Chapter 9: The End Begins (5)

“Where do we go?” Kurobane gasped.

“Back up!” Yuka answered.

They barely made it two steps before an infected smashed into a row of lockers. A pale hand, riddled with bite marks, clamped onto Yuka’s coat. Shion was already there, the end of her weapon going through the back of its neck and out its throat. Yuka tore herself free, stumbling.

Down the hall, bodies avalanched. A cascade of snapping jaws and slick, blood-dark fingers spilled out of ruined classrooms, from stairwells and side doors. They’ll die at this rate. Ren’s gaze swept their terror-stricken faces. His thoughts flickered fast. Options? None worth a damn.

“Midori!” His friend turned, face pale, one foot still planted on the bottom step after ushering Reina and Lilly upward. Their gazes met. “Run!”

Midori’s stare flared with rage. “No! Not again! I’m not leaving you!” His voice was raw with a desperation that didn’t belong to this moment alone.

“I said run!”

Ren vaulted over a toppled desk. With a single, savage kick, he smashed his heel into the fire alarm box. The red plastic cracked, springs flew, and a shrill bell detonated through the corridor. The infected recoiled, heads swiveling. They stampeded, trampling each other, charging blindly—battering doors and walls, shredding frames.

“Come on, then. Come get me!” Ren yanked a chair off the floor and smashed it into the tiles, splinters exploding across the hall. Midori’s cries were faint now, smothered beneath the alarm and the bellow of the infected. The horde wheeled toward him, hunger dragging them forward in a single, surging mass. More and more and more poured in.

A window gaped open ahead. He threw himself through it, shoulder first. Glass scraped his sleeve as he rolled onto the narrow maintenance ledge, rain slamming his body. The wind clawed at his jacket, tugged at his legs, trying to peel him into the void. The infected scrambled after, their bodies tumbling onto the courtyard stones below.

They writhed, then vanished beneath the larger swell, ashen faces tilted to the storm. Lightning split the sky, and for an instant, a thousand wet skulls gleaming.

Memories flared, sharp as lightning. Fields ablaze. People screaming as orange flames licked wooden stalls. He’d run back then—convinced there would be another chance. There never was. And what was he now? A man on borrowed time. How could he protect anyone?

He stared down at the courtyard, and the thought hit hard. One step forward and gravity would do the rest. No one would ever know it was just him giving up. A voice, cruel and jeering, curled into his ear.

“You’ll only let them down.”

He shut his eyes tightly.

And held on.

* * *

Midori stared at the barricaded classroom door, ears ringing, legs cast from concrete. Every inch of him hurt, but pain felt distant, almost irrelevant.

“We’re doomed,” Kuro whispered, bent over a desk, sweat dripping off his jaw.

“What the hell was that?” Haruka rasped, palms clamped to her temples. The siren’s wail had cleared the hall; without it, they’d have been dead.

“You guys... you saved us!” the man with smeared glasses blurted. “I thought we were dead and I—”

“Shhh,” the girl with him hissed, finger to lips. Her stare caught on the red across her hand, then drifted up her arm, across her uniform. She sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh…” her voice thinned.

“Satsuki?”

“Stay back! I don’t… I don’t want to get you dirty.” She stared at her palms. Her lip trembled, knees buckling.

Yuka caught her, steered her into a chair, yanked a spare jacket from a rack and wrapped it around her shoulders. “It’s okay. Let it out.” She traced slow circles between Satsuki’s shoulder blades as the girl folded into her and shook.

While they worked to steady her, guilt chewed Midori up. I’m so stupid. He thumbed his useless phone again. He didn’t talk to his parents much anymore, but he didn’t hate them either. The thought of them out there somewhere made his stomach turn.

Don’t think about it.

“Hey,” Haruka said softly. “How are you holding up?” She slid into the chair beside him, laid her palm over his.

“I think Kuro might be right...”

“He’s just scared.” She murmured. “Listen. About earlier. I sort of shut down there. Truth is, I was scared too.”

“That makes three of us.” He took a moment to enjoy the warmth of her hand. His focus flicked back to the door. If Ren staggered there—too weak to push it open—if no one heard; if—

“He’ll come back.”

“If he doesn’t, it’s my fault.”

“What you did was reckless,” Haruka said, squeezing his fingers. “But not one of us could have stopped you. You run into fires when people need you. You always have. I guess he does, too.”

