When they stepped out of the school — the group saw her.
Not from a distance. Not in the sky. Right in front of them — twenty meters away, in the middle of the courtyard, among the scattered bodies of the zombies she had killed while waiting.
Veridis was standing.
She raised her head when she heard their footsteps. Her emerald eyes traveled slowly over the group — appraising, the way a predator looks at strangers who have entered its territory. Not aggression. Simply — measurement.
Hirano reacted first.
He stopped so abruptly that Takagi collided with him from behind. His glasses slid down onto his nose. He stared at Veridis — at two meters of scales and muscle, at the half-spread wing, at the tail moving slowly from side to side — and said nothing. Simply stared. With the expression people wear when they look at things that exist only in books and games, things that absolutely cannot be standing in the middle of a school courtyard in Japan.
Then it escaped him — quietly, almost soundlessly:
「りゅう…」
(A dragon…)
Takagi, having collided with him, stepped back. Her gaze was different — not rapturous, not frightened. Sharp. She looked at Veridis the same way she had looked at Arthur — assembling facts, constructing logic, searching for an explanation.
"…it exists," she said quietly. To herself. "Biologically exists. Wingspan approximately… a reptile, scales, the wing is damaged… she is wounded."
Pause.
"She is wounded and still standing."
There was no fear in her voice. There was something akin to respect — against her will, almost irritably, the way it happens when something impresses you and you do not want to be impressed.
「これは…本物ですか.」
(Is this… real.)
Marikawa Shizuka stood behind everyone, clutching her medical bag to her chest. She looked at Veridis with wide-open eyes — not with horror, but rather with the expression people wear when reality ceases to match what they had always considered reality and the brain simply stops. Simply waits for the system to reboot.
"She is… so big," she finally said. Quietly. Almost dreamily.
Takagi shot her a sideways glance.
"That is all you can say?"
"She is beautiful," Shizuka added. Sincerely.
Rei said nothing.
She stood a little apart from the others and looked at Veridis — and Arthur saw that in her gaze there was neither fear, nor awe, nor analysis. Simply — weariness. That particular weariness that comes when a person has seen too many impossible things in too short a time and simply has run out of strength inside to be surprised.
Veridis looked at the group.
Then — at Arthur.
He made a short gesture with his hand — everything is fine, they are ours. She did not know these people, did not know this gesture, but she read something in it — in his intonation, in the way he stood — and slowly lowered her head. Did not lie down. Simply — lowered it. Slightly relaxed the muscles beneath her scales.
Hirano took a cautious step forward.
Then another.
"Can I…" he began in Japanese, then realized Arthur did not understand, switched to broken English. "…can I… look… close?"
Arthur looked at Veridis.
She was looking at Hirano. Her nostrils flared — she was studying his scent. Hirano froze. Did not flee — froze, like a person who very much wants to touch something dangerous and is aware of this desire and still cannot retreat.
Veridis snorted.
Hirano flinched.
But did not retreat.
And Veridis — did not growl. Simply turned her head to the side. Slightly. Barely perceptibly. Like a cat who has decided that the stranger poses no threat but has no intention of publicly acknowledging it.
"She… allows it?" Hirano breathed out.
"Don't touch," Arthur said shortly.
Hirano immediately withdrew the hand he had already almost extended.
Takagi watched all of this with the expression of someone trying to solve a very complex equation with numerous unknowns. Then she looked at Arthur. Then — at his hand. Then — at the hand of Mens.
"Wait," she said.
Arthur stopped.
Takagi came closer — not right up to him, at a safe distance — and nodded toward his left hand.
"Your hand. The mark."
Arthur looked at his hand.
The mark was pulsing. Quietly. Steadily. A slow rhythm — not his own. Alien. The one he had felt ever since that night on the ruins of the Altar. A second breath from the depths of the human branch. Sleeping. But alive.
"And hers," Takagi continued, nodding toward Mens. "Identical."
Mens felt the gaze. She turned toward Takagi — and Takagi fell silent for a second. Because Mens's eyes were not ordinary. Scarlet. Burning. With that fire within that does not exist in people who simply live their ordinary lives.
「同じマーク…」
(The same marks…)
Hirano had also noticed. He was looking from one hand to the other — and in his gaze, an investigator's curiosity was warring with the common sense of a person who understands that some questions are better not asked within earshot of zombies.
Common sense lost.
"Is this… magic?" he asked in English. Cautiously. The way one asks about things one had not believed existed an hour ago.
Arthur looked at his hand.
He was thinking about what was inside the human branch. About the darkness in its core. About the fact that this darkness was sleeping — for now — and precisely because of that the mark pulsed so slowly. Like the breath of a sleeper. Deep. Heavy.
