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Chapter Text

Your shoelace is untied," Saya said, tapping her foot impatiently.

Takashi Komuro glanced down at his scuffed sneakers. The hallway buzzed with morning chatter, lockers slamming shut like gunshots. Saya's eyes lingered on him—sharp, expectant. He mumbled a thanks, crouching to fix the lace. Her perfume clung to his shirt from last night, a ghost he couldn't shake.

Rei's voice sliced through the noise. "Takashi! Coach wants us early for drills." She gripped her softball bat case, knuckles white. Her gaze flickered to Saya, then away. Something tightened in Takashi's chest. Rei's ponytail swayed as she turned, her steps quickening toward the gym.

Saya snorted softly, adjusting her glasses. "Better run along, hero." The words bit deeper than she meant.

Takashi straightened, the frayed lace finally knotted, just as Coach Tanaka's bellow echoed down the corridor: "MOVE IT, FIELD NOW!" The command vibrated in his ribcage. He glanced back at Saya, her lips pressed into a thin line, her eyes already scanning the crowd like a hawk surveying prey. She gave a tiny, dismissive wave. "Go bleed for the team," she murmured, the citrus scent sharpening as she leaned closer for a heartbeat. Then she vanished into the throng of students, swallowed whole by the chaos of backpacks and gossip.

Takashi stood frozen for a second, the phantom warmth of her hand on his shoulder from the night before warring with Rei's tense posture as she retreated toward the gym doors. Takashi sprinted down the corridor, feet pounding concrete, echoing Coach Tanaka's booming voice still rattling his eardrums. But the echoes shifted—softened—into Saya's breathless gasp against his neck last night as moonlight striped her bare skin. Her glasses lay discarded on his nightstand; her sharp intellect had melted into pure animal hunger when she'd clawed his shirt off, her citrus perfume clinging to sweat-slicked flesh.

The memory flashed hotter than the fluorescent lights overhead: her teeth scraping his collarbone, the choked moan she muffled against his pillow...

He jerked sideways, shoulder slamming into lockers as a freshman stumbled past, nose buried in manga. The impact scraped skin through his shirt. Reality snapped back: the sterile hallway smell of bleach and sweat, not moonlight and Saya's sweat-salty skin. His sneakers squeaked to a halt outside the gym doors, chest heaving. Inside, Coach Tanaka's whistle shrieked like a dying bird. Takashi leaned against cold metal, eyes squeezing shut.

Focus. Field. Drills, he reminded himself, but behind his eyelids, Saya's silhouette arched, desperate, demanding, her fingernails digging crescent moons into his hips. The phantom grip of Saya's thighs around his waist tightened as Tanaka's whistle pierced the gym, a shrill, jarring counterpoint to the velvet-dark memory of her whispering *more* against his jawline. Sweat beaded on Takashi's upper lip, tasting of salt and the ghost of her gorgeous face smiling at him,

His cleats scraped against the floor, but the sound dissolved into a remembered silence: the frantic rustle of sheets, the wet click of her mouth finding his ear, the way moonlight had turned her analytical eyes feral and wanting. The gym reeked of rubber mats and testosterone, a humid, oppressive fog swallowing Rei's sharp commands as she drilled underclassmen. Her bat sliced the air with vicious precision, ponytail whipping like a metronome counting rage. She didn't glance his way, but her shoulder tensed when Takashi approached, a coil of rifle-spring tension, visible even across the polished floor.

Tanaka barked orders near the bleachers, voice rough as gravel under a boot. The whistle shrieked again, longer, angrier, as Takashi fumbled with his cleat laces near the equipment rack. Rei's bat thudded hard against padded mitts nearby, each impact punctuating Tanaka's glare drilling into him. *Late. Again.* The coach's knuckles whitened around his clipboard.

Across the gym, Saya slipped through the side door, her glasses catching fluorescent light as she leaned against the wall. Her smirk was a scalpel slicing through the tension, sharp, deliberate, as she watched him struggle. Takashi's ears burned, the recent scrape of her teeth still raw on his collarbone. Rei snapped her mitt shut after a freshman's weak pitch. "Eyes on the ball, not the sidelines." Her voice carried unnaturally loud, too crisp, too controlled. She didn't look at Saya, but her knuckles strained against worn leather.

The freshman mumbled an apology, cheeks flushing scarlet. Rei's ponytail lashed as she whipped around for another ball, her stride stiff. Takashi smelled disaster—the storm brewing behind her, electric and volatile. Saya pushed off the wall, crossing arms tight beneath her ample breasts. Her gaze scraped over Takashi, lingering on his flushed neck. "Still recovering, hero?" Her whisper slithered beneath Tanaka's roar about defensive formations. Citrus and salt—memory crashed against the gym's ammonia stink. Takashi flinched as Rei's next bat-swing cracked like a gunshot. Sawdust puffed, drifted. Saya tilted her chin. "Should've stayed tangled in my sheets. Safer there." The smirk deepened, a scalpel twisting where his ribs remembered her nails. Takashi's cleat snapped tight as Rei's bat cracked against another pitch, the sound jolting through him like a live wire.

He blinked sweat from his eyes and glimpsed Rei's jaw clench. Her mitt slapped leather hard, a brutal echo of Tanaka's barked orders echoing off rafters. Sawdust hung thick as fog, catching harsh light when Saya shifted deliberately against the gym wall, hip cocked. *Distractions kill. * The coach's mantra hissed in Takashi's skull, but Saya's gaze—heavy and knowing—anchored him like a hook in bone.

Sawdust clogged Takashi's throat as Rei launched into a vicious swing drill, each batter's grunt punctuated by the thwack of aluminum meeting leather, echoing Tanaka's barking criticism about "limp wrists" and "dead feet." He forced his gaze away from Saya's simmering smirk, toward the equipment rack stacked with dusty hurdles. His fingers brushed cold metal, a sharp contrast against the distant memory of twisted bedsheets. Suddenly, a freshman catcher stumbled backward, catching Rei's wild pitch awkwardly—the ball spun loose, bouncing across polished maple straight toward Saya's feet. Saya's polished loafer stopped the ball's erratic roll inches from her toes—a sharp *crack* of expensive leather meeting scuffed rubber. She didn't flinch, didn't bend. Her gaze remained fixed on Takashi, a slow, predatory smile spreading as she nudged the ball aside with disdainful precision.

The gym's roar fell away to fractured silence; Tanaka's whistle died mid-shriek, Rei's mitt froze mid-air, sawdust motes caught like suspended dust illuminated beneath buzzing fluorescents. Takashi tasted copper—his own teeth grinding against. Saya bent fluidly, scooping the ball with taunting ease. The rubber felt cold and alien against her palm, nothing like Takashi's fevered skin last night. She rolled it slowly between her fingers, her gaze slicing through the fog of sweat and grime to pin him against the rack. "Missing something?" Her voice, low and thick, carried only to him beneath Tanaka's resumed bellowing.

Across the floor, Rei's bat cracked against a pitch with savage force, the vibration rattling Takashi's teeth. Rei's ponytail flicked sharp shadows as her hips twisted violently, a motion practiced a thousand times but edged raw with something more personal. Takashi lunged for the rack's nearest bat, a splintered aluminum slugger, as Saya rolled the ball toward him with deliberate, slow arcs. Her knuckles brushed against his, a ghostly touch that sparked sparks of lightning across his nerves, igniting the radiant memory beneath the gym sweat.

Rei's next swing cracked like a bone snapping, and Takashi flinched as Tanaka stormed toward Saya, veins bulging. "This ain't recess, Takagi!" But Saya merely adjusted her glasses, her smile cool as surgical steel. "Just returning property, Coach." Her gaze stayed locked on Takashi, the unspoken *he's mine* hanging thick as thunder before a strike.

Coach Tanaka snatched the ball from Saya's outstretched hand, his knuckles brushing hers—a brief, dismissive contact that made her nostrils flare. "Keep your distractions off my field, Takagi," he growled, spinning the ball hard into Takashi's chest. The impact knocked his breath short, leather stinging through his thin practice jersey. Across the gym, Rei's bat slammed into a pitch so hard the catcher staggered backward, the sound reverberating loudly. Sawdust plumed beneath fluorescent lights as Rei wiped sweat-soaked bangs from her eyes, her stare fixed not on the drill, but on Saya's retreating figure slipping out the side door.

The whistle screeched again, sharp as glass shattering. "Komuro! Front and center!" Tanaka barked. Takashi stumbled forward, cleats catching on a loose floorboard. Rei's jaw tightened as she reloaded pitches for freshmen—her mitt snapping catches with military precision. "Drop and give me twenty, latecomer!" Tanaka's boot nudged Takashi's calf, forcing him onto scarred maple. The wood groaned under his palms, grainy and cold against skin still humming from Saya's touch. Push-ups. Each descent buried his nose in dust-choked air; each ascent brought Rei's rigid posture into view, shoulders locked, her ponytail stiff as wire.

Her silence screamed louder than Tanaka's Insults. And just as he had wondered for the longest time, he found himself wondering how things had gotten so bad between the two of them when once they'd been as close as anyone. Takashi's arms trembled on the fifteenth push-up, muscles screaming as much from last night's exertion as today's punishment.

Sweat dripped onto the wood, spreading dark blooms that smelled of mildew and shame. Each labored breath dragged sawdust into his lungs, sharp and choking, a stark contrast to the moonlight-striped sheets where Saya's whispers had been warm against his neck.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rei pivot sharply, her bat slicing air inches from a freshman's head as she demonstrated a follow-through. The *whoosh* crackled with suppressed fury, her knuckles bone-white on the grip. Tanaka's shadow loomed over Takashi, blotting out the fluorescents. "Faster, Komuro! Or you'll do fifty!" The coach's spit landed near Takashi's cheek.

Lightning cracked outside, not a metaphor, but actual electricity splitting the sky as rain hammered the gym roof like a hurling storm of machine gun fire. The fluorescent bulbs flickered violently, plunging the court into stuttering shadows. Tanaka's next shout drowned beneath the storm's roar, his face purpling as Takashi struggled through the twentieth push-up.

Rei froze mid-swing, her bat trembling overhead as the emergency lights buzzed awake, painting everyone in sickly yellow streaks. Sawdust drifted sideways in the sudden draft—someone had left the side door ajar. Through the gap, Takashi glimpsed Saya's silhouette against the storm-lashed hallway, her glasses glinting like fractured ice as she watched.

Outside, the storm raged, rain hammering the gym's metal roof like frenzied hail, drowning Tanaka's furious commands. Every flicker of the emergency lights painted Rei's face in jagged gold and shadow, her bat still poised mid-swing, knuckles bloodless. Through the half-open door, Saya's silhouette sharpened a still point in the chaotic hallway, her lenses catching lightning flashes like predatory eyes.

 A scream ripped through the hallway—high-pitched, guttural, shattering the gym's stasis. Not fear, but something wrong.

Lightning flashed again, illuminating Saya's silhouette as she recoiled against the lockers, a dark shape colliding with her. Papers exploded from her arms, swirling in the draft. Takashi scrambled to his feet, knees scraping wood grain, eyes locked on the doorway. Saya screamed again—a raw, ragged sound that clawed through the storm's roar—as the figure pinned her against lockers, jaws snapping inches from her throat.

Takashi lunged before thought took hold, instincts fueled by adrenaline and the memory of her nails digging into his back last night. His cleats slipped on scattered papers as he barreled into the attacker's side, shoulder connecting with ribs that gave way like rotten wood. The thing staggered, releasing Saya to whirl on Takashi with milky, unblinking eyes that reflected the flickering emergency lights like polished marbles in a corpse's face.

The gym erupted. Tanaka's whistle shrieked uselessly as Rei's bat sliced air beside Takashi's ear—a vicious *crack* connecting with the thing's temple. Bone yielded with a sickening wet crunch, spraying dark fluid across Saya's trembling hands. The creature crumpled, twitching, as Rei planted a cleat on its chest, breathing hard. "What the *hell* is that?" Her voice trembled only at the edges, knuckles white where she gripped the blood-smeared aluminum.

Behind them, freshmen scrambled backward, choking on sawdust and panic-scented sweat. The hallway stank of fear and wet concrete as Takashi hauled Saya upright, her fingers digging into his forearm like talons. Her breath came in ragged gasps—no wounds, just the cracked glasses askew on her nose and a smear of dark ooze across her white blouse. "T-Takashi," she choked out, but her analytical mind was already overriding panic. Her gaze snapped past him to the gym doors where Tanaka bellowed orders, his face purple beneath flickering emergency lights.

Rei kept her bat planted on the twitching corpse, her knuckles bone white. "Its eyes," Saya whispered, trembling but precise. "Pupils fully dilated. Like rabies but... coordinated aggression." The thing beneath Rei's cleat shuddered, jaws still working silently as blood pooled around its head. Takashi moved, shoving Saya behind him as three more figures shambled from the science wing—their movements jerky yet purposeful, like marionettes with severed strings.

The closest grabbed a fleeing freshman by the backpack, yanking him backward with unnatural strength. The fabric tore as the seams gave way, textbooks spilling across the tile, slick with rainwater and that dark blood. Tanaka's bellow cut through the chaos—"Bar the doors! NOW!"—but the command dissolved into fresh screams as another creature lunged through the gap, teeth snapping at Rei's unprotected flank. Her bat swung on instinct, connecting with a hollow thud that reverberated up her arms like an electric shock.

