They ran.
Not chaotically — Arthur immediately chose a direction, along the right wall, where between the parked cars there was a narrow but clear corridor. Veridis followed him — heavily, with a rasp, but did not fall behind. Behind her — the others.
The zombies reacted to both the sound and the movement simultaneously.
The nearest one — a former schoolboy, his uniform torn — lunged across their path. Arthur did not stop — simply adjusted half a step and struck flat with the axe to the head without slowing down. The body fell under the feet of the next zombie, creating a moment's logjam.
That moment was sufficient.
"Left!" he shouted.
Takagi translated on the run — a single word, sharply. The group shifted.
But there were too many zombies, and they were already surrounding them from three sides — slowly, clumsily, but there were fourteen of them, and they were filling the space the way water fills a vessel. Methodically. Inexorably.
Saeko stopped.
Not out of fear — out of calculation. She turned to face the pursuers and took her stance — feet shoulder-width apart, sword raised. In her pose there was no tension, no fear. Only that particular stillness inside that Arthur had already learned to recognize.
"I will cover you," she said in English. Calmly. As one speaks about something already decided.
The first zombie reached her.
She did not strike immediately. Waited — a fraction of a second, exactly as long as was necessary — and delivered a blow from below upward. Precise. The zombie fell. The second. The third. She moved between them like water between stones — without wasted motion, without haste, with that terrifying ease that exists only when body and weapon have long since become a single whole.
Arthur watched her from the corner of his eye.
He knew what she was feeling right now.
He knew by the way her face had changed — barely perceptibly, for a fraction of a second. Something had come alive in it. Something sharp and genuine that she usually hid so deeply that sometimes she herself forgot it existed.
She was alive right now. Truly alive.
Arthur tore his gaze away and returned to his task.
Ahead — another four were blocking the passage between the cars. He assessed the distance. Then — looked at Veridis.
She was already looking at him.
He nodded to the left.
She understood — stepped two paces left and lowered her head. From her throat rose a low, vibrating sound. Two of the four zombies turned toward it — slowly, as if unsure what to do with that ancient danger signal that stirred something in the depths of even dead reflexes.
Two were distracted.
Two remained.
Arthur passed between them — one strike, a second — and the corridor was clear.
"Here!" he shouted.
The group slipped through the breach. Hirano — first, almost at a run, pressing his homemade weapon to himself. Shizuka — behind him, with her medical bag. Takagi — swiftly, without wasted motion, with the expression of a person who is profoundly displeased with what is happening but acknowledges there is no other way. Rei — last of the group, spear at the ready.
Saeko appeared a few seconds later.
She was walking — not running, walking — and behind her lay five motionless bodies. Her breathing was even. Her face — closed again. But in her eyes there still lingered that living, sharp thing Arthur had noticed earlier.
She caught his gaze.
And for a second — very briefly, almost imperceptibly — something shifted in her expression. Not embarrassment. Not a question. More like — the realization that she had been seen. Truly seen. Not the fighter. Not the captain of the kendo club. But that thing that lived inside.
She looked away first.
Arthur said nothing.
But he filed it away.
They turned the corner — and ahead, at the end of the block, a school bus appeared. Large. Yellow. It sat askew, half driven up onto the sidewalk, but intact.
Hirano exhaled.
「見つけた!」
(Found it!)
"The keys," Arthur said.
Takagi was already looking at the bus with the expression one wears when facing a problem that must be solved.
"The driver," she said. "If the bus is here — the driver is somewhere nearby. Alive or…"
She did not finish.
There was no need.
Arthur looked at the bus. Then — at the street around them. Then — at the group.
Rei stood a little apart, staring at the bus with a strange expression. He did not immediately understand what it was. Then he understood — she was remembering. Something from that life before this morning. Perhaps school trips. Perhaps something else.
Something ordinary. Normal.
Something that would never be again.
She felt his gaze and turned.
Their eyes met.
She did not look away immediately — held his gaze for a second, two. In her eyes was a question. Not words — simply a question. Who are you. Why are you here. Why did you kill him.
He did not answer.
Simply held her gaze — calmly, without pressure, without explanation — and then turned back toward the bus.
Some things are not explained.
They are simply accepted. Or not.
That was her choice. Not his.
"We look for the driver," he said. "Quietly and fast."
The driver was found quickly.
Or rather — what was left of him.
He lay by the front door of the bus — an elderly man in a uniform jacket with the school emblem. He was dead. Not bitten — simply his heart. Perhaps from fear. Perhaps from age. The keys were in his chest pocket.
Shizuka crouched beside him.
She did it mechanically — a medic's professional reflex to check a pulse, to be certain. Then she quietly placed his hand back and straightened. Her face was calm — not because she did not care, but because she had already seen enough this morning to learn not to let each death stop her from the inside.
She took the keys.
Looked at them. Then — at the bus. Then — at the group.
"I can drive," she said in Japanese.
Takagi translated.
Hirano stared at her.
"Sensei can drive a bus?"
"I have a Category B license," Shizuka replied with dignity. "A bus is a little bigger than…"
"A little?" Takagi looked at the bus. Then at Shizuka.
"I will manage."
