Chapter Text
“Troops, congratulations! This is your 100th morning at the academy! At long last, the time has come! On this auspicious day, the long-held wish of humanity will finally be realized! The most important battle of all will be upon us momentarily.”
Kurara found herself blocking the rest of the announcement out upon noticing a shadow in the hallway as she ran past the strange room, growing closer and closer to her. She had tried to sneak out of the building so she could board the escape pod when it revealed itself. She progressed all the way to the first floor without being spotted…or so she thought. The figure shambled closer and closer. It was Takumi.
“No! NOOO! GET AWAY FROM ME!!!”
as the smaller of the two began running, Kurara found herself shouting in thoughtless desperation, as though her pleas would be heard. Deep down, she knew nothing would come of it, but her mind was flooded with panic, her thoughts scattered. Much like the four survivors did after Takemaru sacrificed himself to allow the others to escape. Cobbling together what few rational thoughts she could as she passed by room after room in a panicked rush, Kurara decided to go into the Garage, hoping to find either shelter or weaponry to defend herself with, her mind having not registered the infuser on her hip. The former clearly wasn’t an option, she heard footsteps behind her, keeping pace with her own running. She dared not look behind her, she couldn’t bring herself to.
Kurara rushed into the garage, but Takumi followed her before she could arm herself. Her instincts betrayed her, forcing her entire self to turn around to face the beast that had once been her friend. He quickly approached the now trembling girl and grabbed her by the shoulders, ready to bite. In vain, Kurara began to beg for her life again.
“Please, no… NOOO!!!”
Not wishing to see her own demise, Kurara forced her wrenched-open eyes back shut, as though her method of helping her sleep- pretending to be in a distant, open island with wonderful vegetation and wildlife, would help her here. If only this had all been a nightmare.
“Uhh… uhhh… Eek!”
Takumi only groaned in response while Kurara mentally braced herself for a set of teeth to sink itself into her neck. The hands that once held her in a protective embrace that one night would be the very same embrace that would kill her. Those same hands that gave her enough comfort to survive that horrible night when it all began. When that freak Yugamu rose from the dead and killed Darumi. Kurara began to hyperventilate, wishing to return to the comforting version of the embrace she found herself trapped in. Except…she felt the current one falter while Takumi roared. It was like he was holding some kind of demon back. Cautiously, she forced her eyes open again. What she saw…
“...?!”
Kurara made eye contact with who was once Takumi. His skin was decomposing, blood, certainly not his, stained his face and class armor. His eyes were bloodshot and dead, and yet…there was something else. Recognition. A similar desperation to her own. The moment seemed to stretch on for infinity as they stared at each other. Takumi was still there, somewhere. In that moment, he wasn’t the monster threatening to consume her. He was the plain-faced, yet charismatic man her age who kept her safe the night Yugamu returned. The same man who she got bit looking for, in addition to Nozomi. The same man who traveled back in time to save everyone, only for it all to go to shit. Now, it was only her, Shouma, Tsubasa and Gaku. Yet she didn’t know if the others were still alive or not. Kurara had hoped Takumi would come back for good.
That hope was quickly dashed.
“Agh… AAAUGH!”
“Uhh… Eeeek!”
The proverbial beast, or rather, G’ie, inside of him resurfaced as Takumi screamed in agony, in a fruitless attempt to hold it back. Taking advantage of his now loosened grip, Kurara squirmed her way out from him and out of the room.
Kurara just kept running. And running and running and running and running and running. Before she knew it, she had found herself in the gymnasium, nearly tripping over Darumi’s dead body. Guess that explains why she never showed up again. But it wasn’t just Darumi in the room with her. Kyoshika. Moko. Ima. Kako. Hiruko. Eito. They were all there. She was surrounded. This was it. She could maybe take one zombie down, but all of them!? Worse yet, the four who had survived with her all this time found themselves amongst the crowd of undead circling her. Takumi shortly thereafter entered the gymnasium. Kurara would be the next and final victim.