Rei twisted away, bat swinging low to clip the creature's knees—another sickening crack echoed beneath fluorescent stutters. The thing stumbled, knees bending backward like broken hinges, but kept crawling forward on shattered limbs, jaws snapping at her ankles. Saya's voice sliced through the panic, sharp as shattered glass: "Head trauma! Destroy the brainstem!"

Takashi snatched a fallen hurdle pole—cold metal biting his palms—and drove it down like a spear into the twitching spine. Bone crunched wetly beneath the impact; the creature spasmed then stilled, dark-red blood soaking into rainwater pooling on tile. Harsh breaths sawed in Takashi's throat as he yanked the makeshift spear free. Saya scrambled back, her cracked lenses reflecting the flickering emergency lights and the shambling horrors closing in from both ends of the hallway.

The freshman Rei had shielded, whimpering, as he was pinned against lockers, a creature lurched closer, its milky eyes fixed on the boy's trembling form. Rei whirled, bat raised, but Tanaka's roar cut through the chaos: "Komuro! The storage closet—barricade point! Move!" His face was bone-white beneath the strobing yellow, one hand clutching a fire axe ripped from the wall. Sawdust and panic clogged the air. Takashi slammed his shoulder against the storage closet door, momentum fueled by adrenaline.

Metal screeched against tile. Through the narrow gap, he glimpsed Rei's bat crack against a skull—a hollow, wet sound like splitting melons—and Tanaka's axe striking into a locker beside Saya's head as she scrambled backward, cracked glasses reflecting fractured light. "Now!" Takashi bellowed, straining against the door's weight. Rei ducked beneath a grasping hand, her ponytail whipping as she pivoted and shoved Saya toward the opening. The closet smelled of mildew and old leather, a sanctuary that reeked of surrender.

Rei's cleat slipped on ichor-slicked tile as she shoved Saya toward the gap—too late. A hand clamped onto Rei's wrist, cold and impossibly strong, wrenching her backward. She stumbled, bat clattering away. Across the hall, Hizashi Tanaka—Coach's son and Rei's on-again-off-again boyfriend—froze mid-sprint toward them, his eyes wide with primal terror. For a heartbeat, their gazes locked: Rei's desperate, pleading; Hizashi's hollow with panic. Then, as the creature's jaws snapped inches from Rei's throat, Hizashi spun away. He bolted down the science wing, abandoning her to the gnashing teeth and the stench of decay.

The betrayal hit like a physical blow, Rei's gasp choked off, her body going slack with shock. Rei's gasp froze mid-air, a jagged shard of sound swallowed by the creature's guttural snarl as its teeth scraped the air inches from her jugular. Hizashi's retreating back vanished around the science wing corner—a blur of cowardice, cleats squeaking on blood-slick tile before silence swallowed him whole. The abandonment wasn't just physical; it carved through Rei's ribs like a dull knife, severing every promise whispered in quiet moments.

Her muscles went slack, shock numbing the scream building in her throat. The creature's grip tightened, cold fingers digging bruises into her wrist, pulling her toward its rancid breath—wet earth and rotting meat. Hizashi's footsteps faded completely—no echo, no hesitation—leaving Rei suspended in the hallway's flickering nightmare. The thing holding her wheezed, its breath like rotten fruit left too long in the sun, fingers like iron bands digging into her wrist. She didn't struggle. What was the point? The guy who'd whispered *forever* against her neck at last month's bonfire had just dissolved into shadow.

Its jaws opened wider, a dark maw rimmed with shreds of something fleshy and red. Rei closed her eyes, waiting for the bite. Rei's eyes snapped open—not to darkness, but to Takashi's cleat smashing into the creature's jaw. Bone shattered with a wet crunch, spraying droplets of brackish fluid across her cheek. The impact jerked the thing sideways, its grip loosening just enough for Takashi to wrench her free. His arm hooked around her waist, hauling her backward into the storage closet's damp shadows as Saya slammed the door shut behind them. Metal shrieked against tile; something heavy thudded against the other side—bodies? Fists?—followed by the scrape of nails on steel. Rei sagged against Takashi, trembling, the scent of his sweat cutting through decay's stench as vividly as the memory of Hizashi's fleeing back. Betrayal coiled cold in her gut.

The closet door bucked against Saya's shoulder as bodies slammed into it from the hallway—a relentless, wet thudding that vibrated through the metal. Darkness enveloped them, thick and cloying, reeking of mildew and old gym mats soaked in decades of sweat. Takashi's breath came hot and ragged against Rei's neck, his arm still locked around her waist like a vise. She didn't pull away. Outside, fingernails scraped steel—a sound like broken glass dragged across bone—and a low, guttural moan seeped through the gap beneath the door. Saya's voice sliced the gloom, sharp and clinical despite the tremor beneath: "Barricade it. Now." Her cracked lenses caught slivers of emergency light filtering in under the door, illuminating the panic in her widened pupils. Takashi's eyes adjusted slowly—emergency light slivers slicing through the gap beneath the door, painting dust motes dancing in the oppressive gloom.

Rei's trembling pressed against his ribs, Hizashi's betrayal a physical weight between them. He released her abruptly, fingers brushing the cold metal of a shelving unit. "Shelves," he rasped, voice thick with adrenaline and the phantom tang of Saya's citrus perfume. Together, they heaved the heavy steel rack sideways, its legs screeching against concrete-like nails on slate. The door shuddered violently as decaying bodies threw themselves against it, the wet thumps punctuated by the scrape of bone on metal. Outside, Tanaka's roar dissolved into a choked gurgle—a sound that froze Takashi's blood colder than the betrayal that hollowed Rei's Eyes.

Saya scrambled backwards until her shoulders hit stacked wrestling mats, the mildew-stench clinging to her blouse as Tanaka's choked gargle silenced abruptly beyond the door. The sudden silence was louder than the battering corpses. Dust motes swirled in knife-thin light shafts, catching on Rei's tearless stare—fixed on the steel surface where Hizashi's cowardice still echoed. Takashi slid the final shelf into place, the screech of metal-on-concrete tearing the silence, but Rei didn't flinch. Her fingers trembled where they brushed a fresh bruise blooming on her wrist—the creature's fingerprints etched in purpling skin.

Outside, a wet, rhythmic thudding began, skulls hammering against reinforced steel in mindless syncopation. The thudding against the door settled into a grim rhythm—dull and moist, like rotten fruit dropped on stone. Dust sifted from the ceiling vents with every impact, catching the thin slivers of emergency light as it settled on Saya's trembling shoulders.

She slid down against the wrestling mats, her fingers instinctively rising to adjust glasses that weren't there—only the memory of cracked lenses scattered in the hallway's chaos. Rei remained rigid beside Takashi, her breath shallow and sharp, staring at her bruised wrist as if the imprint of dead fingers could somehow erase the sting of Hizashi's retreating footsteps. Takashi's gaze swept the cramped space—rusted hooks holding deflated volleyballs, a pyramid of mold-speckled jump ropes, shattered stopwatches littering the floor. His knuckles whitened around the splintered hurdle pole still slick with red ooze.

Saya's analytical murmur cut through the thumping: "Basal ganglia aggression patterns… coordinated but no pain response." Her voice hitched as the door groaned under another assault. "Their motor control is decaying. We have minutes before they breach." Rei finally blinked, her eyes lifting from her wrist to the shuddering metal. "Then we fight," she stated flatly, the hollow shock hardening into something jagged and cold.

Takashi traced a crack in the concrete floor with his bloodied pole—a jagged line splitting the dust, mirroring the fractures spreading through their world. His knuckles throbbed where splinters bit into skin from the makeshift spear. Outside, the wet skull-thuds echoed Tanaka's barking drills, each impact shuddering the steel shelves barricading the door. Saya hugged her knees tighter, the smear of blood on her blouse glistening in the thin light. "Cognitive decay rate suggests rapid neural necrosis," she whispered, her voice clinical despite the tremor beneath. "But the auditory processing..." A guttural moan slithered under the door, cutting her off—a sound too layered, too *deliberate*, like rotten teeth grinding on bone.

Rei's fingers curled into fists, the bruise on her wrist pulsing purple black in the gloom.  Takashi crouched beside Rei, the hurdle pole trembling in his grip. Her knuckles brushed his thigh—cold against fevered skin—as she snatched rusted garden shears from a crate.

Outside, Tanaka's final choked gasp replayed in Takashi's mind, warping into the creature's guttural moans. Rei's shoulders tightened. Her gaze flickered from the shuddering door to Takashi's bloodied hands gripping the makeshift spear. Gratitude bloomed—hot and surprising—amidst the acid sting of Hizashi's abandonment. Words thickened in her throat: *You stayed*. Instead, she slammed the shears' blades open-shut-open-shut with metallic *snaps*, the rhythm syncing with her heartbeat.

Sawdust drifted through emergency light stripes, catching in her lashes, making her blink rapidly. Rei's fingers tightened around the garden shears' rusted handles, the repetitive *snap-snap-snap* drowning out the dull thuds beyond the door. Each metallic click anchored her—not to the mildew-choked air or the creature's wet groans—but to Takashi's shoulder pressing against hers in the cramped darkness. The phantom sting of Hizashi's betrayal still chilled her ribs, yet here was Takashi: breath ragged, knuckles split open from driving his spear into dead flesh, staying rooted beside her when fleeing would have been easier. The stillness in her own hands surprised her; gratitude wasn't a reflex she'd ever associated with him, least of all after Saya's smirk and their tangled, silent history. But his presence now wasn't another debt owed—it was a choice, deliberate and unspoken, and that realization washed through her veins like warm oil, thawing the ice in her chest.

Wordless, she nudged the shears toward his lap—cold metal grazing his thigh—a gesture as sharp and precise as her pitching form, yet laden with everything she couldn't voice: *Thank you. For not leaving me behind. *

Takashi's breath hitched as Rei's knuckles brushed his thigh, cold steel grazing his skin where the garden shears settled in his lap. The offering felt heavier than its rusted weight—a weapon passed like a confession in the shuddering gloom. His gaze snapped to Saya, crouched behind moldering wrestling mats, her analytical stare dissecting the door's rhythmic tremors. "Auditory coordination implies hive awareness," she hissed, fingers tracing patterns in the dust. "They're learning the weak points."

 The shears' jagged teeth bit into Takashi's palm as he spun towards the storage room’s rear ventilation grate. Kyoko’s muffled whimpers seeped through the metal slats like trapped steam—each choked gasp a hammer-strike to his ribs. "Hold on!" The grate shrieked open under his boots, revealing Hayashi curled fetal beneath ductwork cobwebs, her judo jacket sleeve dark with Tanaka’s blood. Her eyes locked onto his, pupils blown wide with primal terror. "They tore him open," she cried, fingers clawing at his forearm. "Just... ripped."

Takashi’s muscles strained as he hauled Kyoko upward, her trembling weight settling against his shoulder like broken porcelain. Beneath the sweat-slicked judo jacket, her ribs shuddered with every choked breath—tiny earthquakes against his palm. In the ceiling’s gloom, metallic reverberations pulsed through her skull—a grim lesson in anatomy.

"Lungs," she gasped suddenly, her whisper slicing through the groaning vents. "Tanaka begged about his lungs... before they..." Her voice frayed into silence, but the unfinished horror hung thicker than the blood-scented air. The ventilation shaft exhaled damp concrete and Kyoko’s sharp, coppery fear as Takashi guided her crumbling form onto the gymnasium floor. Her judo jacket snagged on the grate’s teeth, fabric tearing like wet paper. "Move *quietly*," Saya’s voice cut through the shadows from behind the mats, low and blade-sharp. "Their auditory learning curve suggests localized focus—we exploit the hinge-battering as acoustic camouflage."

Takashi’s palm stung where the shears’ rust bit into old calluses, but Kyoko’s clammy grip anchored him. Tanaka’s last gargle echoed in that touch. The ventilation shaft's damp draft coiled around Takashi's neck as he lowered Kyoko fully onto the gym floor. Her judo jacket tore further as she stumbled against him, the rip echoing Tanaka's final wet gasp in Takashi's memory.

Saya emerged from behind the mats like a shadow given form, her gaze calculating the distance to the emergency exit doors. "Auditory triangulation," she murmured, crouching low. "They're focusing on the east wall hinges—we have ninety seconds of diversionary noise before pattern recognition resets."

Kyoko's fingernails dug crescent moons into Takashi's forearm, her breathing shallow, scraping against his collarbone. Rusted shears trembled in Takashi's grip as he scanned the room's corpse-littered corners. Moonlight bled through high windows onto Koichi's abandoned baseball bat—a splintered length of ash wood glistening with viscous fluids. "Hayashi-san," Takashi whispered, easing Kyoko toward the weapon. Her trembling fingers closed around the handle, knuckles bleaching white as the groaning intensified outside.

Saya slithered closer, her breath hot against Takashi's ear. "Fire alarm pull station—ten meters northwest. Three-second sprint." She tapped the shears' blade. "Distract with metal percussion." Metal groaned louder as Takashi pivoted toward the alarm station, the shears flashing in a moonlit arc. He lunged—not toward the pull cord—but toward a dented locker, slamming the rusted blades against its steel door. The shriek tore through the gymnasium like a banshee's wail, instantly silencing the targeted hammering at the hinges. Distracted shuffles scraped against the east wall instead. Kyoko flinched beside him, the baseball bat trembling in her hands as rotting fingers began clawing through ventilation grates above.