There was something new in her voice. Not the confidence of an experienced driver — but the stubbornness of a person who has decided she will be useful and intends to prove it.
Arthur looked at her.
Marikawa Shizuka. He knew her image from the anime — scatterbrained, soft, often seemed like a backdrop against which brighter characters played out. But now she stood with the keys in her hand and looked at that enormous bus with an expression that could only be called one thing — determination.
Interesting.
He nodded.
"Get behind the wheel."
Shizuka took a deep breath. Then — stepped up to the bus door, opened it, climbed in. The driver's seat was too far and too high — she pulled it forward, adjusted the mirror, inserted the key.
The engine coughed.
Then — started.
Hirano made a sound resembling muffled exultation.
"Quiet," Saeko said, softly.
He immediately shut his mouth.
"Everyone inside," Arthur said.
The group began boarding the bus. Hirano — quickly, almost in a leap. Takagi — with the air of someone doing a favor but acknowledging that there is no other option. Rei — silently, not looking at anyone.
Saeko paused at the door and looked back — at the street, at the zombies that were already beginning to converge on the sound of the engine.
"We need to go," she said.
"I know."
Arthur was looking at Veridis.
That was the real problem.
A two-meter-long dragon. A bus. Doors clearly not designed for large reptiles with half-spread wings.
Veridis was looking at the bus.
Then — at Arthur.
Then back at the bus.
In her gaze there was something akin to doubt — that rare expression he had seen on her only a few times. She was not afraid. Simply — assessing. Estimating the dimensions. Comparing them to herself.
Arthur walked to the rear door of the bus and opened it wide. Then — he removed the two outermost seats, simply tore them from their mountings and threw them onto the asphalt.
The space became a little larger.
He looked at Veridis and gestured — here.
She approached slowly. Sniffed the air by the entrance — inside smelled of old upholstery, gasoline, human fear. Not her scents. A foreign place.
But she stepped inside.
It was an awkward, almost comical process — she squeezed through the rear door sideways, folding her wings as tightly as she could, pressing her tail to herself. The bus creaked and tilted slightly under her weight. Hirano pressed himself into his seat. Takagi straightened and stared out the window with the expression of someone pretending that everything was fine.
Veridis settled herself in the tail of the bus.
Or rather — she occupied the entire tail of the bus completely. Curled up as much as she could, placed her head on her paws, and with great dignity stared straight ahead.
Shizuka was looking at her in the rearview mirror.
"She… fit," she said with genuine amazement.
"Drive," Arthur said, and sat down in a seat by the aisle.
Shizuka engaged the clutch.
The bus lurched. Then again. Then — slowly, uncertainly, but it moved. Shizuka gripped the steering wheel with both hands and looked at the road with an expression people wear when looking at something very important that must not be ruined.
The zombies on the street began to turn toward the sound.
"Faster," Arthur said.
"I am trying!"
The bus picked up speed — slowly, but it picked up. The first zombie that tried to block the way was simply struck by the bumper and vanished beneath the wheels with a dull sound. Shizuka squeezed her eyes shut for a second.
"Don't look — just drive," Takagi said dryly.
Shizuka opened her eyes and gripped the wheel even tighter.
The bus pulled out onto a wide street and finally reached a normal speed.
Arthur leaned back against his seat.
Inside — white mist. The Sprout. The single branch. In the depths of its core — the dark breath of the sleeper.
Slow.
Steady.
For now, steady.
He looked at the group.
Rei — two rows away, staring out the window. Her reflection in the glass — weary, closed.
Takagi — across the aisle, had already produced a notebook from somewhere and was writing in it. Gathering data even now.
Saeko — in the back, next to Veridis. She sat straight and looked forward, but one of her hands rested on the armrest, half a meter from the scaly flank of the dragon. She was not touching. Simply — was there, beside her.
Veridis glanced at her with one eye.
Did not growl.
Simply looked — and turned away.
Something like acceptance.
Mens sat beside Arthur — silent, upright, with that expression she always wore when observing unfamiliar things. Studying. Memorizing. Her mark was pulsing quietly — in the same slow rhythm as his.
Hirano turned to Arthur.
"Where are we going?" he asked in English. Cautiously. The way one asks a person whom, on the whole, you already trust, but not yet completely.
Arthur was looking through the windshield.
Streets. Zombies. A city that was dying right now — slowly, street by street.
He knew where to go. He knew it from that story that no longer was — but the physics of this world had not changed. The roads were the same. The safe zones were roughly the same.
"East," he said. "Away from the center."
Hirano nodded and translated for the others.
Takagi looked up from her notebook.
"Why east?" she asked in English. Directly. Without preamble.
Arthur looked at her.
"It's safer there."
"How do you know?"
Pause.
He could have told the truth — I watched the anime about this world, I know how everything is arranged, I know your names and your stories. He could have.
But he did not.
"I know," he answered simply.
Takagi looked at him for a long second. Then — closed her notebook. Sharply. With that sound that means a person has made a decision they do not particularly like.
"Fine," she said. "For now."
That "for now" was worth a great deal.
Arthur turned back to the window.
Outside, streets drifted past — empty cars, shattered shopfronts, bodies. A world that he knew and they did not. A world that had now become different — because he was here.
His world.
For now — his.