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Death and the Maiden - Zombie-Loan	By : OokamiKasumi Category: -Misc Anime > Het - Male/Female Views: 1281 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: 'Zombie-Loan' characters, terms, and locations are property of Peach-Pit. This story was written for Personal enjoyment. No money was made from this work.

Chapter List
- 1-Death and the Maiden - Zombie-Loan
- 2-One
- 3-Two
- 4-Three
- 5-Four
- 6-Five
- 7-Six
- 8-Seven
- 9-Eight
- 10-Nine
- 11-Ten
- 12-Eleven
- 13-Twelve
- 14-Thirteen
- 15-Fourteen
- 16-Fifteen
- 17-Sixteen
- 18-Seventeen
- 19-Eighteen
- 20-Nineteen - END
- 11
- 12
- 13
Death and the Maiden
A Zombie-Loan Fan-fiction By Ookami Kasumi
~ Eleven ~
Michiru walked out of the small shop with a smile and a small violet flip-phone. It even had a camera. Best of all, it hadn't cost her hardly anything at all.
Shuuji followed Michiru out of the shop fiddling with a bright blue phone. "Huh... I had no idea that they were running a sale on phones and long-distance plans."
Michiru smiled up at Shuuji. "Your amazing luck strikes again, Shuuji."
Shuuji's cheeks pinked. He gave her a lop-sided smile and scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, I guess so."
Chika stepped out of the shop frowning at his brand-new, bright yellow phone. "God, what a waste of money! Like I'll ever use this?"
Michiru smiled up at him. "You know, you can use your phone to email and text message your little sister?"
Chika looked over at Michiru with hope blazing in his golden eyes. He adored his little sister. "I can?" He shoved the phone at her. "Show me! Show me!"
Michiru leaned close to Chika and pointed at the screen. "You do it this way..."
Shito stepped out of the shop, poking at the buttons on his shiny red smart-phone. "Hm... Internet access."
Michiru looked over at Shito. "Maybe you can get Yuuta to give you access to his network, the one that tracks zombies?"
Shito blinked at her. "Good idea."
Toko stepped out of the shop with a hot pink smart-phone in her hand. "I've wanted one of these for a while now!" She poked at the large screen. "Now I can catch up on all my favorite anime!"
Last out of the shop was Zen, staring at his silver phone with deep suspicion. "How do you even work this thing?"
Toko bumped against him. "I'll show you!" She poked a finger at Zen's silver phone. "You hit this to access your directory, and this to get to your email..."
The six of them strolled over to the Z-loan office chatting away about texting, and messaging, and ringtones. Up the long rickety staircase and into the office, they bickered and quarreled about who didn't want who's numbers on their phones, but in the end, everyone's number was added to everyone else's phone.
Still chatting away, they flopped onto the two battered leather couches in the office, the scuffed wooden coffee table separating the two teams.
Michiru slid out of her black coat and smiled at the five new numbers in her directory.
Yuuta, the small Z-loan secretary abruptly came out of a back room wearing a set of black bibbed short-pants over a bright red, long-sleeved turtleneck, and a black hat sporting bunny ears. "What's everybody so excited about?"
Michiru bounced up from the end of the couch. "We just got cell phones! Do you have a cell phone, Yuuta? Can I have your number too?"
"Oh! Finally joining the modern age, Chiru-Chiru?" He whipped out an orange smart-phone. "Sure, you can have my number, oh, and here's the office number too..."
Toko bounced up from between Shuuji and Zen. "Yuuta-chan has a phone? Can I have your number too?"
Twenty minutes later, everyone had Yuuta's number, and the office's added to their phones.
Shito closed in on Yuuta. "Is there a way I can access your zombie information board through the internet?"
Yuuta looked up at Shito with a dead serious expression. "I can't give you direct access to my board, but I can give you access to a screen that will show you what's available to hunt."
Shito nodded and handed over his phone. "Good enough."
Bekko appeared behind Michiru's shoulder. "Oh, so that's what all the excitement is about."
Michiru gasped in shock, but didn't scream - this time. "Uh, yes! We got cell phones so we can stay in contact." Suddenly, the reason why she'd wanted a cell phone in the first place occurred to her. She turned to look up at Bekko. "I saw Shiba today, but he disappeared only a minute or two later."
