said something like that in the supermarket?...)

After we finally pryed the door open, we looked inside the dark insides.

"Well, the elevator is not here, neither is the next door one." Rika casually leans in as she speaks.

"Down we go?" She asks as she turns to me.

"Hmm, wait a sec." I nod as I get up, and quickly run to the broken window.

(Uhh. Here.)

I pick a blunt-looking glass shard and pocket it, then run back to Rika, who just tilted her head questionably.

"These windows are one side only, the membrane they have on the other side makes them rather reflective, not as much a mirror, but..." I respond as take the glass out and show it to Rika. The glass now reflecting her face on it.

"We can use it to check around corners since we're stuck in a building." I add.

"Ohh, Commando ingenuity strikes back." Rika chuckles.

"I have my moments." I respond as I lean to look down. Then pick my flashlight from my bag and attach it to my helmet.

"So, we test to see the bottom floor?" Rika asks.

"I say first floor. Remember there's a horde on the road next to the building. The bottom floor is way too risky." I respond.

"Fair enough." Rika nods.

"Why don't you go to the top of the skyscraper? A helicopter could extract you from there." Saya then speaks up.

"Big chance the top floors are swarmed though. Think about it, if there was a horde amount of corpses stuck in the sixth, seventh floor. It means something led them there. And bigger chance if people saw the panic in the streets, they might have reflexively climbed higher in hopes to escape it. Also climbing a rope to the top of a skyscraper from the sixth floor is a big nope for me." I respond.

"Just, be careful ok? Please..." Saya mumbles right after.

(...This must be the most honest please I ever heard from her.)

"Don't worry. Just get us that extraction point and we'll be there." I answer.

"By the way Rika." I turn to look at her, she just tills her head.

"You said we should not say the team got wiped. But, I'm pretty sure I saw one of the guys screaming at his radio that we were getting swarmed." I continue.

"He did?" Rika narrows her eyes. I just nod back.

"Well, we might need to start thinking of a plan B then, just in case." Rika groans as she closes her eyes.

"Let's hope it won't get to that, walking all the way back does not sound very fun." I respond as I lean in to grab the cable.

(Hmm I can reach it by leaning at it, good, means I can also exit the same way. Jumping around cables is not something I wanna try from this up high.)

Grabbing onto the cables as I look down, then up.

"Huh? I can see the elevator's bottom from here. Guess that means we can go to the first floor from here." I turn to look at Rika as I speak.

"Any idea how we will open the doors if they are closed?." She asks as she folds her arms.

"If they are shut tight, we go back up till we find a door that is not, otherwise, I'll use the katana's sheath as a lever." I respond

(I mean, considering how Saeko opened the elevator door in the supermarket...)

With that, I start slowly sliding down, Rika climbing on the rope to follow me.

"Hmm? I think one door is open further down. I see light." I speak up as we keep looking down.

"Yea I see it too." Rika adds.

And sure enough, once we reached the third floor, we found the elevator door wide open.

(Well, it's open alright. But...)

"The place is a bloodbath..." Rika whispers.

Toppled desks, flung chairs, broken office dividers. And blood, everywhere. Along with corpses that were shuffling about.

"Keep going?" Rika asks.

"What are the chances the lower floors are better?" I ask back.

"Zero." Rika responds flatly.

"Though even if we make it in. How will we safely jump from three floors up?" She adds.

"Maybe we can use the stairs?" I ask back.

"Maybe." Rika shrugs.

"We can draw them here, make them fall through the open door." She continues.

"The cable is too close to the door, they will still catch us." I respond.

"We can just climb up after we draw them in can't we?" Rika asks as she leans to look at me.

"...I, just felt my IQ falling for not thinking of that..." I answer as I sigh.

"Heh, it was about time I did 'something' here." Rika chuckles.

"So, how do we..."

"Hey you bastards! Over here!" Rika cuts me off by shouting towards the open door. Most of the visible corpses in the room turned to 'stare' at our direction.

"Well, that worked. Up we go." She smirks as she starts climbing up.