And Mens — she heard this rhythm through her own mark. He saw it in the way she sometimes went still. In the way her sign flared a little brighter. In the way she looked at him — not at him, but somewhere through him. Toward where her god slept.
She awaited the awakening.
He hoped it would not come too soon.
"You could call it that," he finally answered.
"They are identical," Takagi repeated. "Yours and hers. What does it mean?"
Arthur looked at Mens.
Then — at Takagi.
"A bond," he said shortly.
"What sort of bond?"
Pause.
Rei, who had been silent the entire time, suddenly raised her head. She looked at the mark. Then — at Mens. Then — at Arthur. In her eyes something appeared — not a question, but a quiet observation which for the moment she kept to herself.
Saeko was also watching. Silently. The way a person watches who is drawing conclusions but is in no hurry to voice them.
"Difficult to explain," Arthur said.
"Try."
"Not now."
Takagi opened her mouth.
"Zombies," Saeko said quietly.
Everyone turned.
From the north side of the courtyard — movement. Not one, not two. A group. They were moving slowly, but there were many of them, and they had already noticed the living.
Takagi closed her mouth.
The questions would keep — he could see that from the way her lips pressed together. But she was clever enough to understand that now was not the time.
"We will continue this later," she said.
"Yes," Arthur agreed.
He looked at the group. At Hirano, who was still standing beside Veridis and could not bring himself to step further than two paces away from her. At Shizuka, who had finally lowered her medical bag — slightly, by a few centimeters, like the first sign that she was beginning to accept reality. At Rei, who was staring to the side and gripping her spear too tightly — her knuckles were white.
At Saeko, who had already taken her stance — sideways to the approaching zombies, sword at the ready, gaze calm and cold.
He looked at Veridis.
She was already on her feet. Standing. Staring at the zombies on the north side of the courtyard — and in her emerald eyes there was no fear. Only that cold, ancient, predatory thing that had always been there.
She was ready.
Arthur took up his axe.
And they moved forward.
---
There were seven of them.
They were emerging from around the corner of the school's northern wing — slowly, unsteadily, stumbling over one another. A school uniform. A teacher's suit. One in a tracksuit. Faces — identical. Empty. With that particular emptiness that exists when there is no longer anyone inside.
Arthur looked at them and counted.
Seven. Slow. Reacting to sound and movement. Between them and the group — open space of about fifteen meters. On the left — a school wall. On the right — a fence. Behind the group — an exit from the courtyard, but it was narrow.
Veridis was already moving.
Not fast — she could not move fast, not now — but confidently. She circled left, cutting the zombies off from the school wall, and stopped. Lowered her head. From her throat rose that particular sound — low, vibrating, making the air seem thicker.
Three of the seven stopped.
Simply — stopped. As if something ancient within them, deeper than death, deeper than infection, recognized that sound and said — stop.
"She is stopping them," Hirano breathed out. Quietly. Almost reverently.
"Not all of them," Saeko replied, just as quiet.
Four of them continued to move.
Arthur stepped forward.
The first zombie — a former teacher, his jacket torn at the shoulder — reacted to the movement and turned toward him. Arthur did not wait. A short step aside, moving off the line of attack, an axe strike — flat, to the back of the head. Not because he felt pity — simply the noise of splitting a skull would draw the others.
The body fell.
The second. The third. Arthur worked methodically — without unnecessary movements, without emotion, simply a task that had to be completed. Behind him he could hear Saeko — light footsteps, the whistle of a wooden sword, dull thuds. She worked differently — faster, with a certain special rhythm, almost dance-like.
The fourth zombie circled him from the left.
「後ろ!」
(Behind you!)
Rei.
Arthur did not turn — simply stepped aside and ducked. The spear passed over his shoulder and entered the zombie's neck. Rei did not retreat — she twisted the spear; the zombie fell.
A second of silence.
Seven bodies on the asphalt.
Hirano looked at this. Then at Rei. Then at Arthur. Then — at Saeko, who was calmly lowering her wooden sword and adjusting her hair, which had escaped from her ponytail.
"That was…" — he was searching for the word in English — "…efficient."
「無駄がない」, Saeko said quietly, not addressing anyone in particular.
(No wasted movements.)
She looked at Arthur. There was something in her gaze — not admiration, no. Something more like — recognition. The way one looks at someone who does the same thing you do, but a little differently. And that 'differently' is interesting.
Arthur felt her gaze.
Busujima Saeko. He knew what lived inside her — that dark, sharp thing that she herself considered her curse. He knew she found in battle something she found nowhere else. Something alive. Real.
The way he himself had once sought control.
Different ways to fill the same emptiness.
Veridis came up to him.
Slowly, with effort — every step cost her dearly, but she came. Stood beside him. Her side was almost touching his shoulder. She was looking at the zombie bodies — calmly, appraisingly.
Shizuka made a quiet sound — not frightened, more amazed.
