Day 7
The steel shutters didn't give way with a crash. They surrendered quietly, almost delicately, as if the metal had simply reached the absolute limit of its endurance and decided that enough was enough. With a dry click, the right side of the main entrance detached from its upper fastening and began to slowly, reluctantly bend outward. The resulting gap was narrow—barely twenty centimeters wide—but pale, gray fingers immediately thrust through it from the outside.
By then, Arthur was already standing by the bus. He hadn't slept for the last two hours, lying in the dark and listening intently to the changing pitch of the scraping outside, tracking the transition of the strained metal from one state to another. The moment he caught that final shift, he rose without haste, woke Takagi with a single word, and commanded:
"It's time."
The hall mobilized instantly. It wasn't panic in its purest sense, but something bordering on it—yet intensely focused. People who had gone to bed fully dressed the night before with their belongings packed in one place woke up and immediately grabbed their bags. The children didn't cry. They acutely absorbed the heavy, ringing tension of the adults and remained silent, which in itself felt more terrifying than any crying.
Arthur divided the passengers into groups quickly, allowing no room for discussion.
The first group consisted of Rei, Saeko, Takagi, Shizuka at the wheel, Mens, Marin, all five Nakano sisters, and Hana and Tsuki Uzaki.
The second group remained behind: Hirano, Hinata, Yui, Megumi, Ono, Ayane and Kotone Shirakawa, Yuriya, Anna and Rina Komiya, Hana Mitsuya, Fujimoto, and the second adult man.
"Wait here," Arthur told those staying behind. "Hold the gap. I will return."
Hirano nodded businesslike, like a man given a clear and understandable task. His weapon was already gripped firmly in his hands, and he looked at the breach in the shutters with the cold, professional squint that had developed over the past few days.
Veridis entered the bus with the natural dignity she brought to everything she did. She moved slowly and slightly awkwardly due to her damaged wing, completely occupying the entire back of the vehicle, yet managing to look as if everything was going strictly according to plan. Settling down, she rested her head comfortably on her front paws and fixed an unblinking stare on the passengers sitting ahead.
The passengers paid her back in kind. The Nakano quintuplets tried their best not to look back too conspicuously. Yotsuba, on the other hand, stared at the predator point-blank, without any embarrassment. Nino demonstratively turned away to the side window, while Miku pulled on her headphones, though there was absolutely nothing to listen to right now.
Shizuka started the vehicle with extreme caution. She smoothly guided the heavy bus out of the parking lot, carefully bypassed several motionless bodies lying directly on the roadway, and headed the bus east.
Outside, the city looked truly dead. Not merely deserted or abandoned—but perished. Corpses blackened the sidewalks, the hollow sockets of burned buildings watched them pass, and a thick column of black smoke rose on the horizon, unyielding for several days in a row.
Arthur sat in the front seat right behind the driver, looking strictly at the road ahead. However, with his peripheral vision, he clearly registered everything happening in the depths of the cabin.
Veridis had no interest in the scenery outside the window. Her attention was entirely focused on the people. Slowly, methodically, she shifted her heavy gaze from one person to another with the chilling attentiveness of a hungry predator studying trapped prey. There was no overt aggression in it, only pure, calculated evaluation. From time to time, a thin, almost transparent thread of saliva stretched from her half-open maw, dripping onto the metal floor of the bus with a quiet, rhythmic thud.
Yotsuba noticed it first and whispered fearfully:
"Is she… is she drooling?"
"Yes," Arthur replied without turning around.
"At us?"
"Probably."
A brief, heavy pause followed.
"Is that normal?"
"She's hungry."
After those words, the silence in the back of the bus became palpably denser and more profound. Itsuki nervously adjusted her glasses. Nino, or so she thought, completely unnoticed moved even closer to the window glass. Miku pulled her headphones down to her neck anyway, wisely deciding that in such an environment it was better to monitor the sounds around them. Marin sat unnaturally straight, staring strictly ahead with the look of someone who had firmly resolved simply not to think about certain things.
Tsuki Uzaki cautiously glanced at Veridis, then looked at Arthur and said something quietly to her daughter in Japanese.
