CHAPTER 91: THE SAVIOR

"Who is he?" Saeko Busujima muttered to herself, tilting her head as she looked out her classroom window.

In the courtyard, in a split second, a man suddenly moved from the entrance to the gate. As he did, the greatsword in his hand slashed out casually, decapitating roughly a dozen zombies at once.

He paused for a second, gesturing for some of the female students around him, who had been outside during gym as they wore their tight gym uniforms, to head into the school building. Saeko chuckled lightly at the women’s expressions, which varied from deep blushes to looks of awe as they were suddenly saved from their attackers.

"I’ll enjoy myself a bit, but he seems more interesting than a few zombies." Saeko licked her lips, casually gripping her Kendo sword a bit tighter.

She turned around, walking out of the school classroom as she readied herself to enjoy some zombie-killing, and then go meet the mysterious man who was slaughtering the undead effortlessly.

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"H-Hisashi... please..." Rei stared with wide eyes as the pale-faced corpse of her boyfriend stumbled at her, and she was certain her life was about to end.

Rei Miyamoto didn’t think her day would be anything but normal, and it had certainly started that way. She woke up, ate breakfast, went to school, and sat in class listening to her teachers lecture, just as she had done most mornings for the past multiple months.

That changed around noon, when her childhood friend, Takashi Kumuro, suddenly burst into her homeroom classroom. He had been acting strange lately, which she knew stemmed from her dating their longtime friend, Hisashi Igou, and today had apparently been the day he finally cracked.

He burst into the classroom, looking disoriented and confused, and promptly shouted the word ’run’ at Rei. Then, as Rei stared at him just as confusedly as he looked, he turned around and ran down the hallway.

After what Rei thought was a bout of insanity, she had ignored Takashi’s words and assumed she’d need to talk to the school guidance counselor about getting him a therapist. But, soon after, she would wish that Takashi had just been insane.

The principal’s voice came over the intercom, sounding panicked and concerned as he announced an evacuation. That panicked and concerned voice quickly became desperate, and she, along with every other student in the school, listened as their principal was murdered in broad daylight.

But even after hearing the traumatizing words of a man being mauled to death, the reality of the situation hadn’t set in. It wasn’t her fault, as no one in the entire school had truly realized what had happened. Instead of assuming a sudden zombie apocalypse was happening, most students assumed there was an attacker at the school.

So, every student in Fujimi Academy did the worst possible thing they could during an emergency: They panicked.

Once again, it wasn’t really their fault. Most of the students were only young adults, and when even their teachers didn’t know what was going on, they couldn’t be expected to act reasonably. The sudden announcement from a man claiming to be from the ’Japan Self Defense Force’ only sent the school into even more of a frenzy, as the common assumption changed from there just being an intruder to there being an armed intruder.

As a result, the hallways were quickly flooded. Classroom doors were slammed open, students sprinting down the hallways in a stampede even as teachers tried to calm them down, and chaos ensued. In the beginning moments of the chaos, more students ironically died from being trampled than from the zombies themselves.

Luckily, Rei was far from stupid, and her boyfriend, Hisashi, was also pretty level-headed. As the students frantically ran down the stairs, running straight to their deaths as they flooded toward the zombies below, Rei and Hisashi went up.

Their logic was sound - they didn’t know there were zombies within the school, and instead thought it was an intruder. As the students went down to the base floor, running straight into the intruder’s arms, they would go up to the roof.

Then, they would be safe. They’d be out of the way, in a place where it’d make no sense for the killer to go, and wait until the police arrived to handle the situation.

That plan had worked for a few minutes, as the roar of students running for their lives started to die down, but it was then that they became aware of the even harsher reality they were facing. As Rei looked off the rooftop, she watched as zombies clambered over the school walls, lured by the loud yells of the students.

Then, she watched as her students were eaten before her very eyes. They died in horrifying ways, literally being eaten alive by the zombies, and then came back to do the same to their friends. The school became a warzone, and the reality of the situation truly set in for her.

They were in the middle of an apocalypse.

But, for the moment, they were safe. She and Hisashi stayed on the roof, watching in silent horror as the zombies tore through students and teachers alike.

Then, that safety disappeared. On the side of the school building there was a fire escape, which had a staircase that led all the way up to the rooftop. She’d seen Takashi sitting there many mornings as she walked into school, but the man who stumbled up the stairs wasn’t Takashi, but instead the zombified form of one of her teachers.

With no weapons to defend themselves, Hisashi had rushed forward, using his ability as a blackbelt in Karate to fight off the zombie. He’d wrestled the man off the roof, eventually throwing him down to his demise as his head split open on the concrete below, but was bitten in the process.

That led Rei to where she was now. Her boyfriend had been bitten, begged Rei to throw him off the rooftop as he slumped next to the wall, slowly dying, but she had refused.

"P-Please stop, H-Hisashi! Wake up!" Rei begged, scooting back against the rooftop wall as Hisashi slowly stumbled toward her.

