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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
- 13
- 14
- 15
Death and the Maiden
A Zombie-Loan Fan-fiction By Ookami Kasumi
~ Thirteen ~
Michiru blinked at the change in scenery. It was all a gray misty...emptiness. The building were gone. The road was gone. The sounds were gone. Even the cold was gone. The sky was nothing but roiling gray clouds. Mist covered the unseen ground to curl about their ankles.
They were on the spirit plane.
Scythe still in hand, and scowling ferociously, Shiba dragged her along by the arm through the misty emptiness for about ten steps then stopped to glare down at her. "Has anyone told you that you're a hazard to yourself?"
Michiru blinked up at the psychopathic zombie that had tried to kill her more than once, and was at that moment, apparently, attempting to save her. "Um, no?"
Shiba let her go to wipe his hand down his face and groan. He abruptly set his free hand on his hip. "Now, what did you mean by it's not real?"
Michiru shrugged. "That zombie wasn't real. It was made of paper."
"Paper...?" Shiba's brows snapped together and his head tilted. "It looked perfectly real to me."
Michiru folded her arms across her stomach. "It looks real to me too with my normal sight." She waved her glasses. "But with my death sight its nothing but paper covered in words." She lowered her glasses. "In fact, I think they all were. Didn't you notice that the souls leaving them were gold?"
"Gold...?" Shiba's frown deepened. "Souls look like little white lights to me. You see them in color?"
Michiru nodded. "Souls are normally blue. All the souls from this set of zombies were gold, but what really caught my attention were the rings."
Shiba set his free hand on his hip. "Rings?"
Michiru pointed to her neck. "Their black rings weren't solid, they were writing."
"Writing...?" Shiba's brows lifted. "What did it say?"
Michiru shook her head. "I couldn't read it. It was done in some kind of thick, painted cursive. But the whole body was covered in writing too. The briefcase says briefcase, and the coat says jacket." She set her hand on her hip. "But here's the weird part..."
Shiba's brows lifted. "What could possibly be weirder than a paper zombie?"
Michiru held his gaze. "Didn't you notice? It didn't see me."
"Wait a second..." Shiba shook his head and waved his hand at ear level, as though trying to sort through his thoughts. "What do you mean, it didn't see you?"
Michiru shrugged. "It's like I'm invisible to it." Her brow lifted. "But it saw you."
Shiba frowned, then abruptly grabbed Michiru by the arm and started pulling her after him. "This I have to see." He waved his scythe. There was a distinct ripping sound, and the gray world literally tore, like paper. Through the tear came an icy breeze. Shiba reached up with his scythe to tear it further open. The street's intersection appeared on the other side. Gripping Michiru by the arm, Shiba stepped through the tear towing her after him.
Michiru stepped out of the spirit world and into the same chilly intersection she'd just left, with the addition of three new zombies.
All three zombies raised their arms and changed direction to shuffle toward them.
Leaving Michiru behind, Shiba stalked toward the center of the intersection. "So what you're saying, as that these things are targeting only me?"
"See for yourself." Michiru walked toward the closest zombie, but was careful to stay out of its direct path.
The zombies completely ignored her to continue to shamble toward Shiba.
Shiba abruptly laughed and extended his scythe. "Well, shit... They are targeting me!"
Without her glasses on, Michiru eyed the zombie passing by her while taking care to stay out of its direct path. She then eyed the other two who were shambling toward the center of the intersection from the other two roads. All three were made of paper covered in words. "Oh, and there's one other thing, Shiba..."
Shiba raised his scythe. "What?" He swung.
The two paper zombies closest to Shiba abruptly split neatly in half, the pieces dropping to the ground. A cloud of shimmery darkness erupted from the fallen zombies and raced for Shiba. The clouds disappeared on contact. Gold lights began to drift upward from the bodies.
Michiru set her hands on her hips. "Real zombies do not dissolve into ash."
Shiba froze to stare at Michiru. "What?"
The two fallen zombies abruptly dissolved into gray ash that was carried off by the breeze.
Shiba's eyes widened. "Okay, I believe you now. Those were not zombies." He eyed the third zombie approaching him and sliced it in half too.
