The sight that greeted Hiratsuka Shizuka as she turned around was Kagehiro Shiro dragging Hikigaya Hachiman away from the classroom door.
A vein throbbed on Shizuka's temple.
"Who the hell is Tanaka-sensei?!" she barked, realizing she'd been played. "The rest of you, self-study! I'll be back!"
She bolted out of the room in pursuit. By the time she looked toward the right end of the hallway, the two boys had already rounded the corner of the stairs, their uniforms disappearing from sight.
"Hey! What do you want with me?" Hachiman panted.
"Heh, I'm impressed you knew it was me looking for you," Shiro joked, still dragging Hachiman forward without slowing down.
"...Obviously," Hachiman muttered, looking exhausted.
Shiro's tone suddenly shifted, losing its playfulness. "Listen... something very troublesome is happening."
Hachiman caught the change. Shiro's previous smile had been forced—a thin mask over a cold, mocking sharpness. Hachiman picked up his pace so Shiro wouldn't have to pull him so hard. Whatever it is, I'd better just follow him for now.
The two reached the first floor, ran past the central pillar, and burst out of the school building toward the front gate.
"AAAAAAAAHHH!" A blood-curdling scream echoed through the air.
The boys skidded to a halt. At the school gate, two figures were tangled together. A stranger was pinned on top of the school guard. They were locked in a desperate struggle, but the scene was far from a simple fight.
The stranger was tearing into the guard's neck with his teeth.
"Is that...!" Hachiman froze, staring in disbelief.
"Strange, isn't it?" Shiro said beside him.
They stood there, watching. Technically, students had no obligation to intervene with a "violent intruder"—if that's even what this was. No normal human fight ends with someone trying to eat a neck.
The guard's screams didn't carry far; they weren't loud enough to alert the students still in the classrooms. As the guard fought back desperately, the intruder began to twitch violently on the ground.
The guard slumped back against the gate, gasping for air. He stared in horror at the man before him, his hand clutching his throat where blood was geysering out, soaking half his uniform. He struggled to breathe, his body racked with sudden, agonizing spasms.
"What is this...?" Hachiman asked, his voice trembling. He could feel the wrongness in the air.
Shiro gave a grim smile. "Don't you think it looks like a zombie movie?"
"You two!!" A sharp voice cut through their conversation. Shizuka-sensei had caught up. "Did Tanaka-sensei have something to say to you? Because I see two students skipping class!"
"Shizuka-sensei," Shiro said calmly, pointing toward the gate. "Zombies."
"What zombies?" Shizuka's eyes were still fixed on her students.
Shiro ignored her and watched the guard. The man was already standing back up.
"Hey!" Shizuka called out to the guard.
He didn't respond. Shiro narrowed his eyes, analyzing the situation. The intruder had no visible wounds. Likely a primary infector. He's in the viral replication phase, not fully turned, which is why his movements are so erratic. But the guard... he lost a massive amount of blood. His heart stopped. Did the trauma accelerate the infection?
"I'm sorry, but we can't save him," Shiro whispered.
"What is happening?" Shizuka's voice dropped, her anger replaced by confusion and fear as she saw the guard's vacant, milky eyes.
"Zombies, Sensei. Real ones," Shiro replied. He turned to Hachiman. "What do you think?"
"Are they really...?" Hachiman's mind was screaming in denial, but he forced himself to look. "I guess we have to confirm it. With our own eyes."
The intruder and the guard—now both shambling—turned their vacant gazes toward the three of them and began to limp forward.
Shiro stepped forward, but a hand caught his shoulder.
"Wait! If those are... zombies... isn't it dangerous to get close?" Shizuka's instincts as a teacher kicked in. She didn't believe it, but her memories of horror films told her that even a scratch meant the end. "I'll handle this."
