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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
- 15
- 16
- 17
Death and the Maiden
A Zombie-Loan Fan-fiction By Ookami Kasumi
~ Fifteen ~
Sitting in the passenger, front seat of Koyomi's rattle-trap of a Toyota, Michiru kept a death-grip on the passenger-side door handle on her left, and shivered despite her heavy black hooded coat and green scarf. With three of the four windows fully down, and it being several hours past nightfall, it was an icy, windy ride.
Aso's speeding chopper bike followed only a car-length behind.
Michiru eyed the demonically grinning driver to her right. Koyomi was definitely speeding, or rather Yomi was. For some reason, Koyomi didn't like driving. However, the male spirit that possessed her, Yomi, liked driving perhaps a little too much.
Michiru tightened her fingers on the plastic door handle. "M-m-m- Mr. Yomi, shouldn't we at least stay within the speed limits?"
Perched nonchalantly on Michiru's shoulder, the tiny reaper rolled his one visible eye.
Laughing, or rather cackling madly, Yomi leaned over the steering wheel, her gaze pinned on the road directly ahead. "What for? The cops don't come out to the dead part of the city."
Yomi had a point. The industrial wasteland of abandoned warehouses and factories that they were speeding through had all shut down back in the eighties. Most of the buildings near the more occupied parts of the city had already been torn down, but there was quite literally a full twelve blocks of abandoned and crumbling factories and apartment buildings that had yet to see a wrecking ball. The maze of streets that ran through it were scarred with cracks and potholes from neglect, and fully half of the streetlights were out too, making driving hazardous - for normal people anyway.
Koyomi might be human, but Yomi was a spirit with a preternatural ability to see in the dark, in addition to being able to hear the dead. If there was something in the road, Yomi would definitely see it, even at their current speed.
Sitting directly behind Koyomi in a black overcoat, Chika stared out the window on his right at the passing wasteland of rotting factories all around them. "This area's so dead, not even vagrants will camp out here."
Sitting directly behind Michiru wearing a deep red overcoat and staring out the window to his left, Shito snorted. "That's because any vagrants that actually try to camp out here get eaten."
Michiru winced. Eaten by zombies.
Chika laughed. "Best zombie hunting grounds in the city! No matter how many times we clean them out, more always show up."
Shito sighed. "Feral zombies tend to hide from daylight, and this area has thousands of places to hide until nightfall - when they come out to hunt."
Michiru shrank into her seat. To hunt people.
"Oi, five-hundred yen!" Chika leaned over to whack the back of Michiru's seat. "Take your glasses off and see if you can spot our paycheck."
Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, Michiru reached up to take off her glasses and focused on her sight. Her senses whirled out of her in an ever widening spiral around the car, buildings, objects and trees becoming semi-transparent blurs to her gaze.
Chika leaned between the seats. "See anything yet?"
Michiru frowned in concentration. "Not yet." However, on the edge of her senses, she could feel something niggling at her, drawing her attention in a certain direction...
Under her ear, Kurou's deep voice whispered to her. "Pull from your heart, your core, and push it into your eyes."
Michiru concentrated on her heart, and pulled. A slow curl of something smoky and crisp with electricity spun up from around Michiru's heart and slid into the back of her eyes. Her circle of vision abruptly widened by a great deal. Her gaze locked on a deep black ring, then four others around it. Her arm flew up and swung to the left. She pointed at her window. "That way! A really strong one, and four others, much weaker."
Chika whacked on the back of Yomi's seat. "Step on it, Yomi! Let's go! Let's go!"
Yomi grinned and stomped on the gas. "I'm on it!"
~ ZL ~
Koyomi's battered Toyota rolled slowly into the cracked and weed-filled parking lot of a corrugated steel-walled factory that took up an entire block. Every window on the ground floor and the one above it was shattered out, the panes jagged with broken glass.
In the back seat, Chika and Shito grabbed their own wrists and literally pulled their right hands off, the flesh and bones parting halfway up their forearms. Without a word, they traded detached limbs, then pressed the limbs to the stumps of their arms. The limbs fused together without a trace of ever having been removed.
Shito leaned close to Michiru and spoke softly. "Where are they, exactly?"
Eyes wide, Michiru spoke in the dead drone her voice tended to fall in when she used her 'sight'. "Two by this door, and one halfway between this floor and the next. The really strong one is on the fourth floor with..." She squinted to sharpen her gaze. She could definitely make out make out another figure, but it didn't have a black ring around its neck. "A living human is up there with it."
Shito hissed out a curse in Chinese. "We'll need to hurry or there'll be a fifth zombie." He grabbed hold of the door handle.
Michiru abruptly saw the fourth zombie. "Wait! There's one more weak one!" She turned all the way around in her seat to point out the back window. "There!"