- five minutes later-

A corpse walks through the open elevator door and plummets to the dark abyss below. Its groan dissipated as it disappeared, only to hear a 'thud' a few seconds later.

"And that's twenty..." I say as I keep looking below me.

"Ok, maybe hanging on a rope for so long was not a very smart idea..." Rika lets out an annoyed sigh as she also looked down.

" I'm actually more worried about the fact that there might be corpses leaning against the elevator's doorframe. Entering the room with them there would be too risky..." I respond.

"Aaauughh, please don't speak about reasons to keep hanging here." Rika groans.

"Hmm, well the twentieth corpse took its sweet time coming, I'll lower myself to check if there are more on the way." I respond as I let myself slide slightly.

"I'm just, going to stay here. God, I feel like a damn monkey..." Rika answers with a dejected voice.

"It was your idea." I chuckle as I lower myself a little higher than door's height. The room now looking, emtyish. There were still corpses, but most of them looked stuck among the rubble, or were on the other side of the room.

"I didn't know we'd stay here 'this' long." I hear Rika answer with a whiny tone.

"Saya, I'm probably going near corpses. So don't randomly speak up please." I glance at the radio as I let myself slide down slowly.

"You can close the radio until it is safe to speak." Saya responds.

"Just, don't do anything reckless..." She adds with a low, almost sorrowful tone.

" I'll be fine Saya, it's not like it's the first time I get stranded." I chuckle as I lean to look towards the door.

"That's what worries me..." Saya responds.

"Ok, as much as I want to keep taking. Going silent." I answer as I close the radio.

(Now, focus. If Saya started sobbing just because I closed a radio, I don't want to find what she will do if I get bit...)

I take a deep breath, and jump the small distance between me and the solid ground, landing on a little further than the doorframe of the elevator, and instantly, I roll forward.

Before I could barely get back to my feet, I heard a loud 'thud' behind me. Turn to glance behind my back as I pulled my combat knife, to find a corpse sprawled on the floor, right in front of the doorframe.

(Oh cheeky fuck.)

I silently walk up to it and throw a quick glance around me to make sure there were no other corpses nearby, and before it can start getting up, I push it back down by stepping on its back. Then, as I kneel down, I bring the knife right at the middle of its neck, the corpse quickly stopping whatever movement it was doing. Well other than its head, that started biting air.

(Seriously, cut the spinal cord and the head keeps moving. Wonder if that means that a decapitated head can still 'work'...)

With that thought, I push the mostly motionless body down the elevator shaft. Then, turn to look at the room.

Just like before, there was one big ass room with walls made of glass panes, the only difference being, that this room was not empty. It was cluttered as fuck.

(I see corpses behind the desks and rubble. Some of em are actually trying to get here, others are uhh, trying to chew on bones? I mean it would make sense that if they started eating somebody since the start of the outbreak there would be nothing left of him or her by now. But they don't figging give up, some of them seem to be trying to bite the ground. Is the smell drawing them or something? And speaking of smell, closed locations, and spoiling raw meat, really don't mix together..)

"Rika, place is clear for now. Come on." I lean towards the shaft and look up.

"Finally~" I hear Rika sigh. And shortly after, she was standing next to me.

"The damn wire was starting to dig into my boobs, Ack! What's that damn smell?" Rika casually grumbles as she fixes her suit, only to end up closing her nose as she glances around the room.

"Uhh, why are you not wearing a vest in the first place?" I ask in a low tone as I walk towards the stairs.

"Forgot to wear it after I took it off in the helicopter." Rika answers as she slowly lets go of her nose making a disgusted grimace as she swallowed.

Upon reaching the stairs, I am met with a bloody, yet empty staircase.

(These look slippery as hell.)

I sigh as I move down a few steps, then glance behind me, towards the room, before looking over the stair's railing.

(And I see a lot of movement down there, think that is on the bottom floor?)

And so, we went down the stairs to the second floor. And upon looking over the stair railing again.

(...Movement my ass, the first floor is overrun. Good thing the constant noise they are making did not alert them when Rika shouted. Or it did but they can't figure a way up?...)