Saya's eyes locked onto the emergency exit. The door exploded inward before she could move. Not zombies—but Hirano, wild-eyed and heaving, shoving a gurney loaded with IV bags before him. Saeko followed, katana dripping red with blood, her school uniform jacket shredded over a blood-stained bandage.

Behind them stumbled Nurse Shizuka, tears carving paths through grime on her cheeks, half-dragging a wheezing Misuzu Kusano. "Found them... science wing stairwell," Hirano gasped, jamming the gurney against the splintered doorframe. "Their teacher... he turned mid-evacuation." Shizuka collapsed, Misuzu crumpling beside her, clutching her ribs where dark bruising bloomed beneath torn fabric.

Takashi was moving before thought registered, shears discarded, hands catching Misuzu as she sagged. Her breath hitched wetly, a sound Tanaka had made seconds before dying. Kyoko’s bat clattered to the floor as Saya hissed a trajectory calculation, but Takashi’s focus narrowed to Misuzu’s fluttering eyelids, the unnatural heat radiating from her bruised side. A fractured rib. Punctured lung? His palm pressed instinctively against the injury, and warmth, different from blood, flared beneath his skin. Misuzu gasped, her back arching off the floor as fractured bone knitted beneath his touch, bruising fading like ink in water. Saeko’s katana tip hovered an inch from Takashi’s throat, her eyes glacier-cold. "What are you?" The blade trembled—not fear, but exhaustion.

Behind her, Hirano gaped at Misuzu’s suddenly unmarked ribs, IV bags forgotten on the gurney. Shizuka scrambled forward, fingers probing Misuzu’s side in disbelief. "Impossible... the internal bleeding..."

The gymnasium stank of cordite, rot, and the ozone tang of Takashi’s power. Outside, renewed clawing echoed Saeko’s accusation. Takashi froze beneath Saeko's blade, the katana's chill kiss tightening his throat muscles. Misuzu gasped beneath his palms—not in pain, but in sudden breathless wonder, her lungs expanding freely as the warmth fled his fingertips. Behind Saeko, Hirano scrambled backward, knocking IV stands clattering, his eyes darting between Takashi’s stained hands and Misuzu’s impossibly smoothed skin. "Demonic possession?" Hirano choked out, fumbling for a scalpel in his lab coat.

Saya’s analytical voice sliced through the panic from behind Kyoko’s trembling form: "Physiological restoration contradicts supernatural models—observe the cellular acceleration residue!" Her fingers pointed to faint steam curling from Misuzu’s healed ribs. Sweat stung Takashi’s eyes, blurring Saeko’s blade into a silver streak as Misuzu’s ragged gasps turned smooth beneath his lingering touch.

The unnatural warmth faded from his palms, replaced by a hollow chill that mirrored Hirano’s horrified stare. Shizuka pressed trembling hands to Misuzu’s unmarked skin, her voice a strangled whisper cutting through the gym’s thick silence: "The contusions... the internal trauma... gone like they were never there." The accusation in Saeko’s glacial eyes deepened, her katana unwavering—a promise of steel if his answer faltered.

Outside, the scraping at the vents intensified, a grim counterpoint to the ozone scent clinging to Takashi’s hands. Saeko's blade didn't waver, but her eyes widened a fraction as Shizuka's medical assessment registered. The scent of Misuzu's healing— salt and crushed mint—warred with gymnasium decay clinging to Takashi's clothes. Behind him, Kyoko's trembling hand brushed his shoulder, her whisper barely audible over Hirano's frantic muttering about "cellular regeneration thresholds."

Takashi met Saeko's gaze, the katana's edge humming with lethal potential. "I don't know what it is," he said, fingers still tingling with warmth. "But she was dying."

Saya materialized beside him, her analytical stare dissecting Misuzu's healed ribs. "Empirical evidence suggests tactile bio-restoration," she declared coolly, ignoring Saeko's blade entirely. "Subject Tanaka's autopsy showed similar tissue regeneration anomalies post-mortem."

Takashi's palms still pulsed with fading warmth as Saeko's blade remained poised against his throat—a silent demand for answers drowned by Misuzu's sudden coughing fit. The girl curled inward, hands clasped over her mouth until Shizuka gently pried them away, revealing not blood but fine gray dust coating her tongue. "Ceiling tiles," Misuzu rasped, shuddering as she pointed upward where rotting fingers now wrenched entire ventilation grilles loose. Concrete debris rained down like toxic snow, mingling with the coppery scent of Tanaka's dried blood beneath their feet. Hirano screamed as a decayed arm plunged through the gap, bony fingers snatching at his lab coat until Saeko's katana flashed—severing wrist from forearm with a wet crunch. The dismembered hand twitched grotesquely on the floor, still clutching wrinkled fabric.

Hirano scrambled backward, hyperventilating as he clutched his torn coat. Shizuka dragged Misuzu behind the overturned gurney while Kyoko snatched up her baseball bat, trembling but resolute. "Northwest exit—now!" Saya commanded, already sprinting toward the emergency doors as the ceiling groaned under accumulating weight.

Takashi seized Misuzu's arm, pulling her alongside him when her foot caught on Tanaka's abandoned backpack. They stumbled together, the stumble saving them as a corpse-heavy ventilation duct collapsed right where they’d stood—shattering floor tiles in an explosion of pulverized concrete and rotted viscera.

The stench of ruptured intestines flooded the air, thick enough to taste. Rusted ventilation bolts rained down as Takashi hauled Misuzu sideways, her choked gasp swallowed by the roar of collapsing ductwork. Pulverized concrete dust coated their tongues—chalky and bitter—while the stench of ruptured bowels clung wetly to their clothes. Saeko’s katana flashed again, cleaving through a second decaying arm probing through the ceiling gap, her blade meeting bone with a vibration that sang up Takashi’s spine.

Takashi shoved Misuzu toward Saya just as the overhead ductwork screamed its final protest—a cascade of decaying bodies and twisted metal crashing where they'd stood seconds prior. The impact choked the air with powdered concrete and the stench of intestinal rot, forcing Takashi to his knees.

Through watering eyes, he glimpsed Saeko pivoting, her katana slicing upward to decapitate a plummeting corpse, while Hirano frantically jammed IV poles against buckling ceiling panels. Shizuka dragged Misuzu clear, her nurse's uniform smeared with viscera that wasn't hers. As Takashi scrambled backward, his palm slapped against the jagged edge of a fallen ventilation grille—rusted metal biting deep into his flesh. Blood welled hot and slick, but beneath the pain, an electric ache bloomed. His pulse hammered against the wound like a frantic drum.

The grille's corrosion began *moving*, swirling into luminous symbols that glowed toxic green—biohazard triangles interlaced with Kanji characters for *QUARANTINE BREACH. *. The luminous biohazard symbol burned like phosphorus against Takashi’s bleeding palm, searing containment protocols- RAMPANT QUARANTINE—into the rusted grille.

His pulse thundered against the etching, each throb syncing with the glyphs' sickly glow. Across the chaos, Saya froze mid-stride, her analytical gaze locking onto the radioactive green light flaring from his hand. "Vektor Lab biocontainment coding?" she hissed, voice slicing through the groans of collapsing ductwork.

The symbols pulsed brighter as decaying fingers tore through ceiling tiles above him, dripping necrosis onto the glowing metal—a cruel baptism. The biohazard symbols crawled up Takashi's forearm like glowing parasitic vines, etching themselves into his skin with searing precision. Each Kanji stroke burned deeper than the grille’s jagged bite, rewriting cellular pathways in electric agony.

Across the collapsing gym, Kyoko’s choked sob cut through the chaos—her ankle pinned beneath a fallen ceiling beam, bone jutting through torn skin. Instinct overrode pain. Takashi slammed his luminous palm against the gruesome fracture, unleashing a surge of viridian light that engulfed her leg in radioactive moss patterns.

Kyoko screamed—not in agony, but in visceral shock as shattered tibia knitted with audible clicks beneath phosphorescent veins. Kyoko’s scream dissolved into a trembling gasp as the luminous glow receded from her leg, leaving unblemished skin where bone had protruded. She stared, transfixed, at the fading moss-green patterns etched across her calf—living hieroglyphs of impossible healing.

Across the gym, Hirano scrambled backward, knocking over IV bags in his frenzy. "Patient Zero!" he shrieked, pointing a shaking finger at Takashi’s still-flaring forearm. "The Vektor files, they said, Subject Takashi Komuro was the only stable vector! The others tore themselves apart!"

Saya’s analytical gaze snapped to Takashi, her mind whirring through fragmented lab reports she’d glimpsed during lockdown. "Recombination Protocol Sigma," she breathed. "They grafted Cordyceps militaris onto neural stem cells... but you survived the fusion." Her voice held no accusation, only the thrill of solving an equation as rotting hands suddenly burst through the ceiling above them.

Chapter Text

Takashi recoiled from Kyoko's healed leg as if it had been scorched, his glowing forearm pulsing with toxic light. "Immunity or infection? What the hell am I?" His shout cracked raw against the gym's groaning metal skeleton, eyes darting between the viridian symbols snaking toward his elbow and the corpses raining from above. The biohazard glyphs throbbed in time with his panicked heartbeat—a living tattoo demanding answers Hirano clearly didn't possess. Saya’s eyes darted past Takashi’s shuddering form, locking onto the flickering LCD panel of a shattered diagnostic machine half-buried under debris. Amidst the static, Cyrillic headers scrolled above biometric readouts—*ИММУНИТЕТ: ПОЛНЫЙ* flashing beside Takashi’s registry number.

Her breath hitched. "It’s not infection," she snapped, elbowing aside a toppled gurney. "That glow? Pure immunological activity. Your cells are rejecting necrosis at a molecular level." Her fingers trembled as she pointed at the screen’s confirmation. "Komuro, you’re walking antibodies. The graft didn't corrupt you; it *armored* you."

Takashi’s breath caught as every eye in the ruined gymnasium snapped toward him—Kyoko’s tear-streaked awe, Hirano’s manic terror, Rei’s conflicted intensity, Shizuka’s hopeful desperation. Their gazes fused into a single, suffocating weight: salvation, weapon, abomination.

Above them, plaster dust rained down like toxic snow as the ceiling groaned, fissures spiderwebbing across panels already sagging under the weight of the trapped corpses. A dangling fluorescent light swung wildly, casting strobing shadows over Saya’s triumphant smile—a scientist beholding her breakthrough. He flexed his bio-luminescent fist, the glyphs flaring brighter as necrosis recoiled from his knuckles. "Saya," he gasped.

Her pupils dilated—not in fear, but in rapture—as he pressed his smoldering palm against his chest. "These symbols aren’t a curse. They’re a map written in my blood. And every pulse?" He met her gaze, unflinching. "It screams your name."

Across the carnage, Rei flinched as if struck, her grip tightening on her spear until her knuckles bleached bone white. Takashi pivoted, the movement slicing through dust motes dancing in fractured light. His voice, low and raw, carried over the creaking ceiling. "Rei." Her name hung between them like a broken promise. "I shattered my soul trying to fit into the mold you carved for me." A corpse plummeted nearby, splattering decay near her boots. She didn’t blink. "But this?" He raised his glowing arm, It's a beacon in the gloom.'' 

Rei’s spear trembled. Takashi breathed deep—a lungful of decay and plaster dust that tasted like burial soil—as the glyphs pulsed brighter across his skin. "Rei… I'm sorry my broken pieces never fit your perfect puzzle. But today?" He slammed his luminous fist against his chest, the impact resonating like a war drum. "Neither of you dies while I am still here."

Above them, the ceiling groaned louder as fissures raced across buckling panels like lightning. Hirano screamed as a gelatinous mass of fused corpses—eight torsos welded into one shambling horror—crashed through the compromised tiles. Shizuka threw herself over Misuzu, shielding her eyes from the raining plaster as Saeko’s katana flashed upward. The blade bit deep into necrotic flesh but stuck fast, buried in calcified vertebrae. The creature's dozen rotting hands reached for Saeko’s throat, dripping putrescence onto her uniform. **"RUN!"** Takashi roared, the command tearing through the gym like a shockwave.

His bio-luminescent arm surged with viridian light as he surged forward—not toward the survivors, but straight at the abomination pinning Saeko. "I’ll hold it! Get everyone out NOW!" The glyphs on his forearm flared blindingly, casting sharp, dancing shadows across the collapsing walls. He didn’t wait for protest, already vaulting over a toppled gurney as Hirano scrambled backward, dragging Misuzu toward the shattered exit doors. Kyoko hesitated, staring at her healed leg, until Shizuka yanked her toward safety. 

His command spurred Hirano, Shizuka, and Kyoko toward the exit while he drew the monstrosity’s lethal attention. Takashi slammed into the gelatinous nightmare just as its dozen rotting hands closed around Saeko’s throat. His luminous forearm struck its flank—and the biohazard glyphs flared like struck magnesium. A searing hiss filled the air as necrosis recoiled from his touch, the creature’s putrid flesh blistering and blackening on contact. The stench of scorched decay choked Takashi’s nostrils, thick as burning tar.