The zombie fell on the road in two pieces.
Michiru moved closer to get a better look at the cloud of darkness drifting from the fallen pieces.
The cloud abruptly split with a large portion of it moving quickly toward Shiba, and the rest flying toward Michiru.
Alarmed, Michiru jerked back. "Yikes!" The cloud was on her too fast to avoid. It disappeared on contact with her body. Suddenly, Michiru felt giddy, as though she was mildly drunk.
Shiba frowned. "Michiru-chan, what is it?"
Michiru's brain cleared and in that moment she knew exactly how those paper contracts had been able to move - the exact same way that corpses were able to rise. "Dark matter."
Shiba frowned. "Dark matter? What's that?"
The paper zombie released the gold lights of its soul and began to disintegrate into ash.
Michiru looked over at Shiba. "Dark matter is what makes zombies rise. It's also what makes the paper zombies move." She pointed at the bright yellow soul burning in Shiba's stomach that her uncovered eyes had no difficulty seeing. "Dark matter is what reapers eat. Or rather their core's do."
Shiba smiled, but it was bitter. "Yes, yes, that's nice. However, I'm far more interested in who made these things, and why they're sending them after me."
Michiru nibbled on her bottom lip. How to say this politely? "Maybe because you're not exactly a nice guy?"
Shiba blinked. "Not exactly..." He burst out in laughter. "Okay, okay! I'll give you that!" He smiled. "You're right. I am not exactly a nice guy." He turned away and scrubbed at the back of his head. "Okay, so paper zombies...?" He froze then snapped his fingers. "I got it!"
Michiru tilted her head. "Got what?"
Shiba turned to face Michiru with a fierce grin. "These zombies were shikigami; paper spirits."
Michiru frowned. "Paper spirits?"
Shiba nodded. "Shikigami are spells or spirits attached to paper dolls. They're used by onmyoji - Japanese Yin-Yang sorcerers." He turned away and rubbed at his jaw. "Huh... I didn't think there were any of those left after World War Two."
Michiru rubbed her eyes and groaned "Not another sorcerer...!" The last sorcerer she'd run across, Toho, had very nearly gotten Chika possessed, Shito destroyed, and Koyomi killed. This was in addition to forcing Shito to play nasty little sadistic games for decades.
From the vicinity of Michiru's pocket, a little tune played.
Startled, Michiru jumped. "What the...? Oh!" It was her brand new phone. She shoved her hand in her pocket, fumbled the little violet phone out, and flipped it open. The screen lit up. Michiru peered at the lighted screen. Chika was calling her. Politely, she turned away from Shiba, poked the little green button to receive the call, then pressed it to her ear. "Yes?"
"Gopher!" Chika's voice was loud.
Michiru flinched. "Yes?"
"Where the hell are you?"
Michiru looked about the street. "About three blocks from the dorm."
"Well, hurry your ass up! You're missing supper!"
Michiru smiled. "I'm on my way."
"Good!" There was a click.
Michiru pulled the phone back to look at it. The call had disconnected. She closed it and turned to face Shiba.
He towered over her from less than a foot away with a wide grin on his face.
Michiru jumped back. "Eep!" She took a deep breath. "You startled me."
Shiba waved his free hand toward her. "So you have a cell phone now?"
Still amazed by her new purchase, Michiru raised her violet flip-phone and nodded happily. "Just got it today. Do you have a cell phone, Shiba?"
"As a matter of fact..." Shiba whipped a bright red smart-phone from his pocket. "I do!" He tilted it to show Michiru the flat screen. "Did you know that if you do this-" He hit a couple buttons. "You can use the laser function to broadcast your contact information to another phone? This way you don't have to enter it all in by hand."
"Oh!" Fascinated, Michiru leaned closer while poking buttons on her phone. "I had no idea you could do that!"
"You do it like this..." Shiba reached over to poke a few buttons on Michiru's phone. He straightened. "There! Now I have your contact information, and you have mine." He winked.
Michiru smiled. "Wow, thanks Shiba!"