"She came to him on her own…"
「当然でしょ」, Takagi murmured. 「彼女は彼のものだから」.
(Of course. She is his.)
It was said not as a question. Simply — an observation. A fact that Takagi had already entered into her internal picture of the world and sorted into its proper shelf.
Arthur looked at her.
She met his gaze — without embarrassment, without apology.
"Is that true?" she asked in English. Directly. "She is yours?"
He thought for a second.
"Yes," he said.
Not because she was a thing. Not because he considered her property in the sense in which people own objects. Simply — there was no other word that would fit more precisely. She was his. He was hers. It was both simpler and more complicated than any human word for it.
Veridis glanced at him with one emerald eye.
As though she understood.
Or as though she was simply tired of standing and wanted to lie down.
Arthur was not sure.
"We need to move," he said. "It's not safe here. Is there a place we can shelter?"
Takagi translated for the group.
Pause.
Then Hirano said something — quickly, confidently, with that intonation with which one speaks when one knows the answer and is glad that someone has finally asked.
Takagi turned back to Arthur.
"He says — a commercial district to the east. There's a bus there. A big one. If we can find the keys…"
"A bus," Arthur repeated.
He knew about the bus. Remembered it from the anime — they had reached it, used it to leave the school. In that story that no longer was.
But the bus still existed. The keys were still somewhere. And the direction had not changed.
"Good," he said. "Let's go."
He moved east.
Behind him — Saeko. Then Hirano, who kept glancing back at Veridis. Then Shizuka — no longer clutching her medical bag with that convulsive grip, already a little more confident. Then Takagi — last of the group, not forgetting to sweep the courtyard with her gaze.
Rei walked apart.
A little to one side. Not lagging behind — but not drawing closer either. She was looking ahead — to where, beyond the fence, the streets swarming with them began. Her face was closed. Empty.
Arthur saw this.
He knew what she was feeling — or thought he knew. He had watched this season, remembered her arcs, her pain, her character.
But this was already a different Rei. In a different story. With a different loss.
He did not know what she was truly feeling.
And that — for the first time in a long while — was interesting.
Veridis walked beside him. Heavily. With effort. But beside him.
They walked down the street.
Arthur walked in front and looked ahead — at the street, at the zombies, at distances and angles. But at the edge of his consciousness — as always, as a habit developed in that other life, when he assessed everything that fell within his field of vision — he was registering them.
Rei — on the right, a little behind. A spear in her hands. Shoulders tense. She moved beautifully — not gracefully, but precisely beautifully, with that precision that is found in people whose bodies know their business. Broken, right now. Closed. But that was temporary — he knew that. He knew that beneath that closedness lived something stubborn and sharp.
Interesting.
Takagi — further left. She was walking and simultaneously thinking — he could see that from the way her eyes moved. Scanning everything around, assembling data, drawing conclusions. Arrogance as armor. But armor means there is something to protect.
Also interesting.
Saeko — behind and to the right, covering the flank. She was not looking around the way the others were — she was simply ready. At any moment. For any movement. This was not caution — it was a state. Constant, familiar, like breathing.
He was thinking about the fact that in his former life he had collected rare things.
Rareness attracted him — not because it was beautiful or useful. But because rare is what others do not have. That which belongs to you, and only to you.
He looked at them — at Rei, at Takagi, at Saeko — and thought that each of them was rare in her own way. Not in appearance. In character. In what was inside.
Broken but unyielding.
Sharp but brittle beneath the armor.
Dangerous but searching for herself.
He did not yet know exactly how — but he knew that they would be his. Not now. Not right away. He knew how to wait. Knew how to create conditions. Knew how to be useful just enough that a person would reach out to him on their own — not because they were forced, but because that was how it turned out.
That was also a kind of collecting.
Veridis walked beside him — heavily, with effort, but beside him. She was different. She was already his — in a different way, without calculation, simply because that was how it had unfolded between them in that forest. He had not chosen that. It had simply happened.
But the others — he would choose himself.
Slowly. Methodically.
As always.
「気をつけて」, Saeko said quietly.
(Be careful.)
Ahead — an intersection. And on it, zombies. Many of them. Too many to pass through quietly.
Arthur stopped.
Counted.
Twelve. Maybe fourteen. Dispersed — not in a crowd, but in separate groups of two or three. Between them — narrow passages. If they moved quietly and precisely — they could pass without a fight.
Perhaps.
"Quiet," he said in English. Then — gestured for everyone: slowly, along the wall, no noise.
Takagi translated in a whisper.
Hirano nodded — and, for some reason, it was at precisely that moment that his elbow caught a metal sign on a nearby post.
The sound was not loud.
But sufficient.
Heads turned.
「馬鹿!」
(Idiot!)
"Run," Arthur said.
They ran.