Bekko sighed. "Ah..."
Yuuta also sighed. "If Shiba's in the area, that could explain the sudden increase in low-level; mindless zombies over this past month."
Chika tilted his head. "But we only just saw Shiba today? How do we know it's him?"
"We don't." Bekko looked over his shoulder at Chika. "But with a reaper's core, he can step in to and out of the mortal plane almost instantaneously, so it is possible."
Yuuta nodded. "It takes a full five minutes for our system to register a zombie as active in our territory."
Shuuji frowned. "Hmm... So, this Shiba has a whole five-minute window to kill without being detected."
Yuuta stepped before the six hunters. "Here's the weird part. More than half of the low-level zombies rising are being destroyed only minutes later."
Chika frowned. "So he's making them then destroying them?"
Bekko shrugged. "If he's the only zombie making them, yes. However..." He nodded to Yuuta.
Yuuta's smile melted into a grim line. "A brand new high-level zombie showed up on our grid about two hours ago."
Shito frowned at Bekko. "Don't you ferrymen know when one of those is going to rise?"
Bekko lifted his chin. "If they're on the list, yes. This one apparently, wasn't."
Michiru shivered. Bekko meant the death list; the list of those scheduled to die by accident, disease, or old age. "So they were...murdered."
Bekko shrugged. "Murder victims do appear on the list if their death is planned; premeditated. If the victim is random, they don't."
Sitting on the couch, Toko tugged at one of her strawberry blonde pony-tails. "But a zombie of that type, one with its mind still intact, normally rises by their own will; unfinished business and stuff. Right?"
"To become a zombie with self-awareness takes strong emotions." Bekko used his middle finger to push his glasses higher up on his nose. "Hope, rage, hate, and even love."
Michiru blinked. "Love...?"
"Yes, indeed." Bekko smiled sourly. "Love makes more zombies than any other emotion. However..." He turned away. "Love also has a tendency to give such zombies a powerful desire to eat their beloved."
Michiru's mouth fell open. "Eat...?!"
"Oh yes." Bekko's gaze focused on Chika. He smiled."What better way is there for a flesh-eating monster to keep their loved one close forever than to devour them?"
Chika scowled. "Why're you looking at me? I don't have anyone I want to eat."
Bekko's smile twisted into a smirk. "Perhaps not, but someone definitely wants to eat you, no?"
Chika's head tilted to the side. "Haa?"
Shito's gaze narrowed on Bekko and he bared his overlong teeth.
Zen scowled. "A sorcerer can make a self-aware zombie too."
Michiru winced. A sorcerer had made Zen into a zombie.
Chika frowned. "So, this new guy might be behind all these new low-level zombies, not Shiba?"
Shito's burgundy gaze narrowed. "Or, Shiba's behind all of it, including this brand new zombie. He's made a high-level zombie before; the rat geek."
Chika shook his head. "Ah, that one wasn't Shiba's fault. That one rose all on his own."
Michiru frowned. Shito was referring to the rat-guy that showed up when they first ran into Shiba. Back then, Shiba had been killing people and posting the pictures on a member's only website under the name Butterfly. The rat-guy had copied him in an attempt to usurp Shiba's fame, so to speak.
Michiru still had the occasional nightmare about rats.
Toko frowned. "Could this new zombie have come from some other territory?"
Yuuta looked over at the delicate strawberry-blonde sorceress. "I've contacted several of the other ferrymen to see if it's from someone else's territory. So far, no one has claimed it as theirs."
Shuuji frowned deeply. "If this high-level zombie didn't wander in from another territory, and really is only two hours old, like the boards say they are..."
Toko stood up from the couch. "Then they can't be behind all those low-level zombies."
Yuuta shrugged. "We won't know for sure until we find it."
Shuuji looked over at Bekko. "Then this is a capture mission?"
Bekko shrugged and turned away. "If it hasn't killed yet, it might prove useful."
Michiru rolled her eyes. Bekko meant that this new zombie might prove profitable under a Z-Loan contract. Geeze... How greedy can he get?
Zen scowled. "And if it is killing?"