Shiba grinned broadly. "You're welcome, Michiru-chan." He stepped back. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to see if I can figure out who is sending paper zombies after me." He slashed to the side with his scythe. With a ripping sound, reality tore, revealing the misty spirit world on the other side. "Night, Michiru-chan!" With a jaunty wave, Shiba stepped to the side and disappeared into the tear. The rip closed behind him.
Michiru set her glasses back on her nose and started walking toward the Black Dorm with a smile. She opened her phone to look at her contacts list. There it was; Shiba's phone number complete with grinning photograph. She had one more contact in her list.
And he had hers.
Michiru abruptly tripped on nothing in particular. Shiba, the psychopathic zombie-reaper that had tried to kill her more than once, had her phone number, which meant he could call her at any time.
She stopped in the middle of the road to smack her own forehead. "I'm an idiot!" She dropped her hand and blew out a sigh. Hopefully, she could keep it a secret for a little while.
At least, until Shiba decided to taunt someone about it; that someone most likely being Chika. The immediate cascade effect of Shito finding out only seconds later, then everyone else on down the Z-Loan line was not something she was looking forward to.
Michiru groaned. "They're going to kill me."
But that was a worry for later. She pulled up her black hood and trotted for the dorm. Tonight, she had to come up with a way to break the news that someone was making paper zombies without exposing that she'd also been 'fraternizing with the enemy.'
~ ZL ~
Michiru pushed open the front door to the Black Dorm and stepped into the vague warmth of the front hall. The old building didn't have a furnace, which made the hallways in winter downright frosty. Being as cold as it was, she'd have to start the fire in her room's fireplace immediately if she planned to change into her pajamas without freezing. She'd probably also have to set her alarm clock for a midnight wake-up to put more wood on to keep the fire going until morning. She had no interest in catching a nasty cold from the chill in her own bedroom - again.
She closed the front door as quietly as she could, but was well aware that it was probably useless. Chika and Shito in particular, had supernaturally good hearing. She padded up the groaning stairs that went up along the right wall of the main hall, heading for the second floor where the lounge, dining room, and kitchen were. Hopefully, she could get to her room on the third floor before having to deal with Chika and Shito.
If she was lucky, Kurou would be there and she could ask him about the paper zombies. Being as old as he was, it was a good bet that he'd run into such things before.
At the top of the stairs, she turned left and crossed the open landing overlooked by a massive stained-glass window to the double doors of the second floor hall. There, she stopped to gather her nerve. The staircase to the third floor, where all the bedrooms were, was at the very end of the second floor hall. She strongly doubted she'd make it to those stairs before someone waylaid for being late for dinner, but she fully intended to try!
Michiru took a deep steadying breath and gingerly pushed the right door open. The hinges squealed abominably. She winced. Well, that just killed my plan for sneaking past the dining room. With a sigh, she pushed the door the rest of the way open.
Silver haired Chika leaned against the right wall with his arms crossed. Black-haired Shito leaned against the left, also with his arms crossed. Both wore matching scowls.
Michiru put on what she hoped was a serene smile. "I'm back?"
Shito's scowl deepened. "Welcome back."
Chika straightened from the wall and his lip curled baring an over-long canine, trademark of being undead. "Where the hell have you been?"
Shito also straightened from the wall then abruptly sniffed. "Why do you smell like burned paper?"
Michiru winced before she could stop herself. She kept forgetting how sharp a zombie's sense of smell was. She stepped further in, letting the door swing closed behind her. While scrambling for something to say, she unbuttoned her coat; it was much warmer on the second floor. Unfortunately, she couldn't think of a thing to tell them that wouldn't set them off explosively. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, she strode past them, determined to get to the far stairs - and Kurou. "I'll tell you after I put my coat and book bag away."
Chika stalked after her. "Why not just tell us now?"
Shito followed after Chika, sniffing the air behind her suspiciously.
"It's...complicated." Michiru picked up the pace, not quite running, more like a trot. "I'll meet you in the dining room in just a few minutes, okay?" She didn't wait for a reply. She bolted for the stairs.
Chika's shout chased her down the hall. "Damn it, Gopher!"
~ ZL ~
- 13
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Death and the Maiden - Zombie-Loan