Saeko gasped free, wrenching her katana loose in a spray of calcified shards as the abomination staggered back, its many mouths howling in dissonant agony. Viridian light pulsed through Takashi's veins like liquid lightning as he pressed his advantage, driving the monstrosity backward with each searing palm strike. Its necrotic flesh sizzled and popped against his touch, releasing bursts of acrid smoke that stung his eyes and coated his tongue with the taste of charred rot.

Across the collapsing gym, Saya barked orders at Hirano—"Prioritize airway clearance!"—her voice sharp as surgical steel. Yet, her gaze kept flickering to Takashi's glowing silhouette with fierce, hungry pride. Rei hesitated near the exit, spear trembling in her hands as she watched Saeko slash at dangling tendons—her movements efficient, detached. However, her eyes betrayed a tremor of awe at the impossible spectacle unfolding before her.

As he pressed his assault, Rei watched near the exit, conflicted. At the same time, Saeko attacked its tendons—both reacting to his impossible power even as Saya coordinated evacuation efforts elsewhere in the crumbling gym. Takashi closed his fist around a protruding femur, the biohazard glyphs flaring venomous green as necrosis recoiled from his touch. He wrenched sideways—not with brute strength, but with predatory precision, and the gelatinous horror shrieked in twelve discordant voices as tendons snapped like rotten cables. Saeko’s katana flashed silver in the gloom, severing the last connective tissue binding the torsos.

For one suspended heartbeat, the monstrosity trembled, a mountain of decaying flesh held together only by Takashi’s searing grip on its structural keystone. Takashi’s grip tightened on the femur, his luminous forearm pulsing like a dying star as the glyphs seared deeper into necrotic tissue. With a guttural roar, he slammed his other palm against the creature’s central mass—a wet, crunching impact that unleashed a shockwave of viridian light.

The monstrosity’s disintegrating torsos froze mid-tremor, their collective shriek cut short as biohazard symbols erupted across its surface like wildfire. For a heartbeat, the gymnasium held its breath—silent save for the hiss of evaporating decay. Then the fused corpses dissolved into a cascade of ash, disintegrating before they could hit the blood-slicked floor. Only the stench remained—decay and scorched meat—as Takashi stood panting in the settling gloom, his arm still blazing like a shard of radioactive jade.

Takashi stared at the mound of foul-smelling ash where the abomination had stood seconds before, his glowing arm trembling with residual energy. The gymnasium echoed with ragged breaths and dripping fluids, the silence stark against the chaos moments prior. Kyoko’s whimper broke the stillness—a sharp, vulnerable sound that snapped Shizuka into action, her nurse’s instincts overriding shock as she knelt to inspect the unmarred skin where bone had pierced flesh. "No scarring," she murmured, fingers tracing Kyoko’s calf in disbelief. "Not even a bruise."

Hirano scrambled backward, muttering about viral vectors and impossible recombinant DNA, his eyes darting between Takashi’s luminous skin and the static-filled biometric screen still flashing *ИММУНИТЕТ: ПОЛНЫЙ* like a damning verdict.

Rei’s spear clattered to the blood-slicked floor as she stumbled forward, her gaze locked on Takashi’s radiant arm. "You used *that*... to save us?" The words trembled with disbelief and a raw emotion. Disgust? Relief? Her knuckles tightened around the weapon she’d dropped, as if it were the only anchor left in a world unraveling.

Across the ruin, Takashi wiped ash from his brow with his non-luminous hand, leaving gray streaks against sweat-slicked skin. His gaze locked onto Rei's pale face—her knuckles bone-white around the fallen spear, eyes wide as shattered glass. "Tell me, Rei," he rasped, the biohazard glyphs pulsing slower now, like a dying heartbeat. "Do you only see a monster standing here?" He gestured at his glowing forearm, where viridian symbols still smoldered beneath the skin. "Wouldn't surprise me. Not from you." The words hung bitter in the air, thick with the memory of her past actions—back when he'd been merely human, and still not enough to satisfy her.

He took a step back, shoulders squaring. "If my existence repulses you now... I'll vanish before the next corpse falls. Gladly." 

The fluorescent light above Rei flickered violently, casting jagged shadows across her face as her spear clattered against the concrete again—this time abandoned. She surged forward, closing the distance in three strides, and seized Takashi’s luminous wrist. Her fingers dug into his flesh where the glyphs pulsed warm and alien. "You idiot," she choked, voice raw as stripped wires. "I see the boy who shielded me from broken glass when we were ten. The one who cried when my cat died." Her thumb brushed a glowing Kanji character—*protection*—scorched into his skin. "This *is* you. Brutal. Beautiful. Burning."

Across the gym, Saya’s breath deepened, her scientific detachment crumbling as Rei’s tears splashed onto Takashi’s radiant forearm, sizzling like raindrops on hot iron. Rei’s muffled sob vibrated against Takashi’s chest, a tremor that echoed the fading pulse of the biohazard glyphs glowing amber beneath her cheek.

His luminous hand cradled the back of her head, fingers tangling in grime-streaked hair as he breathed in the scent of gunpowder and sweat clinging to her uniform—a stark contrast to the sterile decay choking the ruined gymnasium. "It’s not you," he murmured again, voice thick against her temple. "It’s..." He faltered, his gaze drifting to the mound of foul-smelling ash where the monstrosity had dissolved moments before. "...this thing inside me. This... *hunger* to protect that twists everything." His thumb traced the ridge of her shoulder blade through torn fabric, a gesture familiar and achingly tender. 

Across the devastation, Saya stood frozen—not by fear, but by the violent intimacy of Rei pressed against Takashi's radiant skin. Her thumb unconsciously traced the bite mark hidden beneath her sleeve collar, a faint echo of last night’s fevered chaos. The Cyrillic screen flickered beside her, *ИММУНИТЕТ: ПОЛНЫЙ* warping into static as plaster dust snowed from the ceiling. She didn’t see lovers reconciling; she saw synaptic pathways firing, adrenaline cascades, the brutal elegance of a survival mechanism rewriting human connection.

Her lips parted—not to protest, but to dissect. "Komuro," she called out, her voice scalpel-sharp yet trembling. "That 'hunger' isn’t twisting you. It’s *simplifying* you. Survival stripped bare." Her gaze dropped to Rei’s hand fused to Takashi’s glowing forearm. "Tell me—does her pulse accelerate when the glyphs flare? Is it fear... or fascination?"

Takashi stiffened, Rei's warmth suddenly clashing against the cold precision in Saya's voice. He gently disentangled himself from Rei's grip, the biohazard glyphs flaring briefly as irritation sparked through him. "Is everything just data to you, Saya?" His question sliced through the settling dust, raw and ragged. "Even now? Even this?" He gestured sharply at his luminous arm, still smoldering with residual energy. "You dissect it like some lab specimen—measuring pulses, dissecting fear. Do you even understand what you're doing?" His voice rose, thick with frustration. "You talk about simplification, survival stripped bare—but that's not me! That's the *graft*, the violation they carved into my cells!" He took a step toward her, the glowing symbols pulsing faster. "Calling it 'simplifying'? That's just another way of saying they erased pieces of who I was. And you sound *happy* about it." He stopped short, eyes blazing. "If you cared about me at all, how could you celebrate that?"

 Saya flinched as if he'd slapped her, the clinical detachment evaporating from her eyes like steam off hot pavement. Her fingers tightened around the edge of the shattered diagnostic screen, knuckles blanching against the static-filled display still flashing his immunity status. "Happy?" Her voice cracked, raw and unfamiliar—a fracture in her polished armor. "I cataloged every tremor in your vitals last night while you slept. Your pupils dilated when I traced the first glyph." She stepped forward, crushing broken glass under her boot. "I celebrated *survival*, Komuro. Because the alternative was watching your nervous system liquefy like the others."

Dust swirled in the beam of his fading glow as she closed the distance, her gaze locked on the pulsing symbols. "You think I don't feel the cost? That graft stole your fear responses. Your hesitation. It's rewriting your amygdala in real-time." Her hand rose, trembling, toward his radiant forearm. "But when you kissed me? That wasn't Sigma Protocol. That was *you*—fighting through the programming to claw back something human." 

Rei’s glare cut between them like shrapnel, her hand still tingling from Takashi’s fading warmth. "You knew," she hissed at Saya, knuckles white around her retrieved spear. "Before last night—before any of this hell. You saw those lab reports. Did you touch him knowing he was their experiment?"  Dirt clung to her tear-streaked cheeks as she stepped forward, the weapon trembling in her grip. "Or were you just taking notes while you let him love you?"

Saya met Rei's accusation with perfect stillness, her gaze fixed on Takashi's glowing forearm rather than the spear trembling toward her throat. "The Vektor files listed him as deceased—a containment failure," she stated flatly, the clinical detachment cracking as her voice cracked. "When I saw him alive that first week? Yes, I knew. And yes, I touched him to confirm pulse variability, capillary refill, and neural responsiveness." Her knuckles whitened against her thigh. "But kissing him?" She finally looked at Takashi, her eyes raw. "That data wasn't for any lab report." 

Takashi recoiled, the viridian glyphs along his arm flaring violently like poisoned veins surfacing beneath his skin. "You *knew*?" The words tore from his throat, raw and ragged. "All those times you traced my pulse—analyzed my reactions—it was just... *data*?" His laugh cracked, bitter as shattered glass. "And last night? Was that your final experiment? Cataloging how the freak responds to intimacy?"

The fluorescent light above flickered wildly, casting jagged shadows across Saya's ashen face as he stepped closer, his luminous hand trembling at his side. "Tell me, Takagi—did my accelerated heartbeat excite your scientific curiosity when I whispered I loved you ?" Takashi’s glowing fist clenched at his side, viridian light pulsing erratically as betrayal twisted through him like a serrated blade. "You knew," he repeated, the words scraping raw against his throat. "All those whispers in the dark—your hands on my skin, cataloging every tremor—you were dissecting your damn *specimen*." He took another step toward Saya, the glyphs flaring brighter with each syllable. "And last night... God, I thought..." His voice cracked, the memory of her lips on his now tainted with the sterile scent of lab reports. "I thought you finally saw *me*. Not the experiment. Not Patient Zero." He laughed, a hollow sound that echoed off the crumbling walls. "But you were just taking notes while I poured my soul out, weren't you? Should’ve known better."

Saya flinched as if scalded, her clinical facade crumbling into something jagged and desperate. "Is that what you think?" Her voice fractured, raw as exposed nerves, her knuckles bloodless where they gripped her sleeves. "Every tremor I recorded was proof you were *alive*, Komuro—that Vektor hadn't stripped you down to their weaponized shell." She stepped closer through the debris, crushing glass under her boot, her gaze locked on the glyphs writhing across his forearm. "Last night wasn't observation. It was defiance against them. Her hand rose, trembling, toward the pulsing symbols. "When I kissed you? I was erasing their labels. Claiming you as human." Saya’s fingers brushed Takashi’s luminous forearm—a feather-light touch that sent jade sparks skittering across her skin. "Defiance?" she echoed, her voice stripped bare. "Every synapse firing when you touched me screamed *human*. Not specimen."

Behind them, Rei’s spear clattered against concrete as Kyoko gasped—a sound drowned by the ceiling’s deafening groan. Plaster rained down like funeral ash as a fresh fissure split the gymnasium’s roof, revealing skeletal rafters buckling under the weight of a dozen shambling figures.

Takashi jerked his arm away, the glyphs blazing violent emerald where Saya’s touch had lingered. "Human?" His laugh was a broken thing, sharp with venom. "You carved me open with your scalpels and called it *love*."

Above them, the fissure widened with a shriek of rending metal, raining chunks of concrete that sent Rei scrambling back. Kyoko screamed as a dislodged corpse plummeted beside her, its decay-slick fingers grazing her healed leg.

Saya didn’t flinch, her eyes locked on Takashi’s—dark pools reflecting his toxic glow. "I carved *truth*," she hissed. "While you clung to Rei’s fairy-tale version of you—the safe, shattered boy you think she wanted!" The fluorescent lights flickered violently overhead, casting strobing shadows that made the crawling corpses seem to judder in stop-motion. Takashi braced as a chunk of ceiling slammed beside him, spraying concrete shrapnel that stung his cheeks with grit and the coppery tang of fresh blood. Across the chaos, Rei lunged—not toward Takashi but shoving Kyoko clear as another corpse tumbled where she’d stood seconds before. "Stop this!" Rei’s roar cut through the groaning collapse, her spear a silver flash as she impaled a lurching form through its jaw. "We die here if you keep tearing each other apart!"

Takashi's glyphs flared like struck flint as Rei's spear pierced necrotic flesh—her words slicing deeper than any blade. He pivoted toward Saya, his luminous arm casting shadows across her tear-streaked defiance. "Truth?" he snarled, drowning in the dissonance of collapsing concrete and her confession. "Your truth tastes like formaldehyde." Before she could retort, a severed electrical cable whipped down, spitting sparks near her boots. He lunged instinctively, shoving her backward as molten copper sizzled where she'd stood—his palm searing her waist where the glyphs burned through fabric. A deafening crack shattered the air as a steel support beam tore free from the buckling ceiling. It crashed down like a guillotine, trapping Takashi’s luminous forearm against the blood-slicked floor with crushing force.