"Mom hopes the dragon can hold it in," Hana Uzaki translated with an absolutely serious and inscrutable face.
"She will hold," Arthur replied.
This terse assurance did not add confidence to anyone present. As if confirming the general fears, Veridis slowly licked her lips with that specific, characteristic pleasure of a creature thinking about an impending meal. Yotsuba quietly stood up from her seat and moved a couple of rows further away.
Riki's country house stood on a hill overlooking the coast. It was a large, sturdy building enclosed by a solid fence, clearly built with serious life circumstances in mind. The gates turned out to be unlocked—merely carelessly pushed shut. Arthur pushed the wing with his hand, and it gave way without the slightest resistance.
An absolute, ringing silence reigned inside. The house was empty, yet not plundered or destroyed—it had simply been left behind. It gave the impression that the owners had departed in a hurry, taking only the bare essentials. A long-cooled mug stood lonely on the kitchen table, and a forgotten jacket still hung on the rack by the entrance.
Arthur walked through all the rooms at a brisk pace, checking the entrances, windows, and the basement. Everything was clean. Safe—as far as safety could be spoken of in this altered world.
He stepped out onto the porch and gave a short nod to the waiting Takagi.
"Go on inside. Make yourselves comfortable. I am returning for the second group. Shizuka—you stay here."
Shizuka nodded silently. The passengers began to leave the bus, cautiously looking around. From here on the hill, the sea was already clearly visible—gray, boundless, and alive. Yotsuba froze for a second, staring spellbound at the water's expanse until she was called from inside the house, and she hurried in.
Shizuka lingered right on the threshold. While the others looked around, occupied rooms, and spoke in undertones, she stood motionless, looking at the facade, the fence, and the mug visible through the kitchen glass.
She knew this place all too well. She knew this fence—Riki's father had built it three summers ago, and Shizuka had come to visit them then, drinking tea from that very mug now sitting on the table. Even the characteristic creak of the second step of the porch was familiar to her—it remained exactly the same. She knew that a small garden was laid out behind the house, offering the best view of the sea in clear weather.
Riki had never published her address online. Not out of secrecy, but simply because there was no reason to. Only a very narrow circle of close people knew this place: Shizuka herself, her friend's parents, and a few mutual acquaintances.
Arthur had never asked her for directions. He had simply taken them and brought them straight here.
She stood on the threshold, pondering this calmly, without panic, feeling that special, muffled silence inside that comes when you realize something very important but do not yet know how to act upon it. Arthur knew the exact address. He knew the name. He knew the house would be empty and safe. He navigated this world as if he knew it from the inside—just as she knew this house.
From behind, Takagi called her softly. Shizuka blinked, shaking off the daze. She stepped over the threshold and walked inside the building, carefully stepping over the creaky second step. She didn't step on it. She remembered. And she thought about how Arthur, probably, remembered too. Just in a completely different way.
Arthur moved to the driver's seat. Veridis immediately crawled into the front part of the cabin—now that there were no people left inside, she freely occupied all the available space and stared at the road through the windshield with the look of a creature that had finally obtained well-deserved room.
The bus turned around and headed back. The road back seemed much quieter. Without the noise of passengers, the cabin looked immense and hollow. Only Arthur at the wheel and Veridis remained, the latter occasionally shifting her gaze to him—not with anxiety, but simply checking that he was still there.
Arthur stared grimly at the fuel gauge. The gasoline was draining much faster than he had initially calculated. Due to the need to bypass road blockades and one bridge that looked far too unreliable, extra kilometers accumulated, causing unplanned consumption. The fuel would definitely last until the shopping center, but whether it could carry the second group back to Riki's house was becoming a serious question.
The familiar outlines of the shopping center appeared ahead. Hirano noticed the approaching bus from afar and promptly opened the building's side door. The right part of the steel shutters by this time hung literally by a thread, slowly bending with a groan under the relentless pressure from outside.
The second group loaded into the cabin quickly and in an organized manner. Arthur cast another glance at the dashboard. Not enough.
Meanwhile, Veridis habitually set about studying the new passengers. The same cold methodicity, the same unhurried gaze sliding from one person to another. And the exact same thin, viscous thread of saliva hanging from her half-open, toothy maw.