Bekko turned to Zen with a smile. "Release it."
Michiru flinched. In other words; destroy it. She moved closer to Bekko. "If they rose because they were murdered, what about finding out who killed them?"
Bekko waved his hand. "Not our job. That's for the police to figure out." He turned to face her. "Unless they were killed by a zombie."
Michiru couldn't help but feel more than a little disappointed in Bekko.
Zen abruptly stood up from the couch. "Yuuta, do you have any idea where this new zombie is?"
Yuuta shook his head. "I've got it tracked to a one-mile block in our territory, but that's as close as the system can track it."
Chika rolled his eyes a groaned. "We gotta search a whole one-mile block to find it?"
Zen scowled. "What a useless system!"
Yuuta folded his arms across his small chest and pouted. "The system is not like GPS with hundreds of satellites to rely on. It only has one databank, the Akashic Record, to cover the whole world."
Toko jumped off the couch and grabbed onto Zen's arm. "Don't worry about finding it, Zen-sempai, that's why you have me and Michiru sempai!"
Chika shoved his way before the two. "Oi! The gopher is on our team!"
Michiru sighed and stared out the window at the office directly across the street. It was empty, unoccupied. It always had been. However, for some reason, she kept expecting to see lights over there, and a big white sign rather like Z-Loan's...
"Miss Kita?" The voice was soft but right at her ear.
Michiru jumped and turned. "Huh?"
On her immediate right Bekko stood rather uncomfortably close. "What are you looking at?"
Michiru spared a glance at the empty office then gave Bekko a head shake and a tight smile. "Nothing. It's nothing."
Bekko looked across the street at the empty office. "You know, if something's bothering you, you can tell me?"
Michiru's eyes widened. Tell Bekko...? He was the last person she would trust with her...odd feelings. Just for a moment, a spat of anger took over her tongue. "Why didn't you tell me I had a reaper's soul, that I'd be a reaper after I die?"
Bekko's gaze dropped and his pale cheeks turned a touch pink. "I didn't want to...worry you."
It was almost believable, and truthfully, she wanted to believe him. After all, he did watch over them, in an off-hand and somewhat careless fashion. However, she'd seen for herself just how secretive, if not downright misleading the ferryman could be. A certain hot-spring vacation trip that turned out to be a camp-out in an abandoned inn with a werewolf problem came to mind right away.
Bekko clearly had his own agenda, and he wasn't sharing.
Michiru reigned back on her temper and smiled, but a small bit of spite still wormed its way out. "I don't want to worry you either." She then turned away from Bekko and walked back to the couches and the others. The debate on who was going to hunt down the new zombie still raged between the two teams. Even so, she still took a small peek back from the corner of her eye.
Bekko had shifted to lean against the windowsill, but his gaze was still on Michiru, and a slight smile curved his lips.
Yuuta lifted his hand. "Okay, report time! Who released what zombies where?"
Shito and Chika rushed over to Yuuta's left while Toko and Zen crowded Yuuta's right.
Shuuji sighed and spread his arms out across the back of the couch opposite the one Michiru sat on. "So excitable."
Michiru could only smile wearily and nod.
~ ZL ~
Full night had fallen when the two teams of zombie-hunters finally left the Z-Loan office, but the streets were far from dark. Neon signs and streetlamps lit the sidewalks to near daylight brightness. The six teenagers stopped at the crossroads before going their separate ways. Unlike Michiru, Shito, and Chika, who lived in the dorm, Shuuji, Toko, and Zen lived in an apartment on the other side of town.
Michiru turned to Shuuji. "You go to the same school we do. Why haven't you guys moved into the Black Dorm with us, and the rest of the Z-Loan students?" The rest being Aso and Koyomi.
Shuuji shrugged. "Why move to that ancient dump when I already have a three-bedroom apartment?"
Toko threw up her hands and pirouetted. "We all have our own private bathrooms!"
Zen grinned viciously. "And maid service to clean up for us and do laundry once a week."
Shito snarled and pointed at Shuuji. "Why does that shitty mongrel get to have maid service while I have to live in squalor?!"
Shuuji grinned. "'Cuz you're broke, and I'm not?"
Shito swung a fist at Shuuji aiming at his mouth. "Die!"