A handful of yards way behind the car was someone dressed like a vagrant in a battered green coat, but holding a bat studded with nails. Its mouth opened on a hideous moan and it raised the bat.
Chika shoved his door open and lunged out of the car. "I got it!" He held out his palm and a long katana sword emerged from it, blade first. A handcuff manifested around his wrist along with a chain that was fused to the end of the sword's grip. He raised his sword in an aggressive stance and grinned fiercely. "Come to me, my sweet bank deposit!" He slashed at the zombie swiftly and without mercy.
Shito leaned forward to tap Koyomi on the shoulder. "You two, stay in the car-"
Michiru turned sharply to face Shito. "But, I want to help too!"
Shito bared his teeth at her. "Idiot! I promised to protect you. Don't you dare make me break that promise!"
Michiru flinched back.
Koyomi smiled. "I'll be sure she's protected."
"I'm counting on you." Shito nodded. "Oh, and roll up the windows. It'll keep any strays from smelling you and attacking the car."
Koyomi hit the button on her door to make the power windows all close at once.
Shito opened his door and left the car, closing the door behind him. A long-barreled pistol emerged from his right hand chained to a handcuff that formed around his wrist. "Akatsuki, I'll meet you inside!"
"Be done in a second!" Chika raised his sword to guide the sparkling blue lights of the fallen zombie's soul up into to the rippling surface of the next plane. "Guidance complete."
The two boys bolted for the shattered roll door that led into the factory.
Her shinigami sight still active, Michiru's gaze was abruptly drawn straight up. Something huge was floating up there with a bright blue core. Clearly it wasn't a zombie, and the semi-transparent outline seemed to have...wings.
On her shoulder, Kurou hissed. "A reaper."
Michiru gasped. "A what...?!"
Kurou grabbed her by the ear. "Say nothing! It's likely here just to watch."
Michiru whispered to the doll on her shoulder. "Watch what?" Her gaze was forcibly yanked to the roof of the building - and the wearer of a black ring in a long black coat. Her gaze abruptly focused. The owner of the black ring's shoulder-length hair was dirty blond, even worse, he was carrying a long-handled scythe. She squeaked in alarm. "Shiba!"
Koyomi whirled to stare at Michiru. "Did you say Shiba, as in Reiichirou Shiba?"
"Yes, and the guys don't know he's here!" Michiru took two panicked breaths then blinked and shouted, "Cell phone! Cell phone!" She fumbled her violet phone out of her coat pocket, flipped it open, and mashed the number for Shito. She nearly dropped it before pressing it to her ear.
The phone buzzed four times before it clicked and an annoyed Shito answered. "What? I'm busy!"
Michiru did her best not to yell into the phone. "Shito, Shiba's on the roof!"
"Fuck!" The call abruptly disconnected.
On her shoulder, Kurou snarled. "Those idiots need to get out of there! That brat is too close to manifesting. They'll be taken along with the rest!"
Michiru's heart nearly stopped in her chest. She redialed Shito's number. It buzzed and buzzed... No answer. She hit Chika's number. It buzzed and buzzed... No answer. "They're not answering! Why aren't they answering?!"
Koyomi set her hand on Michiru's shoulder. "Relax, they're probably just fighting."
Michiru closed the phone and shoved it back into her pocket. Just fighting. Right... Just fighting...who? Shiba? In a complete panic, she shoved open the door.
Koyomi grabbed for her, but missed. "Michiru!"
"Mr. Yomi, I have to warn them to get them out of there!" She slammed the door closed and bolted for the factory.
Koyomi shoved open her door and lunged out of the car after her. "Michiru! Are you insane? You're unarmed!" From the small of her back she drew a pair of long hunting knives. "Wait for me!"
The tiny reaper flew after Michiru. "Fledgling, stop!" He grabbed onto her hood, stopping her in her tracks, and nearly choking her in the process.
Michiru tugged at her hood."I have to do something...!"
Kurou tugged even harder. "You can't help them!"
"Michiru!" Koyomi skidded to a halt at Michiru's side. "What's going on?"
Michiru turned to her sharply. "Mr. Yomi, Shiba is about to become a reaper!"
Koyomi sucked in a sharp breath. "What? Right now?!"
Michiru pulled at her captured hood. "If the guys go near him, they'll be reaped! I have to stop them!"
Koyomi's gaze narrowed and turned frigid blue. "I'll do it. You stay here!"
Michiru grabbed onto Koyomi's sleeve. "But, Mr. Yomi...!"
Yomi smiled with Koyomi's cherubic face. "I'll be fine." She lifted one of her hunting knives and flipped it around her hand. "Trust me." She turned and bolted for the factory door.
Koyomi's sleeve slid from Michiru's fingers.
Alone in the deserted parking lot with the battered Toyota, and a corpse only a hundred or so yards away, Michiru danced from foot to foot. "What do I do? What do I do?"