Viridian light pulsed erratically beneath the twisted metal—a trapped star fighting gravity’s chokehold. Pain, hot and electric, seared up Takashi’s shoulder as the glyphs flickered wildly, their rhythmic glow stuttering like a failing heart monitor. He strained against the beam’s weight, muscles screaming, but it held fast—an industrial tombstone pinning him. This violent shift silenced their conflict instantly. "Go!" Takashi shot out through gritted teeth, his free hand scrabbling uselessly against the blood-smeared concrete.

The crushing beam groaned louder as shifting debris piled atop it, pressing his luminous forearm deeper into the floor. "This whole section's collapsing—take them and RUN!" His viridian glow pulsed erratically beneath the steel, casting sickly reflections in the spreading pool of coolant leaking from ruptured pipes. Across the carnage, Saeko’s katana flashed as she cleaved through a lumbering corpse blocking the exit, her movements precise but strained. "He's right!" she shouted over the ceiling's death rattle. "We have seconds!"

Kyoko whimpered, clinging to Shizuka’s torn nurse uniform as plaster rained around them like poisonous snow. Rei vaulted over a fallen corpse, spear discarded as she skidded to her knees beside the pinned arm. Her fingers dug into the jagged concrete beneath the beam, nails splitting as she heaved upward with a guttural cry. "Don't you dare die here, you idiot!" Blood slicked her palms where steel bit into flesh, mingling with the coolant soaking through her uniform.

Across the gym, Saya scrambled toward the ruptured pipes, wrenching a length of rebar free with savage force. "Shizuka! Prybar position—NOW!" Her command sliced through the chaos as she jammed the metal beneath the beam's edge, her veins standing taut in her neck. SUMMARY^1: Takashi ordered the group to flee the collapsing structure despite his trapped state. Saeko cleared a path toward the exit while Rei attempted to lift the crushing beam manually. Saya coordinated a rescue effort, using torn rebar as a lever, and directed Shizuka to assist.

 Rei's blood-slicked palms pressed against the crushing beam, her crimson-streaked fingers interlacing with Takashi's glowing forearm where trapped glyphs pulsed like panicked hearts. As her lifeblood mingled with his searing bio-luminous discharge, viridian tendrils lashed upward—not randomly, but *toward* the sagging ceiling. Above them, hidden fungal networks woven through the gym's decaying framework suddenly ignited with jade fluorescence, knitting fractured concrete seams in a spiderweb of pulsating light. The groaning collapse stuttered, suspended by this unexpected symbiosis—a breathless pause where dripping coolant froze mid-air like liquid diamonds.

Saya slammed the rebar deeper beneath the beam's edge, leveraging her weight with frenzied precision. "Push *here*, Rei! Now!" she screamed, her knuckles whitening as Shizuka wedged a fractured locker door against the makeshift fulcrum. The beam shifted with a metallic screech—mere centimeters, but enough. Takashi's trapped wrist twisted unnaturally, bones grinding beneath luminous skin as his agonized roar tore through the gymnasium. Saeko sliced through the last shambling corpse blocking the exit, her katana slick with necrotic fluid. "MOVE!" she bellowed, shoving Kyoko toward daylight as the ceiling's fungal reinforcements flickered dangerously.

The tremors resumed as the fungal reinforcement wavered. Takashi’s scream clawed through the chaos—a raw, guttural sound that drowned the groan of shifting concrete. Rei felt the sickening grind of bone beneath her blood-slicked palms as the beam lifted, her muscles screaming against the impossible weight. Saya’s rebar groaned under the strain, bending like a tortured spine as Shizuka poured every ounce of strength into the locker-door fulcrum. Above them, the fungal network pulsed violently, its light strobing as if signaling distress. "Almost—!" Saya gasped, tendons standing sharp in her neck, but the beam slipped back with a cruel metallic shriek, crushing Takashi’s wrist deeper into the concrete.

Viridian glyphs flared like dying embers beneath the steel, their light dimming as coolant pooled scarlet around his arm.

Takashi’s vision blurred at the edges, the coolant pooling beneath his arm now streaked crimson where bone fragments pierced luminous skin. Above him, the fungal web flickered erratically—a dying star map holding back the crushing darkness. Rei’s bloodied hands slipped against the beam’s jagged edge; her sobs lost in the ceiling’s death rattle. "Hold on!" she screamed, though whether to him or herself, even she didn’t know. Across the carnage, Saya abandoned the bent rebar, scrambling instead toward the flickering biometric console. Her fingers danced across cracked keys, inputting commands with frenzied precision as plaster dust snowed onto her trembling shoulders. "Sigma override—engagement threshold eighty percent!" she shouted to no one, the screen flashing *ПЕРЕГРУЗКА СИСТЕМЫ* in panicked red.

The console screeched a final warning—*КРИТИЧЕСКИЙ СБОЙ*—before Saya slammed her palm onto the override panel. Bio-luminescent veins erupted across the gym's fungal network, flooding the collapsing space with blinding viridian light. Takashi's pinned arm flared like a supernova, the glyphs dissolving the crushing beam into molten slag as his agonized roar transformed into a guttural cry of release. Rei stumbled backward, shielding her eyes from the searing radiance, her blood-streaked hands steaming where his power had scorched her skin. 

The beam dissolved into liquid fire, splattering across the rubble like napalm as Takashi wrenched his arm free—glowing flesh knitting itself together in real-time. His glyphs pulsed with unstable brilliance, casting wild shadows that danced across Saya’s shocked face. She staggered back, her palm burned raw from the override panel, the stench of ozone and scorched metal thick in her throat. "You overclocked the graft," she breathed, her scientific awe warring with horror. "That surge should’ve liquefied your nervous syst —" Takashi grinned through gritted teeth, his eyes blazing with unstable viridian light as flickering glyphs sealed his mangled wrist. "Look on the bright side, Saya," he rasped, the words raw but laced with dark amusement. "I get to see your beautiful face a little longer now." His smile was a fractured thing—half defiance, half agony—as coolant dripped like tears from his chin onto the smoldering slag that had been steel.

Above them, the fungal lattice pulsed erratically, casting jagged shadows that made his expression seem carved from broken glass. Saeko's katana flashed through the dust-choked air, cleaving the skull of a corpse staggering through the newly breached roof fissure. "Sentimental later!" she barked, her blade dripping blackened ichor onto the steaming concrete. "That surge lit us up like a beacon!" As if summoned, a chorus of guttural moans echoed from the collapsed hallway, the sound multiplying as decaying hands clawed through plasterboard walls. Kyoko screamed, scrambling backward as a severed arm twitched toward her ankle, fingers still grasping. Shizuka yanked her clear, her nurse’s uniform streaked with coolant and blood. "They're funneling through the structural weak points!" she cried, pointing at the fungal veins now pulsing like infected arteries in the ceiling—their viridian glow drawing the horde like moths to a flame.

Takashi pivoted toward the encroaching horde, his freed arm radiating waves of heat that distorted the air. Viridian glyphs spiraled up his shoulder like fresh circuitry booting online—fractured bone fragments visibly knitting beneath translucent skin as molecular defenses surged beyond Saya's projections. The stench of ozone intensified as his boot crushed a twitching hand reaching for Kyoko, necrotic fingers dissolving into greasy ash against his sole. "Saeko—right flank's buckling!" he shouted over the rising moans, his voice roughened by pain yet edged with lethal clarity. "That coolant leak's pooling near the exit! One spark and this whole tomb cooks us alive!"

Saeko’s blade carved a crimson arc through the encroaching tide, her movements fluid yet strained as she redirected her katana toward the buckling corridor. Panic surged through Rei as a trio of corpses lumbered from the coolant-slick shadows, their milky eyes fixed on Takashi’s radiant silhouette. "Cover Kyoko!" Rei screamed, snatching up her discarded spear and driving it through a decayed ribcage—the impact jolting her blood-smeared palms. Behind her, Saya scrambled over debris toward the flickering exit sign, her analytical gaze scanning the pooling coolant. "Shizuka! The spill’s ignitable—clear a path *now*!" Her voice cracked with urgency as she kicked aside a severed arm twitching near an exposed electrical conduit, sparks skittering dangerously close to the volatile fluid.

 Rei's spear whipped through the air, embedding itself in the crumbling plaster beside Kyoko as Shizuka dragged the sobbing girl toward the exit. The stench of coolant choked them—sweet and chemical—while Takashi's bioluminescence cast jagged shadows across the collapsing hallway. He moved like a storm front, viridian glyphs flaring as decaying hands disintegrated against his palms. Another zombie came rushing at his back.

Takashi didn't think—he reacted. The decaying hand froze mid-grope as an unseen force slammed into the ceiling tile like an invisible battering ram. Shattered plaster exploded upward as the entire zombie crashed through the roof cavity, limbs flailing wildly before vanishing into darkness. A collective gasp ripped through the survivors as loose debris hung suspended for a fractured second—screws, chunks of concrete, even Kyoko's fallen hairpin—all trembling in midair like iron filings to a magnet. Takashi stared at his trembling, non-luminous hand, breath hitching as he realized the command hadn't come from his grafted arm, but from the raw, terrified core of his mind.

A cold dread seeped through him, deeper than any bone-grinding pain. *This isn't the graft*. The realization hit like a physical blow—the Sigma implant lay dormant in his luminous arm, yet he'd wielded telekinetic force with nothing but desperation. Saya's sharp inhale cut through the chaos, her gaze darting between his trembling fingers and the gaping hole in the ceiling where the zombie had vanished. "Takashi..." she whispered, her voice stripped raw. "That wasn't neurological. That was *psi*."

 Takashi stared at his trembling fingers—still utterly ordinary—where phantom energy had coiled seconds earlier. The psychic recoil slammed through his skull like a railroad spike, blinding him with white-hot static as he staggered backward. *This changes everything*, Saya realized with clinical horror, cutting through her shock—his Sigma graft wasn't evolving; *he* was outgrowing it, his mind tearing through surgical constraints like wet paper.

Above them, the fungal lattice pulsed once more—a death rattle glow—before plunging the collapsing gymnasium into near-total darkness, save for the erratic flicker of Takashi's glyphs. The sudden gloom amplified the wet, guttural rasps of the horde clawing through every fissure, their silhouettes swelling like ink stains in the dimness.

The surrounding zombie horde advanced unseen, their wet rasps amplified in the sudden gloom. Takashi clutched his skull as psychic aftershocks spiderwebbed behind his eyes—phantom fractures echoing the gymnasium’s crumbling bones. The Sigma graft in his luminous arm pulsed erratically, glyphs flaring like misfiring neurons as it struggled to contain this new, untethered power.

Saya’s analytical mind raced even as her blistered palms trembled; this wasn’t graft-induced mutation but pure, unstable psionics—a latent ability violently awakened by trauma and her own desperate touch. Above, the darkness thickened, punctuated only by the wet scrape of decayed hands tearing through plasterboard like rotten fabric. Rei’s spear whipped upward, impaling a silhouette that plummeted from the rafters—its milky eyes still fixed on Takashi’s flickering light as it thrashed silently on her weapon’s shaft.

The psychic aftershocks spiderwebbed deeper into Takashi’s consciousness—phantom fractures echoing the gymnasium’s crumbling skeleton. He clutched his skull, breath ragged, as the Sigma graft flared violently in his luminous arm—glyphs misfiring like panicked synapses unable to cage this new, untamed force. Terror coiled cold in his gut, sharper than any pain: not of the groaning ceiling or the grasping dead, but of the raw, reality-bending power simmering beneath his own skin. *What else am I capable of tearing apart?* The thought slithered through him as Rei’s spear tore free from the twitching corpse, its milky eyes still locked on his flickering light.

Takashi's breath quickened, the psychic aftershocks still vibrating through his bones like tuning forks struck too hard. He stared at his ordinary hand—now clenched into a trembling fist—where reality had bent moments earlier. The ceiling groaned above them, plaster dust snowing onto his lashes, but his terror wasn't for the collapsing gymnasium or the moaning horde. It was for the feral thing unfurling inside his own skull, raw and untethered, whispering of depths he couldn't fathom. *What if I tear you all apart next?* The thought slithered through him, cold as surgical steel.

Takashi's luminous glyphs flickered wildly, mirroring the panic clawing up his throat as he stared at his clenched fist—the fist that had bent gravity itself. The gymnasium groaned, corpses clawed closer through crumbling walls, but his terror was a cold, private void.

Saya saw it—the raw, animal fear in his eyes, the way his shoulders hunched inward as if trying to contain the storm within physically. She didn’t hesitate. Ignoring the blisters stinging her palms, she shoved past falling debris and lunged for him, her movements driven by something fiercer than logic. Her hands seized his face, forcing his luminous gaze to meet hers even as the viridian light scorched her skin anew. "Look at me!" she demanded, her voice cracking like fractured concrete. "Not at the darkness. Not at the ruin. At *me* !"

 Takashi froze, the chaotic symphony of collapsing gymnasium and moaning horde fading into muffled background noise beneath Saya’s scorching palms. Her fierce grip anchored him—not with the cold precision of clinical observation, but with visceral, desperate warmth that seared through his spiraling dread. He saw the blisters bubbling on her fingers where she gripped his radiant jawline, smelled the sickly-sweet scent of her own flesh burning against his unstable glyphs. Her breath hitched, tears carving clean trails through the grime on her cheeks as she held his terrified gaze. "I'm not afraid of *you*," she whispered, the words raw and trembling yet carrying the weight of absolute conviction. "I'm afraid *for* you. Of losing you to whatever darkness you think lives inside that brilliant, fractured mind."