Midori wanted to ask how she knew Ren. He swallowed it. Maybe it didn’t matter anymore.

“Am I interrupting?” Kuro asked, edging closer.

Haruka’s hand slipped from his. The mood shifted. Midori pretended not to notice. “No. We were talking about Ren. What he did, it bought us time.”

“Time for what?” Kuro sagged against the wall.

“Stop. Just… stop.” Midori’s voice sharpened. “We still have some hope. We’re still breathing. That’s a chance.”

“Well said.” Shion stepped from the shadows of the door, broom dark with blood.

“Ms. Makabe.” Relief pinched his throat. “Not surprised you’re alive.”

“She’s impressive,” Reina added at Shion’s side. “All of you are.” Her mouth curved faintly. “And don’t worry about that stubborn wannabe; he slipped away somehow. The nerve, pretending he’s some tragic hero.”

“It’s not over.” Shion tucked a damp strand behind her ear. Even amidst the ruin, the Makabe heiress seemed dreamlike. “The alarm. The storm. It’s still now or never.”

“We’re no closer to the lounge,” Kuro said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky on the way. Once we take the tour bus, we’ll breach the gate and ride the hell out of here.”

“What if they chase the bus?”

“It’s loud, yes, but fast and heavy.” Shion’s smile thinned. “It’s our only real exit.”

“By the way, did you see anyone else when you were alone?”

“I didn’t.”

The thought scraped raw. Seiryo had housed thousands.

“So what now?” Kuro asked.

“We try again,” Shion said. “This time. No rushing off ahead.”

If Ren was dead, if they opened that door and found him broken in the hall—or worse, turned—Midori would never forgive himself.

“The rain’s getting heavier. Now is our best chance.”

“What about Ren?” Reina asked.

Before anyone could answer, the door handle rattled. A shadow crossed the frosted glass. Breaths hitched. The knob turned.

“Shit! One of them?” Kuro hissed.

“They don’t use doorknobs,” Yuka muttered.

“Who the hell is it, then?”

“Me.” The voice cut clean through the air—unmistakable. Hanashiro Ren stepped inside, soaked to the bone. White hair plastered to his forehead. He nodded once, shut the door behind him, and moved deeper in. “You’re loud.”

Relief split through Midori’s chest. He swiped his face with a sleeve, laughter bubbling up. That scowl had never looked so good. “How did you—I mean—how?”

Reina was on her feet before he could move, her eyes bright with a relief so unrestrained it nearly spilled over. She stopped just short of throwing her arms around him.

“Window,” Ren answered. “We’ll talk later.” His gaze raked them. “We should go.”

“Hold on, we’re—”

“The path’s clear.”

“What do you mean by ‘clear’?” Haruka asked.

“The storm’s got them wandering. We can slip to the main building. No matter what you see, you keep moving.”

Silence thickened, then broke when the man in glasses blurted out, “Then what are we waiting for?” He flushed under the sudden stares. “Ah—Sorry. I haven’t even introduced myself. I’m Tsukikami Haruto. Thank you, again, everyone, for…for saving me. Us.” He bowed, awkward, dripping rain.

Midori’s lip twitched. “Let’s go.”

* * *

The courtyard looked less like a campus and more like a slaughterhouse. Haruka could hardly believe her eyes. So many bodies sprawled in grotesque heaps, spread across pathways and flowerbeds, tangled in the fencing.

“It’s a cemetery,” Midori whispered, wide-eyed.

“All these lives cut short.” Yuka said.

Shion crouched by a corpse near the pergola and tilted her head. They all saw the same thing. The body wasn’t cut, smashed, or even shot. It was just... gone. A jagged ring of skull fragments framing a wet crater.

“How unusual.” She rose, drifting to another. This one’s legs were twisted, pulverized at the knees, as though something had driven straight through bone and flesh alike. It crawled toward her. Rasping, arms left as wet stumps. She prodded the femur with the haft of her weapon and frowned. “It’s as if something, or someone, got here before us.”

“It was the infected. What else could it be?” Kuro said, unease leaking into his voice.

Shion’s stare lingered on a third corpse, half buried under the others. Its torso had been compressed inward, ribs snapped, organs flattened.

