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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
- 12
- 13
- 14
Death and the Maiden
A Zombie-Loan Fan-fiction By Ookami Kasumi
~ Twelve ~
Her breath billowing out in white clouds, Michiru pulled up the hood of her black coat and tucked her hands deep in her pockets. Winter was definitely on its way. As she walked further from town and deeper into the high-walled neighborhoods, the road became darker and less travelled by cars or pedestrians. Only a few blocks later, the only cars left on the streets were parked, and the sidewalks were utterly deserted. Sounds became muffled and distant, except for the crunch of dry leaves under her sneakers.
With the neighborhood's high walls it became difficult to see who or what might be waiting in the intersections. She moved closer to the walls, avoiding the parked cars, and the dark, empty spaces between them. Ten steps away from the next crossroad, the hairs on the back of her neck began to lift.
All too used to being in extreme danger, Michiru knew better than to ignore her own instincts. Something was nearby. She stopped cold and listened, her breath softening to barely a whisper. The cold killed her sense of smell, but her hearing was quite sharp.
Leaves crunched under a single soft footfall.
Michiru turned sharply to the right.
On the sidewalk of the road on her right, a shadow moved. Someone tall in a long black coat stepped under the streetlamp. The coat flapped open to reveal a partially unbuttoned white shirt hanging loose over black leather pants. He lifted his head. Longish, sandy-blond, wavy hair framed a smiling, handsome face with golden-brown eyes. "Hello Michiru-chan."
Michiru stiffened; every nerve in her body at complete and utter attention. Shiba... The instinct to run tensed in her legs, but the promise to recover Kurou's core held her where she stood. If she could get close enough, she could take it; pull it right out of him.
If he didn't kill her first.
Even so, could she pass up this chance?
The smiling reaper-zombie casually leaned back against the street light. "I was wondering if you could answer a question for me?"
"Hello, Shiba." Michiru slid her hands out of her pockets and took a step toward him.
In an instant, Shiba's smile was gone and his eyes narrowed. He straightened sharply and a hand whipped out of his pocket to point a long gleaming hunting knife at her. "That's close enough."
Michiru froze, blinking at him. "What...?"
Shiba smiled again, but it was all teeth, his gaze remained narrowed. "If you think I don't know that you can pull the soul out of someone's body, you're mistaken."
She frowned. How did he know...? She'd only done it twice and he hadn't been there either time.
Shiba chuckled dryly. "Word gets around on the spirit plane, and right now, you are a very hot topic, little lady." He tilted his head to one side. "Care to know what they're saying?"
Michiru rolled her eyes. As if she could believe anything he said? Shiba was far too practiced a liar.
Shiba waved the knife casually. "Oh, so you don't believe me?" His smile curled sharply. "Get this... Has anyone told you why you have those eyes, why you see what you can see, or how it is that you can pull souls out of bodies?"
Michiru blew out a breath. Was that all? She smiled. "Yes."
Shiba's brows lifted and his smile faded just a little. "Oh, so you do know." He looked at the knife in his hand as though surprised to see it. "Well, good." With a slight chuckle he waved the knife. It dissolved into silvery smoke. "Anyway... I've been having a bit of...difficulty lately, and I was wondering if you could shed some light on it?"
Michiru tilted her head slightly. Yes, Shiba was a bad-guy and totally untrustworthy, not to mention a crazed psychopathic killer, but at the moment he was being rather polite and friendly, like when she'd first met him. Also, he was clearly bothered by something. She couldn't help but respond to that. "What's the problem?"
Shiba sniffed and frowned. He looked sharply up the street. "Err, before we get to that, could you, take off your glasses?"
Michiru frowned. "My...glasses?"
Shiba's gaze abruptly shifted to look in the other direction, his gaze narrowing. "Yes, take off your glasses, and tell me how many we're dealing with?"
Michiru's frown deepened. But the only thing I can really see with my glasses off are...?
Zombies.
Alarm spilled through her. She jerked off her glasses and let her shinigami sense spill outward in a circular wave. Shiba practically glowed in her sight, but all of a sudden, other pale gray figures with black rings around their throats began to shine further out in her sight, all the way around her. "Whoa!" She began to count...
Shiba blew out a heavy sigh and extended his hand. A long black-handled scythe shimmered into being. "How many, Michiru-chan?"
