Inside the School
The school smelled of blood.
Not sharply — not the way a fresh wound smells. Differently. Heavy, sweetish, with an admixture of something chemical — disinfectant, plastic, school chalk. A scent that settles on the tongue and does not leave.
Arthur walked down the corridor first.
Axe in his right hand. His left — free. Steps — quiet, toe before heel, along the wall and not down the centre. He did not think about it — his body acted on its own, from the same muscle memory that had fired on the rooftop.
Behind him — Rei. She was carrying a spear — he had not seen when she picked it up; at some point it had simply appeared in her hands. The correct grip. The correct distance from the wall.
Behind Rei — Mens. No weapon — only a shard of stone. She moved silently, almost professionally, and Arthur thought that seven years of service do not pass without a trace, even for a High Priestess.
Veridis had remained outside.
He had not wanted this — leaving her alone, wounded, in a courtyard full of zombies. But there was no choice. In the school corridors she would have gotten stuck at the very first turn. He had looked at her before entering — for a long time, three seconds — and she had looked back.
Then she had lain down on the asphalt, placed her head on her paws, and half-closed her eyes.
I will wait.
He understood it without words.
The corridor was long and almost empty. Against the far wall — two of them.
They stood with their backs turned, swaying, reacting to some sound coming from around the corner. Arthur stopped. Raised a hand — stop. Rei froze behind him.
He looked at the zombies and thought.
Noise. They followed noise. Which meant — silence was safety. Which meant — if someone ahead was making noise, then all of them were heading there.
Someone ahead was making noise.
He recognized the voice before he could properly hear it — simply felt that he recognized it. High, rapid, choking on its own words.
Hirano Kohta.
「早く!早く動いて!」
(Faster! Move faster!)
Then — another voice. Female. Sharp as broken glass.
「うるさい!怒鳴るのをやめなさい,バカ!」
(Shut up! Stop yelling, idiot!)
Takagi.
Arthur almost smiled.
He circled the zombies at the wall — in a wide arc, slowly, without touching any of them — and moved toward the bend. Around the corner, a stairwell opened up. And on it — three people.
Hirano Kohta — round-faced, bespectacled, with a homemade weapon in his hands that he had clearly assembled from scrap materials in the last half-hour. Frightened. But the eyes — lively, quick, calculating.
Takagi Saya — light hair, hands clenched into fists, the expression of a person for whom everything around her failed to meet acceptable standards. She looked at the approaching zombies with an air as if personally insulted by their existence.
Marikawa Shizuka — tall, fair-haired, clutching a medical bag to her chest with wide-open eyes in which the hope that all this was just a bad dream had not yet completely died.
The zombies were pressing them against the wall. Slowly. Methodically.
Arthur stepped out from behind the corner.
Hirano saw him first.
「え?誰だ?」
(Eh? Who is that?)
Takagi turned. Her gaze swept over Arthur — rapidly, keenly, top to bottom. The axe. The chestplate. The absence of proper trousers, covered by a piece of cloth. An absolutely calm face.
「…なんで下半身がそんなことになってるの.」
(…Why is his lower half in that state.)
Even now. Even here.
Arthur did not answer.
He simply walked past them — between the group and the zombies — and over the next twenty seconds methodically eliminated three of them. Without unnecessary movements. Without a sound. The axe worked short and precise.
Silence.
Hirano stared at him with his mouth open.
「す,すごい…」
(In-Incredible…)
Takagi said nothing. That in itself was telling — Takagi Saya was silent extremely rarely, and only when she was processing something that did not fit her picture of the world.
Arthur turned.
He looked at her — and she looked at him. Brown eyes, sharp, wary, already calculating something of her own.
Clever. The cleverest in this group, if you set aside experience. She would understand before the others. And precisely for that reason — she was more dangerous than the others.
Rei stepped out from behind his back.
「宮本!」
(Miyamoto!)
Hirano exhaled with relief.