“Perhaps…”

Relief rippled through the group when Reina and Lilly returned with Yuka, who raised the keys overhead. “They’re following the sound.” Lilly pointed to the seawall, where waves hammered the fencing, spray breaking high.

“Let’s not linger.” was all Ren said.

* * *

Rain slashed sideways, stinging her face, while the wind shoved at her back. Haruka glanced up. Beyond the seawall, the elevated monorail cut across, frozen mid-track, windows black with shadow. For a moment she thought it was empty—until one shape twitched against the glass. Another followed. Dozens. The silhouettes jerked and writhed. She tore her eyes away and clambered aboard.

Yuka slid into the driver’s seat. “It’s just a big car,” she whispered to herself, fingers locking around the wheel.

Ren leaned forward, voice colder than the rain. “Remember, Doc. They’re not people.”

“Not anymore.” Shion said.

Haruka glared at them both. “It’s okay, Dr. Fujimori.”

Yuka drew in a shaky breath. “Once I start this, there’s no going back.”

“Good,” Midori said. “Step on it.”

Headlights flared, weak tunnels through sheeting rain. With a metallic grind, the bus shuddered to life, gears groaning as Yuka fumbled with the wheel. But before the bus could veer forward—“WAIT! STOP!” Figures staggered through the downpour, waving frantically, a man’s voice ripped raw as he bellowed again. “DON’T LEAVE US!”

Every yell dragged more infected. The horde shifted in a tide, heads turning, bodies slamming against one another as they turned.

“Let them in!” Midori shouted.

The doors hissed. They tumbled inside, dripping rain, gasping for air. The man in the front nearly collapsed to his knees. The younger girl with him gripped his arm for dear life, and the other woman clung to the seat rail.

Haruka froze up. Her breath hitched.

Shigure.

She wanted to tell Yuka to open the door, to kick him out and leave him to his fate. It was too late. The doors slammed shut. The bus rocked as a wave of the dead crashed against it. Smears of blood and streaks of hands dragged down the glass.

“Drive!” Kuro barked.

Yuka stomped on the gas. The bus thundered forward, shoving through the school gates with a metal-screeching crash. One headlight burst, sparks spitting into the rain. The frame juddered, threatening to tip, but Yuka fought the wheel until they lurched onto the main bridge.

Through the back windows, Haruka saw streams of pale bodies spilling from the courtyard, pouring onto the bridge. A tide of white gazes and snapping mouths drawn by the roar of the engine, by the lights, by the terrified cries. The aisle erupted into chaos—shoulders slamming, voices clashing.

“They’re gaining!”

“Shut up, shut up!”

Fear pressed in from every side. Yet for a moment, the sight through the windshield almost gave hope. Blacktop stretched ahead, empty but for scattered wreckage. The bus roared across it, tires hissing, and she dared to believe they might actually make it.

It didn’t last.

“Why are we slowing down?!” Kuro demanded.

“I can’t get through! The road’s blocked!”

A sea of abandoned vehicles stretching across the bridge. Bent fenders locked together, windows shattered, doors hanging open. The bus screeched, tires shrieking on wet asphalt, shuddering to a halt.

“Everybody out!” Yuka snapped, near hysterical.

Haruka didn’t move. Her mind screamed to run, yet her legs were stone. Midori appeared in front of her, shaking her by the upper arms. “Haru! Get up! Come on! We have to go!”

Her body refused.

Midori’s face twisted, desperation burning behind his stare. He swore, turned his back, and moved through the mob to find Kuro. Their voices clashed.

“We can push through!”

“We’ll never make it!”

Another stupid argument. Her attention slid past them, through the windshield, out into the storm. And there he was.

Ren?

He wasn’t panicking, or shouting, or running with the rest. He stood alone in the rain, just beyond the reach of the headlights, facing the horde. He crouched down and pressed his palm to the bridge.

What are you…?

Steel shrieked. Support beams snapped. The road gave way, dented inward as if crushed by something colossal. Cars tumbled nose-first, vanishing into black water as the span between them and the horde collapsed. Their screams cut off mid-howl, swallowed by ruin. A geyser of seawater and shattered concrete exploded upward.

The blast hit last, a bone-deep shockwave that rattled the bus windows, shook the seats. Through the blur of rain, she saw him rise and turn his head toward the bus, eyes catching the glow of the headlights.