The best sword is the one that stays in its scabbard

He therefore couldn't sleep either.

"What's up?"

"Thanks."

"E-eh? For what?"

"For trying to help my brother."

"A-ah just for that? Well, no problem."

"Not only that. Thanks for everything. I'm glad I got to know you."

"..."

I was surprised, I thought he hated my guts.

"From the first day I saw you, I knew you were going to be a great friend of mine. The only reason I kind of hated you was because you still have your family. I, on the other hand, have now lost my brother as well. But on second thought, there's no point in being angry at you just because of that, so I apologize too."

"O-oh, thanks... To tell you the truth, I've always thought of you as a friend too, but I was hiding it because I wanted to look good to Emmy."

"By the way, Tenkei, tell me, do you like Emmy?"

"Well, I think it's kind of obvious by now, isn't it?"

"Y-yeah, well I liked her too."

I knew it.

He didn't need to tell me.

"But..." continued Evan.

"But?" I asked.

"I have other things to think about now, I'll leave Emmy to you alone. I need to focus on killing the bastard who took out the last family member I had. Even if I have to die."

YES! Emmy will be only mine, yay!

"Thanks again, Evan, and sorry for everything. I just don't know how to deal with my first real friend..."

"T-Tenkei..."

"Ever since I was little I was always alone, even my family treated me badly, and everyone I thought was a friend disappeared after middle school. I found myself alone. But now that I've met you, everything has changed."

"Thank you, Tenkei, you are a great friend to me too. Good night now.

"Yes, 'best friend', goodnight."

After this comfort, I was able to sleep without a problem, maybe that was why I couldn't sleep, I needed to tell him the truth.

The next day, we had breakfast together with Emmy and then headed to the funeral of the senator and of all the dead citizens killed by the zombies, whose bodies, unfortunately, were not found.

At the funeral, there was also Mark's coffin, which was requested by Evan the night before.

Once the funeral was over, we began to stock up on food and water as well, even though we knew there would be some in the rivers filled by Senator Weber.

We took an electric car spacious enough to fit all the stuff.

I noticed that Evan had even brought a katana and a chainsaw.

"Hey, what are you doing with these two?" I asked.

"I found the katana in an abandoned gun store nearby, and the chainsaw in Emmy's garage."

"Ahahah, great."

I held out my fist to Evan and he pounded it.

"H-hey! But who allowed you?" asked Emmy.

"Oops. Sorry, haha."

"It's okay, never mind."

I, on the other hand, didn't bring anything, maybe I trusted my kamien too much.

"Well, shall we leave?" I proposed.

"We're leaving!" replied Emmy.

The clock on the dashboard read 12:43 AM on July 27, 2020.

We were very excited, but underneath we all knew someone was going to get killed, the others were immensely strong.

*While our protagonists are on the road, we go back in time, in the third person, to just after the fight between Senator Lothur Weber and Clark Anderson, the Canadian*

"Clark, sir, are you okay?" said Reid, after the fight against the senator, as they were hurtling through the air, thanks to his wings.

"No, I'm not all right! Why did you do that? I would have rather died."

"Clark...our ambitions are immensely greater than those bastards'."

"You're not wrong, but I should have taken that bastard out myself! Cough!"

Clark continued to spit blood, he was very injured, legless, among other things.

"Don't worry, Clark, I'll cure you thanks to my radiation and recreate your legs, but the process will be very slow since it's not my body, I could risk killing you, so it will take a few days, and we'll also have to train to get the other stones back."

"No problem with that," Clark said confidently.

"What do you mean?"

"I figured out how the attractions of my kamien work."

"W-what?"

"I think it's the only stone that's attracted to any stone."

"So if you want can find any stone?"

"Not really, it works like this: it can find the nearest stone whose location I'm not aware of."

"So one of the two brats?"

"3."

"Three? Is it three, Clark?"

"While I was fighting the senator I could feel the presence of as many as three stones, they alternated and gave interference to the attraction, they must have been very close together."

"Understood. So now you can feel the position of one of the three of them?" asked Reid, very curious, as they were still darting through the sky, heading right for Italy.

"I can feel one very close, I don't think it's one of the brats. His aura is much more powerful, let's stop here. You'll catch up with him and tell him to go get the stones for us."

"Wait...but which stone specifically?"

"Tell him to get the one he prefers."

"Okay."

Italy, July 26, 2020.

"Thank God the senator distributed the water across the rivers, we wouldn't have made it to Frankfurt-on-the-Oder in time!" said an Italian woman, dressed as a peasant.

"H-hey, what are those?" replied her husband.

They were both in their 40s. They were supposed to be working in agriculture.

"They're some kind of zombies! Let's fucking escape!"

"We can't, they're too fast."

These two people were about to be caught up and probably killed by the zombies created by Clark, who continued to spread throughout Europe.

*SLASH*

"..."

"Are we dead?"

A mysterious man in front of them holding a sword had taken out the zombies with one blow.