「宮本さん,よかった,生きてたんだね!高城くんは?」
(Miyamoto-san, thank goodness, you're alive! What about Takashi-kun?)
Rei stopped.
A pause — short, but heavy as a stone.
「…死んだ.」
(…Dead.)
Silence descended on the stairwell like something physical.
Hirano opened his mouth. Closed it. Took off his glasses, wiped them, put them back on — a meaningless gesture of a person who needs to do something with his hands.
Takagi did not move. Only something in her face shifted — barely perceptibly, for a fraction of a second. Then it became sharp and closed again.
「このひとは?」
(Who is this person?)
She looked at Arthur.
"I speak English," she said, with an accent. Crisply. "A little. You understand?"
"Yes."
"Good." She folded her arms across her chest. "Then explain. Who you are. Where from. And what that was outside. The big green thing."
Arthur looked at her.
Takagi Saya. He knew her. Knew she used arrogance as a shield, knew that beneath that shield lay fear — living, genuine fear, which she would never be the first to show.
She was waiting for an answer.
"Friend," he said simply. "Outside. Wounded. Not dangerous to you."
Takagi opened her mouth — clearly with a ready objection — but at that moment a sound came from deep within the corridor.
Not a zombie.
Footsteps. Quick, light, almost silent — but not quite. And a second sound — heavier, with heels, stumbling.
Arthur turned.
From the bend in the corridor, two figures emerged.
The first was her.
Tall. Dark-violet hair swept back. A wooden sword in her hand — not like a weapon someone was carrying, but like an extension of her arm, natural and familiar. Blue eyes, calm — not empty, precisely calm, with that inner stillness that only exists in people who long ago made some important decision about themselves.
Behind her — Marikawa Shizuka. Dishevelled, traces of tears on her face — but alive.
Busujima Saeko stopped.
Her gaze swept the corridor — rapidly, professionally. Rei. Hirano. Takagi. Dead zombies on the floor. An unfamiliar man with an axe. An unfamiliar woman with a pulsing mark on the back of her hand.
She did not tense. Did not step back. Simply — assessed.
「状況は?」
(Situation?)
Takagi answered quickly — briefly, facts, without unnecessary words. Arthur caught about half of it. Enough to understand — she was explaining about him. About the dragon outside. About Rei.
About Takashi — she said nothing.
Saeko listened. Then looked at Arthur.
A long gaze. Studying — but differently than Takagi's. The latter was analyzing. This one was appraising. The way one appraises an opponent before a fight. Or an ally.
"You speak English?" she asked quietly. Almost without an accent.
Arthur raised an eyebrow.
"Better than Takagi," she added calmly. There was not a drop of ill intent in her voice — merely a fact.
Takagi made a sound resembling strangled indignation.
"Yes," Arthur answered.
Saeko nodded. Once. Briefly.
"Good, then." She looked at the wooden sword in her hand. Then — at the dead zombies at Arthur's feet. "You can fight. Outside there is a dragon you call a friend. And do you know where to go?"
Arthur looked at her.
Busujima Saeko. He knew her story. Knew about the dark side she was hiding. Knew that beneath this calm lay something sharp and alive — something she herself was afraid of in herself.
In the story that no longer existed, she had found herself beside Takashi.
Takashi was dead.
So her story had changed too.
"I know," he said.
It was a lie. He knew this world from the anime — he knew the general map, knew what was supposed to happen. But that version of events had died on the rooftop alongside Takashi.
At this moment, however, that did not matter.
Saeko nodded again — and moved to stand just behind him and to his right. The place where a person who covers your flank usually stands.
Hirano watched this with his mouth open.
Takagi — with the expression of someone who had something to say but was still deciding whether it was worth it.
Rei was not looking at anyone. She was staring at the floor.
Arthur turned toward the exit.
Inside — white mist. The Sprout stood silent. The sole branch — the human one — pulsed steadily. And somewhere deep within that branch — a darkness. Quiet. Sleeping.
Waiting.