With no weapon to defend herself, and the super-naturally strong form of Hisashi, who already could’ve overpowered her when he was still just a human, Rei could only feel a sense of doom. Even if she did have a weapon, Rei would’ve been screwed anyway, because she was undeniably a coward.

She always had been, which you wouldn’t think from her outward image. She was headstrong, blunt, stubborn, and even competed in Sojutsu - a combat sport involving spears. From her outside appearance, Rei would’ve looked like the furthest thing from a coward.

But she certainly was. Her fear of being alone had driven her to do many stupid things. When she’d been held back a grade and thus ignored by Takashi out of anger, she had gone to Hisashi to get over the empty feeling.

She had then stayed in that relationship despite viewing Hisashi as more of a friend than a boyfriend, as she was too afraid to make things right and face Takashi. She had always been too cowardly to admit she had feelings for him, and they had quickly grown apart over the past school year as a result.

And, now, she was too cowardly to kill Hisashi. He had warned her - hell, he had practically begged her to throw him off the roof. He knew he was going to die anyway, and as he became a zombie, he didn’t want to take her down with him. He had pleaded with her to kill him, but she had been too cowardly to do so.

It wasn’t that she was afraid of killing someone to survive, but instead, she was afraid of being alone. The world around her was being turned into hell, and she was about to be all alone in it.

In that moment, Rei had never felt so alone. She huddled back in the corner, the world around her being destroyed by the apocalypse, and there was no one to help her. Takashi had run away, and Hisashi was a zombie.

"Please..." Rei whispered, tears starting to form in her eyes as Hisashi walked toward her.

All of her previous fears suddenly felt so minuscule. The way she’d been afraid of being left alone when Takashi ignored her, and her fear of being left alone if she left Hisashi to try and make things right with Takashi.

Now, instead of being left by her friends, she was left by everyone in the middle of an apocalypse. Her impending doom was walking toward her, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Hisashi fell forward, his hands pressing into the wall behind her as Rei winced back, towering over her as his teeth approached her neck.

Rei was scared, alone, and about to die. As she squeezed her eyes shut, tears rolling down her cheeks, she accepted that after fighting so hard to never be alone, she was about to die alone.

But, as her eyes stayed shut, nothing happened. There was no searing pain in her neck, and no death coming to greet her. Instead, her cheeks suddenly felt even warmer as blood flicked onto her face, mixing with her tears.

"Damn, one got up here already?" Rei slowly opened her eyes as a masculine voice spoke, staring up at the muscular figure in front of her.

"Good thing I came here early, huh? I’d be annoyed if they got you."

Rei barely even processed his words, just staring up with wide eyes at her savior. The muscular man stood in front of her, casually holding a large sword that cast a shadow over her. Then, he glanced back at her, grinning lightly.

All her fear suddenly faded away. Her tears dried up, and the empty feeling of being left alone disappeared.

On the verge of death, where Rei was certain she would die afraid and alone, she found her savior.

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"Stupid fat-ass!"

Saya Takagi huffed as she peeked out a classroom door, watching as a singular zombie stumbled down the long hallway aimlessly. She was standing alone in the classroom, not a single soul left as she crouched at the entrance.

To describe Saya as a genius would be putting it lightly, and the woman had picked up on the situation far quicker than most students. As she heard the principal’s screams, she quickly left her classroom and got ahead of the impending stampede.

She had then met with Kohta Hirano, a chubby boy who was publicly known as a ’Gun Otaku.’ In a situation like this, Saya figured that being with someone obsessed with firearms was probably a good idea, so she promptly ordered him to stick with her as they escaped the school.

Unfortunately, upon hearing the announcement about the ’Japan Self Defense Force’ member being here, the gun-obsessed boy turned her down and made a beeline for the principal’s office to ’help him.’

"He’s obviously not really a member, moron," Saya muttered to herself, annoyed as she thought back on the boy abandoning her.

She thought it was pretty obvious that a member wouldn’t just appear right after the principal was murdered, but Kohta was either too stupid or too blinded by his appreciation of the military to choose to stay with the overly bossy girl instead of leaving to ’help’ someone he idolized.

As such, the pink-haired bombshell was now huddled in a room on one of the higher floors of the school alone, with no defense and no one to help her. Luckily, she was still a genius, so she had a plan to get out of here.

From observing the zombies through the classroom window, she had quickly realized that they relied solely on their hearing. They weren’t intelligent and seemed to just mindlessly walk toward whatever sound they heard.

As such, Saya could slowly make her way out of the school, hiding in various classrooms as she silently let the zombies pass and then continued forward. Despite being pretty short, her footsteps still weren’t soft enough to completely evade their hearing, so she had to move pretty slowly.

So, she simply crouched in the doorway, watching as the zombie walked mere feet in front of her, holding her breath. The sluggish creature, which was wearing Fujimi Academy’s school uniform, stumbled past her. It was moving diagonally, and it bumped into the wall right outside the door, but corrected its course a moment later.

Saya tensed for a second, unintentionally inhaling a bit as the zombie paused. Then, he took another step, starting to move past the doorway, and Saya’s shoulders relaxed as she was in the clear.