Hirano, who had settled closest to the driver's cabin, noticed this first. He looked intently at the dragon, then at the dripping saliva, and then caught Arthur's gaze in the rearview mirror.
"Is she hungry?" he asked quietly in English.
"Yes."
"Very?"
"Enough."
Without extra words, Hirano smoothly moved to a seat further back. After a moment's thought, he moved once more, increasing the distance. Veridis lazily followed his movements with her eyes and licked her lips predatorily.
Hinata sat unnaturally straight, maintaining that pragmatic, cold calm that formed her very nature. Yui quietly pressed herself into the side window glass. Megumi flushed deeply and stared exclusively at the floor, as if she sincerely believed that if she didn't look at the dragon, the dragon wouldn't look at her in return.
Hana Mitsuya examined Veridis completely without fear—with that heavy, adult emptiness in her purple eyes that had appeared after her brother's death and had not vanished since. Veridis met her eyes and held her gaze on the girl a bit longer than on the rest before turning away indifferently.
The Komiya family held together as a monolithic group. Yuriya firmly embraced Rina and Anna with that deep maternal instinct that no apocalypse could blunt. Rina painstakingly and demonstratively pretended that the huge reptile in the cabin simply did not exist. Anna looked at the creature evenly and calmly—with the very expression she used to face any difficult and uncomfortable life circumstances.
Ayane Shirakawa didn't even think of moving back. She sat in her seat and contemplated Veridis with that unshakable confidence Arthur had already appreciated in battle—evaluating, without a shadow of panic, the way one looks at a dangerous opponent whose real capabilities must be thoroughly studied before making decisions. Kotone, sitting next to her, smiled subtly, almost imperceptibly, as if this whole critical situation afforded her some private, deeply personal pleasure.
The familiar gas station appeared on the horizon fifteen minutes later. Arthur spotted them even before they could react to the noise of the approaching bus.
About helical eight people. Young, dirty, aggressive, but without firearms. In their hands, they held baseball bats, pieces of metal pipes, and several long knives—typical crude, hastily assembled equipment of people who had suddenly decided that the old laws of civilization no longer applied, but had not yet realized that the new rules of survival worked far from their favor.
Arthur killed the engine by the fuel pump and stepped out of the cabin alone.
The leader of this group, a broad-shouldered man of about thirty with a bat on his shoulder, wore that characteristic expression of absolute impunity found in people accustomed to others' fear and who hadn't yet encountered a compelling reason to review their habits.
Their conversation turned out to be extremely brief. Arthur was not going to engage in discussions or bargain. He instantly, automatically assessed the distance, numbers, and mutual arrangement of figures—and moved to action.
The first harsh blow caught the broad-shouldered man before he could even finish his arrogant phrase. The second followed at the exact moment when the rest of the marauders just began to comprehend what was happening. Arthur moved economically, short, and frighteningly precise: no extra swings, no beautiful but useless spins. Only the shortest trajectory between point A and point B in each individual strike.
Two minutes later, all eight were already submissively sitting on the asphalt with their hands tied behind their backs.
Arthur exhaled evenly, without the slightest tremor, and turned to face the stationary bus.
"Pump the gas," he commanded Hirano loudly. "Check all the cars on the lot. All the fuel you can find."
Hirano was already briskly stepping outside, holding a canister thoughtfully fished out of the luggage compartment.
Meanwhile, Arthur headed inside the gas station convenience store. The standard roadside assortment huddled lonely on the shelves: chips, dusty canned goods, a few packages of crackers. He methodically walked through the aisles, checking each section. He took everything he could find, but the loot was sparse—much less than he had hoped.
He went outside and dumped the meager supplies right in front of Veridis's muzzle. She thoroughly sniffed the pile, then raised her gaze to him. No reproach could be read in her eyes—just a cold statement of fact: this was critically little.
He understood it perfectly well himself. Looking at what lay on the asphalt—a few opened tin cans and a couple of packages of meat cold cuts—Arthur realized that for a creature of her colossal dimensions, this food was akin to a hungry person merely catching a distant scent of food instead of a full meal.