"Whoa!" Chika grabbed Shito around the waist, keeping Shito's fist from reaching Shuuji's face.
"Oh? Sensitive subject, little prince?" Shuuji crunched his lollypop.
Shito promptly burst a gasket. Teeth bared and fists wind-milling, he dragged Chika inch by inch toward Shuuji. "Die! Die! Die…!"
Shuuji just smiled and leaned back out of range with one hand tucked casually in his pants pocket.
Howling with laughter, Zen leaned over clutching his stomach.
Michiru heaved a sigh. While she wasn't an exiled prince used to having people wait on her hand and foot like Shito, she did understand some of Shito's bitterness. She was broke too. When she reached twenty-one, she'd have access to the trust fund her parents had left her and be able to move somewhere decent, but that was still three years away.
Hopefully, she'd live long enough to actually collect it.
Toko leaned against Michiru's shoulder and spoke softly. "Shuuji's crazy luck is how he can afford such an apartment. The scary part is that Shuuji doesn't even have to try! If he buys a lottery ticket, he wins, just like that."
Michiru blinked. "Wow… Wish I had that kind of luck." That kind of money luck would fix so many problems… "So how did you and Zen end up staying with Shuuji?"
Toko tilted her head and pressed a finger to the corner of her mouth. "Well, when Zen and I returned to Japan, Shuuji just invited us to stay with him. We had no place else to go, so we took him up on it."
Michiru frowned at Toko. "What about Shuuji's parents?"
Toko shrugged. "Shuuji lived by himself. If he has parents, he won't talk about them. He changes the subject."
Michiru blinked. This was clearly a sensitive topic. It was probably time she changed the subject too. She smiled. "You're lucky to have such a good friend. How did you meet him?"
Toko snuck a look toward Shuuji. "Honestly? We ran into him at school - and I mean that literally." She turned to smile at Michiru. "Me and Zen were running to class, turned a corner, and crashed right into him. After that, he just...latched on to us. No matter where we went; at lunch and after school, he followed us. In fact, it was because he was following us that he got attacked."
Michiru's mouth fell open. "Shuuji was attacked by a zombie?"
Toko nodded. "Yeah. Funny thing is, he didn't even try to save himself. He just smiled and said we'd save him." She made a sour face. "Which we did." She sighed. "That's how he found out about Zen being a zombie, and my sorcery. After that, we really couldn't get rid of him."
Michiru smiled. "He must really care about you guys. I mean, he did follow you all the way to China, and even took out a life-loan for you guys."
She chuckled. "Yes, he did." She looked over at Shuuji. "I found out later that before me and Zen, Shuuji didn't have any friends. He didn't talk to anyone at school." She turned back to Michiru with a slight frown. "It's like he was waiting for us to show up."
Michiru frowned at the squabbling boys. "He seems pretty friendly now?" She coughed. "So to speak."
Toko nodded. "Yeah, he took to you guys right away." She winked at Michiru. "So to speak."
Shuuji waved. "Guys, we better hurry or Cook will get upset that we let his food get cold."
Shito choked in Chika's hold. "You have your own cook?!"
Shuuji smiled. "A chef, actually. Oh, and we're having lasagna tonight."
Zen threw up his hands. "I love Italian!" He waved toward Michiru and Toko. "Yo, let's go already!"
Toko grinned at Michiru. "Gotta go!" She took off after Shuuji and Zen.
Michiru waved after her. "See you tomorrow!"
Shito screamed out something in Chinese.
Shuuji waved a hand over his head. "Yeah, I love you too."
Chika burst into laughter. "Shito, you know he doesn't understand a word of Chinese, right?"
Shito turned on Chika. "Oi! Who's side are you on, anyway?"
Chika winked. "Mine!" He burst out in cackling laughter. "God, I've been dying to say that!"
"Then die now!" Shito launched a fist at Chika. "Ass-wipe!"
In a matter of seconds, both boys were trading fists, kicks, and insults almost faster than the eye could follow.
Michiru heaved a sigh and walked toward the dorm, leaving Chika and Shito to squabble on the street-corner by themselves.
~ ZL ~
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Death and the Maiden - Zombie-Loan