Clack.

Or, as she would’ve been in the clear, if not for the sudden noise behind her. Saya’s eyes went wide, and she glanced back, taking in the source of the sound. On the whiteboard in the classroom, a marker had been balancing on the edge of the holder, and the zombie bumping into the wall had been the final straw in making it fall off.

Saya glared at the marker for a second, then turned her head back to the hallway, hoping the zombie hadn’t heard.

"EEK!"

She was proven wrong as she turned back, suddenly being face-to-face with the zombie as he tried to enter the classroom. Saya silently berated herself for letting out the squeak of surprise, but didn’t have time to think about it as the zombie turned fully towards her from the sound.

She grabbed the handle of the door, promptly slamming it shut in his face, and holding it shut with all the force she could muster in her skinny arms.

"Shit, shit, shit," She muttered softly as the zombie bumped into the door, causing it to rattle in her hands. She desperately hoped the monster would just turn around and walk in a new direction, as the zombies usually did when they bumped into something, but she wasn’t that lucky.

Instead, the door started to shove back against her. She gritted her teeth, desperately trying to hold it shut as the zombie repeatedly bumped into it, but she couldn’t hope to match its supernatural strength.

The zombie banged into the door again, the loud noise resonating throughout the hallway and surely luring more zombies to its location, and Saya’s breathing started to quicken. A bit of panic started to form, and that panic doubled as the zombie slammed forward into the door again.

The door was torn off its hinges, and Saya had to backpedal to avoid it falling over on her. She stumbled backward from the impact, falling back onto her thick rear as she looked up with wide eyes.

"S-Stop!" Saya spat out in her panic, only making the situation worse as the zombie walked toward her. It stumbled forward at her voice, falling on top of Saya and pressing her into the ground.

"S-Stop! G-Get away! Disgusting!" Saya tried to push back the zombie to no avail as it flopped onto her, its gross teeth moving towards her neck. Her panic turned into terror, and her eyes were wide as she desperately tried to shove the monster off of her.

"H-Help! M-Mom, d-dad..." Saya trailed off, her words not making sense as the monster’s teeth grew closer to her neck and her heart pounded in her chest. Tears started flowing down her cheeks.

"S-Someone help!"

But no help came. It was just her in the classroom, and Saya could only let out one final desperate plea into the world as the zombies’ teeth moved toward her neck.

"P-Please..."

And, as if the world had answered her, suddenly the zombie’s neck was disconnected from its shoulders. It flung upward, blood spurting out onto Saya’s face as she stared with wide eyes.

"Fuck, these are way too close," The form of a large, muscular man towering over her muttered as he pulled back his sword, "You alright? He didn’t bite you, right?"

Saya didn’t even process those words, just staring up at her savior with wide, awe-filled eyes. She didn’t know what came over her in that moment, but as her terror faded away, she lunged forward.

"T-Thank you!" She wrapped her arms around his waist, her face digging into his hard chest as the tears started to flow.

As his arm raised and wrapped around her comfortingly, Saya had never felt so safe, even in the middle of an apocalypse.

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"I-I’ll protect you, so please run, Miss Marikawa!"

"Thanks! Oh... um... what was your name again?"

"H-Huh?!"

Shizuka Marikawa stood in her office, which was the nurse’s office, with a confused expression. Her cute face tilted to the side, watching as a student, who was a frequent visitor here because of his poorly hidden crush on her, was being mauled by a zombie.

The student clearly thought he was doing something heroic - the determined gaze on his face just moments earlier as he held back a duo of zombies, sacrificing himself to give his love a chance to run, made that obvious.

However, his eyes turned to disbelief as he slumped over, his sacrifice in vain, as Shizuka didn’t even remember his name. In another reality, Saeko Busujima would at least give his death some meaning as she asked for his name and praised him for protecting Shizuka in his final moments, but in this one, the woman was too busy following around Valon.

"Um... this is bad," Shizuka said simply, frowning cutely as the other zombie turned towards her, stumbling at her. Her words were far too calm for the situation, but this was just how the ditzy lady was.

"Ah... please go away!" Shizuka said again, smiling shakily as she held up her palms at the zombie walking toward her. Her words didn’t work, as the zombie instead lunged at her.

Shizuka, different from most students about to be eaten alive, didn’t feel panic, fear, or terror as the zombie attacked her. Instead, she knew everything would be alright, because it always was.

When you were Shizuka Marikawa, you got everything you wanted simply because you were drop-dead gorgeous. She didn’t need to be intelligent, qualified, or even coordinated, because when you were sexy, you didn’t need any of that. She didn’t even need to react to the danger because someone would surely save her, as she was far too pretty to die.

And, she was proven correct as a blade slashed through the zombie’s neck. It was lobbed off its body, and a handsome face grinned at her.

"Thanks, cutie!" Was her simple response, smiling brightly at the man as she found her cute savior.

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AN: Thank you for reading! The next Chapter will be out tomorrow!

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