Her thumbs brushed the corners of his eyes, smearing dust and coolant like war paint. "You think this power defines you? It doesn't. *This* does." She leaned in, her forehead pressing against his luminous brow, heedless of the heat radiating through her skin. "The guy who saved me without hesitation. The idiot who smiled through agony just to tell me he liked my face." Her voice broke into a choked laugh that echoed with tears. "That’s the Takashi I love. That’s the Takashi I’ve *always* loved, even when I hid behind microscopes and protocols because I was too damn terrified to admit how much you terrified me."

Takashi’s breath shuddered against Saya’s palms, the psychic storm inside him momentarily silenced by the raw honesty in her words. Her scorched skin pressed into his glyphs—a painful, living testament to her defiance against the darkness he feared. A new kind of resolve ignited within him, fierce and quiet, not born from Sigma grafts or psionic chaos, but from the unshakeable truth of her faith. As long as her gaze held his, fiery and unwavering, the abyss within seemed less a void and more a challenge to conquer. He felt the phantom fractures in his mind begin to knit, not with surgical precision, but with the warmth of her confession—a lifeline thrown across the chasm of his doubt.

SUMMARY^1: Saya's unwavering belief anchored Takashi, silencing his internal turmoil. Her painful touch and fierce declaration became a source of strength, enabling him to mentally stabilize independently of his Sigma graft or psionic abilities. Her confession acted as a stabilizing force against his fears, fostering an organic resolve to overcome his internal darkness. Takashi’s gaze locked onto Saya’s—her blistered palms still framing his radiant jawline—and for the first time since the Sigma graft fused to his spine, he felt anchored not by circuitry or psionic fury, but by the ferocious certainty blazing in her eyes.

Her confession hadn't just doused his terror; it had ignited a defiant spark within him—raw and human and utterly unbreakable. The collapsing ceiling, the moaning horde, the volatile power simmering beneath his skin—all faded into white noise as he leaned into her touch, his shoulder brushing hers like a lifeline. "Saya," he murmured, the name carrying the weight of a vow, "you’re… the only reason I haven’t shattered. The only light in this fucking abyss." His thumb traced the curve of her singed sleeve, gentle despite the heat radiating from his glyphs. "You stood by me when I was just data on a screen. Now?" A fractured, unwavering smile touched his lips. "I’ll crawl through hell itself as long as you’re waiting on the other side."

 Rei’s spear flashed upward, impaling a shambling silhouette dropping from the compromised rafters. Its milky eyes remained fixed on Takashi’s flickering glyphs even as it slid lifelessly down the shaft. "We’re out of time!" Rei snarled, her voice weak from inhaled debris. She braced against the spear, crimson blooming across her makeshift hand-bandages where friction tore open half-healed burns.

The scent of fresh blood mingled with ash and decay, sharp as a blade in the thick air. Saeko’s katana carved a shimmering arc through another advancing corpse, but the horde’s weight pressed inward, their groans swelling into a tidal wave of hunger against the gymnasium’s dying protests. Saya didn’t hesitate. Her palms still framed Takashi’s scorching jawline, blistered flesh protesting against the viridian pulse beneath his skin. She saw his resolve crystallize in his eyes—a fragile, luminous thing forged in the crucible of her confession—and surged forward. Her lips crashed against his, fierce and unyielding, swallowing his ragged gasp. The kiss tasted of coolant mist and blood and Saya’s own desperate certainty, a wildfire that burned brighter than the glyphs flaring against her skin. She kissed him like sealing a pact, like claiming her anchor in the storm. When she finally tore away, breathless, her gaze locked onto his, still inches apart. "Of course, I feel the same, you reckless fool," she breathed, the words raw velvet against his lips. "Every part of you—grafted, psionic, stubbornly human—is mine to cherish. Not just endure."

The gymnasium’s final groan drowned Saya’s confession. Above them, the fungal lattice disintegrated—a cascade of phosphorescent spores mingling with falling concrete dust like poisonous snow. Takashi’s luminous arm instinctively encircled Saya’s waist, shielding her as debris hammered his shoulders. Rei screamed—a ragged sound swallowed by the collapse—as the floor buckled near her spear, sending her stumbling backward into Kyoko’s trembling grasp.

Saeko’s katana flickered like silver lightning against the encroaching shadows, but a structural beam groaned and twisted downward, trapping Shizuka beneath its weight near the coolant-washed exit. Her cry pierced the chaos, sharp as shattered glass. Takashi’s glyphs surged viridian as he tore toward her, the psychic resonance within him humming like a plucked wire—wild, untamed, but now fiercely focused. Not on destruction. On survival . Takashi's glyphs flared blindingly as he lunged toward Shizuka, psychic energy thrumming through his veins like live wires.

The fallen beam groaned under his luminous palms as he poured raw determination into lifting it—not with brute strength, but with focused psionic force humming beneath fractured control. Concrete shards trembled midair around them, vibrating with the strain as Shizuka scrambled free, her ankle bleeding where twisted rebar had torn through her shoe. Saya sprinted after him, medical kit already open. 

 Rei’s gaze snagged on Saya’s lips pressed against Takashi’s amidst the crumbling chaos—a brutal punch to her gut. Jealousy, sharp and corrosive, flooded her veins as she watched Saya claim him with that desperate kiss, their silhouettes haloed by Takashi’s flickering glyphs while concrete rained around them. *He is supposed to be mine*, the thought hissed through her, bitter as the suffocating air. Her knuckles whitened around her spear shaft, the friction tearing open her bandaged burns anew, but the sting was nothing compared to the raw, ugly truth crystallizing in her mind: she wanted him back. Not the mutated weapon, not the psionic storm—*Takashi*. And she’d claw through every zombie and Saya’s clinical certainty to get him, no matter the cost.

Her glare hardened into pure hate, fixed on Saya’s turned back. Takashi’s psionic shove heaved the beam upward an inch, then dropped it with a thunderous crash as his focus shattered. The psychic recoil speared through his skull—white-hot agony radiating from his Sigma graft—as Shizuka’s scream tore through the din. Debris pinned her ankle beneath twisted rebar now slick with her blood. Saya skidded to her knees beside the trapped nurse, her blistered fingers fumbling for hemostats. "Saeko! Brace the beam!" she shouted, but the swordswoman was already buried under a fresh wave of corpses near the coolant-flooded exit, her katana a mere glint in the suffocating gloom.

Takashi roared through the psychic backlash—a guttural sound ripped from somewhere deeper than pain—as he slammed both palms onto the fallen beam. His Sigma graft blazed viridian, glyphs swirling like captured stars, but this time the psionic surge didn't vaporize or unravel. Instead, it *harmonized*, resonating with the molecular lattice of the fractured concrete. The beam groaned, shuddered, then lifted—not with brute telekinesis, but as if the rebar within remembered its original form. Concrete dust cascaded like toxic snow as he hauled it upward, muscles straining beneath flaring glyphs that cast sharp shadows across his gritted teeth and Shizuka's wide, terrified eyes.

Saeko saw the opening—a silver streak in the gloom—and severed the rebar pinching Shizuka's ankle with one fluid katana stroke. The nurse gasped, free but bleeding, as Takashi dropped the beam with a ground-shaking thud that silenced even the horde for a fractured second.

 Shizuka gasped as her ankle tore free, crimson soaking her torn sock instantly. Before she could stumble, Takashi was there—his luminous arm scooping under her knees while his human arm braced her shoulders. He lifted her effortlessly, bridal-style, her weight negligible against his graft-fueled strength. Her startled yelp dissolved into a shocked blush that crept from her collar to her cheeks, clashing violently with her nurse’s uniform despite the surrounding carnage.

Saeko paused mid-swing, katana dripping, her usually impassive eyes widening fractionally at the unexpected act of tenderness amidst brutality. Kyoko’s soft inhale echoed near Rei, who watched stone-faced, her knuckles bleeding anew around her spear shaft. Saeko wiped gore from her blade with a fluid flick, her gaze lingering on Takashi as he shielded Shizuka from falling plaster with his own back. "Komuro," she called, her voice cutting through groans and collapsing concrete, sharp as her sword’s edge. A rare, genuine smile—brief but unmistakable—touched her lips. "I thought you were just another desperate survivor clinging to borrowed power." Her eyes traced the viridian glyphs pulsing beneath his tattered sleeve, then dropped to Shizuka’s bleeding ankle cradled against his chest. "But this?" Her grip tightened on the katana, not in aggression, but acknowledgment. "This kindness… It’s not grafted or manufactured. It’s purely, stubbornly *you*. I misjudged you." Her smile vanished as swiftly as it appeared, replaced by battle-ready intensity. "Now prove me right—get her to safety!''

 Takashi's glyphs pulsed erratically as he adjusted Shizuka's weight, her muffled sobs hot against his scorching shoulder. Saeko's words ignited a fragile warmth in his chest—foreign amid the necrotic stench and collapsing architecture. He scanned the carnage: Rei stood frozen near Kyoko, spear trembling in her blood-slicked grip, her gaze locked not on the encroaching horde but venomously on Saya, who was frantically staunching Shizuka’s ankle wound with torn fabric. Above, the ceiling split wider—a yawning maw vomiting plaster, fungal spores, and silhouettes of grasping hands clawing downward through the toxic snowfall.

The structural groan deepened into a death rattle that vibrated through Takashi's bones, syncopated with Shizuka's ragged breaths. Debris and infected figures fell through widening fissures, worsening the structural instability. His luminous hand shifted instinctively to secure her slipping body as he pivoted toward the coolant-washed exit. The motion jostled her—Shizuka gasped sharply, her body arching against his forearm as his knuckles grazed the soft swell beneath her torn uniform blouse. He froze mid-step, glyphs blazing crimson with mortification. "Shizuka-sensei—forgive me!" The apology ripped from him, quickly and too loud, his cheeks burning hotter than his graft as he jerked his hand away like she’d electrocuted him.

Shizuka’s blush deepened to scarlet, her tear-streaked face burying into his shoulder as a tiny, pained whimper escaped her—equal parts embarrassment and agony from her shredded ankle. Across the chaos, Rei’s knuckles tightened around her spear shaft, a bitter scoff tearing from her throat. "Priorities, Komuro?" she spat, the words laced with acid as she impaled a corpse stumbling toward Kyoko.

 Takashi’s head snapped toward Rei, glyphs flaring crimson as anger surged hotter than shame. "It was an *accident*, Rei!" he snarled, voice raw and cracking like splintered bone. Debris rained around them, but his glare pinned her where she stood—spear dripping gore, knuckles bloody, eyes burning with venom. "Instead of twisting everything into your personal grudge, why not help *someone*? Like Kyoko, who’s trembling two feet from you while zombies close in!" His luminous arm tightened protectively around Shizuka’s trembling form, shielding her from both falling plaster and Rei’s acidic stare. "Focus on survival, not scoring points against me like it’s high school all over again!

 The venomous glare Rei leveled at Takashi faltered abruptly—her spear tip dipped, slick with gore, as she registered the raw, wounded betrayal in his eyes. He wasn't just angry; his gaze held a fractured vulnerability, a look she hadn’t seen since the day she’d shattered their relationship with cruel words in that sterile school hallway.

Now, amidst collapsing concrete and moaning corpses, that same pain stared back at her, amplified by exhaustion and psionic strain. He was *forcing* himself to meet her eyes, jaw clenched against the aftershocks still spiderwebbing his mind, and the realization hit her hard: her bitter accusations reopened wounds that had never truly healed. Guilt, cold and corrosive, seeped through her rage, poisoning her convictions. Her knuckles, already bleeding from gripping the spear too tightly, throbbed in sync with the sudden, sickening twist in her stomach.

Rei’s spear clattered against fractured tile, the metallic clang swallowed by the gymnasium’s dying groans. She strode toward Takashi through dust-choked gloom, her movements jerky, driven by something fiercer than shame or survival. Zombies shambled near Kyoko, unnoticed; falling debris grazed her shoulder, unfelt. Her focus narrowed to Takashi’s luminous, anguished face—the face she’d once traced with laughing fingertips beneath cherry blossoms. Her bloodied hands rose, trembling not from exhaustion, but from the raw vulnerability cracking her hardened shell. They stopped inches from his glyph-scorched cheeks, hovering like moths drawn to a flame they feared might consume them. No words came—only the ragged hitch of her breath and the silent plea in her eyes: *I see you. The boy I broke. The man I still love. Forgive me* 

Guided by overwhelming emotion that surpassed shame, she reached for his face, silently communicating profound remorse and an unspoken love. Her unspoken plea sought forgiveness for the past pain they both carried.

Takashi froze, the collapsing world narrowing to Rei’s bloodied, trembling hands hovering near his glyph-scorched cheeks. Her silent plea—raw and shattered—struck him deeper than any zombie’s claw. *Forgive me*. The words hung unspoken in the dust-choked air, a ghost of the girl who’d once whispered promises under spring blossoms. His luminous arm tightened reflexively around Shizuka’s muffled sobs, the warmth of her weight a stark contrast to Rei’s desperate stillness. For a fractured second, the gymnasium’s death rattle faded, replaced by the thunderous pounding of his own conflicted heart.