"G-thank you so much! We couldn't have done it without you!"

"Thank me later. My name is Acuro Trussardi, and I'm here to protect you from these little bastard monsters." said the man, who had long, white hair.

"Hey, but you brag too much..."

"Oh yeah? Before the apocalypse I used to teach martial arts in Venice, they called me the master of the sword. That's where I learned how to use it." replied Acuro.

"Now that I look at you better you look very old! How old are you?" asked the peasant woman.

"60 years old, but as you can see my build is very agile, I have nothing to envy."

"..."

"H-hey, look at that!" shouted the farmer woman.

A huge tree-zombie was coming towards their location, scaring the hell out of them.

"Now what should we do?"

"大丈夫 僕 最強 だから!"

*In romaji: daijobu boku saikyou dakara*

"EH? We're in fucking Italy, speak Italian or at least English!" asked the pissed-off farmer, who was in no mood for jokes in such a situation.

"Sorry, I wanted to imitate a character I'm very inspired by. Anyway, it means: Don't worry, I'm the strongest."

The woman had a sigh of relief. Although the old man did not look like he was in his best years, they believed in him.

The giant tree walked towards them at a very slow pace. It was about fifty feet tall, with a large trunk.

"Watch this," said Acuro, the old man.

He positioned himself like a samurai and began to run, his sword was still in its sheath, he had pretty good speed for a 60-year-old.

The giant kept trying to hit him with its branches, but he dodged them with ease, because the blows, although very powerful, were also very slow.

The tree, which, after having received the vital energy from Clark, had taken on some human features, such as the eyes, nose, and mouth, which had formed on the trunk, was starting to get serious, throwing its leaves in a dive.

The man dodged them all with no problem, he seemed to be the strongest, for someone not using a kamien.

SLASH.

Acuro had thrown his sword directly into the "eye" that the tree had formed, blinding it.

With a magnificent technique, he climbed the tree without using his hands, it looked like he was walking on a wall, and then hung onto a branch, which tried to throw him off.

Acuro, however, stood up and picked up his katana again, and then cut every single branch of the tree, thus inducing the tree, much pain.

The zombie tree couldn't take it anymore, so it fell to the ground, with no branches and no leaves left. But it wasn't over.

Acuro put his sword back in its sheath, only to pull it out in a split second.

He had cut the tree in two.

"F-fantastic, Acuro!!!" the farmers shouted together.

"Thank me later, now we'd better go fetch the water, I really can't take it anymore without drinking."

"Y-yes!"

So these three people headed for the river, which was chock full of clear water.

They stocked up on it and then each headed for their own homes.

When Acuro returned home he found his wife unconscious on the ground, she must have died of dehydration, just when Acuro had just stocked up.

He started to cry, he too had lost someone important.

But he didn't lose heart and started training that night, as he always did.

He knew it was going to be tough with the zombies, even if he didn't know where they came from.

"What a pain in the ass these zombies are...Ahhh."

After a long night of training, he went to sleep, but before he could fall asleep, he saw out the window a guy flying around carrying a legless person on his back.

Acuro couldn't believe his eyes, he rubbed them but the two were already gone, they were too fast, but to Acuro it only seemed like an illusion.

He went back to sleep, this time for real.

The next morning, he went back to the water source again and stayed there in the area to eliminate more zombies.

This time there was an even more dangerous one: a wolf-zombie.

Compared to the tree one, it was less powerful but much faster.

Since Acuro wasn't aware of the kamien stones, he didn't know that these were just corpses reanimated with life energy, so even if a person would die killed by a zombie, they wouldn't become one themselves.

So he decided to get defensive.

"If it bites me, it's over."

"Bark. Bark."

The zombie wolf made dog-like sounds.

"Ha. I won't pity you just because you look like a dog. I'm going to slice you up like all the other zombies."

In no time though, the wolf had reached Acuro's position and was about to bite his leg when Acuro jumped up, doing a flip while still in midair.

He then threw his sword as he did at the tree zombie. It hit him square in the face.

The wolf's head was gone by then, but he was just in time to let out a howl, which called 10 more wolf zombies towards the area.

What had seemed difficult had become a problem for as many as ten entities.

By now it was almost afternoon because the time had passed quite quickly fighting zombies.

The wolves stood in a circle as if to attack Acuro from a specific position.

"One"

Acuro began to count each wolf-zombie he took out.

"Two"

He was taking them out with ease, but he was holding back as if to do a special technique.

"Three, okay, that'll do it."

The 7 remaining wolves circled again and ran towards Acuro, who had sat down in the meantime as if to meditate.

The wolves were now very close to him, so he took his sword and, with a lot of force began to rotate on himself, cutting every single wolf and making them helpless, but he had spared his life. After all, before being zombies, they were normal wolves, contributing to the cycle of nature.

In the meantime, a car was coming.

"It's electric... wait how is that possible!!! A car that works?!"

Acuro was very surprised, so he headed towards the car running.