Michiru voice was dead and emotionless, but that was far from what she was feeling. "Twenty-four." A frown pulled at her mouth. "Where did they all come from?"
"I have my guesses..." Shiba set his scythe against his shoulder and moved to the middle of the street. "Where are they?"
Michiru focused her gaze to see their locations. "One to two blocks away and all the way around us in a ring. We're surrounded."
Shiba bit down on his bottom lip. "How fast are they moving?"
Michiru frowned in concentration. "At a walk." At one to two blocks away, it was obvious that none of the zombies had seen them, so moving at a walk was understandable. Once they were spotted, the shambling dead would likely pick up their pace. Zombies could move damned fast when they spotted live food.
However, this posed the question: if the zombies didn't know they were there, which their slow pace suggested, how had the zombies surrounded them, and where had so many come from?
Shiba set his free hand on his hip and snorted. "You'd think they'd have figured out by now that sending zombies after me is a stupid idea."
Michiru turned to stare at Shiba. "They're after you?" However, she was distracted by the umber yellow glow of the stolen reaper core blazing in his belly. She frowned. That wasn't right. Mr. Kurou's core was normally violet, like his eye.
The reaper core had changed color.
"Well!" Shiba clapped his hands sharply. "I guess I better get to destroying them. Which, by the way, will allow me the pleasure of rescuing you, Michiru-chan." Shiba bowed extravagantly and winked. "And then you'll owe me so you'll have to answer my questions, right?" He abruptly straightened and grinned broadly. "Be right back!" He took a step to the left and disappeared into thin air.
Michiru blinked at the place Shiba had disappeared.
"With a reaper's core, he can step in to and out of the mortal plane almost instantaneously..."
Michiru blew out a breath. "So that's what Bekko meant." She could walk on the spirit plane too, but not the way Shiba could. She couldn't just...do it. She needed a corridor opened for her by another spirit.
Michiru's shinigami sight abruptly pulled her gaze to a zombie roughly a block away.
Shiba abruptly stepped out of thin air behind the slow moving zombie and used his scythe to cut it in half. Blood sprayed in a wide arc, some of it spattering onto Shiba's black coat. For a brief instant, a dark cloud escaped the zombie's body to surround Shiba. That cloud abruptly soaked into Shiba, as though being sucked into him.
Michiru frowned. What was that? She'd never seen anything like it before.
The zombie fell over and a collection of small gold lights floated upward from the fallen corpse.
Michiru blinked. Oh, the zombie's soul...
Shiba ignored the lights, took one step away and disappeared.
Michiru frowned at the fallen zombie. Shiba hadn't bothered to send the soul on. He just let it drift away. Annoyance sparked around her heart. Shiba wasn't doing it right! He was only doing half the job!
Abruptly something else caught her attention. A gold soul? All the souls she'd seen were blue not gold.
All of a sudden, the zombie on the ground seemed to collapse into itself. A breeze came out of nowhere and a swirl of what could only be ash floated up, erasing the zombie completely.
Michiru's eyes widened. Did that zombie just...disintegrate? Zombies were human bodies, they didn't do that!
Her shinigami sight abruptly pulled her focus to another zombie, this one two blocks away.
Once again, Shiba stepped out of thin air and sliced the zombie in half. Another dark cloud appeared and soaked into Shiba.
The corpse fell to the ground and little gold lights, the zombie's soul, drifted free.
Shiba stepped away and disappeared.
The zombie disintegrated into ash and was blown away by a stray breeze, disappearing entirely from the pavement.
Every hair on Michiru's body rose. Something was wrong here - very, very wrong. Zombies did not disintegrate like that, and souls; human and animal, were blue, not gold.
Her sight abruptly snapped to another zombie. This time she focused hard on the zombie in an effort to get a nice clear visual of it. Was there something different about this zombie compared to the ones she normally saw?
It looked like your average male office worker in a rumpled business suit and overcoat. It even carried a briefcase. However, the shambling, shuffling walk and the way its arms hung down in that boneless fashion clearly marked it as being a zombie. What really stood out though, was that it didn't appear to have any color to it at all. Its face was very white, like paper, and portions of it were odd shades of gray, but there was no blue, brown, or red to it at all. The ring around its neck was pitch-black as per usual, but...