Then Saya’s urgent shout shattered the moment: "Structural failure imminent—*move*!"

Takashi caught Rei’s desperate gaze—bloodied hands trembling inches from his glyph-scorched jaw—and gave a sharp, wordless nod: acceptance, not forgiveness, but acknowledgment of her clear vulnerability in that shattered moment. Time bled away; debris hammered his shoulders as he ran, Shizuka’s muffled cries hot against his neck. He didn’t speak—couldn’t, with the gymnasium’s death rattle vibrating his bones—but his luminous eyes locked onto Rei’s, an unspoken command blazing: Follow me. Now. 

 Takashi’s glyphs pulsed like wildfire as he charged toward the coolant-washed exit, Shizuka’s trembling form shielded against his chest. Saya sprinted beside him, medical kit clutched like a lifeline, while Rei snatched her fallen spear and hauled Kyoko forward. Saeko carved a rearguard path through the shambling horde, her katana a silver blur in the fungal gloom. Debris rained around them—chunks of concrete biting into Takashi’s shoulders, phosphorescent spores stinging their eyes—as the gymnasium’s final support beams screamed overhead. They burst through the shattered double doors just as the ceiling collapsed behind them in a thunderous roar of dust and death, sealing the horde inside a tomb of rubble.

Outside, the predawn air hit like a physical blow—cold and clean, scented with dew and distant smoke. They stumbled onto the ravaged school grounds, gasping, the sudden silence after the gymnasium’s hellish cacophony almost deafening. Kyoko collapsed to her knees, retching into the grass; Rei leaned against a fractured statue, her spear trembling in blood-slicked hands as she scanned the perimeter.

Saeko wiped gore from her blade with methodical precision, eyes narrowed against the horizon’s bruised light. Takashi gently lowered Shizuka onto a patch of untainted earth, his glyphs dimming to emerald smudges beneath torn fabric as Saya knelt to redress her ankle—her blistered fingers trembling not from pain, but adrenaline’s aftershock.

Takashi’s exhaustion evaporated like mist as his eyes landed on Miku Yuuki and Momo Marikawa—backed against the skeletal remains of a vending machine fifty yards away. Four shambling corpses closed in, their ragged forms silhouetted against the dawn’s bruised light: one missing an arm, another dragging a shattered leg, all drawn by the girls’ frantic whimpers.

Miku clutched Momo’s trembling shoulders, her own face pale as ash, while Momo brandished a broken umbrella like a flimsy sword. Without hesitation, Takashi surged forward, glyphs igniting along his arms like struck matches. He didn’t shout a warning—didn’t even glance back at his group. His sprint was silent, desperate, a raw streak of viridian light cutting through the dew-soaked grass.

Rei’s breath hitched as she watched him charge. Her spear slipped slightly in her slick grip, the blood on her palms suddenly cold. *Still playing the hero,* she thought bitterly, but the venom dissolved into a hollow ache. Beside her, Kyoko pressed a hand over her mouth, eyes wide with terrified awe. Saeko’s katana paused mid-clean, her gaze narrowing—not in judgment, but sharp appraisal. Only Saya moved, scrambling to her feet with gauze still clutched in her burnt hands. "Takashi—!" she cried out, but her voice cracked, drowned by the wet snarls ahead.

Takashi didn't slow. His glyphs flared like supernovas as he barreled toward the encroaching dead, the raw psychic energy within him screaming for release. As the nearest zombie lunged for Momo's throat, his outstretched palm convulsed—not with controlled telekinesis, but a violent psionic wave erupting like shattered glass. The air screamed as the surge blasted outward, disintegrating two corpses into putrid mist and hurling the others backward like ragdolls.

Miku and Momo crumpled beneath the shockwave, miraculously unharmed within the eye of the storm as concrete cracked radially around their feet. But within Takashi's skull, white-hot agony detonated—the Sigma graft searing like a branding iron against his optic nerves as neural feedback flooded his synapses. He staggered, vision dissolving into static snow, hands clawing at eyes that saw only searing, electric pain. The psychic backlash slammed Takashi to his knees, his glyphs flickering wildly as neural static devoured his vision. Miku Yuuki’s cry cut through the ringing silence—not fear, but sincere alarm as she scrambled toward him.

Her small hands seized his convulsing shoulders, her fingers digging into the glyph-scarred fabric. "Komuro-san! Breathe—*breathe*!" she demanded, her voice cracking with frantic authority. Beside her, Momo Marikawa whimpered, clutching her broken umbrella like a lifeline, eyes darting between Takashi’s shuddering form and the groaning corpses struggling to rise at the blast’s periphery.

The scent of blood and burnt circuitry clung to Takashi’s skin, acrid and suffocating—a tangible echo of the wildfire scorching his synapses. The neural storm clawed at Takashi’s consciousness—a thousand shrieking wires fraying beneath his skull—as Miku’s desperate grip anchored him to the dew-slick grass. He gasped, tasting copper and ozone, his Sigma graft pulsing like a live fuse against his temple. Distantly, he heard Momo’s choked sob and the wet drag of reanimated limbs scraping concrete. Then Rei was there, her spear plunging into a corpse’s eye socket with brutal precision mere feet away.

Her movements were fluid, lethal, but her gaze—when it flickered to Takashi—held no triumph. Only a persistent, aching exhaustion that mirrored his own. "Get up, Komuro," she hissed, yanking her weapon free. "Your girls aren’t saved yet."

The words should have stung, yet they carried the grim weight of truth, not venom. Survival first. Regret later. He told himself.

Takashi’s hands clawed blindly at his eyes, fingers trembling against scorched skin where psionic backlash had seared his vision to static. "Can’t… see," he muttered, the confession blunt and ragged as concrete dust coated his tongue. His glyphs pulsed erratically—crimson flares in the void—illuminating nothing but the agony spreading through his skull. He flinched as Rei’s calloused hand seized his wrist, her touch startlingly gentle despite the urgency in her grip. "Focus on my voice, idiot," she snapped, but her tone lacked its usual bite, frayed by exhaustion and something perilously close to fear. "The dead don’t care if you’re blind."

Nearby, a wet gurgle signaled another corpse rising—too close, too fast—as Miku’s choked sob tightened the noose around them. Takashi tore his hand free, gritting his teeth against the blinding agony. "Rei," he gasped, voice scraped raw yet startlingly clear. "Take Miku and Momo—get them to Saeko's group now!''

His glyphs flared crimson as he forced himself to stand, swaying like a storm-tossed ship but planting his feet firmly in the dew-slick grass. Though shadows and static swallowed his vision, he could feel the vibrations—the wet drag of rotting feet on concrete, closing in from multiple directions. "I'll be the lighthouse," he continued bitterly, tapping his temple where the Sigma graft pulsed like a distress beacon. "These bastards want the brightest chew toy. My glow… it’s screaming for their attention." He angled his face toward the groaning chorus, fists clenched. "Your spear can’t protect them if you’re dragging deadweight. So, leave.''

Rei’s breath caught—sharp and sudden—as the command sliced through her exhaustion. For a fractured second, she hesitated, her gaze flickering from Takashi’s defiant silhouette to Miku’s tear-streaked face and Momo’s trembling grip on her broken umbrella. The corpses advanced in jagged unison, their moans thickening the predawn air with decay. "Stubborn fool," she hissed under her breath, but her hands were already moving—yanking Momo forward by the wrist while shoving Miku toward the distant cluster of survivors near the statue. Her spear swept low, cracking a zombie’s kneecap with brutal efficiency, buying seconds as she herded the girls backward. "Run! Don’t look back!" she barked, her voice desperate but unwavering.

Behind her, Takashi’s glyphs blazed brighter—a viridian flare against the gloom—drawing every shambling form toward him like moths to a lethal flame. Takashi staggered backward, his glyphs blazing like a lighthouse beacon in the decaying gloom. Each step away from Rei’s retreating group sent vibrations through the dew-slick grass—deliberate, slow, almost ceremonial.

The shambling horde pivoted as one, drawn by the viridian pulse thrumming beneath his skin, their collective moans rising into a chorus of rotting hunger. Phosphorescent spores drifted around him like toxic snow, settling on his shoulders as he lured the dead deeper into the school’s ravaged courtyard, away from Miku’s fading footsteps and Momo’s panicked whimpers.

He counted their numbers in the static void of his vision—hundreds, pressing in from collapsed hallways and shattered classrooms, their ragged breaths and dragging limbs mapping the battlefield in his mind through tremors alone. Rei froze mid-retreat, her spear tip dripping gore onto the grass as she watched Takashi’s silhouette blur behind a thickening wall of corpses. "Komuro—*stop*!" The scream tore from her throat, loud and fearful, drowned by the encroaching moans. Kyoko clutched her arm, trembling violently, while Saya surged forward, medical kit forgotten, her blistered hands outstretched toward the seething mass. "He’s blinding himself!" Saya gasped, horror etching her face as Saeko’s katana flashed, cleaving through a stray zombie stumbling too close to their perimeter.

But the bulk of the horde ignored them entirely, hypnotized by Takashi’s deliberate withdrawal—a single glowing lure in a sea of decay. Rei’s knuckles whitened around her spear shaft, guilt and fury warring within her. *This isn’t a sacrifice, * she realized, cold dread coiling in her gut. *It’s suicide. *

Saeko watched Takashi's glyphs pulse like a dying star amid the converging corpses, her katana momentarily still at her side. The breeze carried the metallic tang of spilled coolant and decay, sharp against her lips. *Fool,* she thought, fingers tightening on the hilt—not in condemnation, but grim recognition. His deliberate retreat wasn’t bravery; it was surrender to a deeper debt, one etched in the scars beneath his luminous graft.

Saeko’s jaw clenched. He’d lifted Shizuka with such tenderness moments ago. Now he walked into darkness, believing his light was worth nothing but distraction. The realization crystallized cold and clear: Takashi Komuro saw himself as expendable—a broken tool finally fulfilling its purpose.

Saeko’s katana hissed from its sheath, a silver arc slicing through the predawn gloom. "Cover Saya!" she snapped at Rei, already sprinting toward the thickening wall of corpses encircling Takashi. Her movements were fluid—no wasted motion—as she vaulted over a fallen locker, boots crunching plaster shards.

Rei hesitated only a heartbeat before shoving Kyoko toward Shizuka and lunging after Saeko, spear leveled like a battering ram.

Ahead, Takashi’s glyphs flickered violently, the erratic light casting monstrous shadows as zombies clawed closer, drawn by his radiant distress. The stench of rot intensified, thick enough to coat the tongue, mingling with ozone from Takashi’s overloaded graft. Takashi closed his eyes against the encroaching darkness, his glyphs flickering weakly against his eyelids like dying stars.

The wet snarls intensified—a symphony of decay vibrating through the soles of his boots as icy dew seeped into his torn uniform. He waited for the end, bracing for the first bite, the rending of flesh. Instead, a guttural shriek tore through the air—close, agonized—followed by the sickening crunch of bone. Saeko’s katana parted the horde, her silhouette a silver blur in his psychic senses, radiating lethal grace that parted the sea of corpses like a shark through chum. Rei’s spear followed, a brutal extension of her fury, impaling a zombie lunging for Takashi’s blind side. "Not today, idiot!" she snarled, her voice calm but ferocious as she shoved him backward.

Takashi pried his eyelids open, gritting his teeth against the searing static that still fractured his vision. Shapes swam—blurred streaks of silver and crimson cutting through decaying gray—before resolving into Saeko’s blood-splattered face, her katana a lethal extension of her arm as she cleaved through another shambler. Beside her, Rei’s spear plunged into a corpse’s throat, her knuckles white on the shaft, breath coming in short gasps. The realization spilled into him like cold water: their silhouettes weren’t figments of pain, but flesh and fury standing between him and the grave. A disbelieving whisper tore from his cracked lips: "Am I still alive?"

Saeko’s blade flashed, severing a grasping arm inches from Takashi’s face. Rotting fingers sprayed across his chest as she charged, her elbow striking his ribs—not gently. "Breathe, Komuro," she commanded, the words sharp as steel. Her katana carved another arc, opening a decaying throat in a spray of black ichor that stung Takashi’s nostrils with its sweet-sour decay. "Your martyr complex is tedious."

Behind her, Rei drove her spear through a kneeling zombie’s skull, pinning it to the cracked concrete like a grotesque butterfly. "She’s right," Rei panted, yanking the shaft free with a wet schlock. "We didn’t haul you out of that gym to watch you play bait." Her eyes met Takashi’s fractured gaze—no pity, only blistering, battle-forged resolve. "So, move!''

Takashi sighed in relief; the sound lost beneath the groans of the encroaching dead and the wet crunch of Saeko's katana meeting rotten bone. He stumbled backward, his glyphs flickering like faulty neon as he followed the path they carved through the shambling horde. Gravel bit into the soles of his boots with each step, the scent of damp earth and spilled coolant sharp in his nostrils despite the cloying decay. His lips moved silently, forming words he prayed the chaos drowned out: "Thank you, both." The sincere gratitude scraped his throat—a fragile thread woven from Rei's furious spear thrusts and Saeko's lethal grace, anchoring him when his own light threatened to gutter.