This wouldn't be enough.
He slowly shifted his gaze to the tied, quietly whimpering people by the brick wall of the gas station. Then he looked at Veridis. Then back at the people.
Arthur turned to Hirano.
"Drive to Riki's house," he said evenly. "I'll find some more food for her and catch up with you later."
Hirano looked at him intently. Then he shifted his gaze to the dragon. Then to the tied men by the wall. He was a truly intelligent man, Koita Hirano—much smarter than he might have seemed behind his nerdy glasses and superficial geeky enthusiasm.
"Understood," he replied succinctly. And he didn't add another word.
He quickly took the driver's seat. A minute later, the bus started heavily, rolled along the empty highway toward the coast, and soon completely vanished around the bend.
Arthur remained standing by the fuel pumps. A hollow silence settled around, broken only by dry gusts of wind. Veridis froze beside him—huge, warm, alive, she looked at him with that patient, deep expectation found only in creatures accustomed to relying entirely on his decisions.
He turned to the captives. They looked at him in completely different ways. Someone was still trying to show foolish defiance; someone else had completely broken down. The broad-shouldered leader remained sullenly silent, but in his dilated pupils appeared what wasn't there at the very beginning—a clear understanding that the situation had drastically changed, and changed fatally not in his favor.
Arthur approached the first of them. Knocked him out—with a short, calculated movement. Then he stepped to the second. Then to the rest. He acted methodically, one by one, just as he was used to doing everything else in his life. Without fuss. Without unnecessary emotions. Before him stood a simple technical task that had to be performed for further advancement.
When all eight marauders fell unconscious onto the asphalt, he drew himself up to his full height and looked at the quieted reptile.
"Eat," he ordered.
Veridis stared at him intently for a second. Then she shifted her gaze to the motionless bodies. Then she stared at him again, and something subtly changed in her deep emerald eyes. This wasn't hesitation or pity—rather a final check. She seemed to be waiting to see if he would change his mind at the last moment.
He didn't change his mind.
The beast took a heavy step forward.
Arthur calmly turned away. Not because the sight could cause him disgust—there was simply no practical sense in watching this process. He leisurely leaned his back against the brick wall of the gas station and stared at the empty ribbon of the road along which the bus had recently departed. The wind brought from there a faint, almost ghostly, but distinctly alive scent of the nearby sea.
Behind his back, distinct sounds resounded, which he consciously chose not to listen to.
Instead, his thoughts were occupied by the portal. Nuclear energy. Japan was a country where this phrase had historically held a special, tragic weight. The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was located far to the north—the path there was too dangerous, cut off, and inaccessible. But it was far from the only viable option. The country possessed research reactors, closed military facilities. Something that could be effectively utilized without even entering the deadly exclusion zone directly.
Then he thought about the altar. The gold and silver procured by Takagi from the jewelry store—this was just a modest beginning. He would require significantly more precious metals.
He thought about the next world. What exactly awaited them there, beyond the veil? Where precisely would they end up? Was he himself ready for this transition?
Behind him, everything finally went quiet. Arthur waited another minute, after which he unhurriedly turned around.
Veridis sat peacefully by the wall—sated, enveloped in that special, peaceful calm that comes over living creatures when their most basic, primal need is completely met. She looked straight at him—without guilt, but also without defiance. Simply registering his presence.
He approached closer and without unnecessary ceremony sat down next to her right on the dirty asphalt. The dragoness heavily, without any warning, lowered her massive head onto his knees—with that casual, absolute confidence of creatures that firmly know they will never be driven away.
He didn't drive her away. So they sat together, looking at the empty highway. Somewhere out there, far beyond the turn, the bus with the second group of people was already approaching Riki's house. The sea. The boats. The next planned step.
Arthur raised his hand and briefly, almost mechanically patted her on the scaly head. Veridis didn't even move, only took a deeper breath.
They spent several minutes like this—man and dragon in the middle of an abandoned gas station on a dead country road—until he finally rose to his feet and said:
"Let's go."
She stood up after him—without the slightest objection or delay. On the adjacent parking lot, they easily located an abandoned car with remnants of gasoline in the tank.