I turn to glance at Rika, and make a motion to be quiet, she just nods and pulls a hunting knife from her boot. While I, decided to go full samurai on this, drawing my Katana.

The reason? Well since the first floor was a no-go, we had to reach the window panes on the second one. Which, in all honesty, was as fucked as the third floor...

"Ok, before we go on." I turn to glance at Rika as I back up a few steps...

"There might be no way for us to land safely on land, so we might need to return to the old building, and end up diving into the river. Is your gear waterproof?" I ask.

"No." Rika responds flatly.

"Uhhh. Ok. Just in case then. Field strip the rifle and put it in the bag, worse case we toss the bag on the street before we jump, then come back to pick it up." I take off my bag as I speak. The shove my handgun and radio in it.

"The impact from the second floor can break them you know." Rika responds as she starts disabling her rifle, throwing the occasional glance around her to make sure the corpses were not sniffing us up.

"I'll figure something out." I respond as I keep looking around as well.

And so, after my bag ended up getting some considerable weight, we went back down. And keeping a watch on my footing, I walked forward with my left side up against the wall.

Upon meeting the first office worker that seemed to be bothered by our presence and decided to block our way, I ready my blade, and with a forward stab, I pierce right through its skull, the well-dressed corpse falling on its knees with the blade still in its head.

Not wasting momentum, I keep moving forward towards the next corpse that was now crawling towards us. With the blade still embedded in the first corpse's head, I ended up essentially spinning to unstuck the blade and bring it down with a sideways slash on the next corpse. Which didn't seem to really mind its new gash and newly missing arm as it kept walking towards me.

With one arm missing, I just grabbed it by its remaining arm before it could grab me instead, and then stomped it back, sending tumbling onto a bunch of destroyed desks a little further to my right. The noise-causing several corpses that were in our way to move further to the right, while at the same time, the corpses on the right side of the room started crawling towards us.

"I don't think that was very smart..." Rika whispers as she glances at the corpses to our right.

Keeping silent, I moved forward till I reached the first window. Outside, under us, I could see a narrow pedestrian walkway, medium-sized trees on it in a line. And after the walkway. The next building. The left side of the walkway, which led to the main road, was already flooded with corpses.

(...A bit too high to jump on the floor, the trees are too short.)

"Yea, get ready for a run." I speak up as I take a step back, and aim my scar-H towards the window at the far end of the room. Before Rika could respond, I open fire, shattering the windowpane with a couple of shots, both of this building, and the one next to us, along with sending a couple of corpses that blocked our way to the ground.

"Ok fuck silence! Move!" I shout as we break into a sprint, jumping over the fallen corpses before finally reaching the small gap between the two buildings.

(Uhh, there is a small, desk height wall made of concrete on the other building, not hard to jump on to, but there are broken shards on it...)

"Ohh If I end up bleeding out from this I'm going to sue." I grumble as I jump, gabbing with one hand a spot of the window that did not seem to have any glass shards protruding from it, after that, I quickly punch another spot of the window from whatever shards I could see, and then finally I vault over. Quickly turning to clean the whole window with the butt of my scar afterward.

Rika then also jumped over to my side of the building, and not a moment too soon, as 'a lot' of corpses started to enter the room we were in from the stairs of the lower floor.

So now, we were inside a room, the same as the desk room we used to jump into this building from before. Except for the door, this time it was closed, though it did have a bullet hole in it.

"Do I want to know what's going on the other side?" I ask with a small sigh as I walk up to the door.

"Do we have a choice?" Rika asks as she stops next to me, leaning to look through the bullet hole...

"Hmmm, I don't see anything. I can see the window on the far end as well..." She then takes a step back, while also pushing me back. And with a quick motion, she opens the door.

(Well, this could be worse...)

I walk up to the doorframe, take out the glass shard, and use it to look over the blind spot and...

"Oh holy fuck! Run!" I shout as I grab Rika by the arm and bolt out of the room.

"Huh, what's goi-WOA!" Rika responds questionably as I drag her out of the room, until she looked to her right, towards the staircase that led to the first floor, or at least that was supposed to be there, as the only thing you could see, was corpses...