Saeko’s blade froze mid-swing. Rei’s spear halted inches from a zombie’s temple. In the fractured silence between snarling corpses, Takashi’s whisper—_Thank you, both_—hung like a bloodied thread in the rancid air. Their eyes snapped to him simultaneously: Saeko’s sharp with startled recognition, Rei’s wide with something akin to vertigo. No one thanked killers in a graveyard. Not like this—not with such naked, exhausted sincerity. Saeko’s knuckles whitened around her katana’s grip; Rei’s breath stalled, sharp as shattered glass. Then, without a word, they moved. Saeko pivoted, her next strike not merely decapitating the nearest shambler but carving a deliberate crescent around Takashi’s blind left flank, her movements tightening like a silver shield.

Rei’s spear became a whirling barrier on his right, each thrust no longer just lethal but *precise*, deflecting grasping hands away from his flickering glyphs with near-desperate vigilance. The shift was subtle—tactical spacing collapsing into something intimate, ferocious. They weren’t just clearing a path anymore. They were guarding a heartbeat. The trio staggered back toward the fractured statue where the others huddled, Saeko and Rei carving through the last stragglers with brutal efficiency. Before Takashi’s vision cleared entirely, Miku Yuuki collided with him—small arms wrapping fiercely around his waist, her trembling buried against his torn uniform. "Komuro-san!" she gasped, breath warm and damp through the fabric, smelling faintly of sweat and antiseptic wipes.

Beside her, Momo Marikawa clutched his sleeve with one hand while waving her broken umbrella wildly toward the retreating corpses. "Y-you were like a superhero!" she stammered, eyes wide as Takashi’s erratic glyphs pulsed emerald against her tear-streaked cheeks. Takashi froze as Miku Yuuki pressed against him, her breath hot through his torn uniform—a visceral reminder of life amidst decay. He awkwardly patted her trembling shoulder, acutely aware of Momo Marikawa clutching his sleeve like a lifeline while babbling incoherent gratitude. "Just... stay behind cover next time," he stammered, his glyphs flickering weakly against Momo’s tear-streaked cheek.

Over Miku’s shoulder, he caught Rei’s sharp glare—and Saya’s silent approach, gauze still clutched in her blistered hands. Miku pulled back slightly, her cheeks flushed crimson as she studied Takashi’s smoke-smudged jawline and the stubborn set of his mouth.

He’s not just strong, Miku realized, pulse quickening. Up close, with his eyes still clouded by pain... he looks strangely beautiful.

Shizuka Marikawa struggled to sit upright against the cracked statue base, gritting her teeth as pain lanced through her bandaged leg. Her gaze swept over the exhausted survivors—Saeko cleaning her katana with grim efficiency, Rei scanning the perimeter with haunted eyes, Kyoko clinging to Shizuka’s uninjured arm. "Enough heroics for today," she declared, her voice strained but carrying across the dew-slick courtyard. She patted Kyoko’s trembling hand before locking eyes with Takashi. "My van’s parked near the north gate—custom refrigeration model, armored panels." A faint, ironic smile touched her lips. "Fits twelve comfortably... if we ignore the bloodstains."

Kyoko gasped softly, pressing closer as Rei scoffed, her spear tip grinding against gravel. "Twelve? You counting zombies as passengers now?"

Shizuka’s smile didn’t waver. "I’m counting *survivors*. And right now, that’s us."

 Shizuka's words sank into the silence like stones in murky water. Kyoko pressed closer to her friend's uninjured side, eyes darting toward the shattered north gate visible beyond a collapsed science wing. The predawn light bled crimson across the courtyard, illuminating the gore-streaked path they'd need to traverse. Saeko snapped her katana into its sheath with a decisive click, her gaze sweeping the perimeter where shadows still writhed with unseen movement. "Armored panels won't matter if the engine's dead," she murmured, nostrils flaring as the wind shifted—carrying the sour tang of rotting flesh from the direction of the gate.

Rei snorted, digging her spear into the cracked earth. "Bet it's surrounded. Everything good in this hellscape usually is."

Takashi leaned against the fractured statue base, his glyphs pulsing weakly beneath torn sleeves as Miku gently dabbed antiseptic on the burns around his eyes. He shook his head, a faint smile touching his lips despite the exhaustion etching his face. "Think positive, Rei," he rasped, the words scratchy but warm. He tilted his head toward her, blind eyes somehow finding her furious silhouette amid the static. "How about a bet then? If it's not surrounded, you owe me a million yen. And if it is..." His smile widened, sharp and unexpected. "...I owe you whatever you want."

Rei froze mid-scowl, spear tip grinding against gravel. The casual intimacy of the dare—the unspoken challenge hanging between them—stilled even Momo's nervous fidgeting. Beside Takashi, Miku's hands paused, gauze hovering near his cheek as she watched Rei's expression flicker from outrage to something dangerously close to contemplation. Rei’s spear tip scraped against gravel as Takashi’s reckless wager hung in the air—ripe with unspoken tension. A wicked smile curled her lips, sharp and predatory. Win him back? Oh, I’ll win him, she thought, pulse quickening. Rei’s spear tip bit deep into the gravel, her knuckles bone-white around the shaft. That reckless challenge—*whatever I want*—hung like a live grenade between them, thawing the icy fury in her veins into something hotter, more volatile. "Deal, Komuro," she hissed, the words sharp as shrapnel. Her gaze locked onto his smoke-smudged face, the glyphs flickering weakly beneath Miku’s hovering gauze. "And when you lose?" Her smile was a blade, unsheathed and gleaming. "You’ll carry my pack for a week. Every step ." Takashi’s grin faltered as Rei’s blade-sharp smile cut through his lingering haze of pain. The glyphs along his forearms sparked erratically—crimson flares against gray static—mirroring the sudden jolt in his chest. *Carry her pack?* The sheer, mundane audacity of her demand pierced through the apocalyptic dread like sunlight through rotted curtains. Before he could retort, a wet, guttural moan echoed from the collapsed science wing’s shadowed archway. Saeko’s katana hissed free again, her body coiling into a predator’s stance as three shambling figures lurched into view, their silhouettes backlit by the bleeding dawn. "Save the flirtation," she murmured, her voice silk over steel. "We have company." Miku’s fingers tightened on Takashi’s sleeve, her breath catching as Momo whimpered behind her shattered umbrella shield. Shizuka pushed herself upright against the statue’s base, bandaged leg trembling, but her voice sliced through the tension like a scalpel. "North gate. Now."

Kyoko scrambled to support her, eyes wide with terror as Saeko flowed forward—a silver streak meeting the advancing dead. Her first strike cleaved a rotting skull diagonally, black ichor spraying across dew-laden grass. The acrid stench of decay bloomed thick and cloying, mingling with ozone from Takashi’s sputtering graft. Rei didn’t hesitate. She lunged past Takashi, spear driving deep into a zombie’s ribcage, pinning it writhing to the earth. "Move, hero!" she snarled, yanking the shaft free. "Your bet’s worthless if you’re dead !"

Saeko’s blade blurred into a silver vortex, carving through the advancing corpses with lethal grace as Takashi shoved Momo forward, his glyphs flaring crimson despite the agony still clawing at his optic nerves. The scent of decay thickened—rotten meat and spoiled earth—as Rei’s spear cracked against a zombie’s jawbone, spraying shattered teeth across the grass. "Kyoko, take Shizuka’s other side!" Rei barked, her voice raw with exertion as she pivoted to shield Miku, who stumbled backward, eyes wide with terror. Ahead, the north gate loomed like a broken promise, its twisted metal frames half-buried under collapsed concrete and writhing shadows. Shizuka limped forward, her breath ragged, one arm draped over Kyoko’s shoulder while the other clutched her medical kit like a talisman. "Fifty meters," she gasped, sweat beading on her forehead. "The van’s behind the chemistry lab—painted like a damn ice cream truck."

Takashi’s vision swam with static and blood-red glyphs as he followed Rei’s lead, his boots crunching over broken glass and splintered bone. A guttural snarl erupted from his left—a corpse lunging from beneath a overturned vending machine, fingers blackened and hooked like talons. He swung blindly, his fist connecting with rotted flesh in a sickening wet thud, the impact reverberating up his arm as the thing crumpled. Pain exploded behind his eyes, white-hot and searing, but he staggered onward. Miku’s hand brushed his elbow, her touch a fleeting anchor. "Komuro-san," she whispered, her voice trembling. He gritted his teeth, tasting iron. *Keep moving. Don’t stop.* Rei’s spear carved a brutal arc through the encroaching shadows, its tip shredding rotten cloth and desiccated flesh as she cleared a path toward the chemistry lab.

The stench of formaldehyde and decay intensified—acrid and suffocating—as they neared the lab’s shattered windows, where broken glass glittered like teeth in the crimson dawn. Ahead, the armored van crouched behind a skeletal delivery truck, its custom refrigeration unit humming faintly beneath layers of grime and dried gore.

Saeko’s katana flashed silver as she dispatched a lone shambler near the rear doors, her movements economical, lethal. "Keys?" she called over her shoulder, voice stripped of inflection as Rei drove her spear through the eye socket of a crawling corpse.

Rei’s spear tip scraped concrete as she sprinted toward the van, her gaze locked on its reinforced rear doors gleaming dully beneath layers of grime. "Shizuka-sensei!" she shouted. "Where are the—?" Before she finished, Shizuka’s keys arced through the air, glinting crimson in the dawn light. Rei snatched them mid-stride, fingers closing around cold metal just as a rasping groan erupted from the van’s undercarriage. A severed torso dragged itself forward, jaw snapping hungrily at her boots. She stomped down, heel crushing its skull with a wet crunch that echoed in the sudden stillness.

Saeko kicked the twitching corpse aside, her katana already slicing through the padlock chain coiled around the van’s rear handles. The metallic screech echoed sharply in the sudden lull, drowning out Momo’s stifled sob. Rei jammed the key into the lock, hands trembling—not from fear, but exhaustion—as she twisted it open.

The heavy doors swung inward with a groan, revealing shadowed stacks of medical crates and coolant tanks lashed to the walls. Shizuka limped forward, leaning heavily on Kyoko. "Get in!" she gasped, her face pale with pain. "Before more come!" Kyoko scrambled inside first, pulling Shizuka after her, while Miku guided Takashi’s unsteady steps toward the gaping maw of the van.

The air inside smelled faintly of antiseptic and stale coffee, a stark contrast to the reek of the battlefield outside. Takashi slumped against the van's interior wall as Rei slammed the rear doors shut, plunging them into near-darkness punctuated only by emergency strip lights flickering overhead. The sudden silence roared louder than the horde—broken only by Momo's hiccupping breaths and the frantic scrabble of fingernails against armored panels outside.

Cold seeped through his uniform where Miku still clung, her trembling a counterpoint to the erratic pulse of his dying glyphs. Rei’s silhouette loomed in the gloom, wiping gore from her spear with sharp, furious strokes. "Bet’s still on, Komuro," she rasped, though her eyes lingered on the shuddering doors where shadows pressed thick against the reinforced glass.

Saeko slid into the driver’s seat, her katana propped against the passenger footwell like a silent sentinel. The ignition groaned once—twice—before the engine rumbled to life, vibrations humming through the steel floorboards. Through the bulletproof windshield, the courtyard swam into view: dawn’s bloody light etching skeletal trees against ruins, the undead swarm converging on their sanctuary like moths to a flame.

Shizuka’s voice cut through the tension, clinical despite her pallor: "Refrigeration units compromised. Coolant leak near the exhaust manifold—smell that sweet tang?" Saya’s head snapped up, nostrils flaring at the cloying scent of ethylene glycol mingling with decay. Before she could speak, the van lurched forward, its tires screeching over debris as Saeko wrenched the wheel hard to the left.

The van careened sideways, flinging Momo against a coolant tank with a startled yelp. Saeko gripped the wheel, knuckles white, as tires skidded over rubble-strewn asphalt. Outside, skeletal hands scraped against reinforced windows—a chorus of dull thuds that vibrated through Takashi’s bones where he slumped against Miku’s shoulder. His glyphs pulsed erratically, painting Rei’s gritted teeth crimson in the gloom as she braced herself against a medical crate. "Coolant’s pooling under the chassis!" Saya shouted above the engine’s roar, her voice sharp with alarm.

The sweet, cloying scent of ethylene glycol thickened, stinging their nostrils as it mixed with the coppery tang of blood. The van jolted violently as Saeko swerved around a collapsed lamppost, sending Kyoko tumbling into Shizuka’s lap with a muffled cry. Outside, the swarm thickened—rotting faces pressed against bulletproof glass, leaving smears of blackish gore that blotted out the bleeding dawn light.

Takashi clenched his jaw against the searing static still clawing his vision, every lurch sending fresh agony through his skull glyphs. Miku’s fingers dug into his forearm, her whisper trembling against his ear: "They’re... climbing the hood!"

Ahead, a dozen corpses scrambled over the crumpled grille, their shattered limbs tangling in the wiper blades as Saeko accelerated toward the mangled north gate. Rei’s spear clattered to the floor as she braced herself against the shuddering refrigeration unit. "Floor vents!" she snarled, pointing to thin streams of fluorescent-green coolant snaking across the metal plating beneath their feet.

The sweet-chemical stench burned their throats now—a toxic counterpoint to the reek of decay seeping through the air filters. Saeko didn’t flinch; her foot slammed the gas pedal down, and the van plowed through the gate’s remnants with a deafening crunch of twisting metal and splintering bone.