The tiny reaper flew right into Michiru's face. "You stay where you are, and keep out of danger!"
A deep and vibrating masculine voice came from above. "Now where's the fun in that?"
Michiru looked up.
Floating above her, the hazy outline around the blue core solidified into a hooded and cloaked, long-limbed man clad in tattered black leather with a blue-black feathered collar. Pitch black wings of monstrous size flapped slowly at his back. The man pushed the hood back exposing a sharply angular face with bright blue eyes framed by long bronze hair bound into a loose pony tail that drifted past his waist. His smile was wide and revealed fangs. "Well, well... If it isn't Crow? Or rather, what's left of him."
Kurou scowled up at the apparition.
The reaper drifted lower and narrowed his gaze on Michiru. "So this is your fledgling? Hmm... Cute, and close to hatching too, but..." He suddenly frowned. "You're bonded? Already?"
Kurou growled. "What of it?"
The reaper floated lower. "If you're bonded, then why haven't you pushed her into manifestation and recovered your core?"
Kurou looked away. "That is none of your concern, Inu."
Michiru blinked. Inu? Dog...? Wait... If she'd manifested, Kurou would have recovered his body? She looked sharply at the doll-sized reaper.
The tiny reaper glared at her. "Ignore him, Michiru."
The hovering reaper scowled. "Crow, she's practically bursting at the seams! Only a little more and..."
Kurou abruptly shouted in a voice far larger than his body. "Drop it, Inu! I mean it! This is my fledgling! I will do as I please with her!"
Michiru flinched. It was kind of nice that Kurou so readily claimed her as his, but the 'do as I please with her' was a little...scary.
The floating reaper lifted his hands in mock surrender. "Oh, but of course!" He smiled sourly and crossed his arms. "You did teach her how to manifest her scythe, at least. Right?"
Kurou blinked. "What?"
The reaper, Inu tilted his head toward the entrance of the parking lot. "Because you are about to have quite a bit of company." He smiled, showing fangs. "And this one's mortal body looks somewhat...fragile."
Michiru's death-sight abruptly focused on the area just outside the fence. Roughly twenty zombies were shambling their way through the surrounding rubble. She squeaked in alarm. "Zombies!" Her sight abruptly zeroed in on their black rings. They weren't solid, they were writing. "Paper..." Michiru breathed. "They're all made of paper." Her sight zipped from zombie to zombie until she spotted a solid ring among them, then another, and another... "No wait, there's a few real ones mixed in."
Kurou looked up at the hovering reaper. "What is the meaning of this, Inu?"
Inu rolled his blue eyes and sighed. "That sorcerer really loves working overtime."
Kurou's eyes widened. "You're using a sorcerer to make those?"
Inu shrugged. "It's the quickest method to bring my fledgling to manifestation." He looked down at Michiru, grinned and winked. "Good luck keeping that mortal body, little fledgling!" He vanished in a puff of feathers.
What Shiba had said earlier suddenly came to mind. She turned to Kurou. "Shiba called the paper zombies...um, shikigami, I think. He said they're made by onmyoji, yin-yang sorcerers." She frowned. "You didn't know?"
Kurou scowled. "My trainer felt that such fakes were too dangerous around living humans because they tear apart anything in their direct path, not just their training target." He sighed. "Well, that and he despised sorcerers."
Michiru considered her own experiences with the Chinese sorcerer. "I don't like them much either."
The tiny reaper scowled fiercely. "You'll like them even less if you get caught by one."
Michiru blinked. "Who? Me...? I thought sorcerers couldn't do anything to normal people."
The tiny reaper flew around to her face. "Fledgling, you are not a normal human, remember?" He fluttered off to her side to eye the oncoming zombie hoard. "The gods help you if one of them realizes this."
Michiru ducked her head, her cheeks heating. Suddenly the rest of what the reaper, Inu, had said. "Um... What was this about manifesting a scythe?" She peeked over at the floating reaper.
Kurou narrowed his one visible eye at Michiru. "Do you want to die as a human and become a reaper?"
Michiru's eyes widened. "No!" She waved her hands before her. "No thank you, I'll pass!"
"Then do not try to call your scythe. It absorbs dark matter directly, and transfers it to your core. That is what it reaps from the undead."
Michiru tilted her head and blinked. "Is that why you never taught me how to make one?"
Kurou looked away. "You would have manifested the first night you used it. That is how close you were to losing your human life."
Michiru smiled. "But now we have a way to keep that from happening, right?"
Kurou blinked. "Ah..." He nodded. "Indeed."
"So it's okay if I call a scythe tonight, right?" Michiru's smile broadened, despite the sweat gathering on her brow. She pointed beyond the floating reaper over at the large number of shambling forms only a hundred yards away. "Because I think we're kind of out of options at the moment."
~ ZL ~
- 15
- 16
- 17
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Death and the Maiden - Zombie-Loan