But the ring wasn't a solid black band. It was black, very black, but it was wavy, like... Like writing. Michiru pushed her sight hard to see it clearly, but it just wouldn't come into sharp enough focus. "Damn..."
Abruptly, Shiba appeared behind the office worker zombie. He sliced the odd zombie clean in half with his scythe, absorbed the shadowy cloud then stepped away and disappeared. Again, gold lights floated up from the zombie, and again, the body disintegrated into ash.
Michiru shook her head to pull her sight back into human range. Something was definitely off about those zombies. She needed a better look, a closer look. She needed to see what that wavy line around their throats was. Was it writing, or was it just the sign of a different type of zombie? And why were their souls gold?
Frowning, Michiru turned her gaze to the closest of these odd zombies. According to her sight, it was only a single street away. She turned and jogged down the side street toward it. She needed to get to that zombie before Shiba did.
Michiru spotted the zombie shuffling along the sidewalk. She crossed the street and ran toward it. Less than ten feet away, her instinct for self preservation finally kicked in. She stopped cold. What am I doing?! She had no way to stop it, or even defend herself against an attack!
For its part, the zombie directly in front of her continued along at a shambling walk.
Michiru frowned. What the...? Under normal circumstances, a zombie this close would lift its arms and charge straight for her. Curious, she moved off the sidewalk and walked slowly toward it at an angle.
The zombie continued its slow walk along the sidewalk, no change in direction or speed. It was as though it didn't see her.
Michiru's death sight abruptly snapped on and the ring around its neck suddenly came into sharp and crystal clear focus. It was writing, in some sort of scrawling brushwork. However, she couldn't read a word of it. Even stranger, the whole zombie appeared to be bone white and encrusted with extremely tiny writing.
She stepped closer to peer at the zombie's coat. The entire surface of it from collar to hem was covered with the word: jacket. A quick glance at the zombie's briefcase revealed that the whole thing was covered in the word: briefcase. A look at the zombie's face revealed even more writing; cheek, nose, lips, eyes, hair, scalp...
Michiru's mouth fell open in sheer shock. This wasn't a zombie at all. It just looked like one. In fact, it looked like it was made entirely out of...papier-mâché, except that the thing was moving.
Actually, it was moving past her.
Michiru trotted to catch back up to it and shoved her glasses back on to regain her human sight.
The zombie abruptly looked completely normal and in full color. Well, as normal as a walking corpse could possibly look. The face was pasty blue-gray with the residual red and green bruising around its eyes, plus blue lips that all non-contracted zombies had. The suit it wore was blue-gray pin-stripe with a black tie, and the briefcase looked like ordinary brown leather with brass fittings. No sign of any writing what so ever.
Walking along side it, Michiru jerked her glasses back off, allowing her death sight to kick back on.
The zombie turned back into a paper construct covered in writing.
"Michiru!" The masculine shout came from across the street.
Michiru shoved her glasses back on and turned to look.
A very wide-eyed Shiba stood across the street from her, his scythe raised defensively. "What in hell are you doing?"
The zombie abruptly moaned and raised its arms, the turned to face Shiba, and incidentally Michiru. It started shambling toward them.
Shiba raised his scythe. "Michiru! Get out of the way!"
Michiru skipped out of the zombie's path.
The zombie ignored her completely to continue trotting in Shiba's direction.
Michiru pulled her glasses off and trotted alongside it, peering at all the different writing; pants, pin-stripes, black tie, brown shoes...
Shiba's mouth fell open. "Michiru?! Are you out of your mind? Get out of the way!"
Michiru waved her hand. "I'm fine. It's not real."
"What?!"
"It's not real." Michiru tilted her head to see at a better angle. "It's made of paper."
Shiba frowned. "It looks real enough to me." He abruptly sighed and briskly stepped toward her.
The zombie continued to trot toward Shiba with its arms raised. A hollow moan left its wide open mouth.
Dodging the zombie's rather slow attempt at a grab, Shiba grabbed Michiru by the upper arm and jerked her sideways, away from the zombie.
Startled, Michiru yelped. "Hey!"
Shiba raised his scythe one-handed and slashed the zombie clean in half.
Michiru pouted. "Shiba! I was looking at that!"
"Not anymore." Shiba jerked Michiru a sharp step to the side. The world abruptly shifted into solid gray mist.
~ ZL ~
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Death and the Maiden - Zombie-Loan