The moment we reached the end of the room, I look over the window, this one being glass from top to bottom.

"Ok, the distance is not too big, we should be able to reach the river." I nod, take a step back, and lift my scar. With a short burst, the window was in pieces.

"Well, now everything knows we're here!" Rika shouts as she quickly runs through the now broken window, and straight into the river...

(Damn. She didn't even blink...)

I quickly hold my bag with both hands, take a step back, and then dash forward...

And a second later, I was in the air, quickly plummeting towards the river.

(Fucking De-Za-Vu!)

Right as I was about to pass over the pedestrian walkway, I toss the bag, looking at it as it safely landed on the grass. And a few seconds later, the world turned into a blur, both sound and sight.

Though only for a split second as I quickly got my bearings, realizing that I was now underwater, so, I quickly swam back up.

And the moment I managed to swim back up, I checked to see if I still had my scar-h on me...

(Good it's here, and FUCK it's hand to stay afloat, uhh, deep breath, the more air you have, the easier it is to float.)

And so, after taking a deep breath

"Rika!" I shout as I look around me.

"Over here!" A female voice responds from down the stream, a purple-haired woman, already halfway up a nearby ladder.

"Hurry up! That gunshot will get the whole horde on the bag!" She adds as she starts climbing again.

"I'll go the other way! Keep fire support from a distance!" I shout as I aim towards a ladder further down that was on the other side of the river.

After making sure I had no visible nasty surprises on the top of it, I close into the ladder and start climbing up.

(God I feel twenty kilos heavier right now.)

After finally climbing up, I bring my scar-H up and turn to my right. Instantly shooting at the nearest corpse. The gun let out a cloud of what looked like mist? Or thousands of tiny droplets from the barrel.

(Gota love how dependable this thing is.)

I then turn to look towards Rika, who was already running towards the bag I tossed. The problem was...

(Oh damn, that's, a lot of corpses...)

The walkway between the six-story building and the building next to it was already flooded, corpses now sprawling all over the walkway Rika was on, though they were still relatively away from her.

I was about to lift my scar and take a shot, when I noticed that there were several shadows closing in from behind me...

(Oh shit!)

I duck down and move out of the way, only to see a corpse appearing where I was standing a second ago, trying to hug air. Turning to look around I noticed that Rika was not the only one getting swarmed.

(Oh that's just fucking great!)

I lift my gun, take aim, and shoot the corpses between me and the road that connected with the bridge.

And, as I run past them, I turn to look towards Rika, who had already reached my bag. Problem now was, the corpses from the walkway had closed off her way back, and the end of the path she was on, led to the main street, the flooded, main street.

(...She's surrounded...)

She turned to look at me with a calm expression.

"Toss the bag and jump into the river again!" I shout. Rika nods, and start running towards the edge of the walkway, tossing the bag the moment she stepped on the railing, which with an ark, landed on the bridge that connected the two landmasses, the one that was full of explosives. She then dove into the river, again.

In the meantime, I ran to the bridge and grabbed my bag. Which was actually right next to a small bundle of thick sticks...

(Huh? These are military-grade dynamites, not C4?)

And, a crazy idea came over me...

I run back and glance at the river to see Rika climbing the ladder I was on some time ago. And then, I lift my Scar-H, aiming straight at the explosives, throwing one last glance at the horde over the bridge.

"Stupid ideas-a-plenty..." And single shot. Followed by a very loud explosion, that nearly threw me off my feet.

(Hooo crabs, that was more intense than I thought...)

I shake my head and run off the street that was probably about to get swarmed. And to the walkway I used to come here, Rika now standing by the ladder, looking at me with a dumb expression.

"...Well, that is one way to attract attention..." Rika glances at the now smoking bridge, or at least what remained of it...

"I recommend we go hide in a house now, unless you want to try blowing up the parade that is bound to pass from here." She adds as she turns to me.

"Agreed." I nod.

"I also hope we find a spare change of clothes. I'm drenched and I can feel my whole suit sticking on me..." She adds as she unzips more of her suit and tries to 'air' it...

And with that, we moved towards one of the houses further down the walkway.