She tried to pull Shiro behind her. Shiro knew Shizuka was likely the strongest person in the school besides himself. She was a beautiful woman when she was quiet, from a powerful family, but her "manly" habits—smoking, drinking, reading battle manga, and driving like a maniac—were why she was still single in her late twenties. But she was a good teacher. She wouldn't let her students face danger first.
The two zombies were almost upon them now. Their mouths hung open, revealing yellowed teeth and twisted expressions.
"They're definitely zombies, right?" Shiro asked again.
"Sure looks like it," Hachiman agreed.
"Then they aren't 'human' anymore, are they?"
"What are you getting at?" Hachiman asked, confused. "No, they aren't human."
"Whew." Shiro took a deep breath. "Sensei, please step back."
"Hey! What are you—"
Before Shizuka could finish, Shiro wrenched his shoulder free and lunged forward.
In the blink of an eye, he was in front of the first zombie. As its rotting face lunged for him, Shiro slammed his palm against its forehead and drove its head into the pavement with a sickening thud.
He spun in a mid-air transition, delivering a roundhouse kick that sent the second zombie sprawling. In seconds, both were on the ground.
"Ah..." Shizuka watched, stunned, as Shiro systematically broke the limbs of both creatures.
This guy... Hachiman stared, re-evaluating the boy he thought was just a regular student.
"There." Shiro frowned, dropping the guard's arm.
He had initially tried to just dislocate their joints, but as soon as he touched them, he realized their bodies were abnormal. They possessed strength far beyond a human's and their muscles felt like cured meat—tough and dense. He was worried they might actually pull their own joints back into place through sheer muscular contraction, so he made sure the "disabling" was thorough.
"Where... where did you learn to do that?" Shizuka stammered. Her student had just displayed a level of violence she hadn't known he possessed.
"At the Renpeikan in Tokyo," Shiro muttered, giving a half-truth to deflect her. He knelt to observe the zombies.
"The Renpeikan? Are you saying you studied Shindo Munen-ryu?" Hachiman asked, kneeling beside him. Being a humanities student, he happened to know that historical figures like Katsura Kogoro had studied that specific sword style.
"I forgot you were a history nerd," Shiro joked. "I learned a bit. I didn't reach Menkyo Kaiden or anything, but I know how to break a body."
Liar, Hachiman thought, but he kept it to himself. "They're persistent."
Even with their limbs shattered, the two zombies were still writhing on the ground, snapping their jaws in a desperate attempt to reach them.
"Persistent isn't the right word. They're hungry," Shiro said, kicking the guard-zombie's head back to keep it away.
"They really are dead," Shizuka said, regaining her composure. She stepped forward and pressed a hand to one of their backs. "No heartbeat."
"So, what now?" Shiro asked. "Do we snap their necks? Smash their heads with a rock? Or just leave them?"
"I..." Shizuka hesitated. Either choice was a heavy burden. "Let's leave them for now. They can't bite anyone like this."
"And after that?" Hachiman looked toward the school building.
"We have to check on the students," Shizuka said firmly.
"The intruder didn't have a single scratch on him," Shiro pointed out. "Which means he wasn't bitten. He was a 'Type Zero'—the first wave."
"Which means..." Hachiman's face went pale.
"It means the virus is already latent in the population. I saw a woman turn yesterday after a car accident. The virus is already inside us."
Shizuka and Hachiman stiffened. They had no way of knowing if they were carrying it too.
Shizuka pulled a cigarette from her lab coat, her hands shaking slightly. She lit it and took a long drag. "We check the classrooms first. Then we decide what to do."
Shiro and Hachiman shared a look and stood up. The three of them headed back into the school, leaving the two writhing monsters in the dust.
Just as Shiro, Hachiman, and Shizuka reached the entrance of the school building, a piercing scream erupted from one of the upstairs classrooms, shattering the silence of the afternoon. The orderly sounds of teaching were instantly replaced by chaos.
"Hurry!" Shizuka barked, breaking into a run.
Shiro and Hachiman followed close behind, their faces grim.
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