“Gieee… Growr…”
“Vrooh… Groooooh…”
Takemaru and Kyoshika groaned in delight and anticipation of their final hunt.
“Eek! Eeeeek… Stop it already!”
It was like talking to a brick wall, but Kurara couldn’t help herself. Without her mask, she was just a pathetic girl who couldn’t even dream of living up to the expectations of her parents. Not that those expectations mattered when she wouldn’t have to concern herself with them in a few moments. The zombies drew closer.
“Nooo! Leave me alone!”
Kurara backed up out of fear and instinct, when…
“...!”
She let out a soft gasp as her foot made a brief collision with something cold and metallic. She looked down. It was the power saw. The one and same weapon that took Moko from her.
“This…is…”
She stared at the bloodstained weapon, singlemindedly focused on it. Time seemed to freeze. Kurara couldn’t help but think of Moko and what her last moments must have been. How Yugamu killed her, how he would’ve killed them all were it not for Nozomi and Takumi’s efforts. Yugamu…that bastard. Her anger then turned to Gaku and Darumi. It was them who brought the parasites to the school. Them who started the whole shitshow. Because of them, she would die a miserable, painful, horrid death.
…No. A fire of passion and fury ignited itself in Kurara’s chest. She can’t die here! Everyone’s deaths, her family’s dreams for her…they would all burn to ash if she died. Without thinking, Kurara found herself picking up the power saw. She began channeling her anger, letting it flow through the now spinning blade.
“That’s it…you’re all going to die for this! I’ll kill you…I’ll kill all of you! HAAAAAAH!”
Kurara began wildly swinging the power saw at the closest zombie, being Tsubasa. She let out a death knell as her body torpedoed through the air from the sheer amount of force of Kurara’s swing. She then swung it down, connecting with Shouma’s head. Blood, gore and tiny bits of bone found their way onto Kurara, but she persevered.
“I’ll kill you! And you! And you! And every last one of you!”
Kurara drew the spinning blade across Eito’s neck as she kicked him back. She didn’t have time to watch as his head fell from his shoulders, because she would next crash the power saw into Moko, pretending she was Yugamu instead, not wanting to think about how this was the second time now someone had killed her with the very same weapon. She brought the power saw down on Kako’s neck as the smaller girl tried to crawl towards Kurara and bite at her legs, dislodging her head as well. Kurara took on Kako’s bloodlust as her own.
“Just die! DIE DIE DIIIEEE!!!”
Kurara then pressed the spinning blade in Hiruko’s face, then kicked her body towards Gaku’s. In one clean motion, the power saw dug itself into both Kyoshika and Ima’s heads at the same time, the two greedily having tried to quench their bloodlust with her neck at the same time. Kurara dodged a swing from Takemaru as she shoved the saw into his eyes. She then went over and finished Gaku off with an additional amount of resentment. Finally, she brought the powersaw back down onto Takemaru’s head, putting him to rest with the others. Kurara, finding herself with no more immediate threats to kill, began heavily breathing. Clearly, swinging around a heavy powersaw in such a low amount of time sapped her of strength she didn’t know she still had. Kurara looked around. They were all…wait, that’s wrong. Exactly one zombie was left. He had just stood there the entire time near the entrance as Kurara brought the spinning blade to each and every last other undead. Kurara approached him, taking notice of his eyes again. They were still bloodshot, but the trace amounts of recognition found its way to them again. He was still, he was listening.
“Hey, Takumi. You hesitated just now, when you were trying to attack me.”
“I… Grrr…gieeee…”
“If you can still hear my voice, then listen up.”
Wiping away tears with her free hand, but quickly using it to grasp the power saw again as its weight briefly shook her, Kurara took a quick, deep breath and began to speak to her fallen comrade again.
“This bad ending can’t have been what you came back for, right? Then use your power to redo it! Come back and save me… save us all, one more time!”
“Grrr… Giiie…”
as if taking that as an answer, Kurara came to a realization. Not just that Takumi couldn’t do so himself, not anymore, but…she herself could. They didn’t have much, but everyone else had trace amounts of cryptoglobin. Combined with the amount her allies allowed her to take from the Supreme Commander due to being indispensable in their victory…it just might be enough. With all that cryptoglobin and Takumi’s specialist skill, SHE could go back in time. She could prevent this tragedy from happening, and pen a new future for the Special Defense Unit. She could stop the zombie outbreak. She could stop Yugamu’s short-lived killing spree. Nodding to herself, she dropped the powersaw, took her infuser and spoke to the Takumi in front of her one more time.
“All right, then. Goodbye.”
…and drove the blade into his heart, dousing the white flame in his class armor while the remaining cryptoglobin flowed from his body, through her infuser, and into her own, trembling frame. She felt a shiver down her spine, bringing on his own specialist skill and cryptoglobin, but the amount she had did not increase by much. Still, there was a change. She felt it. Kurara brought the infuser down on everyone else as well. Gaku. Tsubasa. Takemaru. Shouma. Darumi. Eito. Hiruko. Ima. Kako. …Moko and Kyoshika. There was no sign of Nozomi, even though she was very much amongst the dead, too. A brief search found Kurara over her dead body, screwdriver in her head. She brought the infuser down and stole what little cryptoglobin she had in her.
Kurara wandered the empty school halls some more. Her eyes no longer wet with tears, she found herself at the front entrance, where the fire extinguishers were. Where Takemaru…sacrificed himself for her and the others. Some twenty feet from where a pool of blood- presumably Takemaru’s, was her mask. It had been visibly trampled, and become unwearable. From everything she had gone through that day, it was a mild inconvenience at worst, when it otherwise would have been catastrophic to her. Kurara merely sighed and walked away.
Kurara wandered some more, now in front of the still-closed massive door, keeping hidden what they were meant to protect these hundred days. But it meant nothing to her, not without her friends by her side. She intended to break down the doors, but she hesitated to swing down her shovel on it. Would she…really be okay with killing an infant? If it were for the sake of doing everything all over again, he too, would be alive, but…this is wrong. Kurara then felt a presence, felt a flickering flame in her heart. Worried it was the female spawner, she quickly turned around and gasped in shock. It wasn’t the G’ie queen. It was a purple-flamed apparition she had never seen before.
“G-ghost!!”
Kurara backed up against the defense room door, forgetting about the fire separating it and her. She looked down in surprise upon realizing she was not burning to death. The fire was gone. The apparition spoke.
“You must want a do-over. Everyone else is dead…right?”
“H-how did you…? Yeah. It’s just me left. I want to try again. I want to rip a happy ending out of the hands of fate if it’s the last thing I do! So I…”
“...Have to kill me? There’s no need.”
The boy wrapped in undying flames stretched out his hand. Kurara felt something building, burning within her. Before she could ask, he spoke to her again.
“Hemoanima is a mysterious power. It’s not something that can just be taken, but also, given to others. I am imbuing you with all my cryptoglobin, so…please. Save everyone.”
“W-wait, but…won’t you die!?”
The undying flames boy closed his eyes and smiled.
“I will. But my life was going to end shortly anyway. When you go back in time…I want you to do something for me.”
Kurara silently nodded, staring into his eyes, fully intending on fulfilling his final wish.
“Next time, I want to…befriend all of you. I want to argue with you…and fight with you…and until the moment I die, I want to do everything I can…to…live a normal life…for the hundred days I’ll have.”
“I’ll make it happen. I swear on the Oosuzuki name.”
Satisfied with her answer, the undying flames boy smiled and nodded. Some time passed, and his flames began to flicker and vanish. Eventually, he fully dissipated. Kurara had all of his power now. His and Takumi’s. The power to turn back the clock, to defy the natural order, to do everything all over again and save everyone. Kurara’s only regret was that she couldn’t crush the G’ie queens under her heel before doing so.
Kurara closed her eyes and channeled her power. Blood began to weave and circle her whole body as it began to glow. The blood and glow cloaked her whole being, and she vanished.
“This time.” she thought. “I’ll save everyone. I will wrestle a happy ending from the grip of the hands of fate!”